Feeddoes the episcopal church in USA officially accept gay people?
June 30, 2012 in Episcopal Church Tags: accept, Church, Episcopal, officially, people
Question by simple2012: does the episcopal church in USA officially accept gay people?
or just it depends of the episcopal church since they are divided in this topic.. I heard this church is splitting in many churches because this issue is that true? will survive the original episcopal church?
Best answer:
Answer by AJ
I don’t know if that’s true or false, but the Bible doesn’t change and it still says that homosexuals, just like any other sinner that doesn’t become a Christian and change their ways, will go to Hell.
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June 30th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Most US Episcopal churches do. What splitting was going to happen has mostly already happened. Other denominations are also fully accepting, including ELCA (Evangelical Lutherans), United Church of Christ, most independent Catholic churches, and some Pentecostal denominations, like GAAAP (Global Alliance of Affirming Apostolic Pentecostals) and RPI (Reconciling Pentecostals International). There are also affirming Baptist organizations, an affirming Mormon denomination, and various others.
June 30th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
I’ve attended services at many different Episcopal churches. The local congregations here are very gay-friendly. Some of the most active and well-respected parishioners are openly gay. I keep hearing about all these supposed schisms, but I’ve lived in a lot of places, and haven’t seen all of the division. Yes, there are at least two breakaway churches in this region, but they didn’t break away because of the gay issue; they broke away a long time ago because they objected to ordaining women as priests. They also won’t use the modern edition of the Book of Common Prayer. Anyway, the media kept predicting that when Bishop Robinson was ordained, there would be a mass exodus from the Episcopal Church. I later asked a priest at a rather large church how many parishioners he lost because of it. Only one person left, meaning that the thousands of other congregants stuck around. At any rate, there are some people and groups who will leave the church because of it, but on the whole, I’ve found most Episcopalians to be very tolerant toward the gay community.
June 30th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Not really, but sort of.
Each diocese in ECUSA is really an independent entity (same as all Anglican dioceses). They do band together for various things, but while gays are accepted in some areas, it is not universal. The bishops are well aware that if they do, they may well be kicked out of the Anglican Communion – something very, very close to happening.
You can certainly be gay and go to church. Some places will ordain gay priests, and a couple even bishops. This is quite controversial though, and not yet settled there. Canada is similar, although acceptance is much less overall. Other than that, the rest of the world pretty much condemns it (to greater or lesser degrees).
June 30th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
yes, they do. They ordain them, marry them, etc