By Rachael Lee, Christianity Daily.
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church held a vote on March 23, 2014, with representatives of the San Gabriel Presbytery present, on whether to stay in or leave the PCUSA. Out of a total of 817 votes, 738 voted to leave, and 74 voted to stay. 5 votes were dismissed.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been looked upon with especially critical eyes from conservative groups over the past few years, as it has continuously been taking controversial steps regarding individuals with same-sex attractions (SSA) and same-sex marriages, including allowing those with SSA to become ordained as ministers in 2011 and its recent decision in mid-March to redefine marriage in the denomination’s constitution to include same-sex marriages.
As such, hundreds of American churches have been choosing to leave the PCUSA for other denominations, or many churches have even been dissolved altogether. In 2006, the PCUSA had 2.26 million members, but after the denomination approved the ordaining individuals with SSA by a majority vote in 2011, the membership dropped to 1.95 million. Several Korean churches have also opted to leave the PCUSA, such as Charlotte First Korean Presbyterian Church, and Bethany Presbyterian Church of Dallas.
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (GSPC)—one of the largest Korean PCUSA congregations in California—is one such congregation that has also decided to leave the denomination. In the presence of representatives from the San Gabriel Presbytery, the presbytery under which the church belongs, the members of the congregation voted on March 23, 2014 whether they would like to leave the denomination, and 91 percent of the congregation voted in approval of leaving PCUSA and giving $635,000 to the presbytery to keep the church property. (Under the ‘Trust Clause’ in the constitution of the PCUSA, any congregation’s property is “held in trust” for the PCUSA, and a church cannot leave the denomination with the property unless the denomination releases it to them. In many recent cases, churches that have chosen to leave the PCUSA due to its changes regarding same sex marriages have had to give payment to maintain its property.)
However, over a year later, the church has yet to be completely dismissed from the PCUSA.
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It may be time to go to court and get a judges ruling on whether the presbytery can keep moving around the goal post during the game.
This is nothing more than a round robin to get the church to cough up more money. The presbytery should ashamed of itself, but then again they would need to have a conscience.
What are we going to do with those bad gay people?? Put them in jail or in mental institutions??? Or we could just love them like Jesus would.
People and churches choose to disaffiliate for a number of reasons. Most very personal, some corporate. If demographics are to be believed those who vote to leave the PCUSA may indeed have LGBT people in their family, and many times do. I have found that so-called anti-gay backlash and agenda is well down on a matters of concern. Many of the reasons that I think pertain in situations. Nor do they think of votes to lave the PCUSA, anti-gay or anti-loving to their friends and family.
Over time many reasons that I have heard:
-A distant, detached and imperial presbytery or management issues with said.
-Mismanagement of the gracious separation process by the Presbytery.
-Theological or confessional drift.
-Idealogical/political issues” The anti-Semitic, anti-Israel. PCUSA hate speech in regarding such out of the last GA has done far, far more damage to the church, than 30 years of LGBT and sex related matters ever have to the PCUSA.
-Lack of relationships, trust between the church and presbytery, PCUSA in question.
All are just as true and valid as any thing else dealing with gender, identity and sexuality.
That’s not really the question. Of course we love them as Jesus would. Jesus would say “go and sin no more”. He would not suggest that one’s lifestyle doesn’t matter. Sin is still sin. He came to die for sinners, gay and straight. The Spirit gives power for repentance as well.
If you’re not familiar with the term “straw man”, you might want to look it up. Your comment is a very good example.
It may be worse. It’s a potential coup d’etat. Find a reason to remove the Pastor and the Ruling Elders; establish a Presbytery Administrative Comission with a pro-PCUSA position; and add 70 members (9% minority)… and you got yourself a majority whose only reasonable choice left will be to walk out of the facilities leaving all behind. My message to them… just walk out. God will provide a place for them to worship and grow as a faithful community of believers.
It just dawned on me while reading the latest version of “presbyterians today” why the louisville sluggers want all these parting churches properties, they want to start a new pcusa “business” franchise for marriage.
