By Charlie Brennan, The Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)
The First Presbyterian Church of Boulder is asking its congregation to vote on whether to end affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (USA), in favor of a California-based evangelical Presbyterian association that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The First Presbyterian Church of Boulder, 1820 15th St., well known for a large-scale feed of Boulder’s homeless population every Thanksgiving, had originally been scheduled to take a vote of its congregation Feb. 22, but that was postponed due to weather.
And although absentee voting has been ongoing, the bulk of the balloting is now scheduled for its services on Sunday.
The Rev. Erik Hanson, lead pastor of the church, denied in an interview Friday that seeking a new affiliation for the downtown church is spurred primarily by the same-sex marriage issue — despite what some of its 1,500 congregants might believe.
“This has not been the driving wedge for us,” said Hanson, who came to Boulder from Berkeley, Calif., in 2012. “There are people in our church convinced that is the driving wedge and we’re just not being honest about it. I just don’t know what to do about that … . It’s more complicated than that.”
The church website carries extensive discourse around the re-affiliation process and the reasoning that has brought the parish to this juncture. “Same-sex marriage” is not a phrase that appears in its online discussions.
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The detractors always want to make gay marriage, and it’s so much more than that. I’m for civil unions across the board for everyone. leave marriage to the churches. With that said, churches should be free to leave with their property to pursue the mission that God has given them, without being hasseled
I think when many on the left (PCUSA) read stories like this the first reaction is “they just don’t like and accept LGBT folks, or are homophobic”. I think that’s a red-herring. The vast majority of folks flee the PCUSA for many and complex reasons. I think primary is simple management/leadership incompetence, financial mismanagement, not to mention a general tone-deafness from the governing matrix, Presbytery level to GA.
The leadership of the PCUSA always assume they are the smartest people in any room they enter, or entitled to such by virtue of education or breeding. There is a brain drain in the denomination, and those departing are taking the best minds with them.
Well said. There are so many issues, attitudes and “movements” that to focus on any 1 is doing a disservice to all.
Thanks for your comment.
If any large congregation leaving the PCUSA has an assistant pastor in search of a sr. pastor position (and who might consider guiding our small church through disaffiliation), send me your PIF. chicory111@yahoo.com
Well said is an understatement here. I have long gone past the LGBT issues, What I have seen with our PCUSA leadership is nothing short of incompetence with an attitude or better yet an altitude. When they don’t have an answer they try to justify their position by inferring they are brighter than you and try to wrap the issue up in scripture because they have not a answer but rebut with arrogance our concerns. Leadership is dead here. They would rather form a committee than address the concerns of the many congregations out here, They are more concerned with the process than the results which can be hidden in a committee with no one responsible. Time for some serious change and it should start at the top.
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