Gay Episcopalian bishop predicts other churches will welcome gays

Agence France-Presse. | 8/06/03

[kattracks]

The US Episcopal church's first openly gay bishop predicted that other churches would soon follow his denomination's example in welcoming gays into their leadership.

"I suspect that before too very long, other denominations will also follow and welcome openly gay and lesbian people into leadership positions. That's my prayer," Gene Robinson told ABC television on Wednesday.

A majority of the church's House of Bishops on Tuesday voted 62 to 45 to ratify Robinson's appointment as bishop of New Hampshire, church officials said, ending three days of contentious debate.

Conservatives within church ranks, many of whom have fiercely opposed Robinson's election on the grounds it violates Biblical teachings, were quick to express their disapproval, and a group of 24 bishops threatened to resign if he were elected.

"Well, anytime anyone decides to leave the church, it's a very sad thing. And I certainly have been praying and will be praying every day that such a thing does not happen," Robinson said. "Indeed, I don't think it needs to happen."

"The Episcopal Church in this country, and the Anglican community worldwide, the great gift we bring to the world is we are able to maintain a wide diversity of opinions on various issues while holding our faith in Jesus Christ as central and the thing that binds us together as the body of Christ. So I think there's no reason for us to come apart," Robinson said.

The Episcopal Church, the US branch of the Anglican Church, has more than 2.1 million followers, making it the 10th-largest Protestant church in the United States.

[PhiKapMom]

Maybe more people in this Country are beginning to realize just how bad 8 years of the Clintons were -- this is when the Gay Agenda started getting really pushed -- one of their first acts was Gays in the Military and didn't stop from then on until today.

Give them an inch and they take a mile! Am really tired of liberals and their causes that put their causes above anything to do with family values.

[rj45mis]

Sex outside of marriage if one person in sex is married...if neither are married how can they be adulterer?



This sin is defined as fornication. It is just as sinful as adultery.

[PhiKapMom]

It sure did! Guess that is another reason I couldn't turn Catholic -- I am always asking Why? Annoying habit but if you want to know the answer you have to ask!

[N3WBI3]

Not so much a flame as a request for clarification..

What you state is that being Gay is a sin (I agree) and that it is as bad as any other sin (I agree) yet we need Gay leaders in the church so long as they refrian from sex( I disagree).

I think if a man was at one time Gay in the way another might at one time be a theif, or another might be a fornicator and turn away from it compleatly through the salvation of Jesus there could be a place for him.

However this being the case he is no longer Gay! and even in this case does he meet the NT requirement (I think in Timothy) that he is beyond question?

No if an ex-homosexual (read in freed by the grace of God from that sin) wants to have a non-ordained role as a ministry leader to the Gay community (ie telling them they need to stop living in sin) I have no problem with that.

Finally when you point out Lv is OT you forget that Jesus did not come to destroy but fulfill that law! The best way to ask yourself what roles a practicing homosexual should have is what role should a practicing proud fornicator have?

[Darnright]

"It is also ironic that Robinson refers to the "body of Christ", a concept originally preached by St. Paul. I wonder how use of a truth revealed through St. Paul - the Church as the body of Christ - can so easily be used while ignoring another truth stated by St. Paul: "Homosexualists shall not see God"?"

Herein lies the rub. Last night, on a cable news channel (Fox?), 2 Episcopal bishops were being interviewed. One kept pointing out that nowhere in the Bible did Jesus teach specifically against homosexuality. However, anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the New Testament knows that the Apostle Paul warned against the sin of homosexuality.

Now, I wish these Episcopal bishops would explain how they can pick and choose within Paul's teachings and not be committing heresy?

[Buggman]

Now delve into what early Christians (200-400 A.D.) speculated about it, and you will find that many thought the 1000-year reign of Christ represents a long time in which Satan is chained, beginning the day Christ rose from the dead.

Oookay. I agree with you on pretrib, but post- and amillennialism didn't appear until Origen's time and didn't spread until Augustine. The Ante-Nicean Early Church Fathers were by and large premillennial and posttribulational in their eschatology.

But that's really a subject for another day and another thread.

[N3WBI3]

I think Birth control in the form of sterialization or condoms are ok, but the Pill destroys a humanbeing..

[Landru]

"I know there Family Values are going to be the focus!"

Therein might be a key clue behind this madness, Mom.

