There is something about gender and sexuality that seems to split asunder one church after another these days. Last year the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion failed to resolve profound differences over whether gays and women should be made bishops. This month the Catholic church in Ireland has been pilloried for years of mistreatment, including sexual abuse, of children in its care. This week, less dramatically, it was only some deft manoeuvring that kept the Church of Scotland in one piece.

The Kirk’s general assembly, the annual gathering of ministers and lay folk who dictate policy for the church as a whole, decided by 326 votes to 267 that an Aberdeen congregation had broken no rules in choosing the Rev Scott Rennie, a divorced father who lives with his male partner, to be their pastor. But it also said that no more gays should be ordained for two years, while a church commission ponders whether the practice ought in fact to be allowed. Mr Rennie claims that there are already “tens” of ministers who dare not admit openly to being gay.

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Shrinking mainline Protestant denominations are turning to marketing to help stem decades of membership losses and stay afloat.

The United Methodist Church recently unveiled a $20 million rebranding effort aimed at attracting younger members to the large but diminishing Protestant group. The new ads will appear over the next four years as part of the denomination’s “Rethink Church” campaign.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has invested nearly $1.2 million over the past two years launching a similar branding effort based on the theme, “God’s Work, Our Hands.”

The denominations are trying to bounce back from losses that began in the mid-1960s.

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The Church of Scotland last night effectively gagged its members from public discussion of gay ministers and postponed a potentially divisive vote on the issue for two years in a desperate bid to avoid a schism.

A debate on a call to ban openly homosexual people from appointment to the ministry was torpedoed by an 11th-hour motion that dominated the General Assembly yesterday.

Instead of proceeding with the vote ”“ which many traditionalists had warned could split the Kirk ”“ members agreed to establish a commission to study the issue and report back in 2011.

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Most mainline Protestant clergy do not support legalizing gay marriage, even if they’re not required to officiate at same-sex ceremonies.

It was the only point on which the majority did not support gay rights, according to a survey of clergy from the seven historic mainline Protestant denominations to which 18% of Americans belong.

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I think we all know what a false god the stock market has turned out to be. Not that investments are always a bad thing, but the market should never be confused with God. “Every one of us is,” warned Calvin, “even from his mother’s womb, a master craftsman of idols.”

But Calvin was not opposed to capitalism. He eliminated the medieval prohibition against interest and allowed people to earn a fair return on their investments. By calling for Christians to live frugal, disciplined and simple lives, he helped foster savings ”” a message that is once again resonating today.

In addition, he encouraged people to seek the public good in their economic lives, not just private gains. “For Calvin the greatest theft is perpetrated by legal contracts and transactions, not by explicitly criminal behavior,” says Randall Zachman, professor of Reformation Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Calvin thought that “it is the duty of every citizen to speak out when they see that unjust laws are causing their neighbors to be oppressed and robbed ‘legally.’ ”

Clearly, Calvin would not have been opposed to increased regulation of the banks and brokerage firms that have caused financial ruin for so many.

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Efforts to allow gays and lesbians to serve as clergy in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have been defeated again, sealed by votes Saturday.

But the margin of defeat — the final tally has yet to be determined — is already guaranteed to be much closer than in previous years. That is encouraging for gay clergy supporters and concerning to opponents, with both sides expecting the issue to be revisited in the future.

Last summer, the 2.3 million-member denomination’s General Assembly voted to drop a constitutional requirement that would-be ministers, deacons and elders live in “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between and a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.”

Any such change requires approval by a majority of the nation’s 173 presbyteries, or regional church bodies. Those votes have been trickling in for months, and on Saturday enough “no” votes had been recorded to clinch the measure’s defeat.

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A potential rift within the Church of Scotland over gay relationships emerged yesterday after the Church’s house magazine backed civil partnerships and openly gay ministers.

Accusing religious traditionalists of selectively quoting the Bible to support their attacks on homosexual relations, the editorial in Life And Work urged the Kirk to show strong leadership on an issue that has threatened to split the Church of England and could prove just as divisive in Scotland.

