The U.S. Episcopal Church is poised to become the first major religious denomination in the United States to approve a rite for blessing gay marriages after its bishops overwhelmingly approved such a liturgy on Monday.
The proposed blessing was agreed by the church's Chamber of Bishops at a meeting in Indianapolis and is expected to receive final approval from its House of Deputies later this week, Ruth Meyers, a chair of the Episcopalians' Subcommittee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music, told Reuters.
The decision would go into effect in December and make the Episcopal Church, an independent U.S.-based institution affiliated with global Anglicanism, the biggest U.S. church to allow a liturgy for same-sex marriages.
The Episcopal Church is the 14th-largest denomination in the United States with nearly 2 million adherents, according to the National Council of Churches.
The United Church of Christ, a mainstream Protestant denomination with about a million members, has gone further so far than any other U.S. church, voting in 2005 to support same sex marriage. Read more
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"... first big U.S. church..." Whoever wrote that headline has not been reading the Episcopal Church's latest attendance and membership statistics.
2 comments:
Remember, it's quality NOT quantity that makes a Christian....
At issue is not the quantity of Christians or the quality of Christians but accuracy in reporting. The Episcopal Church in the USA, whatever you may think of it, is not a big denomination. Even in its heyday it was not a big denomination!
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