Protestant Clergy – Page 15

January 10, 2016January 10, 2016

‘Repent’ call to Church over gay Christian treatment

'Repent' call to Church over gay Christian treatment

More than 100 senior Anglicans have urged the Church of England to repent for “discriminating” against lesbian and gay Christians.

The demand is made in a letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York ahead of a meeting of 39 primates from the global Anglican Communion.

They say the Church must acknowledge members around the world have been treated as “second-class citizens”.

The Church of England says the letter will be discussed at their meeting.

The Bishop of Buckingham and several cathedral deans are among the 105 signatories.

‘Interpreting scriptures’

The letter asks the two archbishops “to take an unequivocal message” to the meeting.

It urges them to tell the other leaders that the Anglican Church needs to acknowledge it “failed in our duty of care” to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Christians and “apologise for our part in perpetuating rather than challenging ill-informed beliefs”.

It adds: “We understand that the primates come from a variety of contexts with differing ways of interpreting the scriptures, but we urge you to be prophetic in your action.”

The Anglican communion in Canterbury from Monday is scheduled to last a week.

But BBC religious affairs correspondent Caroline Wyatt said there were fears disagreements over issues of sexuality could lead to a walk out by conservative Church leaders from nations such as Uganda and Kenya.

The rift in Anglican Church over sexuality is even greater than that over women priests and bishops and those against homosexuality on biblical grounds want the liberal wing of the Church to repent over consecrating openly gay bishops and clergy, she said.

The letter was organised by Jayne Ozanne, former director of the Accepting Evangelicals group which campaigns for the rights of gay, bisexual and transgender Christians.

‘Vilified’

She told BBC News a “line” had been reached.

“It was time to stand tall and actually call the Church back to its roots to reminding them about the fact that we are there to welcome and serve all,” she said.

“We have not treated the gay community as equal members. We’ve actually vilified them.”

The Bishop of Leeds Nick Baines said he had not been asked to sign the letter, but added: “There should be no place for homophobia in the Church or anywhere else.”

He told BBC News that “change isn’t necessarily a terribly bad thing”.

However, Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said he does not agree with the argument that there can be “different interpretations of scripture” on the issue.

“The Bible is clear on many things, including its teaching on human sexuality and the Church has upheld that teaching for 2,000 years,” he said.

Complete Article HERE!

December 15, 2015December 15, 2015

Girls abused by clergy members, and others, are focus of new team

Woman’s suit against Lutheran youth pastor is first in an effort to get more to step forward.

By Jean Hopfensperger

Attorneys Patrick Noaker, center, holding a portrait of the Rev. John Huchthausen, and Marci Hamilton, left, and Leander James.

A national team of lawyers has joined forces to focus on a group of children who are underrepresented in clergy abuse cases — namely, girls.

The group announced its first legal action Monday, a suit by a Minnesota woman who charges that she was sexually abused for several years in the 1970s by a former youth minister at Zion Lutheran Church in Hopkins.

Although 1 in 4 girls reports being a victim of child sex abuse in national studies, just a small fraction of them take advantage of laws that permit victims to seek legal remedy in decades-old cases, Patrick Noaker, a Minneapolis attorney who is part of the team, said at a news conference.

The relatively small number of women stepping forward is true not just for clergy sex abuse, said fellow team member Marci Hamilton. In general, girls are reluctant to report abuse by coaches, teachers, family members and family friends, Hamilton said. Yet all can be sued through the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which allows older abuse cases to have their day in court.

Similar laws are on the books in Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts and Connecticut, she said.

Fifteen other states considered passing similar laws last year, she said, and many are likely to do so again next year.

“Survivors see who is coming forward and are mobilized by who is coming forward,” said Hamilton, a law professor at Cardoza School of Law in New York and a national authority on clergy abuse litigation.

“We have an epidemic of child sex abuse,” she said. “I hope that women across the country will find their voices, so that the public will learn who are the hidden predators.”

The goal of the legal team is to make sure that women are aware that they can take their perpetrators to court — even if those perpetrators were not priests or ministers and even if it was decades past, Noaker said.

“The [Child Victims Act] was passed for everyone sexually abused in Minnesota, not just altar boys,” said Noaker.

Monday’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of a 52-year-old woman who says she was abused by the Rev. John Huchthausen, Zion Lutheran’s youth minister, beginning in 1974 when she was 12 years old. The girl was a member of the church.

He is now deceased.

The sexual abuse happened at and around the church, on youth retreats, and in other settings, the lawsuit charges. It says the church had knowledge of Huchthausen’s behavior, “but failed to act on the knowledge.”

