Presbyterians Pro-Life NEWS
Winter 2004

Contrary to public perception, almost no major denomination, even the most liberal, formally approves of homosexual relations. Those who perform the relatively rare ordinations of practicing homosexuals and celebrations of same-sex unions generally do so in violation of the national denominational standards—or take advantage of "gray areas" in the denomination’s rules that either leave those standards undefined or leave the matter to the discretion of local churches.

Christian churches in the United States have at least 152 million members. The vast majority of them are in churches where there is little to no possibility of any reconsideration of Christianity’s historic teaching reserving sexual intimacy for the marriage of man and woman, even in the long term. The Episcopal Church, it should be remembered, has just two million of these 152 million members.

Debates over homosexuality within the Christian community are largely confined to the liberal-led mainline or oldline Protestant denominations: the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the American Baptist Churches, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the United Church of Christ.

The combined membership of these denominations comprises only about fifteen percent of American Christians. And even among these liberal-led bodies, the largest of them—the United Methodists (eight million members), ELCA (five million), and PCUSA (three million)—have maintained prohibitions against practicing homosexual clergy. So too have the American Baptists (over one million members). Among the Methodists and Presbyterians, the majorities upholding these policies have actually increased in recent years.

United Methodism has one of the stronger policies. It declares homosexual practice to be incompatible with Christian teaching, precludes actively homosexual clergy, prohibits same-sex unions by its clergy or in its churches, forbids national church funding for homosexual advocacy, and expects monogamy in marriage and celibacy in singleness.

The ELCA has also been clear. Its Conference of Bishops said in 1993 that "there is basis neither in Scripture nor tradition for the establishment of an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship," a point reiterated in 2000 by its presiding bishop, who said that the ELCA "upholds heterosexual marriage as the appropriate context for intimate sexual expression." ELCA clergy are expected to be celibate outside heterosexual marriage.

The PCUSA in 1997 approved new language in the church’s Book of Order (its constitution) that said ordination shall be denied to persons who are not monogamous in heterosexual marriage or chaste in singleness, and every attempt to revoke this standard has failed. For example, the General Assembly in 2001 removed such language from the Book of Order, but the presbyteries around the country rejected this by a margin of three to one. (However, although the General Assembly in 1991 had forbade clergy from conducting or churches from hosting homosexual "marriages," a recent church court declared that same-sex rites not deemed the equivalent of marriage are not forbidden.)

Two of the smaller churches, the Disciples of Christ (800,000 members) and the United Church of Christ (over one million), are often counted as pro-homosexual. But the reality is more complicated. Because both denominations are decentralized, they have never had explicit national standards for acceptable sexual conduct. Some local congregations have taken the initiative to ordain practicing homosexuals and celebrate same-sex unions. But these congregations remain the exception rather than the rule. Despite vociferous encouragement from national UCC agencies, fewer than 500 of the 6,000 UCC congregations have officially declared themselves to be "open and affirming" of homosexuality.

A similar situation has prevailed in the Episcopal Church for about the last fifteen years. Liberal bishops ordained homosexual clergy as they saw fit, although the church’s General Convention (its governing body) had not authorized such ordinations and had repeatedly declined to authorize them—although it left open the possibility that it might do so in the future....

...Besides the Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, Missouri-Synod Lutherans, and Orthodox, there are thousands of Evangelical churches in America (such as the 2.6 million-member Assemblies of God) for which homosexuality is also an issue of no compromise. Nor is there much sign of a widespread pro-homosexual movement among churches historically identified with African-Americans and other ethnic minorities.

International demographics among Christian churches are even less favorable to any acceptance of homosexuality. Outside of a few Western European Protestant denominations, it is hard to find much support for jettisoning the traditional teachings limiting sexual relationships to marriage....

...So it may be a rather small procession that follows behind the pro-homosexual Episcopal bishops. Far from being the vanguard of a new Christendom, they may prove to be a small minority of stragglers that turned aside to chase the dreams of yesterday’s sexual revolution.