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The White House has an oft-overlooked religious ally for solving the country’s social problems through greatly expanded government programs, if a new survey of senior pastors in mainline Protestant churches is a good indication.

Republican politicians and commentators have opposed President Obama’s economic stimulus initiatives and proposals to improve health care, education and the budgets of middle-class Americans as an overly expensive shift to “big government” bordering on socialism. But three-quarters of pastors in seven mainline denominations agreed in the mid-2008 survey that the federal government “should do more to solve social problems such as unemployment, poverty and poor housing.”

Most of the queried clergy accepted the likely price of such reforms. Some 67 percent favored government-guaranteed health insurance “for all citizens, even if it means raising taxes.” Moreover, 69 percent said that more environmental protection is needed, even if it raises prices and costs jobs.

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Two mainline Protestant denominations, after decades of wrestling over the place of homosexuality in the church, are considering allowing local congregations to select pastors who are in long-term, monogamous, same-gender relationships.

The church council of the largest Lutheran body in the US, the 5-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), decided this week to send such a recommendation to its national assembly. The proposal would take effect if supported by majority vote at the assembly’s biennial meeting in August.

The 2.3-million-member Presbyterian Church (USA) approved the idea at its national assembly last summer, but a majority of the church’s 173 district bodies, called presbyteries, must vote in favor by June for it to become church policy.

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“There’s some pretty solid evidence that shows church growth is countercyclical to economic growth, [Ed] Stelzer [President of Lifeway Research in Nashville, Tennessee] told Christianity Today, citing a 2007 study by Texas State University professor David Beckworth.

The “Praying for Recession” study found that the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent during each recession between 1968 and 2004. By comparison, mainline Protestant churches continued their decline in numbers, though a bit more slowly.

—Christianity Today, March 2009, page 18

It is a 35 page pdf file and it is worth the time to read it all.

The Episcopal Church isn’t the only denomination facing a split between liberal and conservative interpretations of Scripture. The Presbyterian Church USA also has seen individual churches leave the national church.

First Presbyterian Church in Fresno and Trinity Presbyterian Church in Clovis are two. The congregational votes in November were overwhelming: 543-10 at First Presbyterian; 264-7 at Trinity.

There are similarities between the denominations: Both have had more than 100 churches leave the national churches, mainly over differences about the authority of Scripture and the ordination of gay clergy. Both national churches claim more than 2 million members.

But there are differences: The Fresno and Clovis churches have asked to be reassigned to the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church, based in Livonia, Mich. The Episcopal Church, so far, is the only approved Anglican body with oversight in the United States.

And many of the Presbyterian churches have been allowed to leave “with grace” and their property, as opposed to the…[Episcopal] parishes and dioceses that have been sued across the country.

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(Taiwan Church News)

Evangelism should definitely be one of the missions of the church and many churches today are trying their best to excel in this area. Some churches try to research the local sub-culture before promoting a strategy. Others participate in mission conferences in search for the best method available to spread the gospel. Still others try to mimic successful models they have seen other organizations apply in order to invigorate local evangelism. However, regardless of how much effort churches put into the ministry of evangelism, who is the key person affecting the development of this ministry? The answer is the pastor.

Though churches may have successful evangelism strategies, as soon as the pastor moves away, everything comes to a halt. Furthermore, all the resources and experiences that the previous pastor built during his time ministering in the area are seldom passed on, so the new pastor must often start from scratch. Though this phenomenon is a major loss and a waste of resources for many local churches, it has always been prevalent among churches from past to present. Therefore, the pastor becomes an important topic of discussion when discussing evangelism ministries.

When studying this issue, one important item that cannot be ignored is the negative effect a pastor’s relocation will have on local evangelism ministries. Furthermore, the higher the rate of relocation, the more harm is inflicted. So, how do we prevent this situation and stop the harm that is being inflicted? Below are my humble suggestions.

