[The Rev. Erwin Barron, a college professor in San Francisco whose church credentials remain with the Presbytery of the Twin Cities [Minnesota] Area, faced a 2 1/2-hour trial before a presbytery panel of six at Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington. After almost three hours of closed deliberations, the panel split 3-3. A two-thirds vote was required for conviction, which lawyers said could have led to defrockment.
“I’m relieved,” Barron said. “I wish it was more definitive. … The decision is not clear for the church.”
[blockquote]At issue was whether Barron violated the church constitution, which says that church officers must “live either in fidelity with the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers.”[/blockquote]
I don’t see how this could have deadlocked. The wording seems clear enough.
Nor can this reader see how the decision is “not clear.” Interpreting what he did and where this leads ain’t rocket science.
Of note is Dr. Barron’s degree in “Christian ethics.”
why in the world would they have 6 and not 7 deciding? that’s just inviting a draw.
Why is homosexuality and all its dreary kindred winning all the battles, even the ones the they obviously shouldn’t win at all at all at all? Little by little I am feeling like a stranger in a strange land. It may not be easy being green, but it is less easy being straight. How do i get home?
Larry
Larry: Ditto for me. The USA is getting stranger and stranger. And what will it be in another 50 years. Kyrie eleison. Statmann
i’m with you larry, just think about the last WWI vet who died at 110 this week and all the changes he saw! he started out when we were at our best and now…quite sad really.