CNN) — A gay minister at the center of a row about his appointment to a church in a Scottish city said he was “humbled” after the Church of Scotland upheld his appointment.

Scott Rennie rehearses a sermon at Brechin Cathedral in northeast Scotland.

In a ground-breaking move, the church’s ruling body voted by 326 to 267 in support of the Rev. Scott Rennie, the church said in a news release Sunday.

The 37-year-old’s appointment at Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen, on Scotland’s northeast coast, provoked opposition from traditionalist members of the church and has led to fears it could cause a damaging split.

More than 400 Church or “Kirk” ministers and almost 5,000 Church of Scotland members are said to have signed an online petition, organized by the Fellowship of Confessing Churches, against the appointment, the BBC reported.

Papers lodged with the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly in Edinburgh claimed scriptures in the Old and New Testament describe same-sex activity as a “wrong choice,” the British Press Association said.

However, Rennie’s supporters argued that the Bible does not directly address homosexual relationships, which are now “essentially a feature of modern society.”

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In a statement released after Saturday night’s vote in the Scottish capital, Rennie said: “I am humbled that the General Assembly has recognized God’s call upon my life.”

Ewen Gilchrist, interim moderator at Queen’s Cross Church, was quoted by PA as saying: “It’s a good decision for the General Assembly to have made because it sends out a message that we desire to be welcoming, accepting and inclusive.

“The issue of sexual orientation and Scriptural authority is something that has to be wrestled with and cannot be hidden away

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Down here in the Deep South, calls to bring back the hanging noose are coming from an unlikely source: a 62-year-old, black Republican mayoral candidate in Mississippi’s largest city.

Long-shot George Lambus acknowledges his inflammatory platform has made some residents of Jackson slam doors in his face. Others walked out of a church where he spoke. Yet he insists his tough stand is welcome in some quarters of a state capital racked by crime, much of it black-on-black.

As the only GOP hopeful among nearly a dozen Democrats and four independents, his chances of winning the June election are slim: the majority-black city of about 180,000 is so heavily Democratic that no Republican has won the mayor’s race in modern history. Yet, Lambus hopes to stand out in a crowded field by packing a silver pistol and talking bluntly about crime.

“Crime can only be alleviated by a noose and a stout tree limb,” Lambus wrote in one of several homemade flyers he passes out in Jackson neighborhoods. “I will provide the noose and when the economy improves, I will get the jobs here.”

The Mississippi Republican Party is not supporting Lambus. GOP Chairman Brad White said Lambus’ message doesn’t reflect “the values that we represent.”

“He’s already the novelty candidate,” explained Leslie Burl McLemore, the city council president.

Still, anti-crime campaigns have resonated in Jackson in recent years: incumbent Mayor Frank Melton won a landslide victory in 2005 on promises to get tough. The mayor even went armed on security patrols through tough neighborhoods. He is now charged with federal civil rights violations for allegedly leading a sledgehammer attack on a suspected crack house.

With his federal trial set to start days after the May 5 primary, Melton’s stand provoked such an uproar that several challengers are vying to unseat him. Yet Melton’s 2005 pledge to run the “thugs” out of town seems mild in comparison to Lambus’ calls for hangings and vigilante justice.

“Look at recent history, like in South Africa, when apartheid was abolished,” Lambus said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Blacks went on a crime spree. Other blacks got tired of it … and they formed vigilantes and they killed people. It brought the crime down.”

His pistol nearby as he peered out a window at his decaying Jackson neighborhood, Lambus added: “When you cut your yard, carry a gun. When you go to church, carry a gun. When you go to school, carry a gun.”

Lambus also asserts that executions are the only way to control crime, adding “If we look at the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, it’s driven with blood.”

Some are offended by such bold talk from Lambus, a former union official who said he has battled illness, lives off Social Security and ran unsuccessfully for the state senate and city council in the 1980s.

“I don’t think anybody in their right mind is going to pay any attention to this guy,” said Jackson resident Vernon Archer, a former college professor in his 60s, who is black. “It’s offensive, but it’s so ridiculous you don’t even know how to get mad.”

Still, Lambus has been invited to at least two debates in April. And as the lone GOP candidate, Lambus is expected to automatically advance as the Republican candidate while Democrats and independents jockey and jostle in the May primary to decide who reaches the June ballot.

