{"id":455,"date":"2008-01-30T16:29:20","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T16:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o.php"},"modified":"2008-01-30T16:29:20","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T16:29:20","slug":"presbyterians-test-new-rules-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o","title":{"rendered":"Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Daniel Burke<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\n(RNS) Minnesota Presbyterians have voted to restore the ordination of an openly gay man who has refused to pledge celibacy, the latest test of revamped pastoral guidelines in the Presbyterian Church (USA).<br \/>\nPaul Capetz, a seminary professor, asked to be removed from ministry in 2000 after the PCUSA voted to require that ministers be married to a member of the opposite sex or remain celibate.<br \/>\nBut changes made in 2006 to the Presbyterians&#8217; Book of Order allow candidates for ordination to declare a conscientious objection to church rules. Local presbyteries, or governing bodies, then must decide whether the objection &#8220;constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity.&#8221;<br \/>\nOn Saturday (Jan. 26), the Presbytery of the Twin Cities voted that Capetz&#8217; objection, or &#8220;scruple,&#8221; did not violate the &#8220;essentials&#8221; and restored his ordination as a minister of word and sacrament.<br \/>\nEarlier this month, the Presbytery of San Francisco became the first to test the &#8220;scruple&#8221; policy when it voted to allow Lisa Larges, a lesbian, to continue on her path to ministry. A number of obstacles, including an appeal of the presbytery&#8217;s action in church courts, still stands between Larges and ordination, however.<br \/>\nAn openly gay Wisconsin man is also in the beginning stages of seeking ordination.<br \/>\nCapetz told the Minnesota presbytery that he would follow the pastoral guidelines on sex if the church allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry, saying &#8220;if that were the case, I would have no difficulty abiding by the standard of chastity in singles and fidelity and marriage.&#8221;<br \/>\nA minority report by the presbytery &#8212; 197 voted to allow the re-ordination, 79 did not &#8212; said that the decision &#8220;essentially allows the will of the (presbytery) to supersede the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA).&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Furthermore, we are uncomfortable with the hermeneutical or interpretive gymnastics required to provide biblical sanction for sexually intimate same-sex relations,&#8221; the minority report added.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Minnesota Presbyterians have voted to restore the ordination of an openly gay man who has refused to pledge celibacy, the latest test of revamped pastoral guidelines in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Paul Capetz, a seminary professor, asked to be removed from ministry in 2000 after the PCUSA voted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Minnesota Presbyterians have voted to restore the ordination of an openly gay man who has refused to pledge celibacy, the latest test of revamped pastoral guidelines in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Paul Capetz, a seminary professor, asked to be removed from ministry in 2000 after the PCUSA voted&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-30T16:29:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy","og_description":"By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Minnesota Presbyterians have voted to restore the ordination of an openly gay man who has refused to pledge celibacy, the latest test of revamped pastoral guidelines in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Paul Capetz, a seminary professor, asked to be removed from ministry in 2000 after the PCUSA voted&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-01-30T16:29:20+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o","name":"Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-01-30T16:29:20+00:00","dateModified":"2008-01-30T16:29:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/presbyterians-test-new-rules-o#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Presbyterians Test New Rules on Gay Clergy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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