Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jackk@elaine21.stanford.edu (Jack Kouloheris) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sexism in the church?? Message-ID: Date: 5 Apr 91 08:49:29 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Stanford University - AIR Lines: 55 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article mib@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes: >In article tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) writes: > > Just last night I was speaking to a good clergy friend. Once again, she > has had to deal with someone (clergy of a different denomination) > questioning her call. > > Her first question. "Could he refuse his calling?" When he replied > that he couldn't, she asked him how he could ask her to refuse hers. > > After that, she made him the invitation she has made to others who have > questioned her calling. "Come, and hear me preach. And then we'll > discuss whether or not my calling is genuine." She's never been taken > up on this invitation. > >Hmmm...this story echoes the past of several gay ministers I know. In >fact, it echoes it almost exactly in one case. > > -mib When the ELCA Northern California/ Northern Nevada synod was considering whether or not to allow the ordination of a lesbian couple and a gay man, I asked the bishop why he was acting to oppose the call these three people obviously felt. The call must have been extremely powerful for these people and the calling congregations (which were not predominantly gay) to persist in the face of so much opposition from the hierarchy. I added that *I* would not want to be in the position of opposing the work of the Spirit in such a call, and wondered why he would be. He answered that it was the job of the church to evaluate such calls to see if they are valid. He forbid the ordination. The three were subsequently irregularly ordained with over 100 clergy from Lutheran and other denominations participating in the laying on of hands. In this case and in the case of the ordination of women, people of color, etc. I think the Spirit is leading the church into a new understanding of God's love for all of humanity. When we set ourselves up to oppose the Spirit's work, we tread on dangerous ground. Jack ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise. -- Isaiah 43:18-21