Zondervan has purchased BibleGateway.com, an online reference of searchable Bible translations and one of the most popular Christian websites. The site's previous owner, Gospel Communications International (previously Gospel Films), shuttered its Internet division and website-hosting ministry this fall after back-to-back years of significant financial losses. Zondervan will also acquire Gospel.com, which has offered website hosting to more than 300 ministries (including several Christian publishers). An internal Zondervan memo indicated the company plans to allow Bible Gateway to offer Bible translations and resources from a variety of publishers.
Taylor University will close its Fort Wayne undergraduate campus after spending 16 years and millions of dollars trying to establish a successful branch in Indiana's second-largest city. The decision by the evangelical college in Upland displaces about 340 students and 120 faculty and staff for the 2009 school year.
A Presbyterian Church (USA) court ruled 9-0 that Janet Edwards did not violate church law or Scripture when the Pittsburgh pastor officiated at a lesbian couple's wedding in June 2005. The Permanent Judicial Commission of Pittsburgh Presbytery concluded that the ceremony Edwards presided over "was not, and could not have been, a marriage ceremony" because neither Pennsylvania nor the PC(USA) recognizes gay marriage. "It can't be an offense to the constitution to attempt to do the impossible," said the unanimous decision. At least three other Presbyterian ministers have been investigated for officiating at same-sex weddings and all were ultimately found not guilty, said a member of Edwards's defense team.
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Obviously this clerical court has no sense of the place of symbols in human discourse. Janet Edwards' act of officiating a "wedding" was a symbolic act full of meaning, even if it was not a real wedding by definition. By the same logic go ahead and wave the confederate flag, because it's not the real flag of any country! It makes one fear for the real symbols of the Christian faith. Do they mean anything?
Anna
Posted: November 17, 2008 8:40 PM
The issue is not the "offense" of the Constitutiion. The issue is that the pastors performed what they assumed to be a marriage, they signed a marriage certificate didn't they. What was their point in doing the marriage rite in the Church if they didn't assume they were committing a marriage. Can the lawyers explain that. The pastors should be removed as pastors of this particular church since this Church is assuming and teaches that pastors are to assume a marriage is between a man and a woman. They belong in a Church that has beliefs they believe in. The Church's Constitution apparently now needs to specify marriage as between a man and a woman and the pastors, the leaders and teachers of the Church should actually verbally state that they believe this "truth" when they are ordained. Today's pastors need to get it through their heads when they speak or represent a belief that they actually have to follow the belief they represent.
William Price
Posted: November 17, 2008 8:03 PM
The PC(USA) is more focused on sexuality than on Jesus Christ. That is why I left the PC(USA) for the PCA.
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