I have the depressing habit of reading some of what the people on the conservative/evangelical side of the PC(USA) have to say, and there has been what seems to be a shift in their writings lately that kind of scares me.
I don't want to link to any of them here, but it seems like they have shifted from just not wanting to allow LGBT people to be ordained to not wanting to allow LGBT people to even be members of the church.
A week ago I would have said that there was no way to prevent LGBT people from being members, after all the Book of Order says:
The congregation shall welcome all persons who respond in trust and obedience to God’s grace in Jesus Christ and desire to become part of the membership and ministry of his Church. No persons shall be denied membership because of race, ethnic origin, worldly condition, or any other reason not related to profession of faith. Each member must seek the grace of openness in extending the fellowship of Christ to all persons. Failure to do so constitutes a rejection of Christ himself and causes a scandal to the gospel. (G-5.0103) [emphasis mine]
The only reason to deny someone membership in the PC(USA) is if they refuse to profess their faith in Christ.
So how does the right think they can keep LGBT people out? The argument goes some thing like this:
Homosexuality is so contrary to God, to Christ and to the Christian faith that anyone who professes their faith in Christ yet continues to be a homosexual must be lying about their faith in Christ and is therefore illegible to be a member of a PC(USA) congregation.
Beyond the obvious scariness of the hatred that goes into that argument, the really scary part to me is that judging the purity of homosexual's professions of faith opens the door to kicking out anybody else that the people of that particular church disagree with, whether it's because that person is pro-choice, doesn't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible or reads Harry Potter books. The argument then becomes:
{whatever it is I disagree with today} is so contrary to God, to Christ and to the Christian faith that anyone who professes their faith in Christ yet continues to {whatever it is that I disagree with} must be lying about their faith in Christ and is therefore illegible to be a member of a PC(USA) congregation.
It just scares me that people who claim to be following the same tradition that I believe I am can think that way.
