From: John W Burgeson (jwburgeson@juno.com)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 09:25:55 EDT
I had written:" For a church to do this, such persons ought to
> be admitted as full members, and eligible as such to hold any church
> office."
George replied: " Well, no. There are many other people who are admitted
to full membership in
the church but who for various reasons will not be approved for
ordination. Ordination
is not a "right" that all Christians have. Whether or not a person is to
serve in the
pastoral office is not finally determined by that person thinking that he
or she should
be a pastor but by the call of the church."
I can hardly believe you missed my point. I specifically said "eligible."
Of course, I agree completely with all that you have written above.
I went on to write: " At present my church (PCUSA) and, I think, your
church (ELCA) will admit
> such persons as members but denies them eligibility to serve in
ordained
> offices, thus making them, in a sense, 2nd class members."
You wrote: "A foreign-born citizen of the United States is not a "2nd
class citizen" but
he/she cannot be president."
Yes. And, as the father of three fine US citizens who were born in
another country, I'm not altogether happy with that. To an extent, I will
argue, they ARE 2nd class citizens, as are all naturalized immigrants. It
is not possible, for instance, for the US government to take away my US
citizenship (at least not legally) but it is possible for them to take
away that of my three children. Such has been done. I do not argue that
this is either good or bad; only that it is a fact, and because it is a
fact the appellation of "2nd class" is to some extent justified.
Finally, I wrote: "> My guess is that this will change, but the change
will not come for
> another 5 or 10 years. In the meanwhile, some people will suffer."
George replied: " & if the change comes it will have a devastating effect
at least on the ELCA and
many people will suffer."
Tell me, George, just who will suffer, and in what way. Who is
"suffering," for instance, in the Episcopal church this week after
Robinson was voted in? I will agree that some folks are darn unhappy that
their particular views are being rejected, but I do not equate such
unhappiness with "suffering." Maybe you do.
John Burgeson (Burgy)
www.burgy.50megs.com
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