Metropolitan Community Churches: Do Gays Need A Church Of Their Own Anymore?

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/metropolitan-community-churches-gay-church_n_2392917.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

By RACHEL ZOLL 01/01/13 12:28 PM ET EST



-- On that Sunday in 1968 when Troy Perry borrowed a minister's robe and started a church for gays in his living room, the world was a very different place.

Perry's Metropolitan Community Churches was then a lone spiritual refuge for openly gay Christians, an idea so far from the mainstream that the founders were often chased from places where they tried to worship. Four decades later, some of the most historically important American denominations, which had routinely expelled gays and lesbians, are welcoming them instead.

MCC now has a presence in dozens of U.S. states as well as overseas, reporting a total membership of more than 240 congregations and ministries. But as acceptance of same-sex relationships grows – gay and lesbian clergy in many Protestant traditions no longer have to hide their partners or lose their careers, and Christians can often worship openly with their same-gender spouses in the mainline Protestant churches where they were raised – the fellowship is at a crossroads.

Is a gay-centered Christian church needed anymore?

more at link

[okasha]

1. Probably,

because the MCC is more evangelical in focus than the "mainstream" liberal churches. There's more out there for evangelical Christian LGBT's than there used to be, including individual, unafffiliated congregations, but there's still not the resources comparable to those available to liberal Christian LGBT's.

[ButterflyBlood]

3. I know what you mean. I go to an evangelical progressive LGBT-affirming church

Most people are surprised to learn such a thing even exists, but it most certainly does.

[skepticscott]

2. As long as churches still have to use code words

like "affirming" and "open door" to let people know "we don't believe god hates fags", as long as it can't be taken for granted that any place that calls itself a church would welcome anyone who wants to be there, then probably yes.

[uriel1972]

4. Isn't that up to LGBT churchgoers to decide? nt

[cbayer]

5. Of course.