Could you imagine if twitter accounts were set up just for your church & everyone live-tweeted comments as the sermon went on? Like the SOTU or the Oscars, but for church?
Think he used Tide on that? Its so green I’m blinkin over here
thats not whats keepin me awake
He didn’t shower?
OMG! Organist just let one rip! Look left & watch all the faces change!
Its like wind through wheat!
Toxic cloud through Linden more likely
That’s oddly fascinating.
How much trouble would it be to convert to Judaism in order to get married to someone who was an RA member? Is the exclusion to ethnic Jews or religious Jews only?
PCA? or PCUSA? or some other Presbyterian flavor? My father-in-law is a retired PCUSA minister, but he and my MIL attend a conservative church now (I think PCA but I’m not sure). The minister there is wacky - he doesn’t believe in celebrating holidays like Christmas because they’re not mentioned in the Bible.
Well, to be fair, the fault for the major defections falls on both sides. I’m pretty sure that the Presiding Bishop and the rest of the leadership could have made room for the most conservative members of the church to stay in good conscience, like they successfully did with women’s ordination. Unfortunately there were too many on both sides who took a ‘winner-take-all’ attitude to the whole conflict instead of the traditional Episcopal approach of ignoring disagreements and gossiping about the other side at the post-convention cocktail party.
It’s not easy to convert to Judaism. It’s a bunch of schooling required among other things and will take at least a couple of years no matter what branch. Once you convert (Jew by choice) you are considered as much, if not more, Jewish than a “Jew by birth.” If you are a Jew by birth, you are considered Jewish even if you’ve never participated in a Jewish ceremony or holiday in your life.
Last that I was aware, Reform Rabbis have the choice of whether or not to perform a wedding between a Jew and a non-Jew and about half will do it if you promise that the children will be raised in a Jewish home.
hajario answered the direct question, but I should clarify something. When I talk about an RA member, I’m referring specifically to a rabbi, not to Conservative Jews in general. The consequence to that rabbi for performing a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew can be expulsion from the Rabbinical Assembly. That does not mean the rabbi may not be the rabbi of a Conservative congregation, since congregations hire their own rabbis and can do what they want. The rabbi would not, however, be allowed to participate in the job search pool available to RA members, and might have a hard time finding a congregation.
So, if you are not a Jew by birth (by maternal descent), want to marry a Jew, and have the ceremony performed by a Conservative rabbi (who is a member of the RA), you must convert or have been converted in accordance with Conservative standards. A Reform conversion, by the way, may meet Conservative standards or may not, depending on the details of the conversion ceremony.
[/hijack]
The Church of Lapsed Eastern Orthodox That Only Go to Church for Weddings, Funerals, or if It Looks Like There is Good Festival Going On with Free Food and Alcohol, has taken a similiar position.
The United Church of Christ (cf. Skald #35) has, for quite a while, advocated acceptance. Probably by now those who object have left us. My cong. took a survey about the church’s life a few years ago; there were 2 people who objected to hospitality. Since I don’t know who they are, I don’t know if they are still with us.
Re: It’s also worth pointing that the decline in Episcopal church membership and attendance significantly predates the last ten years.
Oh, certainly.
I don’t know how much of a factor ‘sex/gender’ issues like gay marriage, women’s ordination, etc., played, as opposed to issues of (non-sex-related) theological liberalism, lower birth rates, and a variety of other factors. But it’s certainly true that the decline in the Episcopal Church is not new, and it parallels what has been happening in most mainline Protestant churches (and in the Catholic church, though there it is masked by immigration). Outside the evangelical non-denom churches, there aren’t really a lot of churches that are thriving now. Though of course that may change in future.
The decline of the Episcopal church predates the gay marriage controversy but it is stark to see how much it has accelerated recently. As has been pointed out upthread it took 40 years for attendance to decline by one third and then it drops by one quarter in just a decade. You would think they have already run off everybody but the hardcore, but the still manage to lose people.
In my heart I am A of G but I currently attend a Baptist church and neither church seems likely to change doctrine about this. The parable of the wheat and tares is playing out before us.
Just anecdotally, but I suspect the decrease in mainstream religious participation from traditional Christian sects has less to to with social issues and more to do with social events.
Everyone I know who has left their mainstream protestant faith for a non-denominational mega church has done so for the social opportunities - i.e. youth groups that go skiing, quilting circles, book groups, theatre and musical opportunities. Get a few thousand people together, many of them with kids still at home, many of them young adults - and you get a lot more opportunities for events than you do when your congregation is 600 people, and the core group of people active in the church are retirees.
UUs have had pretty strong growth over the past decade, and I suspect THAT has more to do with social issues - both the UU emphasis on social justice AND the demographics - its a place where a Jew and a Christian can marry, raise a family, attend a Passover Dinner and a Christmas Eve service. Or a Christian and an atheist can go to church, send their kids to Sunday School and never have them hear that Dad is going to hell (and Dad is likely to find like minded people within the congregation if he looks). Because most UU congregations aren’t large enough to offer quilting circles and ski trips.
