Wis. Presbytery Approves Ordination of Openly Gay Man

Here is part of an article about this:

In a closed meeting, a regional body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Saturday voted to ordain a partnered homosexual. John Knox Presbytery commissioners voted 81-25 to approve the ordination of Scott D. Anderson, who set aside his ordination in 1990 when he was outed.

Anderson was ordained in the PC(USA) by the Sacramento Presbytery in 1983. He pastored Bethany Presbyterian Church for seven years until two members of the congregation publicly announced that he was gay.

In 2006, Anderson sought to be ordained again as a PC(USA) minister after the General Assembly – the denomination's highest governing body – approved an authoritative interpretation of the church constitution that would allow gay and lesbian candidates for ordination to conscientiously object the ban against partnered homosexuals. The local ordaining body would discern whether the declared objection is disqualifying.

What great news for Progressive Christians everywhere! The tides seem to be turning in the favor for full inclusion into the church of gays and lesbians for the most part. We still have obstacles to face though as John Shuck and Ken Meunier astutely point out:

The presbytery of John Knox voted that Scott's scruple was just fine with them. According to the executive presbyter of John Knox, Rev. Ken Meunier:

"Not everyone is on the same page with this issue, but a great number of people have been very impressed with Scott Anderson's gifts for ministry. I believe the vote reflects a desire of persons within the Presbytery to make room for a variety of voices and opinions within the church, and to exercise biblical forbearance toward persons with whom they disagree."

Apparently some busybodies think forbearance is not very biblical and will challenge the decision.

John Knox could not be reached for comment.

We can only hope that the issue will someday be resolved.

Vatican Welcomes Traditional Anglicans

Here are excerpts from AOL news:

Catholic Church Makes 'Stunning' Move
By JAMES GRAFF, World Editor, AOL News
posted: 1 HOUR 54 MINUTES AGOcomments: 2953filed under: World News
PRINT|E-MAILMOREText SizeAAA

(Oct. 20) -- The number of married Catholic priests could grow sharply as the result of the Vatican's epochal decision to welcome thousands of disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians into the Catholic church.

...

"It's a stunning turn of events," says Lawrence Cunningham, theology professor at Notre Dame University. "This decision will allow for many more married clergy in Western churches, and that's going to raise anew the question, 'If they can do it, why can't the priests of Rome?'" says Cunningham. "I can already picture the electronic slugfest on the Internet in coming days and weeks."
The Catholic church already allows clergymen who convert from Protestant denominations to remain married on a case by case basis, and married priests are common in the Eastern Rite, a group that uses Orthodox traditions but is loyal to Rome.
But the arrangement with the Anglican Communion goes much further. Cardinal William Levada, the Vatican's top doctrinal official, announced in Rome that the church would set up a personal ordinariate -- in essence a diocese defined not by geography, but by function, like the division that serves Catholics in the military -- for converted Anglicans.
The move comes after years of discord within the Anglican Communion, which unites 77 million Anglicans and Episcopalians under the loose authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The church has been racked by schisms over the ordination of women and its stance toward homosexuality.
Some Anglicans believe the Vatican's move will deepen those divisions. "When it comes to elegant funerals, no one can beat the Vatican," wrote commentator Andrew Brown in The Guardian. "The Roman Catholic church is no longer even pretending to take seriously the existence of the Anglican Communion as a coherent body."

For many traditional Episcopalians, as the denomination is known in the U.S., the last straw was the 2003 election of openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. In protest, hundreds of churches have broken links with the Episcopal church and declared themselves in line with the conservative Anglican bishops in Africa or South America.
Martyn Minns, the bishop of one such dissident group, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, said today, "This move by the Catholic church recognizes the reality of the divide within the Anglican Communion and affirms the decision to create a new North American province that embraces biblical truth."
The news is likely to have a particularly strong effect in Great Britain, where there has been a tendency for years for members of the nominally Anglican majority to join the Catholic church, from theologian John Cardinal Newman in the 19th century to former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2007.
Such conversions have generally meant not only a recognition of the pope's authority, but also a rejection of Anglican traditions. That turning away may no longer be necessary. "Now you can be an Anglican and still be Catholic," says Jo Bailey Wells, director of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School. "The Anglicans never had that vote of confidence before."
Indeed, two prominent British priests who publicly broke from Anglicanism years ago stated today that after this ruling from Rome, some Anglicans "will begin to form a caravan, rather like the People of Israel crossing the desert in search of the Promised Land."
Whether that happens or not, today's decision marks a milestone in the relations between the Vatican and the church of England, which King Henry VIII established in 1534 after the pope refused to grant him a marriage annulment. Since then, religious and social battles have often marked relations between Catholics and Anglicans. Says Cunningham: "This would have been unthinkable 200 years ago, and barely imaginable in the 19th century."