First, we must revise the current system. We are confident that pastors are very clear about their calling and will always be faithful to their churches. They normally will not relocate based on impulse alone. However, the realities of life often tempt them to relocate and the decision to move or stay is not determined by one individual alone. Therefore, churches and pastors must first agree that pastors will not look at the relocation issue lightly. In addition, churches must endeavor to remove factors that would tempt a pastor to relocate. For example, within the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), pastoral salary and related benefits are major temptations luring pastors away from churches they are currently serving. The reason is because a pastor’s salary and benefits are often determined by the financial situation of the church where the pastor is serving. Since salaries vary a lot depending on where one is serving, many pastors must use their skills to fight for “top jobs”. Such a system in the PCT creates an inevitable collision between a pastor’s calling and the realities of life, which is a problem we must address. The high turnover among pastors in rural churches is a well-documented fact. How can Christians have confidence their church’s evangelism ministries when top leadership at the church is constantly changing? Though overhauling the current system will be a long process, it is also a problem the PCT must address because the effects of high turnover rates are harming church evangelism as a whole. The General Assembly and local presbyteries can assist and encourage pastors by offering subsidies to financially poor churches so that they can pay for their pastors’ vocational training or increase their pastors’ income. That way, pastors won’t be distracted by looking for more salary to support his family.

Second, we must allow local churches to partner with seminaries so that seminaries can nurture the kind of pastors churches need. That way, once seminarians graduate, they can return and serve the churches that sponsored them. This would greatly improve the development and continuation of local evangelism because these graduates will already know a great deal about the local church’s history, background, and outreach ministries. They will also already possess a lot of knowledge about the needs of the locals. Though this suggestion may affect the PCT’s system determining how and where seminarians are sent upon graduation, the change would also facilitate the way church evangelism is passed down and carried on, thus worthy of some reflection.

There are many success stories today when it comes to church evangelism, and in all of them, the pastor plays a key role. Furthermore, the length of a pastor’s tenure also affects the local church’s attempts at evangelism. The more frequently a church’s pastor relocates, the harder it is for that church’s ministry to bear fruit. One reason is that church members can sense whether a pastor exhibits confidence in his daily work, which will have spillover effects in church evangelism. Therefore, the challenges facing evangelism ministries mentioned above should not be glossed over. I hope that my humble suggestions above will stir discussion on the topic as we seek to find solutions to problems and improve the way churches do missions.

A church court of Pittsburgh Presbytery ruled 9-0 that the Rev. Janet Edwards did not violate scripture or the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) when she conducted what she has always said was the marriage of two women in 2005.

Since church and state define marriage as between a man and a woman, she cannot have done what she was accused of, the court ruled yesterday.

“It can’t be an offense to the constitution to attempt to do the impossible,” said the decision, read by the Rev. Stewart Pollock, chairman of the Permanent Judicial Commission of Pittsburgh Presbytery.

Read it all.

A Presbyterian minister who officiated at a lesbian wedding in 2005 is heading for church court again, two years after charges against her were dismissed on a technicality.

The Rev. Janet Edwards of Pittsburgh will again face possible expulsion if convicted by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Pittsburgh Presbytery.

Edwards will appear before the commission Oct. 1, to answer charges that she defied her ordination vows and Presbyterian Church (USA) rules by officiating at the Pittsburgh wedding of a lesbian couple in 2005.

“I am trying really hard to speak clearly about how what I did reflects Jesus’ love and justice, and so I hope the permanent judicial council acquits me,” Edwards said.

Read the whole article.

Perhaps some joining of Catholics and evangelicals, in morals and manners, could achieve the social unity in theological difference that characterized the old Mainline. But the vast intellectual resources of Catholicism still sound a little odd in the American ear, just as the enormous reservoir of evangelical faith has been unable, thus far, to provide a widely accepted moral rhetoric.

