Word: pastoring
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Things have come a long way since 1988. That was the year Trinity hired Pastor Hall at age 30, hoping a young minister could revive a congregation shrunk to a mere 120 members, mostly old; they joked that anyone under 70 should join the youth group. Hall proved dynamic alright, but not in a way the solidly middle-class, overwhelmingly straight congregation had expected. Over three years he explicitly campaigned to extend fellowship to gays. This caused considerable whispering. "People said, 'Sid's not going to last very long, and we can always get another minister,'" recalls Wise. "One friend...
That changed in 1995. Lind felt a special empathy for the oppressed; she attracted national attention for a series of dynamic social programs she had introduced as pastor to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in inner-city Paterson, N.J. But then a storm brewed in her backyard. Former Newark assistant bishop Walter Righter was charged with heresy for having knowingly ordained an open homosexual named Barry Stopfel...
Today, however, she is worried that as a result of the Conference vote, Pastor Hall--who has already stopped performing any weddings at all because of the ban on gay nuptials--may feel called to lead Trinity out of the church altogether. That would put Wise in a terrible place. "I've grown so accustomed to the [Methodist] rules and regulations," she says nervously. Luckily, the meeting flows another way. One by one, congregants declare that they will continue to struggle for gay initiatives within the Convention. Alice Crabtree, a heterosexual mother of three, rises and says, "This church...
...Relations Committee. He has voted against so many bills--from food stamps to the Martin Luther King holiday to practically every arms-control treaty--that critics nicknamed him "Senator No," a moniker he cherishes. He has blocked so many nominees that he can't remember all their names. (Robert Pastor was startled when he testified before Helms four years after the Senator had bottled up his nomination in 1994 to be ambassador to Panama: "He didn't seem to know...
McCain began attending Baptist services in Tempe, Ariz., before moving to Phoenix. "I just liked the church," he says. The four youngest McCain children are Baptists. Still, McCain maintains his Episcopalianism. Richard Jackson, pastor emeritus of North Phoenix, is not bothered. "I'm concerned about a person's relationship with Christ," he says, "and I was convinced he had that personal faith." McCain, he judges, "is not a biblically versed, mature Christian. He's a novice scripturally. But the Hanoi Hilton is not a seminary...