Gay magazine has glowing tribute to PCUSA moderator
The Layman Online, August 8, 2001
The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper published in Washington, D.C., has written a glowing tribute to Jack B. Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The article quotes his admirers – principally activists for the ordination of gays and marriage for homosexual couples – but it does not quote a single person who disagrees with Rogers.
It accepts without challenge the assessment of homosexual activists and their allies who champion Rogers as a heroic figure and say he will lead the denomination to dismantle its standard that prohibits the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals and adulterers.
“Observers describe the 67-year-old theologian as a ‘bridge builder’ who counts conservative as well as liberal Presbyterians among his friends,” according to Blade reporter Rhonda Smith.
Smith fails, however, to take note of the reaction among conservatives to Rogers’ statements favoring gay ordination and his suggestion that church and state should provide the “moral equivalent of marriage” for homosexuals.
In July, the council of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh voted to withdraw the presbytery’s invitation to Rogers to speak at the December meeting of the presbytery.
Rogers did have a “conversation” with evangelicals attending a planning meeting sponsored by the Presbyterian Coalition, a renewal organization. Numerous speakers – including some of his former seminary students – criticized Rogers for abandoning the truth of Scripture on homosexuality and other issues and for his bitter denunciation of the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Presbyterian Web sites, including The Layman Online, have been inundated with letters from evangelicals who both criticize the moderator and plead for him to return to a Biblical faith.
Rogers has tried to deflect some of the criticism with a “divide and conquer” strategy. He said his criticism of the Confessing Church Movement was aimed principally at the Presbyterian Lay Committee, which did not start the movement but enthusiastically has endorsed it, as have other renewal organizations.
He said he, too, opposed the ordination of homosexuals until eight years ago when, through study of the Bible, he concluded that was wrong.
In The Blade article, Rogers won a commendation for reaching the “correct” conclusion through his “study.”
“From his reading of the Bible and his understanding of the correct interpretation, he made a shift in his thinking about homosexuality,” the Rev. Donald E. Stroud told Smith. Stroud is a recruiter for That All May Freely Serve-Baltimore, a group pushing for gay ordination and homosexual marriage. He was one of the openly gay commissioners at the most recent General Assembly who voted for Rogers.
Others quoted in the story were Michael Adee, a homosexual who recruits for More Light Presbyterians, and Mitzi Henderson, co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, who says her son’s announcement that he was gay changed her mind on the issue.
The reporter did not interview Rogers.