Presbyterians move to allow gay clergy
Presbyterians move to allow gay clergy, but fight remains:
SAN JOSE, Calif.—The nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination on Friday (June 27) cracked open the door to ordaining non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy, though the decades-old fight is far from over.
Delegates at the Presbyterian Church (USA) meeting here voted 54 percent to 46 percent to remove a clause in their constitution that requires clergy to be either married and faithful or single and chaste.
But the action still needs approval by a majority of the denomination’s 173 regional bodies, called presbyteries, and similar moves in recent years have twice failed to win ratification on the local level.
Under the new rules, candidates for ordination must “pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church.” It makes no reference to sexual orientation or activity.
Since the entirety of the New Testament has always been viewed as authoritative, God breathed and even every word of the Epistles are essentially inspired by the Spirit of Christ; how can people have homosexual desires and/or engage in homosexual conduct and be obedient to Christ (God) at the same time? Homosexual desires and conduct are condemned by God and yet these few people, contrary to their membership, want to ordain homosexuals as ministers of the Gospel, which two things are wholly incompatible.
Whether it is the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholic Church or any other group calling themselves disciples of Christ, if members are in disagreement about basic teachings of their faith, it seems the practical, honest course is to start their own religious group, issue a man edited Bible omitting condemnations about things like homosexuality versus trying to deny the Word of God as taught by their home church.
Homosexuals, can accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord and be saved, and even struggle with their homosexual desires and even fall back into homosexual behavior at times and still remain saved, as the blood of Christ is sufficient to save any man or woman; but to have saving faith means to accept all that Jesus directly and/or through his Apostles taught us, to recognize and not try to hide our sins and to repent (agree with God about the matter) when they fail. What even by free will one cannot do and remian faithful to the teachings of Christ, IMO, is to change God’s Word to agree with their own aberrant, unChristian thoughts and actions and think they are genuinely saved.
The point? The leadership of the Presbyterian Church must be honest and say they reject God’s Word as being infallible, as regards its condemnation of homosexuality; or, they should submit themselves as servants to their membership and uphold all of God’s Word, despite any desires to feel poliotically correct.
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