AMERICAN BAPTISTS: BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO ...

... especially when you are a recognized "mainline denomination." Homosexuality has once again driven a wedge between a group of conservatives and their main denominational body.

A conservative regional body within the American Baptist Churches announced last week that it may withdraw from the national denomination over “irreconcilable” differences on homosexuality. [...]

At the heart of the conflict lies what leaders of the Pacific Southwest say is the unwillingness of the national denomination to enforce its official stance on homosexuality.

This has always amused me: on the one hand, churches are involved in the most important work on earth and yet, on the other hand, they reckon to be the only organizations on earth incapable of enforcing the constitutions and by-laws they adopt.

However, despite the adoption of [an anti-homosexual] statement, the denomination did not clamp down on individual churches with an affirming view of homosexuality. Instead, when such local churches were “dis-fellowshipped” by conservative district (such as four congregations in the Pacific Southwest), the national church allowed them to remain as part of the denomination by aligning with more liberal districts outside their region.

Folks, the Pacific Southwest of the ABC includes Southern California, second only to Sodom Sinfrisco in coddling homosexuals and their agenda. And SoCal is permeated with liberalism and is 99.44% pure democratic.

The Board of Directors of the Pacific Southwest recommended on Dec. 8 that the regional body of 300 churches end all formal relationships with the 1.3-million-member American Baptist Churches USA.

I live near a conservative-evangelical ABC church; and if the others in the ABCPSW are like that one, it's no wonder they're moving to break the tie that binds.

Stakes were raised when in 1990, a group now known as the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists were allowed to table an exhibit at the denomination’s biennial convention. Since then, pockets of conservatives rallied for the denomination to clearly state its view on homosexuality – an effort that resulted in the 1992 statement on homosexuality.

Welcoming and Affirming is just a euphemism for "throw the rules and the bible out, anything goes."

Read about it all at the Barking Dog.

American Baptists; Christianity; Church decay; Homosexuals; Mainline denominations; Religion