Fremont Presbyterian Church & others leaving Sacramento Presbytery: good and gracious plans

Most of this posting will be about the good direction taken by the Presbytery of Sacramento and Fremont Presbyterian Church's negotiations. I will also add some other information about two other churches in the presbytery. I see people searching for information on my feed about Fremont and think that now that much of the work has been done, and it is good work, that others will both benefit from the work and will be able to let go of a bad beginning.

A good summary of the outcome of the negotiations can be found here:  Fremont Presbyterian Church. While both the congregation (Oct 28, 2012) and the Presbytery of Sacramento, (Nov. 10, 2012) have yet to vote on a final approval both the session of Fremont and the Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry have approved.  Here are some of the highlights.

Fremont will join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and keep their property. They will pay the Presbytery $500, 000 over a period of ten years or a one time payment of $325, 000. The members who did not wish to join the EPC will be given office space and the chapel in which to have services for ten years. They will be allowed use of Fremont’s nursery and their children may attend the Sunday school.
 

The goals of the negotiating team were and are:

Result is God-honoring

Result reflects well on Christians to the community

Relief is provided to those who desire to change denominations (to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church – EPC)

Care is provided to those who want to stay in the PC (USA)

Agreement is accepted by both the Fremont congregation and by the Sacramento Presbytery 

The agreement fulfills all of those goals. A more detailed agreement can be found here: Dismissal Agreement and License Agreement. Be in prayer for all of the parties concerned that Christ will be honored.
 

There are two other Churches which have recently left the Sacramento Presbytery. In Weed California a small town at the far northern end of our Presbytery, Grace Presbyterian Church and their pastor, Jim Howe, have transferred to the EPC.

In Vacaville, California, Covenant Community Church has moved to a different presbytery, one that better fits their vision and theological outlook, that is Stockton Presbytery. The Pastor is Derek Richman. This was voted on by the Church, the Presbytery, the Synod of the Pacific and finally by the 220 GA.

All of these Churches and people are dear friends of mine and I will miss them very much. But I am very grateful that God has placed them in just the right places for their ministries. One of the interesting parts of this I have not mentioned is that Pastor Don Baird of Fremont is going to the EPC while Pastor Dan Willson of Fremont will go to ECO (A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians). 

Writing words of disbelief on our hearts

Today, October, 18, the Presbyterian News Service posted an article, Cycle of attacks on Holy land Churches continues: Third vandalism incident in a month; Israeli settlers suspected. The author Kelly Baker, who is now living in Palestine, goes on to write of a monastery door being set on fire, tires slashed and some homes in Jerusalem being vandalized. Yet, the place I want to aim at is the matter of some extremely bad messages being written on the monastery and several churches such as “Jesus is a monkey” and “Jesus is a son of a whore.” Also Jesus is dead.

But before I turn the conversation the direction I am turning it, which will have nothing to do with either Palestinians or Jewish settlers, I want to say this is horrid. To attack anyone’s place of worship or home, be it Jewish, Muslim or Christian, is vile and whoever has committed these crimes should be punished.

But as I read this article I couldn't help thinking of all of the orthodox in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who too many times have their faith insulted by much of the same disbelief. Think about it; to say Jesus is the son of a whore is simply a crude way of saying that Jesus was not born of a virgin. To say that Jesus is dead is to say that Jesus was not bodily resurrected. To call Jesus a monkey is not so much worse than stating that Jesus is less than the Wisdom and Word of God.

At least the vandals understood that Jesus is the object of worship in the churches of the Holy Land. Many in our denomination fail to understand that it isn't just that Jesus has a way to follow—it is that he is the way—the only way.

Too many of us have sat in official denominational meetings, enduring such faithless sentiments by those who should have given us the meaty word of God. Too many of us have been harangued after such meetings because we stood up for the truth.

Recently I wrote an article on some faithless material being carried by The Presbyterian Leader.com. The title is Presbyterian Leadership.com-harming the little ones. The mix of authors used in the material carried all of the same sentiments written on the worship places in the Holy Land—just not with the same kind of crudeness written there, and surely not with the same kind of maliciousness.

The authors that were used deny the deity of Jesus and certainly deny the virgin birth. They deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They deny the uniqueness of Jesus. They deny the saving work of Christ. This is what too often the orthodox face, not from the world, their neighbors or their friends and family, but from their own denomination.

