ABCNW Human Secuality policy & divorce

[Haruo]

I understand ABCNW leadership has been trying to impose some sort of creedal statement on the churches of that region, woth the result that some there qho had not previously done so are considering joining Evergreen. I gather the church that has moved farthest along in the process is Urban Grace, aka/formerly FBC Tacoma. That church, as I understand (this is all very much hearsay) hired an openly gay music minister, and was told by the region that that action constituted a severance of relationship with the ABCNW. I was just looking at to see if there was anything there to shed light on this stuff, and I found their regional . Reading it, it occurred to me that it rather clearly indicates that divorce (let alone divorce and remarriage) disqualifies a minister from recognized ordination in that region. However (and this strikes me as an unconscionable inconsistency) by omitting the phrase "or any other practices that are contrary to God's creation intent as defined above" from the final paragraph, they keep from having to automatically sever relationship with any church that hires a divorced music minister. Which, I think, gives the lie to much of the preceding verbiage in the document.

Haruo

[Haruo]

So now this has been viewed 33 times and nobody has ventured a reply. I really am interested in whether the inconsistency I see between the document's treatment of divorce (and remarriage, though that's an extra) vs. GLBT hiring or affirmation. And I don't see how that inconsistency can do other than violence to the preceding paragraph on violence. I'm sorry we don't seem to have any ABCNWers here, but I would think Ed ought to be able to give a cogent (if orthographically challenged*) response. Maybe I'll cross post to ThinkingBaptists.com and see if Art wants to tackle it.

Haruo

* I can misspell, too, obviously, and did so in the thread title...

Haruo

[Haruo]

See, Ed, I already posted on this a year ago.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Haruo, neither link in your post is loading. The Main region seems to ignore applications from women. Trudy and a few other women we know have answered their listing in the MOL (Ministry opportunity listings) with no reply, or simply, This does not seem to be an appropriate opening for your experience, or some similar wording. I am not sure how many churches have opposition to divorced ministers. But they are not rare. So I guess we will never get a call to ABCMain or ABCNW. In our understanding Divorce is forgivable and when one has repented and been forgiven, remarriage is permissible. Previous practice of homosexuality is also forgivable when repented of. I know that latter expectation is offencive to some but that is where I am.

And I have never been married to more than one woman at a time. #1. 20 years marriage and a div.
#2. 18 years thus far with a 17 year gap between. Had a lot of time to figure out what went wrong and FWIW, #1 is deceased.

I will add, Divorce may or may not have anything to do with sex.

And I am not going further on my theology of forgiveness in this thread.

[Haruo]

Yeah, ABC-NW.org seems to be down today. Permanently? Don't know. I'll see if I can find a copy of their statement someplace. It was written to make sure churches in the Region didn't have the freedom to call whom they believed God was calling to their ministerial positions. It was also (inadvertently or by design) written so that both divorced and homosexual pastors could be construed as violating the definition, but only the latter would actually trip the exclusionary clause's trigger. Very weird, I found it.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Haruo]

Both highly plausible excuses.