Free Republic

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- A lesbian Presbyterian deacon's application for ordination has been stopped, at least for now. A church commission Wednesday rejected the process used by the Presbytery of San Francisco to approve 45-year-old Lisa Larges' candidacy for ordination.

The disintegration of the Episcopal Church in the United States is tragic and telling of a greater national crisis of leadership. The crisis results from moral decline initiated by two seemingly opposite cultural developments: relativism and absolutism. Bible believers have a significant role to play in salvaging America by teaching to our children the moral absolutes that will help them become great future leaders. The first cultural development that contributes to our nation's decline is relativism. Relativism is the notion that every position taken on an issue is equally valid and equally valuable. Many of our children have uncritically bought...

Here is video of the bizarre Episcopal Gay Bishop, Gene Robinson, praying at the inaugural concert held yesterday, January 18, 2009, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Robinson addressed his prayer to the "God of our many understandings." It is a model of politically correct gobbledy-gook. Perish the thought that an Episcopal Bishop would mention the name of Jesus in his prayer, even though Jesus happens to be the Savior of the World according to his own church's theology. . . . . . (watch video)

(January 12, 2009)-- The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado has ended its so-called "period of restraint" on ordaining homosexual priests. Bishop Robert O'Neill ordained Mary Catherine Volland to the priesthood during a ceremony on Saturday at St. John's Cathedral. Volland, a longtime Colorado resident and partnered lesbian, had been a candidate for ordination in the Diocese of Minnesota. She will serve at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver. The issue of gay priests has splintered the church nationwide. Stokes, spokeswoman for the 30,000-member Colorado diocese, said O'Neill had suspended gay ordination out of sensitivity for church factions strongly opposed to it....

Bad news travels fast. Though tucked away at a clerical retreat in Nigeria, it took only a flash of electrons for Anglican Bishop Martyn Minns to receive news of the California Supreme Court’s property dispute ruling against St. James parish in the city of Newport Beach, Calif. The court on Monday ruled that the congregation, whose facility overlooks luxury yachts afloat on Lido Channel, must surrender that property to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. St. James is one of about 100 U.S. Episcopal congregations that in recent years have split with the national church hierarchy, first over the ordination...

A Newport Beach parish split from the U.S. Episcopal church because of a gay bishop. The state high court rules that 'the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it.' Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles -- The California Supreme Court decided unanimously today that churches that break away from a national denomination may not take the church assets with them. In a ruling written by Justice Ming W. Chin, the state high court said the property of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach is owned by the national church, not the...

L.A. Episcopal Diocese Wants Gays to be Bishops Sunday, December 7, 2008 11:31 AM RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has joined seven other dioceses in passing a resolution asking the church to let gays and lesbians become bishops. The vote Friday at the church's 113th annual Diocesan Convention rejected the Episcopal Church's de facto moratorium on the election of gay or lesbian bishops. The resolution will be forwarded for consideration at the July 2009 national convention in Anaheim.

<p>New York (AP) -- The spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans is urging an extended ban on consecrating another gay bishop until their troubled fellowship can be healed.</p> <p>Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams made the plea Sunday, the final day of the Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade Anglican meeting in Canterbury, England.</p>

Marriage laws, lack of church commitment from newlyweds make faith leaders think twice. Some clergy think churches should divorce themselves from the wedding business.The controversy over same-sex marriage – along with a growing sense that many couples who marry in churches never return – has prompted faith leaders to say it's time to reconsider how California couples tie the knot.After the California Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California began encouraging all couples to marry outside the church. "I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany could elect its first openly gay Lutheran bishop next month, a move conservatives say would alienate many Christians and open divisions in the Church. The July 12 election brings to Germany the question of gay clergy and same-sex unions which has caused rifts in several countries and faiths, including the Anglican community. Horst Gorski, a senior cleric from Hamburg, is standing for the post of bishop of Schleswig in northern Germany against Gerhard Ulrich, a senior cleric from the Schleswig area. The incumbent bishop is retiring in September. Gorski is a widely respected theologian and he...

California's Episcopal bishop has praised the state Supreme Court ruling that gives same-sex couples the right to marry and is calling on the faithful to defeat a November ballot measure that would restrict marriage to unions of one man and one woman. "For far too long the onus has fallen on marginalized people to bear the burden of inequalities that exist within the Church, and the decision by our state's Supreme Court has given us the opportunity to level the playing field," Right Rev. Mark Andrus wrote in a pastoral letter dated June 9. The letter appeared on the Diocese...