The progressives are not writing on our churches. They haven’t written Jesus is dead or there was no virgin birth on the doors of our faith communities. Rather they have written on our hearts with pins that cause great pain. And they have set fires, metaphorically speaking; fires that have driven dark smoke between us causing disunity and broken fellowship.

Kelly Baker and undoubtedly the PNS think that the messages left on the houses of worship in the Holy Land are insulting and wrong, as well they should. We all do. But what about the heresies that the orthodox hear continuously in the PC (U.S.A.)? The Lord of the church has been maligned and that is bad news.

Stand for Love: marriage without covenant or God as witness

This posting is a continuation of my exploration of Scripture and the MLP’s “Stand for Love,” a page where Presbyterian teaching elders can sign a list of those affirming that they have either married same gender couples or are willing to do so. There is also a place for ruling elders to sign, affirming the positions of the teaching elders. I refer to this as rebellion since it is against denominational polity including the Book of Confessions. More importantly it is anti-Christian, that is it is unbiblical.

There is a Scripture text most of us tend to avoid or ignore; we in fact turn our face away, because it seems to fail the test of Christian love. That is the book of Ezra and the ending which deals with the sin of the returning Jewish exiles marrying non-Jewish women. In the end a huge investigation and ritual occurs which separates the wives from their husbands. Acknowledging that Reformed theology considers ancient Israel God’s church, this text provides a picture of rebellion among God’s people and a lesson about repentance. Clarifying the problems of the text helps to clarify the problems and responses one ought to make toward the rebellion fomenting in the PCUSA.

The best place to begin is in answering the question, “Why did the Jewish men marry the non-Jewish women?” Next one needs an understanding of why this was considered so heinous a sin that it needed to be undone.

Most scholars believe that mostly men returned with Ezra to Jerusalem. These single men also felt the need for acceptance within the regional culture. They were after all exile members of a despised people. M.J. Boda, author of the article on Ezra in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, explains, quoting D. Smith-Christopher:

Sociological analysis of the phenomenon of mixed marriages leads D. Smith-Christopher to conclude in the case of Nehemiah [dealing with the same issue] that the ‘guilty’ are males who are presumably  attempting to ‘marry up’ to exchange their low status of ‘exile’ for participation in aristocratic society.[1]
 

 And to go further Smith-Christopher notes that “intermarriage was encouraged as imperial policy to consolidate the power of the ruling elite.”[2] In other words, the elite of the region would have encouraged the mixed marriages as a means of controlling the Jewish population.

A prophet who was almost a contemporary of Ezra, Malachi, spoke against both those males who had married foreign wives and those who had ‘divorced the wife of their youth.” According to Douglas Stuart, ‘wife of one’s youth’ means the wife promised by one parent of a child to the other parent of a child. Because it was between parents, who were equal in the eyes of God, it was a marriage of equality—both parties stood on equal ground before God. Such a marriage was considered a covenant marriage. [3]And the covenant was between those married and God who was witness to their marriage. 

If a Jewish man married a non-Jew who worshiped other deities the covenant was broken. The marriage would have as its witness the god and goddesses of the wife. And the equality of the two before God was lost.

So some of the exiles of Judah married women from the region who were probably well off and who were not followers of Yahweh. But the real problem lies in the context of Ezra and his people’s history as well as the law of God. The issue was faith not ethnicity.

Ezra was only removed from the original exile by around a hundred years. And the reason for their exile was clear to Ezra. Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed because of the unfaithfulness of the Jewish people. Many of their kings, beginning with Solomon, married foreign wives and incorporated their false worship, their god’s and goddesses, into the religious life of Israel and Judah. This not only affected the people’s relationship with their God, it utterly crushed the morals of their society. The burning of their own children to false gods and the practice of sexual religious rites are among the sins they committed.

The connection between past judgments of God and the sinfulness of the marriages can be seen in the prayer of Ezra:

Now our God what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you have commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, the land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land with the uncleanness of the peoples of the land, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end and with their impurity. So now do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters to your sons …
 

Ezra’s prayer which is much longer then the small amount I have quoted is key here. It is a confessional prayer that, like Daniel’s prayer, includes Ezra’s own confession of sin. It is a prayer that is so fervent in seeking the will and forgiveness of God that those who have sinned gather to Ezra in repentance.