Zion Lutheran Church declined to comment on the charges, filed in Hennepin County District Court.

The team handling the case includes Noaker, Hamilton, and Idaho-based attorneys Leander James and his law partner, Craig Vernon. Noaker has been representing child abuse and clergy abuse cases across the country since 2002. So has James, who has represented victims of the Diocese of Montana and the Jesuit Order in Oregon, among others.

The three attorneys will file the claims, lead the discovery of evidence and represent victims at trial, said Noaker.

Hamilton, a legal scholar on church-state issues, is a widely recognized national appellate lawyer. A child protection advocate, she has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as consulted with state legislatures on the most effective child-protection laws.

Hamilton will handle legal challenges to the cases and appeals, Noaker said.

“It’s almost like we’re creating a larger firm,” said Noaker. “We almost have to. Whether it be a [Catholic] diocese or Lutherans or the Boy Scouts of America, they will engage a large number of lawyers to fight at every turn. We have to match that. That’s what we are doing here.”

Beyond priests and ministers, athletic coaches are a likely priority target of the group.

“Elite athletes tend to be most at risk,” said Hamilton. “They spend more time with their coaches, who have access to scholarships … and they spend a lot of time away from their families.”

The legal team is likely to take legal action on such a case early next year, she said.

Complete Article HERE!

November 13, 2015

Comedian Lewis Black Reads 18 Year Old’s Awesome Resignation Letter To The Mormon Church

Thousands of Mormons are resigning from the LDS Church over its new and spiteful anti-gay policies. Lewis Black reads one teen’s resignation letter that is hysterical.

Last week the Mormon Church updated its Handbook, the book of rules that lays out official Church policy. In an exceptionally spiteful, hate-filled, and dangerous decision, Church leaders declared that children being raised by same-sex parents cannot be baptized until they turn 18 and denounce their parents. The Church also decreed that any Mormon in a same-sex relationship is now an apostate and can be ex-communicated.

There are now reports that calls to suicide prevention hotlines have skyrocketed.

In response to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ attack on LGBT families, thousands of LGBTQ Mormons and allies, along with parents of LGBTQ children, will be officially resigning from their Church on Saturday. A mass resignation event is scheduled in Salt Lake City, where Mormons will gather to resign and support each other.

In order to resign from the Mormon Church, members have to write a letter and mail it to the Church.

Last week, Lewis Black during a performance in Oklahoma City read a resignation letter written by an 18-year old Mormon. It is hilarious, profanity-laden, and, for those of the Mormon faith, highly disrespectful.

But mostly, at least to outsiders, it is hilarious especially as Black, also known for his profanity, adds his own embellishments to the young man’s thoughts.

Don’t watch this video if you’re in a space where foul language is inappropriate, or if you’re drinking hot coffee. You’ve been warned!

Complete Article HERE!

November 13, 2015

Church of Norway Votes in Favor of Gay Marriage

By Stoyan Zaimov

The General Synod of the Church of Norway, the largest Christian denomination in the Scandinavian country, has voted in favor of accepting same-sex marriage, and will be offering the service to gay couples in the future.

Church of Norway chairman Sturla Stålsett said that the Synod’s decision is “historical,” The Nordic Page reported.

The decision still allows individual priests and other church staff to decide whether they want to participate in ceremonies for gay people, however.

Breitbart noted that the vote from the country’s 12 bishops was unanimous, but will first need to be ratified by the Synod next spring before it becomes official. It opens the door for the first gay weddings to take place in Church of Norway churches by 2017.

Gay marriage has been legal in Norway since 2008, but churches were left to decide on their own how to adapt to the decision.

The last vote on the issue in 2013 left bishops split eight to four in favor of accepting gay marriage, so they had decided to only offer a blessing service instead.

The Church of Norway, part of the Evangelical Lutheran denomination, claims nominally 82 percent of the entire Norwegian population, according to 2011 estimates.

The second largest Christian group, the Roman Catholic Church, remains opposed to same-sex marriage, and defines marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman.

Back in October, the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa also voted for sweeping changes to its marriage tradition by deciding to recognize gay marriage and begin ordaining gay minsters without a celibacy cause.

DRC moderator Nelis Janse van Rensburg said that the decision shows that the church is “serious about human dignity,” but added that individual churches will not be forced to follow the ruling.

The decision by the DRC, which claims a membership of almost 1.1 million people, was criticized by South Africa’s Roman Catholic Church, which said that it went against biblical doctrine.

“We would not accept active homosexuals as priests but no doubt there may be a priest who is an active homosexual in our church, but he is so without the bishop knowing it. As the Catholic Church, we do not accept that position of the Dutch Reformed Church,” Catholic spokesman Archbishop William Slattery said at the time.