GRAND FORKS, N.D.—A lesbian priest says she wants to start a dialogue with church leaders after the Episcopal bishop of North Dakota refused her request for a license to minister in the state. The Rev. Gayle Baldwin, 62, an associate professor of religion at the University of North Dakota, was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1980. She came out as a lesbian a decade ago in Wyoming, where she has a license to preach and administer the sacraments. She came to UND in 2000.

A task force drafting a statement on sexuality for the nation's largest Lutheran group said Thursday that the church should continue defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. However, the panel did not condemn same-gender relationships. The committee expressed regret that historic Lutheran teachings have been used to hurt gays and lesbians, and acknowledged that some congregations already accept same-sex couples. The report released by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is part of the denomination's yearslong effort to bridge internal differences over the Bible and homosexuality. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a separate, smaller group, is...

The first openly gay Episcopal bishop announced he will have no official role in a meeting this summer of world Anglican leaders, saying restrictions that organizers wanted to place on his involvement had caused him "considerable pain." New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson had been told last year that he could not fully participate in the once-a-decade gathering in England, called the Lambeth Conference, as the world Anglican Communion sat on the brink of schism over his 2003 election. Still, Episcopal leaders had been negotiating with the Anglican Communion Office to allow him to join the event in some capacity....

Twenty-three years ago a very hung-over Anne Lamott stumbled into a small church and started what was to be a long journey towards sobriety and sanity. There were no instant miracles on that road, but many small mercies that for Lamott added up to a growing awareness of God's grace. She soon came to understand that, to her, religion was a "come as you are" party, with no need to pretend to be anything but your own true self. Her writings on faith — three books so far — are peppered merrily with profanity, doubt and occasionally a bit of...

Stockholm (dpa) - Marriage and same-sex unions were ``equal forms of living together,'' the Church of Sweden, a Lutheran church, said Wednesday. The central board of the church said it would accept pending changes of marriage laws that would offer same-sex unions the same legal status as traditional marriage. However the term ``marriage'' should be reserved for the union between man and woman, the board - elected by the Church Assembly, the highest decision-making body in the church - said. The church was one of many bodies asked to comment on proposals to change current legislation presented earlier this year....

Sitting in sight of her father and grandfather, both Lutheran ministers, Jen Rude on Saturday became the first ordained lesbian pastor since the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America urged bishops to not penalize congregations who violate the celibacy requirement for gay clergy. Several of the more than 100 congregants present wept as the 27-year-old stood before them, a beaming smile drawn across her face. Under church policy, homosexual ministers are required to make a vow of celibacy before they can be ordained. But heterosexual ministers are not, and Rude, who is not in a relationship, refused to make that vow...

Bishop Wayne Miller said Wednesday he won't discipline a congregation that's challenging the celibacy requirement for gay clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Resurrection Lutheran Church in Lake View plans to ordain a lesbian as associate pastor. Jen Rude says she won't pledge lifelong celibacy because she considers the rule discriminatory. In the ELCA, heterosexual pastors can marry. Miller, head of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, said he wants to "stay in conversation" with the congregation rather than censure or drive it out of the denomination.

LUTHERAN ORDINATION | She's becoming a minister at Lake View church but won't take vow - The new bishop in the Chicago Metropolitan Synod faces his first test case on the celibacy requirement for gay clergy in the nation's largest Lutheran denomination.Resurrection Lutheran Church in Lake View plans to ordain Jen Rude as its associate pastor in a 2 p.m. public ceremony Nov. 17. She's a lesbian who won't vow a lifetime of celibacy because she considers the rule discriminatory.Heterosexual pastors can marry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Rude said she isn't in a committed relationship now, but...

On Sunday - the deadline set by church leaders for the Episcopal Church to roll back support for same-sex unions - the U.S. church's presiding bishop said unequivocally at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral that there would be no retreat. "All people - including gay and lesbian Christians and non-Christians - are deserving of the fullest regard of the church," the Most Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori declared during an hourlong discussion before services. "We're not going backward." Jefferts Schori said these are the views of the church's bishops as well as its lay members - who have increasingly affirmed rights for...