Last year, United Methodist Church (UMC) officials announced that Drew Phoenix would be able to continue in his position at a Baltimore area church. For years, Phoenix was known as Minister Ann Gordon, until she had a sex-change operation and became Drew Phoenix. Church officials are aware of at least two other former pastors who had sex-change operations. Mark Tooley with the Institute on Religion and Democracy says the issue will have to be addressed. "The church does not have any official stance on sex-change operations or transsexuality," states Tooley. "And so ... the church needs to adopt an official stance -- because we have had a couple of instances of Methodist clergy who have had sex-change operations that have become public knowledge." Tooley says the question that will be debated in an upcoming meeting of the UMC is whether gender is determined by God as a "fixed state," or whether gender -- "as many of those on the liberal side assert," he says -- is self-determined. The General Council of the UMC meets next month in Texas, and delegates will draft church policy for the next four years. Source: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=69017
No comments:
Post a Comment