Tag Archives: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Gay Marriage according to Franklin Graham

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I never pay attention to Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham. After Jim Wallis of Sojourners called attention to one of Graham’s FaceBook postings, we found Graham’s more recent posting chastising the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s newly announced constitutional amendment redefining marriage. Said Franklin Graham:

“In His Word, the Bible, God has already defined marriage, as well as sin, and we should obey that rather than looking for ways to redefine it according to the desires of our culture. Marriage is defined as between a man and a woman—end of discussion. Anything else is a sin against God, and He will judge all sin one day.”

As of this moment, 107,850 Graham FaceBook followers “Like” it and 12,373 have “shared” it. I posted this comment on the FaceBook post.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you have yet to do your homework, and your statement “End of discussion” separates you from the more humble approach of the father whose name you proudly bear. Without interpretation and re-interpretation those who take the Bible at face value should also hold steadfast to the cosmology of a flat earth.

As a Presbyterian (USA) pastor since 1967, I have watched and heard the debates about the nature of human sexuality since 1979. The discussion within the church have not been without rancor or turmoil, but I’m proud that my church has had the courage to look at human sexuality and biblical hermeneutics through the lens of “the rule of love” not hate, separation, exclusion, or one’s own righteousness.

As a pastor who began hearing the stories of gay church members many years ago, I sensed that the prevailing view of homosexuality as a sickness and/or sin was off the mark and damaging to the heterosexual majority no less than the homosexual minority. There is no distinction at the baptismal font. No distinction allowed at the Lord’s table. And, at long last, I am now free, according to the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to make no such distinction at the kneeling bench before the altar.

– Rev. Gordon C. Stewart, H.R., Chaska, MN, March 19, 2015

Church approves gay marriage

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Yesterday the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved an amendment to its Constitution that re-defines marriage as a covenant between two people.

As a Presbyterian pastor since 1967, this debate has been a matter of long-suffering disappointment, prayer, and hope. At long last, the church opened its heart to all of its members. Questions of how to move forward in ways that do not disparage the conscience of dissenters and how to prevent further withdrawal of dissenting PC(USA) congregations provide no ready answers. Perhaps the fifth of the PC(USA)’s Historic Principles of Church Order (approved at the founding General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1789) may yet guide the church today and in days to come.

…[W]e… believe that there are truths and forms with respect to which people of good characters and principles may differ. And, in all these we think it the duty both of private Christians and societies to exercise mutual forbearance towards each other. [Book of Order, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Forbearance is an increasingly foreign attribute in the church, the nation, and the world.  One prays and hopes that forbearance would prevail as we work our way through the thistles and nettles of the spiritual, ethical, national, and geopolitical issues of conscience that trouble and divide us.

– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 18, 2015

Marriage – a covenant between…

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Yesterday the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – PC(USA) – approved amending its constitution to define marriage as “a covenant between two people.”

Click THIS LINK for the New York Times story, “Largest Presbyterian Denomination Gives Final Approval for Same-Sex Marriage”.

Many, such as I, welcome this change after many years spent in local and national discussion and debate over the nature of biblical authority, biblical interpretation, and the nature of human sexuality.  This morning passersby on State Highway 41 and Engler Boulevard in Chaska, MN will see two flags flying high at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church: the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) flag and, beneath it, a rainbow flag signifying God’s welcome of all.

The church’s re-definition of marriage adds one more enlarging freedom to the Apostle Paul’s list in the Epistle to the Galatians:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, [gay or straight]; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.“- Galatians 3:8 {NRSV].

Thanks be to God.

– Rev. Mr. Gordon C. Stewart, Honorably Retired, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Chaska, MN; March 17, 2015.