Which was it, Marx or Lenin, who once said, "Religion is the opiat of the masses"; &, insodoing drew the contempt of nearly every christian person in the free world.
Those people had thought he meant *something* derogatory concerning organized religion and was speaking ill of those who'd follow the Word.

Might just be he'd recognized -- way back then -- exactly what he had to do if his goal of infecting the world with his Socialist-Communist Worker's Paradise were ever to have any hope at becoming a reality.
He merely wrote down his thoughts; which, not unlike the "We will bury you" statement, was immediately misinterpreted.

Think about what has just been successfully pulled-off in the Episcopalian Church -- & in spite of what the Bible says -- and what's happened makes a bit more sense.

If one just reads their (Marx or Lenin's) statement in the proper context it becomes somewhat obvious exactly what the intention behind those words actually were.

...they were stating a strategy.

[RussianConservative]

No, they are colony churchs, belong to patriarches in home countries, not independent. Joining require authorization from individual patriarchies.

[PhiKapMom]

You and me both! That was like the last straw with my trying to become Catholic after the priest got angry about my decision while I was in the hospital after my younger daughter was born. Talk about bad timing.

[N3WBI3]

No its fornication and according to the Bible fornicators will not see the kingdom..

[RussianConservative]

Many people do things they not talk about. Amazing things you learn from people when they drunk and blabbering inner secrets. Maybe it just my generation? I have heard from several women that they can accept threesome with 2 women and man as a feminen thing that's kinky but out reject opposite, because they want man masculine not some pillow biter.

[polemikos]

That's like Christ's mouth saying the right thing while his feet would be walking on the wrong street.

The Catholic Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. And as might be expected, there are sinners at all levels. The pope goes to Confession too. Christ promised us not that our leaders would be impeccable, but that our teachings on faith and morals would be true. The rest is up to us.

[PhiKapMom]

Hate to say it, but I think we have our own version of Marx and Lenin in the form of the Clintons and their takeover of the DemocRAT Party. Now Dean is pushing the DemocRATs farther to the left if possible!

These DemocRATs are nothing like the ones I grew up with. Have been a lifelong Republican but can remember the northern Republicans teaming up with the Southern DemocRATs to stop the leftist agenda. For the most part those Southern DemocRATs are now Republican and the DemocRATs at the National level are socialist and socialist leaning!

[Paradox]

I am not anti-gay, there are gay members in my family and I love them dearly. Having said that, the Epsiscopal church has made a grevious error. I believe this fact, that the bible says that homosexuality is a sin. Now, that doesnt say that I believe in that, but the BIBLE says that, and the EC says that they follow this same bible?! Whats wrong with this picture?! It would be like allowing a pig farmer to be the rabbi of an orthodox jewish group.

Why can't gays go and form their own churches. They can even call themselves Christians if they want to, hey, its a free country. But this idea that they HAVE to be accepted by everybody is just narcissism. It seems pathological.

[dash400m]

Howdy folks. I rarely post, but Hell, what's going on? The Episcopal Church has certainly changed since the early 70s. I was baptized in the Episcopal Church (1956), I attended confirmation classes and was confirmed in the Episcopal Church (1968)-- doesn't anyone remember the Catechism [?], and I served as an acolyte throughout the 60s.

Yep, the decline of the Church started with the elimination of the 1928 version of the Book of Common Prayer. Then (and now), we have the hi-five rollin' of the "Passing of the Peace." It's still too loud for me. What now? Will we have a "Pinching of the Ass" from our homosexual brethren? Church colors? How about a rainbow inscribed on a soiled flag?

What a disgrace. Have we become the Church of Buggery?

//

Spotsylvania, VA

[Redleg Duke]

My wife was raised Roman Catholic and is I guess what you would call a "Lapsed Catholic", attending Mass when she is with her Mom. When we were courting, she asked me what the major difference was between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches. I replied, "One Word." She said, "Which word?" My answer..."Why?"

[Ladytotheright]

I have belonged to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for the last 35 years---it really upsets me when they group us with the other so-called Lutherans (ELCA). First of all they are not Evangelical, they are not Lutheran. I aggree they are a church , but they are not American. three of the four initials are false at least argumentative. We are probably the most CONSERVATIVE church in America.

[judicial meanz]

That's terrible -- beginning to wonder if it is the Church's here in Oklahoma and Texas that are by and large a lot more conservative than their national bodies

You can bet they are PKM. I lived most of my life in Oklahoma, until I moved east. Its night and day.