The First Presbyterian Church of NY is on 5th Ave & 12th St., right smack on the Pride Parade route. The photographer could not fit in the picture my fellow Reformed brothers and sisters passing out water to the parade goers. In addition to the freedom flag, pictured above, there was a huge welcome banner with boss triangles on it too. And man I would have loved to have been in New York City at First Presbyterian during the parade, revelling in Christ's love the very day after gay marriage was legalized.
I didn't blog about this while it was going on, but just in case anyone didn't follow it, this great news fom New York follows a recent landmark decision in the Presbyterian Church USA explicitly allowing ordination of openly gay clergy. In a great article (HERE) Rev. Dr. Janet Edwards explains in part why this is so significant.
What makes this moment even more significant is that unlike the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which all adopted similar policies through top-level governing bodies alone, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) requires one additional step: ratification by a majority of the individual presbyteries. We have seen ministers and elders in presbyteries like Central Nebraska, Eastern Oklahoma, Middle Tennessee and North Alabama cast the majority of their votes for inclusion. Everyday clergy and lay leaders in areas that have traditionally skewed older, and more conservative — many of whom voted "no" in previous years when this question was brought to them — have voted "yes" this time.
As a pessimist and curmudgeon, I tend to not read Jesus' exhortation that the kingdom of God is at hand in terms of anything actually happening in history. But here I see my own church and surrounding society too actually get closer to that Kingdom, vanquishing some of the most depraved human expressions of that awful kind of Pride that one embraces to elevate oneself via the oppression of others. Well the joy edges out Schopenhauer and all good things seem possible, even if briefly, very much at hand.
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