Presbyterians issue draft report on gay debate

[kweerwolf]

Presbyterians should look beyond the simple for-and-against positions in their ongoing dispute over homosexuality, according to a long-awaited draft report advising the Louisville-based denomination on how to deal with its deep divisions over the issue.

"The church should seek constructive, Christ-like alternatives to the 'yes/no' forms in which questions about sexuality, ordination and same-gender covenantal relationships have been put to the church in recent decades," said the report, prepared by a task force that's been meeting for the past four years.

The draft portions of the report, released last week, are subject to revision and represent only part of its final report. Next month, the task force is expected to release a draft of formal recommendations to the denomination.

The drafts released so far are heavy on advice on how Presbyterians could learn to live with each other despite deep differences over theology and sexuality -- as the ideologically diverse members of the task force itself have been doing.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050724/NEWS01/507240429

[I Have A Dream]

1. Thanks for posting this, kweerwolf.

It surprises me how few churches approach things in "Christ-like" ways. Good for the people who wrote this report.

[kweerwolf]

2. The Presbyterians are using the middle ground on this issue.

As much as I appreciate the more liberal stances taken by Unitarian Universalists, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers and others, sometimes I fear those decisions really rattle the mainstream denominations.

I appreciate the fact that the Prebyterians are rejecting the black/white, good/bad, yes/no answers on this issue. In the long run their deliberations will be far less polarizing than decisions made by either liberal or conservation denominations.

[I Have A Dream]

3. Yes, I agree.

It's like a "normal" middle-of-the-road heterosexual person being friends with homosexual people. It makes it "OK" in other middle-of-the-road heterosexual people's eyes to do the same. It takes the most courage to do it first -- after that the sheep have an easier time following.

Why do so many people not mind being sheep? :shrug: