The Evangelical Fellowship Conference 2017 is now just a week away:
Pretoria – The furore over the Anglican church’s decision to reject same-sex marriage looks likely to intensify, with its Pretoria region the latest to voice its unhappiness with the decision.
The matter was an issue of heated debate among delegates during the three-day conference that began on Thursday. Pretoria region is among the biggest regions in South Africa.
Current political and economic crises in the country, including state capture and corruption, as well as social problems, were also raised at the conference.The dissent by Pretoria comes almost a year after the Anglican Church of Southern Africa decided that it would not allow bishops to “provide prayers of blessing to be offered for those in same-sex civil unions”. Following that resolution during a debate in Ekurhuleni, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba expressed his disappointment at the move, saying he was “deeply pained by the outcome of the debate”.
“I was glad I wear glasses or the synod would have seen tears. I wanted to be anywhere but in the synod hall – I wished I was quietly home in Magoebaskloof,” he said at the time.
Source: More ructions in Anglican church over same-sex marriage |
A MELBOURNE priest has come under fire for demanding his flock vote no in the upcoming same-sex marriage survey and for allegedly saying gay people should be shot.Parishioner Liz Tasiopoulos claimed the comments were made by the priest at a service she attended at a Greek Orthodox Church in south eastern Melbourne on Father’s Day.She told news.com.au the language used was especially hurtful as it came during a service which included a memorial for a woman who had committed suicide because she had struggled with her own sexuality.“The priest was screaming at us [that same-sex marriage] was blasphemy. The comments were so hurtful I couldn’t stop crying,” Ms Tasiopoulos said.
Source: Gay marriage: Greek Orthodox priest under fire for pushing no vote in Melbourne
A perspective on the Nashville Statement, from Integrity USA (the LGBT Episcopal group)
In Nashville in October of 2014, I joined about fifteen LGBTQ people who were invited to a closed-door, off-the-record conversation with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. I was disappointed, this week, to recognize the names of many from that meeting on the list of anti-LGBTQ evangelical leaders who drafted the “Nashville Statement,” a comprehensive fundamentalist Christian manifesto on sexuality and gender.
That 2014 meeting went late into the night, and the discussion was intense. What I remember most clearly were the pleas and tears of some of these men in attendance (all of them were men) begging us to understand that they didn’t hate LGBTQ people––saying how much it hurt them to have people call them “bigots” and “homophobes.”
We ended the evening having all promised more kindness, more listening, more respect, and more dialogue, and I, perhaps naively, hoped both sides were sincerely committed to those goals moving forward.
Full report at Walking With Integrity
Evangelical leaders in the U.S. released “The Nashville Statement” earlier this week to make clear their opposition to LGBT equality. A prominent Catholic priest has responded by affirming the goodness of LGBT people. The contrast between these two statements reveals just how far Catholic LGBT issues have come.
“The Nashville Statement,” drafted by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, issues a series of affirmations and denials about sexuality. These include rejecting marriage equality and denying that “adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.”
Full report Bondings 2.0
It took Uniting Church Reverend Ric Holland only about two minutes to place a rainbow-coloured marriage equality sign out the front of St Michael’s Church in Melbourne’s CBD.
By the time he had finished, a crowd of more than a dozen people had gathered at the gates of the Collins Street church.
Standing in the middle of the crowd was a young gay man who asked the reverend: “So, do you reckon you could marry me?”
“I couldn’t help myself, I told him ‘Of course, it would mean a tremendous amount to me to marry you’,” Reverend Holland said.
Full report: The Age
This interview was conducted on August 4. It introduces our readers to Father Martin’s Building a Bridge, released earlier this year. The first part of his book expands upon a lecture that he delivered last year to New Ways Ministry in the wake of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando.]
In publishing this interview the editors of Orthodoxy in Dialogue ask if such a conversation as Father Martin advocates is possible and necessary in the Orthodox Church.
GIACOMO: Father Jim, thanks so much for making the time to discuss your new book with me. You and I share a concern that our respective Churches adopt a more pastorally responsive approach to questions of same-sex love. (See my recent articles here, here, and here.)
FATHER JIM: It’s my pleasure to talk with you. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak more about this outreach to our LGBT Catholic brothers and sisters.
Full interview at ORTHODOXY IN DIALOGUE
Die beiden großen Konfessionen Australiens haben sich im Kampf gegen die Öffnung der Ehe für gleichgeschlechtliche Paare zusammengetan: Die anglikanische Diözese und die katholische Erzdiözese von Syndney haben am Montag gemeinsam mit homophoben Lobbygruppen wie der “Australian Christian Lobby” (ACL) und der “Marriage Alliance” die “Coalition for Marriage” gegründet. Sie wollten damit für die “schweigende Mehrheit” sprechen, die am Ehe-Verbot für Schwule und Lesben festhalten wolle.
Source: queer.de
I am a Christian, a person deeply formed by the Church and its gospel. Even more, I am a Baptist minister. For the past 35 years I have given my life to understanding, living and proclaiming the message of Jesus. It is because of this, not in spite of it, that I’ll be voting “yes” in the upcoming plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
There is nothing that goes to the heart of human identity as much as our sexuality. It is that God-given reminder, persistent and powerful, that we are made for relationship — intimate, covenant relationship. When our need for intimate communion with another human being is violated through the horrors of sexual abuse, cheapened through sexual infidelity, or invalidated through sacraments of love that exclude, it is not only our rights that are threatened, but our identity as those created in God’s image.
Full report: Sydney Morning Herald
At Greenbelt Festival this year, One Body One Faith featured Liz Edelman, author of Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know About Life and Love and How it can Revitalize Christianity.
As a follow-up to her Greenbelt appearance, One Body is hosting her at a series of meetings on tour, where she will be in conversation with Alison Webster.These appearances are all in cities accessible to Quest members in the London, South East, East Midlands and West Midlands regions. Both these women should be well worth hearing. We encourage Quest members to attend one of these meetings.
Full report: Quest