Lambus lives not far from the suspected crackhouse that Melton, as mayor, is charged with damaging in a vigilante raid in August 2006. Lambus charges that Melton was showboating and didn’t live up to his promise to clean up the city’s crime.

It’s not clear if Melton will be on the ballot. He is suing a Democratic committee for removing his name over alleged residency problems.

Political scientist Marty Wiseman, director of Mississippi State University’s Stennis Institute of Government, said the Republicans have shied away from fielding a serious contender for mayor.

“They’re being fairly realistic because of what the numbers say,” Wiseman said. “Jackson’s voting patterns, I would assume, are going to mimic those of African-Americans in state elections, which has stayed around 90 percent or more Democratic.”

And Wiseman said Lambus’ message will not help his chances, adding “certainly someone that confrontational has no chance whatsoever.”

SOURCE: Huffington Post

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A Message About Today’s Loss
Today, a little after our 8:15 service began, a man entered First Baptist Church and fired several gunshots at our Senior Pastor, Dr. Fred Winters. Pastor Winters was taken to the hospital but died of his wounds.

Please pray for Dr. Winter’s family, our two brave members who were injured when they stopped the assailant, for the assailant himself and his family, and for our church members as they deal with this tragic loss.

In this day, where uncertainty seems to abound creating an environment in which people are vulnerable in doing things they might not do otherwise, one thing is certain, we, as human beings need a foundation upon which we can live our lives. We at First Baptist Maryville, along with other Christian believers, share this conviction: that foundation is God’s Word. In the pages of the Book we call the Bible, we find the pathway for peace, hope, and a quality of living life despite what circumstances we find ourselves in.

To those who believe in the power of prayer, we covet your prayers right now.

Prayer Service Information
Due to the limited size of the auditorium at Metro Community Church, our prayer service this evening will be reserved for our members only. We would appreciate everyone continuing to pray for those injured in the attack this morning and their families and for our church as we deal with this tragic loss.

News media contact can be made through the church switchboard 618-667-8221 or by contacting Marty King at 217-720-8118.

Pastor Mark Jones
Minister of Worship, FBC

Source: http://www.fbmaryville.org/

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“I don’t want to hear anymore [sic] language trying to be cool about the bling in the stimulus package or appealing to D.L. Hughley and blacks in a way that isn’t going to win us any votes and makes us frankly appear to many blacks as quite foolish,” Fisher wrote.

The paper says Fisher is one of three black members of the RNC and supported South Carolina chairman Katon Dawson in the Jan. 30 election for national party chairman.

As we and others reported, Steele apologized this week to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh after telling CNN host D.L. Hughley that Limbaugh is an entertainer whose show is sometimes incendiary and ugly. It was the latest in a series of awkward moments.

Source: USA Today

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We have to do better as a country in moving past these issues that divide with people losing their homes or loved one in Iraq we dont need this!!!

An email ripe with racist slurs — crudely presented as a mock debate between President Obama and Sen. John McCain — sent by a member of Staten Island’s Community Education Council to dozens of recipients, including other members of the public schools’ parent advisory board, is stirring outrage among African American leaders, who anonymously received a copy of the offensive communiqué and plan to take action.
The mock photo strip, sent Jan. 4 by Salvatore Ballarino, the borough president’s appointee to the volunteer board, features cartoon-like speech balloons drawn out of McCain’s mouth referencing lynching African Americans and equating African American babies with excrement.

The widely forwarded email also questions black fathers’ ability to support their families and states Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles are always smiling, because they did not know they were black. After each “punch line” the cartoon-like strip shows a photo of Obama’s face, positioned in such a way to make him look stunned and dumbstruck.

Dozens of African American parents, school children and educators are expected to attend the meeting of the Community Education Council tonight at Petrides Educational Complex, Sunnyside, to question how somebody charged with representing all Staten Islanders could find the material funny, and then have the bad judgment to forward the email around.

“Jokes are jokes, but this goes beyond what you might regard as a harmless joke. This is very offensive,” said Edward Josey, the president of the Staten Island NAACP, noting the group decided at its meeting last week to make their feelings known publicly. “If he’s telling jokes of this nature, how sincere is he about educating all the children of Staten Island?”

Ballarino does not believe he did anything wrong or inappropriate.

“If they’re upset about something it’s their own inner workings — it’s what they want to make out of it,” said Ballarino, when reached yesterday at home. “It was a political cartoon; that’s how I treated it. What was funny about it was the look on Obama’s face, like he didn’t even know what he was talking about.”

