Posted on 03/18/2015 7:07:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have voted to make the 1.8-million-member, 10,000-congregation denomination the largest Protestant group to formally recognize gay marriage allow same-sex weddings.
The Presbytery of the Palisades in New Jersey cast the necessary 86th vote Tuesday night to establish that a majority of the churchs 171 regional presbyteries now support an amendment to the church constitution that redefines marriage, the Associated Press reported.
Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives, the churchs Book of Order will read, effective June 21, according to an announcement on the Presbyterian Churchs website.
Gradye Parsons, the stated clerk of the churchs General Assembly, posted a video pledging that nothing in the amendment would compel those members who do not approve of same-sex marriage from participating in the weddings.
The approval allows teaching elders wider discretion whose wedding they may conduct and sessions wider discretion whose weddings they may host, Parsons said. That discretion could include same gender marriages in states where thats permitted.
The Assembly approved the language last summer, but activists who have been pushing for the change for years had to sweat out the votes among the churchs districts.
So many families headed by LGBTQ couples have been waiting for decades to enter this space created for their families within their church communities, Rev. Robin White, a leader of More Light Presbyterians, told AP.
Yet 41 of the regional bodies have voted to disapprove the measure, according to AP. The church approved gay ordination in 2011 and 428 congregations had either left the fold or disbanded two years later, the outlet noted.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
PLUS the many congregations that have left PC-USA for ECO ("Evangelical Covenant Order" of Presbyterians)
PLUS the many that have scattered into other denominations.
Thousands of conservative Christians start their own churches here every year. Many, if not most are nondenominational, like mine. The main line churches are committing suicide.
Heresy
i believe that Dr. Kennedy and Coral Ridge Prebyterian Church were part of the Theologically conservative Presbyterian Church in America, not the PCUSA.
It’s been here for awhile actually. Difference now is that it’s blatant and in-your-face apostasy. It’s literally a huge task to find a good Bible-Believing Church that hasn’t given into the WOF, Emergent, Ecumenical, or Gay movements.
All of them , no they do not. Yet another pro homo article trying to make the country look as if everyone accepts this perversion
to be conducted by the Reverand Dr. Teeth. They don't look like Presbyterians to me.
Sodomy is an abomination, yes, that means it’s a sin.
Let’s be clear: fornication (any sex outside of marriage) is also a sin.
These are two sins that, when we see them being committed by people who are unrepentent (they refuse to stop or say they “can’t stop” or they refuse to admit that they are sinning), the Bible tells us such people are not destined for heaven. This means they are destined for hell fire and eternal damnation.
I don’t get all worked up about it, because the situation and the response God desires from his children is clearly taught in God’s Word the Bible. In the end, everything glorifies God, both God’s reward for the loving effort for ever-improving obedience (effected by God’s grace) of God’s elect, and God’s final destruction of the non-elect, the haters of God, along with Satan.
The sin I hate, yes, but I simply calmly tell people they are destined for hell and damnation and I quote to them from Scripture. It’s the LOVING thing to do. And I realize that it’s not up to me who will respond positively to the Word of God (the Bible) and who will not. That’s up to God. Either way, the Word of God is never without effect: it draws some to God and the rest are even more obstinately hardened against it, damning themselves even more.
Is there any neutrality taught in the Bible ? No, there is no neutrality taught in the Bible. Every person is either with God or against him: those who declare themselves “neutral” are not with God, therefore, they are against him. And in the end, they will get what they ask for their entire lives: eternal separation from God.
2 Corinthians 6:15 “And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?”
So, if in our environment certain abominable sins are ubiquitous - then by all means preaching should be focused largely on those sins. This would teach the flock how to identify and avoid the sin that is all around them, and, to be a light and salt to the world around them even though it is polluted with grievous sin.
If our septic tank backs up into our house - are we to simply ignore the problem ?
The Bible consistently teaches that there is no making an alliance with sin where God does not hate such an alliance. After all, it’s an outright rejection of God’s Word - and then partnering with those wicked people who promote the sin that God hates.
I am Episcopalian/anglican catholic as well.
What you say is true. However, any change for the better has to come from the inside. Otherwise. . watch you heritage ooze away.
Excellent question! I intend to ask it.
I,too, am nondenominational. These churches are forgetting that God’s Word does not change. It seems reprobate minds are making the decisions for many of them these days.
If a church allows one or more leftists to take over, they are every bit as complicit in the evil as the leftists.
“Gods Word does not change.”
And the Ten Commandments are not the Ten Suggestions.
Ah yes, PCUSA: the denomination with 4.7 million members in 1965 and 1.7 million in 2013. Im shrrrrrrrrinkin, hey, we better adopt even MORE progressive policies to stem the tide! Yeah, that should work!
If you are in Texas, my response - not many churches have multiple billionaires who got them into a position where they had to pay anything to get out.
If not in Texas, my comment is probably irrelevant to your situation, and I do wish you well moving forward, in any event.
D.James shook the PCUSA dust off his feet in 1984. He wouldn’t move to he PCA earlier because he wanted to make sure that it made good on its promises that it would not be a regional church, and that it would not be racist.
Bump. These "conversions" to corruption and paraphilia are being accomplished by a gay seminarians' cabal that has been active since the 60's and before, when San Francisco churchmen offered to "mediate" community "conversations" between homosexual advocates and activists ("homosexualists" if you will) and the community media at large.
It turned out that the churchmen posing as "mediators" were in fact homosexual themselves and part of the players' "crew". The whole business was, and still is, thoroughly corrupt both intellectually and morally.
The churches the corrupt clergymen came from were the same ones that are in the news now.
This is the harvest that those bad prelates and presbyters have brought their churches, because other, honest clergy were incurious, or in the dark by deception, or looked the other way.
Like the good old boy said, this can not be good, this is going to be bad.
That is because honest people have yet to develop defense mechanism to detect, expose, and expunge conspiracies against them.
Going by the Gospel, Jesus wasn’t obsessed with homosexuality. In fact, he didn’t say much about it at all.
So...why should it divide Christians now?
He did say it’s very hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
For some reason, no one is talking about that.
I see a lot of nice cars in the parking lot every Sunday.
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