As a PCUSA member it is sad. We recently left our church of many years over this issue. We found another church a bit farther from home. It too is PCUSA, and I was hesitant to go there (supporting the Beast to some degree at the national level). However, this church is part of a group of PCUSA churches that has gone so far as to sign a commitment to no homosexual preachers - even if it means getting kicked out of the PCUSA if it comes to that.
Very Bible believing, evangelical and mission oriented. Any preacher I have heard preach there (huge church) gives preaches the Bible. One of them is VERY adament on how “I don’t have a choice. It is NOT just some guidlines - it is how God wants us to live. It is a command - I don’t get to vote on it.
What is interesting is that he has some typical homosexual tendencies, single, and lives with a bunch of other guys in a large house. And he has let it be known that he does not desire to have children. I suppose I am a bigot in letting those tendencies influence me. A best friend way back had similar mannerisms and was as straight as anyone - but just a kind and gentle guy. (Except for the bully that called him a faggot - and he knocked him out and broke his jaw in two places with one punch!)
But, whenever the homosexual issue comes up - this pastor is right there denouncing it, along with premarital sex and all the other stuff some of us might like to do. We all have our sins, vices, bad habits, etc. But we also have our own will, and our choice whether to follow God’s word - or our own desires.
But like he said - we don’t get a vote.
This vile amendment has been consistently voted down by the Presbyteries. Pray that this righteous decision continues.
If the PCUSA adopts the amendment, it will finish off this once-fine denomination.
But since "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose," even this ungodly outcome will serve His will by enlarging the membership rolls of PCAs and OPCs throughout the country.
"For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." -- 1 Corinthians 11:19
Thanks for the thoughtful message. It’s hard to be in a church embroiled in a civil war over homosexuality. The war keeps going, because the forces of secularism and lust are relentless. And people keep heading for the door. The church is destroyed and only the ashes of dead civilization remain.
It sounds like your pastor is under pressure. Let’s hope he gets a lot of support from the community. The evangelist Ted Haggard in Colorado seems to be in the same boat, and yet he vows to fight the impulses and stay faithful to his wife and God, just like a reformed alchoholic fights the perennial temptation of alcohol.
God Bless.