this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
10 points (100.0% liked)

World News

22023 readers
128 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.


Guidelines for submissions:

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.


For US News, see the US News community.


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
all 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I have a pretty unique perspective on this as someone who's worked in churches my entire adult life. Probably the hardest interview question I've ever been asked--across both technical and non-technical interviews--was when I was interviewing to be the organist at a large UMC church in early 2019, right before the General Conference vote that set all of this off. They basically summarized the situation to me and then asked if I was comfortable coming into the position not knowing which way the vote would go. In many ways, this question felt like asking if I had principles and if I was willing to stick to them. As a progressive person, I had to really think about if I'd be ok being in a place where I wouldn't be allowed to play for a same-sex wedding.

That church's senior pastor was one of the leading figures in the movement to affirm LGBTQ members. We quietly performed at least one same-sex marriage while I was there, which was technically in defiance of the denomination's restrictions. Since then, I've moved to one of the most prominent progressive mainline Protestant megachurches in the US. We've had long standing partnerships with many LGTBQ organizations, and we do lots of tangible things for all sorts of underrepresented communities. We had a visiting trans pastor speak about a month ago, and they received an instant ovation from the congregation.

My point in all of this is that it frustrates me to see comment sections like much of this one where people insist that every church is a highly regressive place. As someone who's in the closed door meetings, I promise you that there are many that are not, and it's not just all a ploy to try to stay relevant in today's society. Some places really do support these causes because they believe in them.

(As a footnote, I'll say that I don't like to talk about my religious views online, as it might put me in a weird position with my current and potential future employers. An acquaintance of mine wrote a great blog post that sums up my feelings well.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A lot of these pastors have to be looking at their steadily declining congregations and thinking maybe it's not the kids who are wrong, after all.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That requires at least a mediocre amount of critical thinking skills and those are taboo in religious organizations, so doubt it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

No doubt the pro-hate faction considers this a win, seeing it as a purification of the church.

So be it. Let them rot in their spotless echo chambers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm confused. Is the fifth the pro or the anti LGBTQ part? Probably the former though.

“I don’t think any of us want to see any of our churches leave,” he said. “We’re called to be the body of Christ, we’re called to be unified. There’s never been a time when the church has not been without conflict, but there’s been a way we’ve worked through that.”

Well, here's the thing: you either move with the times or you get left behind. The German Catholic Church is in a similar trifle with Rome since recent years. IIRC it's over letting women and married people be priests. Rome still follows a hardline NO on that but what they don't get is that it's not really up to them. This is no longer a niche opinion in Germany that you can squash from on high. The church's stance is the niche opinion now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not so United I guess