By Alva James-Johnson, The Ledger-Enquirer. (Columbus, Ga.)
A congregation that formed in the aftermath of a controversial vote at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Columbus has a new home.
Starting Sunday [9/20/15], members of Grace Presbyterian Church will worship at a building owned by Rock Presbyterian Church, a predominantly Korean congregation located in a former movie theater at The Landings.
The arrangement comes in the wake of both churches separating from the Presbyterian Church (USA) over gay marriage and other doctrinal issues.
Former members of First Presbyterian started Grace Presbyterian in April, after an effort to split from the denomination fell eight votes shy of the two-thirds required for dismissal. Their first few worship services were held at Shearith Israel Synagogue at 6727 River Road. When the group outgrew that facility, they moved to a Teen Challenge building at 5304 Hurst Drive.
The Rev. Chuck Hasty, who was pastor of First Presbyterian when the controversial vote occurred, is now pastor of Grace Presbyterian. He said the congregation averages about 180 people on Sundays and needed additional space.
So the Rev. Sam Park, pastor of Rock Presbyterian, extended an invitation at a meeting with Hasty and an elder after Hasty started in August.
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IMHO the split in the Church over marriage equality is so misguided, and so far away from the original Calvinist teaching.
Marriage is not a Christian Sacrament! The original Protestant Reformers recognized this, and ceded the rites of marriage to the government 4 centuries ago:
John Calvin (1509-1564) began teaching that the Roman Catholic Sacraments are just signs containing no inner working, nor transformative grace, and of those signs there are only two sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).
Holy Matrimony is not a Sacrament, because it does not fulfill a specific promise from God for our salvation.
That immediately opened the door to their next finding; that the institution of marriage is under the purview of the state government, rather than the Church. – People of any color, creed, or religion can be married together, not only the peculiar Christians.
JOHN CALVIN – “The last of all this [discussion of sacraments] is marriage, which, while all admit it to be an institution of God, no man ever saw to be a sacrament, until the time of [Pope] Gregory. And would it ever have occurred to the mind of any sober man? It is a good and holy ordinance of God. And agriculture, architecture, shoemaking, and shaving, {…AND PIZZA MAKING AND CAKE BAKING… } are lawful ordinances of God; but they are not sacraments. For in a sacrament, the thing required is not only that it be a work of God, but that it be an external ceremony appointed by God to confirm a promise. That there is nothing of the kind in marriage, even children can judge.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 24 quite clearly states that marriage is between one man and one woman.
This position is well supported by Scripture.
“Marriage” between two people of the same gender is not truly marriage. The advocates of same sex marriage are false prophets, which abound in the last days.
The Apostle Peter advised:
“4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell[a] and committed them to chains[b] of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;[c] 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials,[d] and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge[e] in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” (2 Peter 2:4-7)
Those who flee the PCUSA are just as correct as Lot who fled from Sodom. They are being rescued by God.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/