Pastor Led Son’s Gay Wedding, Revealing Fault Line in Church

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The Rev. Frank Schaefer and his son Tim last month.

Father and son had always been close, from the moment Tim Schaefer was born, six weeks premature, with blood poisoning, a weak heart and lungs, and a doctor who thought he would not make it through the night.

His father, the Rev. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist minister, thought of his eldest son as a miracle child, saved by some combination of medicine and prayer, saved for something special.

“We couldn’t even touch him; he was in an incubator, and we had to reach in with latex gloves through those holes in the sides,” Mr. Schaefer said. “I begged God to please save his life.”

Their bond was such that, years later, facing a choice between upholding his church’s teaching and affirming his son’s sexual orientation, Frank chose to endanger his own career by officiating at his son’s same-sex wedding. The actions that followed — a rebellion in his congregation, a church trial, a defrocking and then, last month, a reinstatement — have made the Schaefers symbols of the conundrum facing much of American Christianity: How does religious doctrine on homosexuality respond to the longings for spirituality and community from congregants and family members who are gay?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/us/a-pastor-his-son-and-the-test-of-gay-marriage.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

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1. Church "doctorine" that discriminates is such a load. Why not de-frock him if he

eats spare ribs? Shrimp? Fails to condemn members of the congregation who work on Sunday? According to the Bible, those are worse sins. Anne Lamott nailed it when she wrote:

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do."