 

So to bring the text and thoughts back to the rebelliousness of those participating in the More Light Presbyterian’s defiance, marriage in the Old Testament was a covenant arrangement between a man and a woman and God. Although it might at times contain romantic love it was not based on romantic love but on covenant.  And as such it held back the night of paganism. The exiles repented and put away their wives. Now we live in a time of completed grace.

The blood of Christ answers our repentance with the righteousness of Jesus. Paul, although he commands that believers “not be bound together with unbelievers,” encourages the believer to not divorce the unbeliever because the husband or wife has within them via the Holy Spirit, sanctifying power that has the possibility of transforming unbelievers. (2 Cor. 6: 14 & 1 Cor. 7:12-16) But God’s grace establishes the law, it does not destroy it. God has never in either the Old or New Testaments affirmed or allowed same gender marriage.

Therefore, New Testament rebellion, like contemporary rebellion, when it asks the Christian to participate in sin is horrific. Paul would have none of it. Open rebellion opens the door to all kinds of sins, and it also, for the sake of mercy, calls for the judgment of God. But before God’s judgment it calls forth from the believer the kind of prayer that Ezra prayed: confessional and intercessory. In the PC (U.S.A.) such prayer is truly the only answer left since, at least for now, the denominational courts and many leaders will not apply proper discipline. Like Ezra we can only cry ‘mercy’ God.

“O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before you in our guilt, for no one can stand before you because of this.”

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[1]Mark J. Boda, “Ezra,” Dictionary of the Old Testament: historical Books, Bill T. Arnold & H.G.M. Williamson, Editors, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press 2005) 282.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Douglas Stuart, “Malachi,” The Minor Prophets:  An Exegetical & Expository Commentary, Thomas Edward McComiskey, Editor, (grand Rapids: BakerAcademic 2006)

Stand for love: rebellion in leadership

I am concerned over the rebellion that is churning under the banner of More Light Presbyterians. They have set up a page for individual teaching elders to sign avowing that they have married same sex couples or are willing to do so. There is also a place for ruling elders and sessions to sign affirming the right of teaching elders to marry same sex couples. When someone pointed out to me that a teaching elder in Sacramento Presbytery was a part of the rebellion I started thinking of scriptural answers to such actions. With this posting I will begin writing about the issue.  

When the Protestant Church speaks of apostolic authority it is speaking of the authority of Scriptures. It is also connecting to a tradition of upholding the authority of Scripture. This succinctly outlines a tiny book of the Bible, that is, 3rd John. In this book John addresses, among other things, the problem of a renegade leader, someone who ignores both the love, teaching and authority of John. Therefore when one looks at the problem the apostle John was trying to correct in his third letter the content can surely be applied to the rising revolt of the teaching and ruling elders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

As ruling and teaching elders attempt to change the biblical teaching about same sex marriage, by rebellion against biblical teaching, the confessions and denominational polity, one can understand better the scriptural issues John raises. He is concerned with truth, love and obedience. For the denomination it would be obedience to scriptural authority as well as truth and love.

In the midst of praising Gaius, John writes:

I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church.

Beloved do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.” (9-11)

There are two problems here. Diotrephes loves being a leader but he is not listening to the teaching of an apostle. He leads while at the same time rejecting godly authority and truth. He accuses the apostle of wickedness and refuses to receive those who have come to him. Further he does not allow anyone else to receive them.

Diotrephes rejects the apostles teaching which comes via a letter.  John’s response is to say, if he comes to the church he will point out the evil—but he goes further he admonishes members of the church not to imitate their leader.

Diotrephes is evil but the members must remain good since they belong to God. (Conversely, Diotrephes is not of God.) So here is a single image of what is happening in multi-duplicate. At least close to 400 leaders in the PCUSA (it will undoubtedly grow) are leading while rejecting the authority of God’s word, the confessions and denominational polity. They are doing so to encourage others in the denomination to also reject biblical authority, confessional authority and denominational polity.

There are several contrasts that should be noted in the text. John R. Stott, in the Tyndale Commentary, points out that 1 & 2 John are a contrast in their problems yet point to the same truth. Hospitality must be extended to those who hold fast to truth, but it must not be extended to those who reject truth. The second contrast is between John’s friend Gaius, to whom the letter is written, and Diotrephes. Gaius walks in both love and truth, Diotrephes has neither. As Stott puts it, “Gaius was a balanced Christian. He held the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) He also loved in truth.”

