The PCUSA had discussions about this for decades. We tried to get both sides to understand each other, to come up with ways of coexisting. There were projects to get people talking about it with individual congregations and within presbyteries. But none of it worked, because conservatives had a core belief that they couldn’t coexist in the same Church with anyone who accepts gays. We could be as a polite, as understanding, and as Christian as possible. It didn’t matter.
Various types of local option were proposed. But they all would result in gays being openly accepted in some part of the Church, and many of our conservatives simply could never accept that.
When it became clear that no kind of compromise would possibly help, we simply changed the rules to allow presbyteries (for pastors) and congregations (for ruling elders and deacons) to choose the candidates that they thought were best, with no specific constitutional rule about sexual practice. We understood that many conservatives would leave, and they have done so.
A few years later we changed the rules to permit marriage of gays. There are specific provisions to protect pastors and congregations that don’t want to allow it. But again, this isn’t enough.
Interestingly, many of the churches leaving recently are going to a denomination whose theology is basically about as liberal as ours. They accept the recent confessions, e.g. the Confession of 1967, which explicitly teaches the same principles of interpreting Scripture that we use. While they claim there are more general issues, the only difference I can see is that they don’t accept gays. I think this is a temporary denomination, that will reunite with us in a generation.
As to the situation of CF, I don't think anything you can do will bring real peace. We tried it, and it wasn't possible. We have one group that thinks the other is teaching something that is seriously anti-Christian. In what should be my home forum (Presbyterian) the majority of posters think the largest Presbyterian church is apostate. This is something CF can't fix. Having a few forums that permit acceptance of gays, and clamping down hard on attacks against it, may be the best you can do.
The most serious practical issue for me is that I really have no home forum. The majority of Presbyterians can't really use the Presbyterian forum. It's denominated by aggressive conservatives. The liberal forum is a bit too liberal for the mainline denominations such as the PCUSA. Not so much in its theology as in its interests. Most mainline denominations have forums where the primary church can use it. ELCA, Methodists, Episcopal, etc, can use their forum. But PCUSA people can't really use the Presbyterian forum.
Good luck on your postings, but I think most of us know enough conservatives to understand where they're coming from. I do have conservative Christian friends, after all. I just think you're kidding yourselves, that no one can be consistently "literal", because the nature of the Bible doesn't support that, that you aren't consistently literal, and that in practice which passages you take as literal change over time as new developments such as acceptance of interracial marriage or gays stop being so new and threatening. I don't mean that I think conservative Christians are dishonest. Many are fine Christians who really want to serve God. But it's easy for one's biases to creep into exegesis, and I think they're doing so here.
Let me tell you a story. In another Christian site, someone described an event in the Russian Orthodox Church. A priest was tricked into conducting a gay marriage. When the bishop found out, he brought in a demolition team to destroy the church building. It had been irreversibly desecrated. What surprised me wasn’t that Russians would do that, but that many of the US posters admired their courage. To me this shows just what level of irrational emotion is behind this issue. It’s not just a disagreement about how we do exegesis.
Excellent post Hedrick. Thank you for all the information. Your post was well done. Lots to think about there.
My thoughts on why Liberals and Conservatives have problems understanding each other are:
LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES THINK DIFFERENTLY
I don't feel Liberals have an accurate understanding of Conservatives. The thoughts and motives you ascribe to us doesn't match me, my family and friends, or any conservative I know. I don't believe I know any liberals, I only know conservative Christians. The Liberal forum has a lot to say about conservatives and it matches the Hollywood version of Conservatives, like John Goodman's portrayal of a gun loving crazed delusional conservative, or any TV series that portrays crazed delusional conservatives. We really aren't like that at all. Our thoughts and motives are much different.
CONSERVATIVE THOUGHTS AND MOTIVES
When we talk about sin, it's our way of affirming that God is right and we need to line up with whatever God says, no matter what we feel or want.
Most times when we talk about issues, we're thinking of the behavior or ideology, rather than the person.
When I got involved in the CF GAY POLL in the MJ forum, I was thinking of the behavior and ideology rather than the person when I made all my comments.
When I came to this forum, I switched to thinking of the person.
So when you interpret what conservatives say or do, you might be missing our true thoughts and motives.
If you want a better response from a conservative, you need to diplomatically draw our focus away from your behavior and ideology, and over onto you the person.
You will never be able to get us to accept the sinful behavior and ideology, but you will be able to get us to think about the person.
Conservatives don't accept their own sin either. We raise our children to be morally responsible. We speak to each other about our own need to obey God and not follow our own selfish desires. Our favorite morality scripture is "Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Jesus." Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23
We're trained to please God with our personal and private lives, but then to think of others as well. We're trained to serve and protect, reach out to others, help the less fortunate, defend the helpless.
LIBERAL IDEOLOGY
When we oppose liberal ideology, it's based on the concept that liberal theology APPEARS to us to be mostly "me, me, me".
Why do we think this?
We see you raise up in harassment and protest against a sport hunter who killed Cecil the harmless old beloved lion. We love animals too.
Then we see you fight for the right to burn an in uterine baby alive with saline solution, or tear him apart limb from limb. We hate this.
We wonder how you can ignore the fact that the in uterine baby is every bit as helpless and in need of protection as Cecil the lion.
This isn't the only issue we have with liberal theology or politics, but each issue has a similar theme.
MJ's to me should be those that live like Yeshua, the Apostles, and the first believers who accepted Yeshua before Constantine created his version of Christianity to replace the MJs.
