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Showing posts with the label Presbyterian polity

Church of Scotland majority wants to allow ministers in same-sex unions - ignore the Bible

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The majority of the Church of Scotland ’s presbyteries have voted to allow local congregations to appoint ministers in same-sex civil partnerships. The measure is likely to be brought to the Kirk’s General Assembly in May for final approval. The denomination’s 46 presbyteries voted 32 to 14 in favor of the measure, with the Kirk revealing the results on the same day that the new law legalizing same-sex "marriage" in Scotland came into effect. The General Assembly instituted a two-year moratorium in 2009 on homosexual issues within the Kirk. In 2011 the moratorium was lifted and a theological commission was created to consider the ordination of openly and actively homosexual clergy, the blessing of same-sex unions, and to allow homosexual ministers and deacons ordained before May 2009 to be given pastoral responsibilities. The 2009 moratorium came after a firestorm of controversy leading up to the General Assembly’s decision to approve the appointment of openly

U.S. Presbyterian Church assembly rejects proposal to redefine marriage

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Stamp of the General Assembly. With the words "Ardens Sed Virenes" - "Burning but flourishing". (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) PITTSBURGH, July 9, 2012 ( LifeSiteNews.com ) - True marriage won a temporary reprieve in the US Presbyterian Church , as its general assembly  rejected  a proposal to redefine marriage as “a covenant between two people.” The decision, affirmed by 52% of the church’s General Assembly during an annual meeting in Pittsburgh on Friday, sustains the church’s existing definition of marriage as a “civil contract between a woman and a man” and its ban on performing same-sex weddings . In 2010, the Presbyterian Church  censured  the openly lesbian Rev. Jane Spahr of San Francisco for officiating sixteen same-sex weddings in violation of that ban. Clergy are, however, permitted to bless same-sex unions without calling them marriages . The assembly also voted to conduct a two-year study on the theology of marriage, and figures on both side

Following Jesus While Rejecting the Bible on Homosexuality?

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This is a locator map showing the Twin Cities in Minnesota. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Yet another denomination has voted to ordain openly homosexual candidates to its ministry. Yesterday, the Presbyterian Church (USA) presbytery of the Twin Cities in Minnesota voted to approve a change to the church’s constitution that will allow the denomination’s 173 presbyteries to ordain persons without regard to sexual orientation. The Twin Cities presbytery cast the deciding vote in what is now a 33-year effort to remove all restrictions on homosexuals serving in the church’s ordained ministry . It became the 87th presbytery to affirm the action of the church’s 219th assembly last summer authorizing the constitutional change. The action not only concludes over three decades of controversy over the ordination standards; it also reverses actions taken in 1997, 2001, and 2008, when similar efforts failed. In 1996, the denomination restat