Here We Go Again, Another Denomination Splits Over LGBT Issue


If ever there was a teachable moment, or a teachable decade, about Christian denominations it is now. Anyone who follows the politics of religion knows several "mainline" denominations have split over whether to hire gay preachers. The Pope is doing fancy footwork trying to retain gay members and their families and supporters by downplaying the denomination's prejudice theology. 

Now the Reformed Church is splitting. The Reformed Church was formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. Even before the split it was down to 200,000 members from 300,000 in the mid 1980's. A new gay hating denomination is being formed, the Alliance of Reformed Churches. One can see both the new group and the old will be quite small. The Covenant Church of America I grew up in, which I always assumed was very small, claims to have 600,000 members. 

While I grew up and went to college in Iowa I never encountered the Reformed Church. Now moving back in retirement I see it is somewhat prominent. There is the small city of Pella which has a Tulip Festival. The western half of the state is politically conservative and includes prominent Reform Church followers. 

Only a couple of years ago, I visited often with a young man in our atheist group who was from a small town Reformed church. He mentioned he had attended a Reformed Church here in our large metro area and enjoyed the liberal people there and might join. I now understand his parents church was from one branch and the church here from the other.

It seems inevitable those liberal denominations which have seen conservative member split off into a new denomination will find each other and merge. Perhaps there will be some economies in having one larger central office instead of several smaller ones. This has been happening I suppose since day one. The faith continues to churn and change.

If one could get into the minds of grey haired white church members in the conservative spin off denominations it would be fun to know which of these alternatives they would choose for their remaining years: A.) Believe for the rest of my life the myths I have always believed and not get into questioning them or B.) look into whether the beliefs of my faith might be myth and find out the truth? Nearly all, I would guess would choose A.).  

Those spin off denominations of grey-haired white people will disappear in the sands of time.

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