By Bob Smietana, Christianity Today.
More than 120,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide last year. (The number of American weddings in 2014, by comparison, was more than 2.1 million.)
For preachers, requests to officiate a same-sex wedding remain rare. Just 11 percent of the 1,000 Protestant senior pastors surveyed by LifeWay Research have been asked to perform a same-sex wedding.
Baptist pastors (1%) are the least likely to say they were asked to perform a same-sex wedding. Presbyterian/Reformed pastors (26%) are most likely. Lutherans (19%), Methodists (9%), Christian/Church of Christ (7%), and Pentecostals (6%) fall in between.
Overall, pastors who identify as mainline were three times more likely to have been asked than evangelical pastors (18% vs. 6%). Pastors 55 and older (14%) are twice as likely to have been asked than those 54 and younger (7%).
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Sometimes I wonder the usefulness or utility of data collection in the soft social sciences, such as theology. It is much like asking random folks if they would choose to see a dentist to remove a tooth, or a lawyer to draw a Will, vice any other professional. , like a car mechanic or electrician. Of course LGBTQ folks will seek the services of those entities and people they perceive as being open or accepting to their requests and needs. As the PCUSA seeks to further transition to a “Queer” institution, or at least LGBTQ friendly, one should always approach with caution when they get what they wish or pray for. Three formal denominations, UU, Metropolitan, UCC, which have decades of gay facilitation and acceptance under its belt, are stagnant to dying in terms of all metrics of life, confessions of faith, transfer to letter, baptisms, new joins vs. death or removal off roles. And has been for some time. At the start of the old PUP process in the denomination in 2004/5, the great selling point LGBTQ advocates would make that if only the PCUSA would remove its historic prohibitions in both church law and doctrine, that a great progressive wave or the sexually disenfranchised, millennials, urban homesteaders, academia would all one Sunday rise up and say. “lets go the closest PCUSA church and celebrate our diversity”. And fill both the pews and coffers. Well, since 2005 the PCUSA has collapsed over 25% further in membership or affiliation. I suppose that wave is just over the horizon, and in the end we all get ponies and rainbows.
Totally non-surprising results. PCUSA clergy have long served as chaplains to the dominant culture, doing whatever the zeitgeist demands of them. Water is wet, fire is hot, PCUSA clergy slavishly accommodate culture. Axiomatic truths all three.
Two wrongs does not make anything right, yet, some believe if you cannot get your way one way, there is another. Going to the PCUSA to get married may seem right to some, but the Holy Bible teaches otherwise.
I’m sure you really didn’t believe that Kool Aid the Louisville cabal was offering up during the last PUP process. But thanks for reminding us of our past history…and our present performance. In any other industry or field of endeavor, a leadership team that created a 25% reduction in market share would be sacked. Not so in the church or whatever it is that the PCUSA, UU, UCC and Metropolitan entities are.
25% membership loss and yet no soul-searching, lessons-learned, or change in direction. Apparently Mainline Religion is the place to go, to enjoy consequence-free decisionmaking.
A reduction in market share? Is that the purpose of Christianity, to avoid losing market share?
I found this reply to an article by Johnathan Merritt regarding Jesus’ relationships with sinners…So yes, Jesus’ stomach was often turned. But by the pious religious aristocracy and not by the depravity of sinners.
It’s more important than ever to plant, and support, new Presbyterian Churches that follow Holy Scripture. There are many large cities with few options. These new churches also need to promote themselves so others can visit and join. My donations go to these new churches—-and The Layman. God Bless.