(Read more: Here).

Isn't it interesting how one faith group always tries to save another one when the wounds are deep? This can be good in the sense that denominations need to work together---bad in this case because it can be perceived as denominational fishing so to speak. Not only is it denominational fishing---it is also a way of further fossilizing the Traditional Anglicans' ignorance, fear, and bigotry in this case.

Nothing really will change by this decision other than the Roman Catholic Church may or may not gain a few married priests and a few more homophobes. Anyways what are your thoughts?

See also: Shuck and Jive: They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Hate and The Rev's Rumbles: Pope Approves Plan to Bring Anglicans Into the Fold.

September 11th Around The Blogosphere

Shuck and Jive: September 11:

Inhabitatio Dei: A Real 9/11 Reflection---

Dan has what I’d consider to be a reflection on 9/11 that really has some substance:

As today, is September 11th, I thought I would engage in a bit of remembering — it is, after all, important to recall moments of our history, for this is the story in which we live.

On this day in 1973, Augusto Pinochet’s American-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. This resulted in seventeen years of torture, terror, and disappearances in Chile, and (according to people like Milton Friedman, who saw Chile as a textbook example of the type of world he wished to create) set a precedent for the way in which the United States acted in Latin America (particularly in the ’70s and ’80s… although they are at it again, as Obama’s government backed the Honduran coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya in June of this year).

Sponsoring terror, imposing military rule, depriving local populations of their rights, their food, their land, their livelihood, their health, their children and their lives… this is the way that the US continues to engage with the world at large. It is enough to make some people want to fly planes into buildings. Which, not altogether surprisingly, is what happened on another September 11th.

Posted in American Politics, Peacemaking.

8 comments
By Halden – September 11, 2009

Threads from Henry's Web: The Problem with Revenge---preview:

It’s 9/11 and the events eight years ago are on most people’s minds. Many Christians will be praying today, as my wife wrote in her devotional. What will those prayers consist of? What is a Christian response?

Shortly before the second gulf war began, I wrote an essay simply titled Revenge! I want to quote from it here:

As a nation, we have been living in the role of Michael Palin’s character. We see the bad guys in our sights and we shout “Revenge!” in the hope that when revenge has taken place we will be safer, life will return to pre-9/11 normalcy, and we can forget all about this extra security. Most of us know this won’t be the case, but that doesn’t stop the wishful thinking.

This was illustrated during the bombing of Afghanistan, and later during the ground war. Repeatedly the reporters would ask various military spokesmen whether they had caught or killed Osama bin Laden yet. The answer? Nobody knew. But why was that the question? Did we really think that a bombing campaign could be so targeted as to kill a single individual? Sure, he might die, but bombs are not weapons of assassination in the normal course of events. Did we think that if Osama were caught or killed that the terrorism would end? Surely we aren’t that naive!

But there is that little program in our brains that wants to yell “Revenge!” and expects that life will be a little sweeter when it is accomplished.

In some ways we face a similar situation with Iraq. I know there is a powerful motivation for revenge. I am a veteran of the 1991-1992 gulf war. It annoys me every time I see Saddam Hussein expressing himself on television. I confess I wouldn’t mind having the driver’s seat of a steam roller with Saddam’s feet stuck in setting cement. I’d yell “Revenge!” and “Take that!” and roll over him, and on the other side I’d feel good!

But then would my family be any safer? Would my country be more secure? Would anything be more normal when all was said and done? Very likely not.

I need to let that resentment go. I need to tone down the shout “Revenge!” I need to consider what will actually make things more secure.

