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U.S. Mennonites Split Up Over Same-Sex ‘Marriage’
LifeSite News ^ | 1/4/18 | Lisa Bourne

Posted on 01/04/2018 6:02:29 PM PST by marshmallow

LANCASTER, Pennsylvania, January 4, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The largest conference of Mennonite congregations in the U.S. has officially split from the Mennonite community Monday over concerns that the wider church is beginning to affirm LGBT lifestyles.

The Lancaster Mennonite Conference (LMC) had voted to leave the Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) in 2015, and the decision became effective January 1, 2018.

The LMC, comprised of 179 congregations in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, left over the definition of marriage and the sinfulness of homosexuality, according to a report from Religion News Service.

A pastor for one of the LMC congregations told NPR back when the vote to split took place it was actually the MC USA that had departed from Biblical teaching.

“We are in a sense not really leaving,” said Steve Olivieri, pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship of Mill Run in Altoona, Penn. “They are the ones that essentially have left true biblical Christianity in this respect.”

“I don’t want to do some of the things the Bible says sometimes, lot of times — but I still have to do it,” Olivieri said. “We understand that whenever a passage says, ‘The following shall not inherit the kingdom of God,’ and it lists homosexuals, we believe that’s a lifestyle choice that you make.”

Mennonite teaching says homosexual activity is a sin, and also defines marriage as a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman.

(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...


TOPICS: Evangelical Christian; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: mennonite
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1 posted on 01/04/2018 6:02:30 PM PST by marshmallow
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To: marshmallow

The mennonites are turning from God?! Wow the Amish were right!


2 posted on 01/04/2018 6:05:11 PM PST by Skywise
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To: Skywise

I, a Roman Catholic, dated a mennonite for quite a while in college. This really surprises me.


3 posted on 01/04/2018 6:08:28 PM PST by posterchild
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The homo attack on faith is a wicked, depraved agenda.


4 posted on 01/04/2018 6:09:46 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: marshmallow

Good to see the faithful stand strong and not bow to depravity.


5 posted on 01/04/2018 6:15:45 PM PST by aimhigh (1 John 3:23)
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To: marshmallow

If 179 congregations left, I wonder how many were left?


6 posted on 01/04/2018 6:19:49 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (Start using cash and checks or the elite class and bankers will make "cashless" the norm.)
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To: RetiredTexasVet

I wonder just how many denominations there are left across the US maintain the Holy Bible as inerrant and directed by God, through men vs how many have written their own, to please men not God.


7 posted on 01/04/2018 6:34:13 PM PST by zerosix (Native Sunflower)
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To: marshmallow
The LMC, comprised of 179 congregations

Lifesite News has no editors worthy of the name and Lisa can't write.

8 posted on 01/04/2018 6:34:39 PM PST by grobdriver (BUILD KATE'S WALL!)
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To: marshmallow

What part of the BIBLE don’t these people get????


9 posted on 01/04/2018 6:41:47 PM PST by Maudeen (http://www.thereishopeinJesus.com/)
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To: marshmallow

Not something I would ever have expected from the Mennonites.


10 posted on 01/04/2018 7:03:36 PM PST by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
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To: marshmallow

from the Daily Bonnet: Church with 250 Members Splits into 250 Churches

After a particularly heated membership meeting this past week, the South Lancaster Mennonite Church has decided to split the entire congregation into more manageable units of one.

“At first we decided to just split into two groups: those in favour of buttons on their shirts and those who preferred hooks,” explained Johan Landes, former South Lancaster elder and recently appointed pastor of Johan Landes Memorial Church. “But then the button-users started talking amongst themselves and found they had differences of opinion on baptismal water temperature. Those wanting hot and those wanting cold split into their own groups. So then we had pro-button pro-cold, pro-button anti-cold, anti-button pro-cold and anti-button anti-cold groups. I figured it was settled, but upon further discussion, the groups realized they couldn’t agree on whether to sing five or six hymns each Sunday, and so there was an anti-button anti-cold pro-five group and an anti-button anti-cold pro-six group, and a pro-button anti-cold pro-five group and…well, you get the idea. The groups just kept getting tinier and tinier. Eventually we all decided to each form our own churches…but there was some opposition to this idea, too.”

http://dailybonnet.com/church-250-members-splits-250-churches/


11 posted on 01/04/2018 8:05:38 PM PST by Montaignes Cat
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To: marshmallow
Mennonite teaching says homosexual activity is a sin [...]

Yeah, but what do you suppose happens during Rumschpringa?

Regards,

12 posted on 01/04/2018 8:40:47 PM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Montaignes Cat

Are you aware that’s a satire site?


13 posted on 01/04/2018 9:36:22 PM PST by JimSp
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To: marshmallow

Look up the Pink Menno movement.

This rot comes out of their colleges, specifically and primarily the one in Goshen, IN, but also the one in Virginia.


14 posted on 01/04/2018 9:37:12 PM PST by JimSp
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To: metmom

The Mennonites are a spectrum, from the horse and buggy Old Orders to the church in Germantown, TN that was 95% made up of gays the last I heard.


15 posted on 01/04/2018 9:38:19 PM PST by JimSp
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To: Skywise

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3119097/posts


16 posted on 01/04/2018 9:45:07 PM PST by JimSp
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To: marshmallow

I live in an area with many Mennonites. For the most part they are PC leftists who voted for Hillary.


17 posted on 01/05/2018 5:37:05 AM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: JimSp

Yes, it’s a satire site, and a Mennonite satire site at that (!), sometimes pretty funny, often very perceptive.


18 posted on 01/05/2018 6:22:22 AM PST by Montaignes Cat
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To: RetiredTexasVet

In the whole MC USA there were about 800+ congregations. Even though the Lancaster conference was the largest conference within the MC USA, their departure leaves more members left in the MC USA than out of it. General membership in the MC USA has been declining since decisions it took seen to be embracing the “LGBT lifestyle”. The departure of the Lancaster Conference is but one element in that loss of members.


19 posted on 01/05/2018 9:55:14 AM PST by Wuli
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To: Montaignes Cat

To see it as perceptive, one must have at least a certain level of familiarity with Mennonites. Are you a Mennonite? You can PM if you prefer.


20 posted on 01/05/2018 10:23:35 AM PST by JimSp
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