Ballarino served as a member of the now-defunct Community School Board since 1993, and was appointed by Borough President James P. Molinaro, when the CECs replaced the school boards in 2004. During his tenure, he has headed a number of committees, most notably School Construction.

“Did anybody ever accuse of me of doing anything racist before? No,” he said. “I have black people who are my friends; I work with black people; I have black people sit at my dinner table with me.”

Ballarino said he similarly forwards jabs at other communities. “I get jokes and I send them. I get redneck jokes. I get Irish jokes. I get Italian jokes.”

Although he said he did not find the material he had sent particularly offensive, Ballarino did weigh in on the New York Post’s recent publication of a violent cartoon most viewed as mocking Obama, calling it “a little overboard.”

The email has brought to the fore long-held feelings among African Americans and other minority groups that decision-makers in Staten Island’s District 31 are not sufficiently attuned to their communities, he said.

There are currently no African American members of the Community Education Council.

“The voices of minority concerns in public schools are oftentimes overlooked,” wrote Tammy Greer Brown, the chairwoman of the NAACP education committee, in an email organizing tonight’s protest. “This email potentially violates all educational and civil rights laws that are currently in existence.”

The all-volunteer council does not have wide-ranging authority but is meant to act as liaison between parents and the city Department of Education.

Molinaro last night could not be reached for comment.

“If you want to tell jokes among your friends, don’t put it on the airways; you never know where emails will end up,” said Josey, who has known Ballarino for years in education circles. “I would view him differently now than I would at one time. He stepped beyond a line.”

Source: SILIVE.com

Joining a church doesn’t make sense for Jonathan Busarow right now. He’s a graduate student at Ohio State University who doesn’t know where he’ll live in a couple of years. He doesn’t have extra money to donate or a lot of time.
But he still wants to worship, so he regularly attends Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in German Village.

“Zion does a wonderful job of making you feel welcome and part of the church community without pressuring you to become a member,” said Busarow, 23, of Bexley.

Busarow isn’t the only one there to worship but not to join. Pastors say it’s a sign of the times: Official church membership is becoming less attractive to churchgoers.

For some, such as Busarow, it’s because they’re in a transitory period. Others don’t want to be bothered to participate more than they’d like. Many just never get around to it.

Clergy members prefer people to become church members who are accountable for contributing their time and money. Churches need predictable income, and that usually comes in the form of annual pledges and weekly donations.

Still, pastors are happy for bodies in the pews and won’t pressure people much.

People tend not to worship in the same congregation as loyally as they did in past generations, said David Roozen of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. The baby-boomer generation balked at joining institutions of any sort, and the tendency has become more pronounced among their children, he said.

Fifty years ago, adults felt a duty to their neighborhood churches.

“Now it’s, ‘I’m going to go if it fits my needs, but this is not necessarily a long-term commitment,’ ” Roozen said.

Nonmembers can participate in almost every aspect of many churches, said the Rev. Paul Ulring, pastor of the nearly 6,000-member Upper Arlington Lutheran Church. At his church, nonmembers can worship, get married, send their children to Sunday school and participate in ministries. Some donate money regularly.

They can’t vote in congregational matters, but a lot of them don’t want to anyway, he said.

“The officialdom of membership is a harder and harder thing to sell,” he said. “It’s hard to convince a younger generation that it has any value.”

At St. Brigid of Kildare Cath-olic Church in Dublin, a lot of nonmembers end up joining when they want to marry or have a baby baptized, said Monsignor Joseph Hendricks, the pastor.

Generally, in the Catholic Church, a person must belong to a parish to receive the sacraments of baptism and marriage, said Deacon Tom Berg Jr., vice chancellor of the Columbus Diocese. Catholics who are not members of a parish can receive those sacraments with the permission of the parish priest.

St. Brigid allows funerals for nonmembers, Hendricks said. He estimates that about 200 people worship regularly without joining. The church is home to 3,100 families.

“For those who don’t get around to it, you certainly don’t deny them,” he said. “You try and work with them.”

At Busarow’s church, the church directory includes a listing of “Friends of Zion.” The list is at about 50.

The Rev. Larry Kudart encourages nonmembers to join Zion, but he doesn’t push.

“I don’t press them too hard. I say, ‘We love you whether you join or not.’ ”

Source: The Columbus Dispatch