Finally here are 2 posts of mine on the subject from last year: TheoPoetic Musings: 9-11 Remembered and TheoPoetic Musings: 9-11 Continued.

Frederick Buechner On The Issue Of Abortion

I found this quote on my friend Justin's response to the violent murder of Dr. Tiller: A Noggin' Full Of Noodles: On Abortion And Murdering Abortionists:

I value Frederick Buechner's thoughts on abortion, and I think they really ring true with what I have seen and heard today:

Speaking against abortion someone has said, "no one should be denied access to the great feast of life," to which the rebuttal, obviously enough, is that life isn't much of a feast for children born to people who don't want them or can't afford them or are one way or another incapable of taking care of them and will one way or another probably end up abusing or abandoning them.

And yet, and yet. Who knows what treasure life may hold for even such children as those, or what treasures even such children of those may grow up and become? To bear a child even under the best of circumstances, or to abort a child even under the worst-- the risks are hair-raising either way and the results are incalculable.

How would Jesus himself decide, he who is hailed as Lord of life and yet who says that it is not the ones who, like an abortionist, can kill the body we should fear, but the ones who can kill body and soul together the way the world into which they are born can kill unloved and unwanted children (Mt. 10:28)?

There is perhaps no better illustration of the truth that in an imperfect world: there are no perfect solutions. All we can do, as Luther said, is 'sin bravely', which is to say, (a) know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody, yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God. (Beyond Words: Abortion Entry. Emphasis his)

Here are some other responses to Dr. Tiller's violent death:

Shuck and Jive: Condolences for the Tiller Family

Laura Barclay, a fellow CBF Blogger posted this entry to The Fellowship Portal Blog: The Stain of Violence

Rick Warren's Boo Boo

John Shuck beat me to it: Shuck and Jive: Rev. Rick Warren's Short Memory and Shuck and Jive: Rick Warren Continues to Play the Victim.

But here is the gist of it---

Here's a clip of Rick Warren clearly supporting Proposition 8:

And here's the clip in question from a recent Larry King episode, in which Rick Warren denies ever supporting Proposition 8:


Also here's an article from AOL's Political Machine on Warren's boo boo:

Rick Warren Abandons Fight Against Gay Marriage?
By David Knowles
Apr 8th 2009 9:24AM
Filed Under:eRepublicans, Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Gay Rights

A growing sense of inevitability is rising across America. In the past week alone, an Iowa supreme court decision, a resounding veto-override in the Vermont legislature, and a Washington DC city council measure to recognize gay marriages performed in states that permit the practice, have all essentially reached the same conclusion: Gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married.

While this social issue still has the power to divide people across the country, it seems clear that a paradigmatic shift is underway, and that before long gays will be afforded full marriage rights, and we will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. Don't believe me? Well, let's consider the recent turnabout by evangelist Rick Warren, who on the Larry King show this week declared "I am not an anti-gay marriage activist."
....
As others have pointed out, Warren broke one of the ten commandments in front of King's audience, because he did "issue a statement" and made an "endorsement" in California's Prop. 8 battle.
....
Warren aside, there are plenty of conservatives, religious or otherwise, who have come to the conclusion that it's time to pack in the fight against gay marriage. In part, this has to do with a simple revelation.

The next generation overwhelmingly supports the expansion of gay rights. Many Democrats, too, who, like President Obama, have waffled over whether civil unions are an adequate substitute for marriage are suddenly seeing the light. Here's Iowa State Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal taking a stand and refusing to co-sponsor legislation to attempt to ban gay marriage.

And here is what Right Wing nutcase Ingrid Schlueter of Worldview Weekend has to say about Warren's boo boo:

In Warren's Own Words: "I'm Not an Anti-Gay or an Anti-Gay Marriage Activist....I am interested in what the recession is doing to the spiritual climate of our nation."
Posted: 04/08/09
Apr 08 by Ingrid Schlueter

Here is Rick Warren in his own words. What Rick Warren thinks or doesn't think about homosexual marriage doesn't amount to a hill of beans. The real issue is whether God is anti-gay marriage, and those who read the Scriptures are well aware that God has spoken for all time in His Word on homosexuality.

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind:it is abomination."