America was Methodist, once upon a time””or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, or Episcopalian. Protestant, in other words. What can we call it today? Those churches simply don’t mean much any more. That’s a fact of some theological significance. It’s a fact of genuine sorrow, for that matter, as the aging members of the old denominations watch their congregations dwindle away: funeral after funeral, with far too few weddings and baptisms in between. But future historians, telling the story of our age, will begin with the public effect in the United States.

As he prepared to leave the presidency in 1796, George Washington famously warned, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Generally speaking, however, Americans tended not to worry much about the philosophical question of religion and nation. The whole theologico-political problem, which obsessed European philosophers, was gnawed at in the United States most by those who were least churched.

We all have to worry about it, now. Without the political theory that depended on the existence of the Protestant Mainline, what does it mean to support the nation? What does it mean to criticize it? The American experiment has always needed what Alexis de ­Tocqueville called the undivided current, and now that current has finally run dry.

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Archbishop Harper’s argument that we can come to new conclusions about homosexual unions is poorly cast and shows a need for further research on his part regarding the scriptural evidence in its historical context. Much of what I have written above can be seen in a fuller discussion in my 2003 article, “Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?”[1] Put simply, Paul was not presupposing in Rom 1:24-27 that every individual who engages in homosexual practice consciously turns aside from felt heterosexual urges. Rather, they turn aside from clear natural revelation, here given in the obvious embodied complementarity of male and female. Nor is the concept of homosexual orientation wholly unknown in the Greco-Roman milieu. Nor was Paul deriving his view of homosexual practice solely from nature, as if he thought that the creation texts in Genesis 1-2 had nothing to say about homosexual practice by necessary implication. There is absolutely no evidence that modern orientation theory would have had any impact on Paul changing his strong negative valuation of homosexual practice. Indeed, all the extant evidence indicates otherwise.

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The Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) suffered its worst annual membership decline in decades last year. The denomination lost 57,572 members in 2007 and has 2,209,546 active and confirmed members, a drop of 2.5 percent compared to 2006.

It’s the denomination’s largest membership loss in terms of numbers since 1981 and the steepest percentage loss since 1974, when it fell 2.7 percent.

The decline continues a trend of more than four decades of losses since membership peaked at 4.25 million in the mid-1960s.

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Over the past year Pittsburgh Presbyery has made news for the churches it lost to another denomination. But at its most recent meeting there was unanimity and celebration when the 214 commissioners voted to ordain seminarian Jeff Eddings, who has already co-founded the fastest-growing church in the presbytery.

Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community on the South Side was founded in 2003 with $237,000 from the presbytery’s New Church Development Fund. Now that fund is nearly out of money, and its overseers plan to ask the presbytery to build it back up. They hope one source will be money left by churches that are leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA) for a more conservative denomination.

“We believe that God is not finished with what he wants to do here,” said Vera White, director of new church development for the presbytery.

When the presbytery voted in 2000 to put $1.55 million of reserve funds toward new congregations, “we had gone 40 years without starting a new church,” Ms. White said.

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Every denomination is struggling to retain young people and young families who do not always see church the way their parents and grandparents do. They are less likely to stay with a congregation or denomination just because it’s expected. What that means, says the Rev. John Wilkinson, pastor of Rochester’s Third Presbyterian Church, is that “people are making a much more significant choice today if they choose to be a church participant. About half the people who join us do not come from a Presbyterian background.”

People in their 20s and 30s, sometimes called the “Millennial Generation,” are going to transform church life, says the Rev. Eugene Roberts, recently retired pastor of the Brighton Reformed Church. “They are not so interested in theological distinctions between denominations,” he says. “In some ways, theirs is a more intense experience.” On the plus side, he says, the millennials “who get involved really want to be involved, while the baby boomers like me often go through the motions.”

But while many younger people have a less formal connection to church than their elders, “that is not an indication that people are less spiritual or not interested in a relationship with God,” says the Rev. Alan Newton, executive minister of the American Baptist Church in the Rochester Genesee Region. “They just don’t find it in church. Churches naturally resist change, but those that are adapting are all growing.”

