NEW BISHOP: HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT SIN

New US church leader says

Homosexuality no Sin

Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:30pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.

Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual. "I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.

"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender." Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history.

The Eternal Gospel Herald Vol. 4 No. 7 - Html PDF

Source: http://www.eternalgospel.org/

Transgender man allowed to remain as church pastor

The Rev. Drew Phoenix, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church and a transgender person, stands outside the church on St. Paul Street. (Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor / October 30, 2007)

By Liz F. Kay Sun reporter

October 31, 2007

The highest judicial body of the United Methodist Church announced yesterday that a transgender man can remain pastor of a congregation in Charles Village.

The ruling by the Judicial Council affirms last spring's decision by Bishop John R. Schol to reappoint the Rev. Drew Phoenix -- formerly the Rev. Ann Gordon -- to St. John's United Methodist Church.

Schol's action had been appealed to the Judicial Council by several local clergy in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, who have raised questions about the proper role of transgender people within the church. ...

Story continues at link below-

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Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.minister31oct31,0,3137806.story

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Are these the type of churches and pratices that the Modern-Day Seventh Day Adventist Corporate Church wants to embrace and emulate??? Is this Present Truth? Is this our distinctive mission?

---I'll allow the Spirit of Prophecy texts to address those concerns:

[Rev. 18:1-3, quoted.] While this message is sounding, while the proclamation of truth is doing its separating work, we as faithful sentinels of God are to discern what our real position is. We are not to confederate with worldlings, lest we become imbued with their spirit, lest our spiritual discernment become confused and we view those who have the truth and bear the message of the Lord from the standpoint of the professed Christian churches. At the same time we are not to be like the Pharisees and hold ourselves aloof from them.--EGW'88 1161 (1893). {LDE 84.3}

Standard after standard was left to trail in the dust as company after company from the Lord's army joined the foe and tribe after tribe from the ranks of the enemy united with the commandment-keeping people of God.--8T 41 (1904). {LDE 182.3}

Last Day Events, Ellen G. White, PP. 84, 182.