–Leviticus 18:22

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

–I Corinthians 6:9-11

"For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another,men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

Yes, I get this crap in my email box, because when I took their Worldview test, I scored Secular Humanist, because I don't bow down and worship capitalist materialism and the Republican party like them. Anyways, don't you just love how much homophobes bring up Leviticus. Ironically though even-though I've stated over and over again here that I'm pro same-sex marriage and against Proposition Hate, I've been labeled a homophobe and bigot by Bigotry Blogs | Sanctity Of Bigotry | Steve's Web Hosting.

The Cross And The Resurrection

James McGrath has this quote in his recent post from Marcus Borg via John Shuck:

Sunday, April 5, 2009
Quote of the Day (John Shuck)
"The way of cross is more than the way of resisting social, economic, and political injustices. But...the way of the cross is not less than that. "

-- John Shuck, "The Executed God: A Sermon"
Posted by James F. McGrath at 5:23 PM
Labels: cross, economic, injustice, John Dominic Crossan, John Shuck, Marcus Borg, Palm Sunday, political, resistance, sermon, social, theology

See: Exploring Our Matrix: Quote of the Day (John Shuck) and Shuck and Jive: The Executed God: A Sermon. Another good quote from John Shuck's post is:

To quote James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time, quoted in The Executed God, pg. 1):

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of him.

Anyways I believe Borg's quote ties the crucifixion and resurrection neatly together. Here is another quote from Borg on the Way Of The Cross from Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary:

"To take Jesus seriously is to follow him. To follow him is to participate in his passion. And his passion was God and the kingdom of God. The way of the cross leads to a life in God and participation in the passion of God known in Jesus."

It is easy to see that the crucifixion and the Resurrection event are two sides of the same coin or as The Seeking Disciple over at Arminian Today: The Resurrection Matters observes:

Each year around this time we in the Church of Jesus Christ turn our hearts toward the wonderful reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is vital to our faith and, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:14, our faith depends on the fact of the resurrection. If Christ is not risen from the dead and His body is still in the tomb in Israel then our faith is in vain. We are believing a lie.

But if Christ is truly risen from the dead then our faith is not just faith in the teachings of Jesus but our faith is based on an actual, historical event taking place in our time-space in order to bring the truth of God to us. If Jesus is risen from the dead, everything changes. Missions matters. Worship matters. Prayer matters. Faith matters. Apologetics matters. Discipleship matters. Teaching my children the truths of Scripture matters.

But only if Jesus is risen from the dead does this make a difference.

The early Church stood on the resurrection of Christ. They were not delusional in their understanding of the living Jesus. In fact, the Gospels paint a picture not of willing Jews wanting their Master to rise from the dead but scared Jewish men and women who honestly believed that Jesus was dead (Luke 24:20-21). Take Thomas in John 20:24. Thomas stands in line with many others who would come after him who doubted that Jesus was risen from the dead but Jesus appeared to him and convinced him that Jesus was not a ghost or a vision but was in fact the risen Messiah (John 20:26-29). Peter himself said that the gospel was not words or visions or prophecies but was in fact based on two things: their eye witness accounts and the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:16-21). Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, did two things at once. First most commentators believe that Paul was quoting an early Christian hymn or creed (vv.3-4) and then Paul gives eye witnesses to Jesus' resurrection (vv.4-8) that he says are alive (though some had died since Christ had risen) for the Corinthians to investigate. If Paul did not believe that Jesus was alive and that he had seen the risen Messiah, he would not have included living eye witnesses for the Corinthians to follow up with.
....
The resurrection matters. Does it matter in your life?

I agree as faith in the unseen Risen Lord is the hope which drives us even if we see but through a glass darkly. Also part of the change the resurrection bestows upon us is to practice the Way Of The Cross.

John Dominic Crossan On Bible Literalism

I thought I had posted this video before, but I couldn't find it---so thanks to Shuck and Jive: Crossan on Fundamentalism: "Rev's Rumbles" and The Rev's Rumbles: The Dangers of Fundamentalism -- John Dominic Crossan---I am finally posting it.

See also: Living the Questions, Peter Rollins: On the difference between literalism and fundamentalism and The Dangers of Fundamentalism -- John Dominic Crossan.

How Proposition 8 Destroys Families

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Found On: Shuck and Jive: It Breaks My Heart.