Largest Presbyterian Denomination Gives Final Approval for Same-Sex Marriage

That’s PCUSA, not PCA. 2nd tag is wrong.
PCUSA is a mainline denom. PCA is conservative evangelical.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-to-tell-the-difference-be…

To me, the scariest thing is not that they’ve done this. The scariest thing IMO is the rhetorical and logical hoops you’ve got to go through to get to the conclusion—they are just huge.

The bright side is that smart people who know Christ will tend to see through it very quickly. I give it five years before membership is below a million.

From the article:

“Some of us are calling it liberation day,” said the Rev. William Blake Spencer, pastor of Ocean Heights Presbyterian Church in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., who is gay and voted with his presbytery on Tuesday. “It will be the last L.G.B.T.Q. issue that we debate and fight about, and finally our welcome comes without a ‘but’ or an ‘if.’”

Prediction: No, it won’t be “the last LGBTQ issue that we debate and fight about,” as the LGBTQetc. “community” will press for other changes to official doctrine and church practice.

Regarding conservatives in the mainline denominations, I can see trying if there is no alternative, but reality is (I grew up Methodist, I know whereof I speak) that as long as the bishops think they can get away with sending the very liberal graduates of their main seminaries, they will re-stock the pool of theological liberalism. The main bright spot in Methodism today (apart from the non-UMC denominations and associations of course) is that many churches have shrunk so much they cannot afford a seminary graduate. Hence they get lay pastors who will work for peanuts and are generally evangelical in their theology.

I would guess that the ELCA, UCC, and PCUSA are going to be at that point soon if they are not already. Another bright spot in the UMC was something I observed while my mother was fighting cancer; facing death, she not surprisingly increased her interest in the Scriptures, and it was interesting that none of the books she bought was from Methodist sources. To be blunt about the matter, there are only so many ways you can say “we don’t believe what the Scripture says” before the whole schtick gets old.

So Jim’s right. If liberal theology is not dead, it’s on life support for good reason. The big thing we fundagelicals need to watch out for is that we make sure that the rates fleeing the ship don’t get teaching positions with us before we make sure they’re orthodox.

[Jim]

Long since apostatized. Along with most mainline protestants.

• I sometimes hear a glimmer of the gospel in some United Methodist churches
• But these denominations really are no longer Christian except in name only

You’re more fortunate than me. The last UMC service I attended (a funeral) ended with this statement by the pastor (easily in his 60’s) referencing what a fine person the deceased was—“I’m not one to assign a person to Heaven or to Hell. All I can say is if she didn’t make it in then the rest of us should just quit trying.”

I know I was comforted……………:(