Posted on 03/17/2015 10:41:34 PM PDT by Steelfish
Presbyterian Church (USA) Changes Its Constitution To Include Gay Marriage
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey March 17
The Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest body of Presbyterians in the country, approved a change in the wording of its constitution to allow gay and lesbian weddings within the church, a move that threatens to continue to split the mainline Protestant denomination.
The 171 regional presbyteries (local leadership bodies within the PCUSA) have been voting on whether to change the wording to call marriage a contract “between a woman and a man” to being “between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.” On Tuesday, the denomination reached its needed majority of “yes” votes from at least 86 presbyteries to take effect. The change will be included in the church’s “Book of Order,” part of its constitution, taking effect on June 21.
The church, which has more than 1.7 million members, voted last June to allow clergy to perform same-sex weddings. That vote gave clergy the choice of whether to preside over same-sex marriages in states where they are legal, an action which is now allowed in 36 state and the District of Columbia. Clergy will not be compelled to perform same-sex marriage.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sorry I didn’t know you were Orthodox
5,402
Members
1,310,505
Southern Baptist Congregations
46,125
Members
15,740,000
American Baptist congregations are concentrated in the Midwest and Northeast United States. Blue state churches with blue state "values". These are just US numbers. There are over 100,000,000 Baptists worldwide that don't adhere with their blasphemy.
NO; Christ established ONE Church so that it has ONE teaching, and for all times. The canonical texts were adopted in AD 382 by the Synod of Rome and until the curse of the Protestant Reformation ELEVEN centuries later, there was ONE teaching. No one gets to crack open the pages of the Bible and spout off his/her “truth” as the definitive expression of God’s Word. Jn in 21:25 tells us that apart from the written word, there were many things Christ said and did that were not written that is part of the sacred oral traditions and rituals of the one Catholic Church.
Wow, so you’re telling me I cannot be allowed to open up the Bible and read it for myself; I have to have it interpreted by a Priest; even if he’s not saved and has no relationship with Christ?
Is that what you’re saying?
Amen Brother Testify.
Yes, and then there's the San Francisco branch of that denomination, the "LetsBeQueerians"...
What John was telling in 21:25, was a continuation of the previous verses about there being so many witnesses to so many more miracles that Jesus did. If they were all writeen down, there would not be room enough to contain all the information.
That comment had nothing to do with “the sacred oral traditions and rituals of the one Catholic Church”.
Paul taught us to “rightly divide the Word of Truth”. That means, it’s our obligation to study the Word and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to the truth.
There, I re-re-fixed it. Thanks for the heads up over the error in my previous post.
That’s okay .. I just did the same thing in another post. It was a misspelled word - but usually this software catches those things.
LOL
The Southern Baptist is the only Baptist Church that I am familiar with.
“That doesn’t really sound logical.”
Indeed, but that’s exactly what PCUSA is doing.
You just lost me. Please explain.
Just like many denominations during the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression in the South), the Baptists tended to re-identify themselves into one group or another but all are autonomous.
Baptists have as their central tenets: believer's baptism (people old enough to claim they are followers of Jesus Christ and only occurs after such profession and not necessary for salvation, as in the thief on the cross next to the dying Jesus Christ, who with his profession that Jesus is indeed the long awaited Christ) as opposed to infant's baptism; and regular taking communion as requested by Christ signifying His Sacrifice to all sinners by dying on the cross for the sins of all humankind, to anyone professing to be a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, not membership in any church body.
They generally acknowledge two official church positions: pastors/teachers and deacons.
The SBC look to the book of Acts as credentials to serve in those positions, while other associations have accepted more liberal interpretations and ordain women to the positions and many of those congregations seem to be more open to sliding "interpretations" of other scriptures as well.
See post 67 - it was my reply to Steelfish re John 21:25.
The Presbyterian Church has been dead for years; and this move is simply an attempt to keep their doors open by filling the pews with more apostates.
Unnecessary name-calling. Counter-productive.
I'm Catholic, not a Pharisee, and I wouldn't wish this on anyone. There must be a lot of people who are hurt and confused and feel betrayed by this. It's a terribly sad thing, even to those who don't commit to a denomination, but feel at home visiting a Christian Church. That's one less place to be, and find fellowship. This is a serious issue, which touches all of us Christians. A Pharisee would simply gloat over the loss of souls while feeling assured of heaven. That isn't how I feel. Any of us could be next, to one degree or another. I pray for peace of mind and heart, and for hope for the poor people who are against this being forced on them- and that it soon begins to turn around.
Believing the words of Scripture regarding Peter, I do believe that, in the end, the devil can never prevail. But I also believe there will be a time when Christ will be with 2 or more at a time, here and there, and it will seem as of evil has won out-but it never will. Those who love Jesus will have to put aside our differences, and trust Him- and pray together as we never prayed before. Then we must all be Publicans, begging God for His Mercy.
Discrimination suits against clergy who will not perform the marriages will be rampant. They’ll be labeled “haters” and jailed.
Thanks for the vector.
Of course, you can read the Gospel. The issue here is that Christ taught ONE truth, and if by your reading and everybody else’s, we extract different interpretations then Christ surely left out a single Church to authoritatively sort out and interpret His word.
But of course we know both scripturally and by the oral traditions as understood by the early Church Fathers that Christ established ONE Church in the Synod of Rome 328AD. Until ELEVEN centuries and before the evil of Protestantism, this Word of Christ was intercepted and still is by ONE Church.
If by “your” reading of scripture (just as Joel Osteen, Billy Graham, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar have done etc) provide a profoundly different and contradictory opinion than what the Catholic Church offers, then in the proper sense of the term this becomes a heretic interpretation. This is why the brilliant English essayist and intellectual remarked in his book, “The Great Heresies” that unlike other heresies, Protestantism “spawned a cluster of heresies.”
Daniel212 is still playing neophyte internet theologian and really has no answer why a distingusied constellation of pre-eminent Protestant theologians who, after a lifetime of scholarly study and teaching and serious reflection, converted to Catholicism.
Elise confuses the personal lives of Popes, saints, sinners, martyrs with Catholic teaching. Therein lies a fundamental error. We are talking not about the personal life of Benny Hinn or Rev. Jeremiah Wright but what they discern as authentic scripture.
See there!
Joseph Smith was RIGHT!!!
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1/19#19 |
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