To add to this Stott explains that those who were not received by Diotrephes were missionaries. And their message was concerned with truth. They went out “for the sake of the Name.” Stott writes:

There is no need for John to specify whose name is in his mind. For there is only one Name, exalted above all others (Phil. 2:9). Moreover, the ‘name’ of Jesus is the revelation of his divine-human person and saving work, and ‘jealousy’ for his name (zeal that it should receive the honour due it) is the most compelling of all missionary motives (cf. Rom. 1:5 and, for suffering for the name for the Name Acts 5:40-41).

Stott concludes that Diotrephes’ problem is not theological but moral. He loves himself above all else. But this means that his love of self causes him to reject John’s authority and to reject the messengers of the Name—those who preach Christ. In other words his unlawful authority even supersedes Christ’s authority and words. He loves himself over Christ. His push for his own rights held the possibility of destroying the church he led. As F.F. Bruce states:

Diotrephes, however, will have to answer for his behavior: the Elder [John] is no private individual, but one who is capable of speaking authoritatively to Diotrephes and to the church which he dominates. How far he could be sure of asserting his authority successfully cannot be determined, but presumably if Diotrephes could carry the church with him against the Elder their fellowship with the churches which did acknowledge the Elder’s authority would be endangered.[1]

If denominational courts and leaders do not step in and at least speak to the rebellion that is fomenting in the midst of the PCUSA, they care little for the unity of the denomination. Fellowship is broken, and it is both a moral issue and a theological issue.

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[1]F.F. Bruce, The Epistles of John, American Edition, (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing Company 1979) 153.

As Francis Schaeffer stated: He is Not Silent

I am thinking of the lord and the work he does in troubled generations, I'm placing some very old Jesus music in this posting. One of my very first experiences with the Warehouse Ministries was when Chuck Girard came to give a concert on a Saturday night. He played on and on-we finally, when it was over, left quieted, we were deeply blessed.


Two fellows from England came often to give concerts. God took these hurt young people, the hippies caught in a drug culture trapped in a promiscuous generation and gave them good news by way of new song writers who carried a prophetic message.




Somewhere, hopefully, is a college professor by the name of Famous-he was one of my professors during the Jesus Movement. Famous had moved a long way away from the Christianity he once professed. I remember during the Idi Amin rule in Uganda, taking a book to class with the title Why I Love Idi Amin; it was written by a bishop in Uganda who lost his fellow bishop to the henchmen of Amin. He understood that he must love because of Christ. Famous asked to see the book asking why the person had to love Amin. I told him it was because of Jesus. Later I took a couple of records and gave them to him. This is a song from one of them-for Famous and anyone else who will listen.




May this generation hear anew-the very good news of Jesus' love and redemption.

From Madison Avenue to Out of a Far Country : from darkness to light

After writing Madison Avenue or the Holy Spirit: conflicted Presbyterians and reading the book Out of a Far Country: A gay son’s journey to God. A broken mother’s search for hope, a lot of ‘avenues’ came together. I have taken some time to try and pull them together in one posting. What I see is a vast circle of darkness—materialism, greed and decadence coming together to prey on people whose hurts and loneliness have driven them into a lifestyle that breeds the same darkness and returns the favor to others. And the people, the community, gladly welcome each other until the misery becomes too deep and problematic. All the while Madison Avenue keeps pushing the darkness.

I wrote about the Arcus Foundation that now funds a lot of LGBT activities, afterwards I saw on their site a Florida group connected to the LGBT community and how they were giving out money to various Florida LGBT causes. The money was given by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force who itself receives money from the Arcus Foundation. But the Task Force makes a lot of its money from several activities; one in particular reminded me of the book Out of a Far Country. The activity is the Winter Party Festival, a huge multiple dance party held on the beaches of Miami.

The story in the book Out of a Far Country is about a mother who in anguish over finding that her son is gay also finds that she is a sinner who needs Jesus. The book is also about the son who not only embraces a gay identity but also embraces a lifestyle of multiple partners, huge gay dance parties and drugs. The parties he writes about are in Florida as well as other places and are like the ones described on the Winter Party Festival site. On their ‘about’ page the promoters of the WPF write:

Winter Party Festival has evolved into a week-long series of events benefiting the LGBT community nationally and locally. A portion of the nets proceeds of WPF support the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s efforts to take action, build power and create change for LGBT people. The majority of the proceeds are donated to local service organizations through a grant-making process administered by the Miami Foundation.

