Christians Issue Proclamation to Presbyterian church over abortion and homosexuality

Christians Issue Proclamation to Presbyterian church over abortion and homosexuality,
President of Illiff School of Theology pickets for homosexuality

Ken and Jo Scott

Montview Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado embraces the twin abominations of abortion and homosexuality. You won't find the word “repent” in their priestly vocabulary unless they are speaking of honest-to-God Christians and their need to repent of their judgmental, hateful and ignorant behavior.

Pro abortion, pro homosexual congresswoman Diana DeGette attends Montview. Former Governor Roy Romer, an avid abortion advocate, attended Montview until he left Colorado for California when he became the superintendent of Los Angles Schools. Each year the Denver Male Gay Choir auditions are held there.

Montview hosts a myriad of public speakers who not only embrace sin, but promote it. Not the least of these would be former congresswoman and past Planned Parenthood lawyer Pat Schroeder. Pat and Dick Lamb (who later became governor) were successful in legalizing abortion in Colorado in 1967. Thus Colorado became the first state in the union to legalize the murder of innocent children.

Sunday October 23, Dr. Phillip Wogaman, Bill Clinton's former pastor and now president of Illiff School of Theology, was the honored guest of the “tolerant” Montview Church . Wogaman is known for cunningly couching his anti-Christian ideas in “Christian speak.”

The Gospel was proclaimed at Montview Presbyterian Church Sunday October 30, 2005, by a dozen Christians. They were equipped with Bibles, abortion signs, and a heart for evangelism. Interestingly enough, as their proclamation began they were met by parishioners brandishing campaign signs that were handed out by staff, from inside the church. Their political signs were used to block the abortion signs.

Fortunately, they were unable to block the Truth Truck, a large box truck flanked on all sides with graphic pictures of aborted children donated to the Denver Christians by Keith Mason of Wichita. It was strategically parked in front of the church where it couldn't be missed.

Jason Troyer stands by the truck. Mike and Apryl List witness to many young people in the church

Rev. Dr. Cindy Cearley did everything in her power to prevent a bus load of teen choir members from hearing Scripture readings from Romans 1:18-32 and I Corinthians 6:9-11.

One Christian, Curtis Kekoa, witnessed of Christ's love and forgiveness to a young homosexual man and was making some headway when the young man broke into tears. He said the church was paying his college tuition precisely because he was homosexual, and if he gave up the lifestyle he'd have to give up his education also.

In stark contrast to the October 23, 2005 event at Montview Presbyterian Church is the picket led by Philip Wogaman, President of Illiff School of Theology at a United Methodist Church in Denver. About 100 Illiff staff, faculty and students along with Wogaman protested the decision by the highest court in the United Methodist Church to defrock a lesbian minister. The Rev. Irene ‘Beth' Stroud violated the denomination's ban on "self-avowed, practicing homosexual" clergy.

Irene Stroud and her lesbian “partner” meeting with the press after the defrock decision was handed down by the United Methodist Church.

The United Methodist Church allows gays and lesbians to become ministers, but they must remain celibate. Apparently Rev. Wogaman finds even that offensive. See the article in the Rocky Mountain News below.

Dozens from Iliff stage protest vigil

Seminary crowd upset by 2 rulings on rights for gays

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
November 4, 2005

About 100 faculty, students and staff from Iliff School of Theology held a protest vigil Thursday outside Denver 's United Methodist headquarters to decry two recent homosexual rights rulings.

"A very sad and offensive decision" is what Iliff's interim president, Phil Wogaman, called the ruling of the church's highest court. The judicial council said a Virginia pastor had the right to bar a man from membership in his church because he refused to repent his homosexuality.

Dennis Schroeder © News
The Rev. Julie Todd, a United Methodist elder and doctoral student at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, attends a rally Thursday outside the Rocky Mountain Conference Center of the United Methodist Church to protest recent decisions by the church's judicial counci l that limit homosexual rights in the church.

Wogaman said it's possible that the local bishop in Virginia could seek a reversal of the high court ruling. Iliff is a United Methodist seminary.

The judicial council also recently reinstated a lower court verdict defrocking the Rev. Irene Stroud, an openly lesbian Pennsylvania pastor.

Church documents say "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Other resolutions acknowledge that sexuality is a complex issue and homosexuals "need the ministry and guidance of the church."

As for clergy, church law forbids the ordination and appointment of "self-avowed, practicing" homosexuals.

The Stroud decision was decried by the Rev. Gil Caldwell, a former member of the Iliff board of trustees and a retired United Methodist minister who is working for gay rights in the church.

Caldwell, who worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement, told the crowd that Stroud faces a worse situation than even the late Rosa Parks, who became an icon of freedom by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

"Even though Rosa Parks was forced to sit in the back of the bus, at least she had a place on the bus," Caldwell said.

Be aware that Montview Presbyterian Church and Illiff School of Theology are not anomalies. There are churches in every small town in America that believe just as Montview does and Illiff School of Theology swims in an ocean of kissing cousins. It is a sad commentary on the state of the American Christian Church when it is leading its own to hell under the guise of Christ's love. It should be of serious concern to those of us that care about the lost and dying world around us. Hopefully, Christians will repent of their slothfulness, apathy, and any thing else that has been placed in the way of our witness. Then prayerfully begin to change the world for Christ one person at a time, one church at a time, one community at a time, and eventually we will win the culture war for Christ.