wfn.org | [UCC NEWS] UCC's Calvin Synod may leave if marriage equality

[guessb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
United Church News
The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, news director
guessb@ucc.org; 216/773-9222

Posted at news.ucc.org
May 26, 2005


 UCC's Calvin Synod says it may leave if marriage equality resolution passes










 By Will C. Matthews

 For United Church News







 The UCC's Calvin Synod says it might consider leaving the denomination if a proposed
 resolution affirming same-gender marriage equality is passed by the church's General
 Synod during its biennial meeting in Atlanta July 1-5.



 The Calvin Synod, a Hungarian church-based Conference and the only one of the UCC's 39
 Conferences not defined by geography, said in a resolution passed at its annual meeting
 in Somerset, Pa., last week that the proposed marriage equality resolution is the
 "latest manifestation of heresy" and at odds with "the holy scriptures" and "the age old
 pages of church history."



 If passed, the Calvin Synod - which will send three voting delegates to Synod - may
 consider withdrawal from the UCC, according to its resolution.



 About 1,000 elected delegates from each of the church's conferences and its four
 national Covenanted Ministries will debate three different marriage-related proposals in
 Atlanta. The marriage equality resolution, submitted by the Southern California-Nevada
 Conference, asks the General Synod to affirm full civil and religious
equality for
 same-gender couples. A second counter resolution, offered by eight

 geographically-diverse congregations, asks the Synod to define "traditional" marriage as
 being "between one man and one woman." A third proposal, submitted by
the Central
 Atlantic Conference, calls for a church-wide time of prayer, conversation and study of
 the issue.



 The marriage equality proposal describes the Gospel as a place where a definition of
 marriage and family relationships based on affirmation of the full humanity of each
 partner is found. It declares that the state should not interfere with couples
 regardless of gender who choose to marry and share fully and equally in the rights,
 responsibilities and commitment of legally recognized marriage.



 However the resolution passed by the Calvin Synod, comprised of 29 churches and more
 than 2,500 congregants, claims the Bible records "the constant opposition of God-fearing
 people to all sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage" and calls unions between
 homosexual persons to be "unholy abominations, unfit for the sight of
the Lord and the
 righteous."



 It denies that same-gender marriage meets the definition of marriage,
declares that such
 "heresy is intolerable" to its members and ministers and calls on the
UCC to "disavow
 this heresy."