Within an advertisement, Winter Party Festival: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: Opportunities, meant to engage companies to economically support the Winter Party Festival are the financial demographics of the LGBT community. That part is self-demeaning. It is an encouragement for companies to financially support the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the WPF since, as they point out with their statistics, the LGBT community is mainly wealthy and “77 percent ‘believe in indulging themselves.” Among the layers of monetary commitments WPF suggests is an added VIP purchase, one called ‘Private Beach Cabana’-among the amities is this:

Cabana purchasers enjoy a hosted bar. The cabanas seat eight and include a variety of amenities, including a cabana boy, (or girl!) dedicated to your comfort, drinks and refreshments throughout the day.

Christopher Yuan, the gay son in Out of a Far Country writes of his first experience at such a party, but this one in Pensacola:

The dance floor was simply overwhelming. Huge, muscular dancers stood on pedestals, high above the crowd, and thousands of bodies, most with shirts off, gyrated to the music. Bars lined the outer edges of the bright and colorful dance floor, and bartenders sold mostly water to dehydrated partiers—high on Ecstasy—who danced and laughed with acquaintances and strangers alike. All around me people were hugging and having happy reunions with friends they hadn’t seen since the last circuit party they’d attended. …

Standing in the middle of the convention center floor I spread my arms wide and said, to nobody in particular, “This is heaven.”

Yuan’s friends gave him favors, companionship, fun, sex and drugs and he returned the favor. Eventually he started taking ecstasy and much harder stuff—he then begin selling and moving up into the world of parties and drugs, even jetting to parties-as well as planning his own—until he was arrested and imprisoned. Earlier he became sexually intimate with several partners who had AIDs and finally was infected himself. Like the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable Yuan came home. He became a Christian in prison. He even went to visit the chaplain about his same sex attraction.

Yuan writes of the idols in his life and how God worked to remove them. First it was drugs and then dance music which he felt would draw him back to drugs. Then it was his promiscuous sex. Finally, because of Scripture, he dealt with his homosexuality. The Chaplain told him it was okay to be gay and gave him a book to read. Yuan writes:

I sat in the chapel’s small courtyard to read, with the chaplain’s book in one hand and my Bible in the other. I had every reason in the world to accept the book’s assertion that God was okay with my homosexuality and gay identity. If I could be a Christian and have a steady relationship, with a man, that would be just about ideal. I’d go to church with him and maybe even start a family. It would be such a relief if this could all be reconciled.

But as I started reading the book and reading the Bible passages it referred to, God’s Holy Spirit convicted me that the assertions from that book were a distortion of God’s truth. Reading his Word, I couldn’t deny the unmistakable condemnations of homosexual sex.

But, finally, after giving over all of his idols to God, Yuan needed to sort out his identity. He had always seen his identity as a gay man. Yuan, using Acts 17:18 came to the conclusion that “Christ should be everything—my all in all.” He continues:

My sexual orientation didn’t have to be the core of who I was. My primary identity didn’t have to be defined by my feelings or sexual attractions. My identity was not “gay” or “homosexual” or even “heterosexual,” for that matter. But my identity as a child of the living God must be in Jesus Christ alone.”

There are a lot of contrasts in Yuan’s story and the advertising ploys of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Perhaps lessons for the church. In loud colors, thousands of male dancers gyrate on a YouTube video enticing companies such as Coca-Cola, Office Depot and Southwest to spend thousands of dollars in support of LGBT advocacy. In a prison in New York City in a small room where 40 Hispanic inmates sung Christmas songs to Dios—Señor, Yuan found his calling to preach, and that calling reinforced through a young man who took the time to see that new prisoners received their basic needs:

They brought me over to their locker where they had some stuff for me. They told me whenever guys first came to the unit, the church—this group of guys at 5 North—would give stuff to the new guys to help them get situated: shower slippers, toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap.

 

The malevolence is often loud and raunchy—the love of Christ often quiet and caring. The evil of this generation will keep pushing, attempting to build an empire, but the love of Christ held steady in the hearts of God’s people will become the haven needed for lost sheep. Materialism, greed, decadence—they can be traded for a Holy King who gives righteousness. Hurts and loneliness—the King was lonely and hurt, dying that all unrighteousness would be defeated and in its place the gift of abundant life.