Complete Article HERE!

October 9, 2015

History made as South African Church Votes to Bless Same-sex marriage and Ordain Gay Ministers

YES! for Gay People in Dutch Reformed Church – NG Kerk – There were Tears of joy after the announcement.

By Melanie Nathan

History was made in South Africa today, when the synod of what was once probably the most conservative church on the planet, the Dutch Reformed Church, (NG Kerk/ DRC) in an overwhelming majority, voted in favor of ordaining gay ministers and blessing same sex unions.

Translating from the Afrikaans language I was able to determine this:

The DRC’s general synod chose to move forward with regard to the church’s position on gay relationships. Two proposals before the Synod were received as follows: Dr. Andre Bartlett with 102 votes against the 88 votes received by Dr. Chris van Wyk’s proposal. Van Wyk’s proposal asked that further research on the matter occur before a decision was to be made. But it was decided that the time to keep researching and not make a decision, is over.

“I was flabbergasted, but I think it’s a great step forward for the restoration of the dignity of our church’s gay members,” Bartlett said after the announcement of the vote.

Bartlett’s proposal noted that heterosexual and homosexual couples in a relationship of “personal faith obedience to the Lord,” must be allowed to fully participate in all the privileges of the church.

It was however stated that there would be no forcing of the issue. Because some in the Church continue to believe marriage should be between a man and woman, an element of discretion is still given to the church councils to formulate their own practices and rules. It was stated that no one should be forced to conduct gay marriages, because there is such a diverse amount of views within the church about it. (Source Netwerk 24)

This new ruling where the Church in essence now approves same-sex marriage and the ordaining of gay ministers may be the saving grace for the Church’s sliding popularity.

This is the Church that once all but controlled a country which thrived on discrimination. It may even be described the as the religious wing of Apartheid. Drawing on an old article in the Mail Guardian, “The Slow and Steady Death of the NG Church…” Charles Leonard back in 2010 paints this picture:

“It was once described as the National Party (The Afrikaner Apartheid party) at prayer. But the Dutch Reformed Church numbers are dwindling. Charles Leonard finds out why.

It was during the one beautiful Afrikaans hymn that I closed my eyes and I was instantly transported about 40 years back to the platteland Dutch Reformed Church in which I was brought up.

I am a teenager in my dark green suit sitting close to my mom on the brown benches. My dad is sitting in the elders’ benches next to the pulpit. The grey-faced, toga-clad dominee’s droning voice and the airless church are dragging heavily on my eyelids. Not even the mint imperials my mom is feeding me are helping to keep me awake. At least the occasional singing brings variety, although the congregation lags a bit behind the histrionics of the organist.

That formerly omnipotent Afrikaner church I grew up in is in trouble. Officially it lost 20 000 members last year, even though the real numbers are likely to be much higher. It had always turned away people with different ideologies, skin colours, and sexual preferences. Now, it seems, we are witnessing the book of Exodus’s “jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me”.

Three, four decades ago Afrikaners could hardly get a job without a reference from their dominee. But, at some point that all changed.

“The church lost its grip over people,” says Jean Oosthuizen, the progressive news editor of the Die Kerkbode (The Church Messenger), which once acted as National Party praise singer and the Dutch Reformed Church’s Pravda during the apartheid days. He says many lost faith in the church because of its actions in the past.

“The Afrikaans churches’ support for apartheid is now costing them a lot. Many people feel cheated and want to know, if the church lied to them about apartheid, what else it is lying about?”

They never had a proud record when it came to inclusiveness. They discriminated against women, who were not allowed on their pulpits, and black people, who were not allowed in their white churches. And, as Oosthuizen points out, women are still not allowed to preach in the Gereformeerde Kerk (Reformed Church), and the Hervormde Kerk (Restructured Church) is still arguing over whether apartheid was a sin. These days, almost all the Afrikaans churches seem to discriminate against gay people, except perhaps one.”

Soon after the end of Apartheid, South Africa enacted an all inclusive constitution which prohibits discrimination based on gender, gender identity and sexuality, protecting all LGBTI people. It seems that this is one Church that is catching up with the times, albeit 20 years into the New South Africa. There are other Churches in the country which still have a long way to go.

My comment: As a South African who grew up knowing a lot about this Church and its impact on South Africa, during the Apartheid era, understanding everything it stood for, in a million years I would not have imagined this day being possible. I hope it stands as worldwide example of an evolution toward progress and how faith can and should embrace all. If more faith based organizations are able to accomplish this, we will see a dramatic decline in homophobia around the world.”

Complete Article HERE!