May I suggest they take a page from Vegas, and call it the pcusa’s very own “GAY ELVIS WEDDING CHAPELS” The ceremony could be from our now new “holy book of order” given by your Elvis of choice, with videos from our very, very humble stated clerk, and our round robin moderator stating that the confusion in your marriage from this day forward, just got worse.
Yes, it looks to me like the presbytery, not satisfied with a buyout, is making a play for the property.
My congregation was dismissed from the PCUSA to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church 1 1/2 years ago. I see gays in worship every Sunday. No love problem hereabouts.
Amen Linda! This brand of thought-provoking question is precisely the kind we need to be asking. It is increasingly obvious, despite what one church after another keeps saying about how “biblical authority” is the issue, that what’s really happening is rooted in hatred toward gays.
What these evangelicals need to understand is that the Bible is on the wrong side of history, and that the most loving thing we can do is focus on the 3% of the population that’s gay and ask: in what ways should our theology be adapted so that we don’t make anyone feel bad?
Wrong side of history or the right side of God. I choose the latter.
“Waited a year for PCUSA to make a decision?” Sounds like their typical pious MO; childish, stonewalling, inflicting financial and emotional pain for revenge…..I’ve seen it from this crew before.
I do hope this post was made tongue in cheek, otherwise you just made all the “gay haters” feel bad and if you do that you’ll have to adapt your theology.
Linda, your unfortunate accusation is wrong in so many ways. Like others on this thread, I too have gay friends, gay employees, gay friends at church, and we display Christ’s love for them. Primary issues here are whether homosexuals should be ordained and preach the Bible from the altar of God, and whether homosexuals should be married at the altar of God. Please prayerfully reflect on your hostile accusation/remark. Please read scripture to seek the answers to these issues. Peace of Jesus, Susan.
Yep, firmly planted there. Just running something of a reductio ad absurdum on Linda’s statement.
Tens of thousands have walked out, but is PCUSA keeping their names on membership rolls for annual invoice collections and for public relation purposes?
I don’t believe gays were born that way but feel that way due to environmental factors, including neglect, distant parents, and child abuse. It is not loving to enable people in their attempts to flee their negative feelings through sex. The fact that the LGBT crowd goes nuts any time someone suggests a psychological origin should make you think about why that upsets them so – probably because it is true.
We don’t need to enable them by claiming homosexuality is encouraged by the Bible when it clearly is not. Many ex-gays healed through their relationship with Jesus Christ alone, and they think liberal churches do a huge disservice to gays by not speaking Biblical truth to them.
The presbytery of Carlisle just staged such a coup d’etat. In an act of mean spirited vengeance, they ousted the pastor and dissolved the session just for considering dismissal. It was led by a wealthy member of the church who has considerable influence with the presbytery and despite the fact that the congregation in February reaffirmed the pastor’s call by a more than 5 to 1 margin.
Most bad people I just leave alone. Of course your question is laced with an unfair accusation, but if you really must know, the Christian should harvest in keeping with the seasons: right now, people in the world are not hungry for salvation, they’re hungry for validation. It’s perfectly fine to move on to greener pastures. We can love a lot of people by leaving them in peace, which is what we’ve always done, frankly, with this kind of thing. Just leave it alone.
No one “hates gays” because they disagree with the PCUSA. Here’s a question… When the Christians came to Rome in the first century it was commonplace throughout Greco-Roman culture to engage in all manner of homosexual behavior. For example, wealthy men routinely kept prepubecent boys in their households for sexual purposes.There was no stigma attached to adultry, prostitution, pedophilia, group sex, etc. In time, Christian moral posture in opposition to these practices prompted the Western world to condemn them. We seem to be going the other way today. The question is “Were the first century Christians wrong to oppose homosexuality?”I think not. What do you folks think? Reference: “How Christianity Changed the World” by Alvin J. Schmidt. A great resource for churches today.