Madison Avenue or the Holy Spirit: conflicted Presbyterians

Have you ever heard a progressive member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) suggest that with the passage of 10-A and the adopting of different moral standards the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing? Well, it turns out that instead of the Holy Spirit it was the Arcus Foundation funding a project put together by Fenton, a group helping organizations with campaigns centered in social issues, and Goodwin & Simon a group which provides statistics and research—and all of this through Auburn Media, a division of Auburn Theological Seminary.

Auburn Media advertizes a booklet, described as a toolkit, entitled My Mind Was Changed: A New Way to Talk to Conflicted Christians about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in Church and Society. It is also linked to at Presbyterian Welcome. The booklet attempts to give secular and progressive people a method for  persuading Christians who are conflicted about homosexuality a way to accept the LGBT lifestyle.

The concept is that Christians will not listen to arguments based on a secular version of rights or equality so the arguments need to be reframed and the reframing must possess some Christian characteristics.

1. They need to be “based on moral truths and Christian tenets.”

2. They must be “built around the search for God’s truth and leads conflicted Christians to a God-inspired revelation.”

3. They should be based “in moral clarity.” “There is no moral wiggle room because the frameworks are inspired by God-given moral absolutes.”

4. They need to be “Christ-centric.” That means “they are built around the moral teachings of Jesus.”

These are the frames:

1. Inclusion—Jesus never excluded anyone.

2. Jesus taught that God loves everyone.

3. “Judge not.” Under this the authors write, “They [conflicted Christians] are in search of a third way that will allow them to integrate LGBT people into their moral worldview while still adhering to their perceptions of God’s word.”

Some of this needs to be addressed and I will do so after explaining how this all supposedly affected the outcome of the vote on 10-A.

Toward the end of the booklet the authors explain how well this all works by pointing to the PC (U.S.A.) and our 2009-10 vote on ordination, under the subtitle, “Real world Case Study: Presbyterians shine a light on inclusion.” They write:

They’ve [Presbyterian presbyteries] also historically opposed LGBT inclusion in leadership positions. In 2009 when votes were cast for a similar amendment it failed to reach the majority needed by nine presbyteries.

This time around More Light Presbyterians brought on Fenton to develop a narrative and advertizing campaign that would run in the largest Presbyterian magazine during the course of the voting. Fenton saw this as a perfect opportunity to try out the tactics described in this toolkit with a real group of conflicted Christians.

The authors go on to explain that they listened to conflicted Presbyterians in order to use the right language. Then they divided their advertisements into some of the same categories used in the booklet. And supposedly not only were the advertisements in the magazine, they were also handed out during voting in presbyteries. Fenton thinks they are the cause of the victory—so we could say that Madison Avenue worked its wiles on the Presbyterian denomination.

The authors go on to state that “As of this writing, Fenton is working with More Light Presbyterians to tell the next chapter on inclusion with the media and church-based audiences: the stories of LGBT candidates for ordination.”

As for the frames used in the booklet they are themselves good examples of Madison Avenue cliché. They are simplistic ideas that have not been filled with the rich meat of God’s word. For instance—inclusion-the idea that Jesus never excluded anyone therefore LGBT people should not be excluded. But here are two very big problems with that frame.

1) Jesus did include many marginalized people in many ways, eating with them, touching them, healing them. He allowed women to follow him and to set at his feet learning from him. But he also forgave sinners and told them to “go and sin no more.” The inclusiveness of Jesus embraced the sinner, but not her sin.

2) The question that the conflicted Christian is concerned about is ordination. Jesus never suggested that the unrepentant sinner should be in leadership. Jesus’ inclusiveness is not about leadership at all—but about tending to sheep, feeding them and causing them to flourish in their life in him. Jesus’ inclusiveness does not answer the question the conflicted Christian is asking.

The frames are not based on Christian tenets, not even Christian morals and certainly not on Christian absolutes. In fact, the frames are themselves immoral because they are half truths useful only for snaring the people of God into accepting as good what God has called sin. The people of God need the pure word of God, unhindered by subterfuge. There is a way to integrate LGBT persons into the Christian’s understanding of God’s word. That is, to love them, care for them and lead them to the Savior who will begin a transformation in their lives.