I remembered this thread while reading a couple of interesting articles about evangelical churches in the US, and thought I’d resurrect it.
In brief: one argument raised by a couple of posters (five years ago) had to do with the struggles of mainline Protestant groups in the US, notably the Episcopalians: graying congregations, dwindling membership. Some commenters were attributing the decline to these churches’ overall acceptance of marriage equality and willingness to support LGBT people…a bridge too far, apparently, causing people to leave in droves.
And that may have been true back in 2014, I don’t know for sure (though I had my doubts, expressed upstairs). But here are two articles – Evangelical Christians Helped Elect Donald Trump, but Their Time as a Major Political Force Is Coming to an End and https://religionnews.com/2017/09/06/embargoed-christian-america-dwindling-including-white-evangelicals-study-shows/ – that say the same trends are clearly happening in white evangelical churches, which are of course the polar opposite of Episcopal (overall) acceptance of gays and lesbians.
Couple of stats from the articles: in 2008, 21% of Americans described themselves as evangelical; today it’s 15%. The congregations are growing old fast: the average evangelical is 55 years old. Only about 10% of those under 30 call themselves evangelical.
What’s especially interesting in regard to this thread is the reasons people have for leaving the evangelical churches. One researcher, quoted in the Newsweek source, specifically cites “negative treatment of gay and lesbian people” as a major reason why attendance has dwindled, especially among younger people.
So, maybe until 2014 the critics were right and acceptance of gays and lesbians did play a role in the struggles of the Episcopal and other like-minded churches. But the shoe is now pretty clearly on the other foot, as it’s apparent that OPPOSITION to same-sex marriage and acceptance of gays and lesbians is now costing white evangelical churches dearly. What a difference five years makes, huh?
To go back to the United Methodist front, what’s happening is that the church is global and Same-Sex Marriage is largely a Western issue. If it were just white western churches, it would be a done deal pro-gay marriage. As it is though, African and Asian churches strongly, strongly oppose it. We’re not a church like the Catholics where you just make a ruling and everyone has to fall in line. The laws of the church are changed via representatives chosen by popular vote of the membership. We have some conferences and churches that are very, very strongly in favor of SSM and some that are strongly opposed and it’s a struggle to see where there is middle ground. A big one right now are Korean United Methodists who feel that if the church supports SSM, Koreans will completely dissociate. The African Church is similar.
The recommended path from the Board of Bishops right now is called the ‘One Church Path’ where each church, conference and pastor gets to make its own decision. The worry is that pastors are assigned from central conferences and since they get freedom of choice Korean churches don’t want to get assigned a pro-SSM pastor and they are terrified of getting a pro-SSM bishop. There will be a conference and vote on the matter in February and I look for at least some churches to dissociate regardless of the outcome. A couple of southern megas have already pulled out of the denomination simply because we’re discussing it.
My church, as far as I can tell, remains firmly opposed to SSM. I don’t know if my church belongs to any official denomination or not.
Is that meant to be some sort of rebuttal to TokyoBayer’s (four year old) post? Because it seems to support his contention in all significant respects.
Also:
The Mormon Church spent $180,000 to strip me of my rights. That is neither kind, nor civil.
Not a rebuttal at all, just some additional context. I saw the thread pop up on the “New Posts” list and didn’t realize TokyoBayer’s post was so old.
I don’t disagree but have to point out that correlation does not prove causality – attendance at ALL churches is down, particularly mainstream Protestant, whether they for or against gay marriage.
There is some sorting between RC and Episcopal wherein the uncomfortable find refuge in the other church.
The Roman Catholic Church in the US is being buoyed up by immigrants, mainly Latino but also from Asia and Africa. Without them, it would be in the same boat.
And, even in the West (particularly in the US), it’s a divisive issue between the churches in the northern and western US, and those in the south / southeast, which tend to be much more conservative, and have helped to lead the opposition to changes to the Book of Discipline (and the associated potential legitimization of SSM).
I haven’t been a member of the UMC for long, so please feel free to correct me if I’m getting it wrong, but it’s been my understanding that it’s been conservative Methodist groups from the southern U.S. which have helped to galvanize the African and Asian Methodists against the issue.
Our congregation, in suburban Chicago, became a Reconciling Congregation a couple of years ago. Ironically enough, our lead pastor at the time that we made that decision was from Kenya (and she, herself, was the daughter of a Methodist minister), though she strongly supported the decision. Both of our current pastors are actually from Korea (though both attended seminary in the US, and are quite liberal).
But, overall, yes, I agree with you – I have a hard time seeing a way forward that won’t lead to a significant segment of the church disassociating itself with the UMC, if not an outright schism.
Mainline Protestants tend to skew liberal or moderate. Moderates have no place in our Internet driven world and liberals feel that God has no place here either. It has destroyed attendance. Not that there aren’t still mainlines out there. Some of us liberals still like God and there are people who still enjoy the middle and agree to disagree, but there aren’t nearly as many of us as there used to be.
I’m not religious but in the local church which my sister-in-law attends, AFAIAA gay marriage came in and nobody gives a damn as long as the two celebrants love each other.