But adapting means different things to different congregations. The Rev. David Inglis, pastor of the Henrietta United Church of Christ, says churches are seeing “people who find their way into a place that affirms their own journey.” In other words, younger people will go where they are accepted for who they are.

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Some of the problems for mainline invisibility might be self-inflicted. “They best stop complaining and take another look at their methods of communicating and organizing,” says the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, a religious liberty organization dedicated to protecting faith and freedom.

“Mainline congregations do not tend to translate their moral convictions into effective political organization and influential social action with the adeptness and passion that characterize evangelicals moving in lockstep with one another,” says Gaddy, who also hosts a show on the liberal Air America radio network. Leaders and activists of mainline denominations might be heeding Gaddy’s advice. Some are raising their profile by reaching out to find common cause with emerging, moderate evangelical churches on issues such as climate change, genocide in Sudan, human trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

Now there is also hope that with the two leading Democratic presidential candidates from their ranks ”” Hillary Clinton, a United Methodist, and Barack Obama, who despite the controversial minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is affiliated with the more moderate United Church of Christ ”” mainliners could have one of their own standard-bearers in the seat of secular power.

Megachurches? Collaboration with evangelicals? One of their own in the White House? Despite low fertility rates and other demographic challenges, mainline Protestantism isn’t fading from the national landscape just yet. In fact, if the budding megachurches are any indication, mainline believers might be hitting their stride, and finding their voice, just in the nick of time.

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In January, Memorial Park filed suit in Common Pleas Court seeking to confirm its title to its 71/2-acre property on Peebles Road and avoid any threat of seizure of its buildings by the presbytery. Members also voted 664-25 to disaffiliate from PCUSA and join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which has about 70,000 members in 175 churches in 29 states.

Several weeks later, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. brought attorneys and principals from both sides together and suggested the $575,000 settlement figure, telling them a protracted suit could result in three times that sum in fees and costs.

More importantly, church policy holds that property is held in trust for the Presbyterian Church (USA). However, if the suit went to trial the case would be decided under Pennsylvania law, and, according to the presbytery, “the laws of Pennsylvania are not absolute on this matter.”

The Memorial Park congregation approved the settlement Sunday. The 64-year-old church has 1,675 members.

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The Providence Presbyterian Church of Hilton Head Island filed a civil suit last Friday against the regional branch of its denomination in an effort to prove ownership of two island properties.

While the church has butted heads over theological issues with its denomination — the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or PCUSA — a local church leader stressed that the suit, filed at the Beaufort County Courthouse, was strictly about ownership of the two properties.

The church has almost 26.5 acres of land, roughly 16 of it undeveloped, and Paul Cifaldi, an elder at the church, said the congregation wants to ensure it won’t be taken away by the regional arm of the church and the defendant in the suit, the Charleston Atlantic Presbytery.

“We’re just asking the court to let us know that it really is in fact our property, as we develop it and invest money in it in the future,” Cifaldi said.

That future, he acknowledged, is far from certain for the local church, which has been increasingly unhappy with the direction of national church over the last two decades.

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It’s always intriguing to see which churches have grown and which denominations have faded in the past year. According to the 2008 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (a Bible of sorts for us religion writers), the fastest-growing religious body in 2007 was the Jehovah’s Witnesses at 2.25 percent.

Following them were the Mormons at 1.56 percent and the Roman Catholics at .87 percent. Compare this to last year’s states that had the Catholics out front at 1.94 percent, followed by the Assemblies of God at 1.86 and the Mormons at 1.63.

The denomination with the biggest decrease is the Episcopalians at 4.15 percent.

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Presbyterians may disagree with their church’s ban on ordaining noncelibate gays and lesbians, but they must follow the rules, according to the Louisville-based denomination’s highest court.

The decisive ruling means that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will allow no exceptions to the ban, ending the expectations of some that a controversial policy adopted in 2006 would allow regional governing bodies flexibility in enforcing the tenet on homosexuality.

