Posted on 06/26/2011 2:59:58 PM PDT by Cronos
More than 200 United Methodist clergy in Illinois have pledged to flout church policy and bless unions for same-sex couples, putting their jobs, homes and callings in jeopardy if couples take advantage of their offer.
Methodists in the Northern Illinois Conference also called on the global church to impose no more than a 24-hour suspension for clergy who defy the policy.
Elders, deacons and pastors took their stand after civil unions in Illinois became legal this month. But they said their determination to support same-sex unions has been fueled further by a church trial last week in which a jury found a Wisconsin pastor guilty of performing a holy union for a lesbian couple, suspending her for 20 days.
"Unfortunately the church has lost its prophetic voice on this issue," said the Rev. Gregory Gross, a deacon who organized the campaign. "Our civil society has taken the lead. Now the church is trying to catch up."
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Please read their “Book of Resolutions”.. it reads like the Communist Manifesto.
I cannot agree more. This is part of an assault upon the whole body of the church and no denomination is safe. The goal is to corrupt the whole church whether Protestant, or Catholic, or Orthodox. You are quite correct when you say that we stand together or we fall.
I like you, greene66
No doubt the methodists will spin off an alternative to protect the traditions and teachings of 2000 years.
Do you think regular church goers at their churches will leave and go elsewhere — even if it is to a Catholic Church that only recognizes marriage between a man and a woman?
Excellent catch. Pretty much sums up the crippling failure of the modern church. Soul? Huh? Whaddabouddit?
In case you missed it Phleger has promised Cardinal George that he will move soon — seems like “soon” was defined, but I’m not sure now.
.I never heard that but I don't doubt it. The social action wing of the UMC has been dominated by Marxist atheist totalitarian scum for a couple generations. At least if they built the hospital the VC could use it to transfuse the blood collected for them by the "pacifist" Quakers during the war.
"Unfortunately the church has lost its prophetic voice on this issue," said the Rev. Gregory Gross, a deacon who organized the campaign. "Our civil society has taken the lead. Now the church is trying to catch up."
I don't recall any Biblical passages 'prophesying' that gay marriages will be A-OK someday.
Now the church is trying to catch up
It's funny how these types think they are ahead on the Biblical curve. New age is old hat.
As I have posted on several other threads, these actions are programmed, organized, well-planned.
Gay and lesbian organizations are planning to take over churches, drive Christians away, and then take church property for themselves. It has already happened in Canada.
Ka-ching.
GLAAD and other gay and lesbian organizations are rich, powerful, have big legal departments, and are greedy for as much money and property as they can get. They access taxpayer money through ‘arts grants’, they have millions and millions in corporate donations and from foundations, and they are going to roll right over the lowly common peasants.
It’s about MONEY and POWER and these gay Methodist ministers are just part of a long-term strategy.
Fight for your church!!
Thes people who wopuld marry same sex couples are not flouting church policy, They are flouting 2000 years of Christian Doctrine, the Bible and esus Christ.
May God have mercy on their souls , they are deliberately leading their flocks off a cliff. And for what?
For 2% of their sinners who are mentally ill.
No, they're risking virtually nothing, and they know it. The UMC won't do much more than a slap on the wrist, if that, for their wanton anarchy, just as they treated the Wisconsin dyke "pastor" - 20 days suspension for willful defiance, and continued defiance, of the Church. Probably because they AGREE with blessing the sin of sodomy.
The United Methodist Church is dead and rotting. It has been for a long time. Get out while you are still morally sane and relatively free of the rot.
I don’t know who this deacon is, but I do know that Northern Illinois is a lost, unbelieving conference. Their former bishop, Joseph Sprague, forced a conservative pastor friend of mine out of the denomination....not officially, but nonetheless true. Sprague led them down the path to hell and ruined that conference, probably for generations.
Many tried to bring Sprague to trial, but he always played spin-doctor with his answers and was unwilling to say for the official record what he’d said in other places.
How does gay marriage hurt me?
It is a negative, sea-change in the society in which we are trying to rear healthy, rational children.
It has my government endorsing disease by endorsing major vectors of disease.
It endorses the recruitment of the young to a deadly lifestyle, because homosexuality only endures through recruitment.
I used to be a Methodist.
This kind of PC cr@p is why I left the church.
Which is exactly what Satan had in mind when he inspired a perpetual fragmentation machine and why division is still his tactic of choice in every case.
Sincere non-Catholic Christians and sincere Catholic Christians who all agree that Christ is their Savior have consistently allowed themselves to be divided by the profiteers and Humanists who have completely taken over so many non-Catholic denominations and who make up a significant percentage of "professional Catholics" and Catholic clergy.
It's no longer a matter of keeping this nation from becoming an essentially pagan nation, it's now a matter of whether or not Christians in this country can become strong enough in their faith that Christ will reward us by letting us lead the battle to win the majority back to faith in Christ rather than faith in Humanism. And make no mistake, it will be a fierce battle to overcome Humanists who have convinced the majority in this country that the most real and important sacrament they can participate in is the self-gratification of sex in spite of such behavior leading to the murder of millions of infants each year.
I have heard such Humanists argue that homosexual sex should be praised by Christians since it cannot possibly lead to abortion, and I've heard people who call themselves Christian agree with them. Is it any wonder that we have the society we deserve rather than the one Christ once blessed us with? Until those who are sincere followers of Christ become more focused on defeating Humanism than on arguing their doctrinal differences, we cannot possibly expect Christ to reward us with any sort of victory against the pagan Humanism that now rules.
Pfleger is a lone lunatic in the Chicago archdiocese and wants nothing to do with the Catholic parishes. 99.99% of Catholic priests are nothing like Pfleger. Unlike the Methodists, there aren't 199 other "black power" Catholic priests and parishes in Chicago openly defying the church with him and promoting abortion and the rest of the RAT party platform with him.
That being said, the fact a heretic like Pfleger is allowed to continue preaching in a Catholic pulpit is proof the "conservative" cardinal of Chicago has no spine and lets that lunatic run loose.
What they don't realise is that the Church is not necessarily supposed to be in step with society. In fact it follows God, if society does too, then society is in step with the Church.
Otherwise, if The Church had always tried to be in step with society, then in the 3rd - 6th centuries it would have been Arian, in the 11th-12th Gnostic, in the 1800s Christian Scientist or Jehovah's Witness.
it should be “Fight for our churches” — all Christians putting up a common front against this. If we just leave this fight to the Methodists, we present a divided house...
Yes and the more we watch TV serials the more we come to "accept" it. Have you noticed that nearly every TV serial in the 90s had a sympathetic gay friend? Take "Friends" -- I noticed that it subtly changed MY attitudes to gays.
We "tolerate" sleeping together before marriage, "staying together" etc. -- so the next stage is acceptance of "gay marriage".
This comes from "letting society take the lead and the church playing catch-up"
That is a reduction to the Cathar heresy that breeders are bad and it's better to take it ... rather than do as God said "to multiply".
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