The constitution gives “freedom of conscience” to disagree with church law, which restricts ordination to singles living in “chastity” or those living in “fidelity” in a heterosexual marriage, the court ruled.

But the constitution “does not permit disobedience to those behavioral standards,” according to the court, known as the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission.

“The fidelity and chastity provision may only be changed by a constitutional amendment,” it said. Unless that happens, everyone “must adhere to it.”

Conservative groups applauded the decision.

“The (Presbyterian Church U.S.A.) is still one body that follows one set of clear standards for its officers,” said the Louisville-based group Presbyterians for Renewal. “”¦ Nothing has changed.”

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For 55 years, members of Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church have tithed their 10 percent, money that often went toward maintaining 12 acres of tree-lined church property.

Now they’ve been told that the church where generations have worshipped does not belong to them ”“ but rather to the national denomination they believe has lost its biblical authority and want to cut ties with.

“What about the blood, sweat and tears of the congregation ”“ all of us who have given all these years?” said Jane Constance, a member since 1982 whose four children were baptized and raised in the church. “It’s unthinkable to me, to most of us, that it could belong to them because of a clause most of us didn’t know about.”

Read it all.

I cannot possibly do it justice without simply saying read it all.

Minnesota Presbyterians have voted to restore the ordination of an openly gay man who has refused to pledge celibacy, the latest test of revamped pastoral guidelines in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Paul Capetz, a seminary professor, asked to be removed from ministry in 2000 after the PCUSA voted to require that ministers be married to a member of the opposite sex or remain celibate.

But changes made in 2006 to the Presbyterians’ Book of Order allow candidates for ordination to declare a conscientious objection to church rules. Local presbyteries, or governing bodies, then must decide whether the objection “constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity.”

On Saturday, the Presbytery of the Twin Cities voted that Capetz’ objection, or “scruple,” did not violate the “essentials” and restored his ordination as a minister of word and sacrament.

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While Memorial Park leaders said their members’ 664-25 vote with three unmarked ballots means the church is now a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a presbytery official said, however, that under denominational law he still considered it part of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The ballots were handed out during one Saturday service and three yesterday to people whose names were checked against a membership list. The ballots covered four separate questions:

Ӣ Disaffiliating from the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Ӣ Affiliating with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Ӣ Amending church bylaws to remove any mention of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Ӣ Affirming all of its current pastors, elders and deacons.

The 692 ballots represented less than half of the church’s 1,675 members, but the number was close to its usual Sunday attendance in January. Memorial Park is the largest church in the Pittsburgh Presbytery, which has 155 churches and more than 40,000 members.

The votes this past weekend had been expected to be uneventful, given that the church’s session, or governing body, had voted unanimously earlier this month to disaffiliate, and the congregation had voted 951-93 in June to seek dismissal from the national church, believing it had strayed from biblical authority and no longer fully adhered to classical Christian doctrines.

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For nearly 23 years, Lisa Larges has sought to become a Presbyterian minister, but she has twice been formally rejected because of a long-standing ban on gay ordination by the Presbyterian Church USA.

But in what appears to be the first national test of a 2006 policy change by the church, Larges, of San Francisco, has moved a step closer to joining the clergy.

After a debate that lasted deep into the night Tuesday, the San Francisco Presbytery, a regional governing body of the national church, voted 167 to 151 to support Larges’ application for ministry, despite opponents’ warnings that the action violated the church’s constitution and would immediately be appealed.

“I’m in shock,” Larges, 44, said Wednesday. “I still feel stunned, honestly, and deeply grateful both to the folks who supported me and to the presbytery for stepping up.”

The Presbyterian Church USA, the nation’s largest Presbyterian group with 2.3 million members, is among many mainline Protestant denominations that are struggling to reconcile conflicting beliefs on biblical authority and the role of gays in the church. In some, including the Episcopal Church, the divide is so deep that many fear it may tear denominations apart.

Read it all.