Protestant Churches

The nation's mainline Protestant denominations have quarreled for years over the role of gay men and lesbians in church life, but those debates promise to grow even more intense and acrimonious this summer. The conflicts, which come as California and other states wage legal fights over same-sex marriage, could well influence whether some of the religious denominations remain intact or splinter into smaller factions.

For more than four centuries, this Indian village, like almost any from the Peruvian Andes to the Mexican Sierra, had just one place of worship: the Roman Catholic church on the square. But now it has 18 churches--and 17 are Protestant. Inside the three-story Calvary Church, which now dominates the square, Mariano Riscaoche and Roque Yac told the story of the spiritual quest that changed their lives and their village.

A new spirit of unity is taking hold in American Protestantism, thanks to a swell of ecumenical initiatives around the nation, proposals that could see millions of Christians put aside divisions on many topics, including how Holy Communion is understood. For many Protestant leaders, the move is long overdue. "The scandal of the broken church is that we cannot eat together," said the Rev. Daniell Hamby, an Episcopal priest and longtime ecumenical leader, referring to sharing Holy Communion.

Maybe Catholics aren't such skinflints after all. It's no secret among researchers that Catholics put substantially less in collection plates than Protestants. What has remained a mystery, however, is why the descendants of immigrants who sacrificed to build magnificent churches and schools are giving less and less, in inflation-adjusted dollars, as their incomes rise.

A national survey of Protestant clergy has found that almost one in four--22.8%--say they have either been fired or forced to resign their pastorates at some point during their career. The survey, conducted among a random sample of clergy readers of three evangelical magazines--Christianity Today, Leadership and Your Church--also found that one in four of the dismissed or forced-out pastors said they had had the experience more than once.

When Pope John Paul II this week issued a new pronouncement on Christian unity, new hopes were rekindled that the historic divisions among Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox may one day be healed. Ever since the Eastern Orthodox churches split with Rome in 1054 and Protestant churches organized after the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517, the power and authority of the Pope has been one of the single most divisive issues separating the churches.

The ranch-motif Shepherd of the Hills Church, saddled with a large debt and led by a pastor itching to retire, is hoping to get hitched to another evangelical congregation in the north San Fernando Valley--which would create one of the largest Protestant churches in the area. Pastor Jess Moody of Shepherd of the Hills, who will turn 70 in August, first proposed a merger last month to the large Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth.

The outpouring of emotion inside the Los Angeles church was so powerful Tuesday that some wept as they prayed aloud, embracing strangers and clasping their hands. Crossing ethnic, gender, geographic and denominational lines, 400 Protestant pastors from South-Central to Malibu converged on Young-Nak Presbyterian Church, a Korean immigrant house of worship at the edge of Los Angeles' Chinatown, to pray fervently for the Los Angeles area and its people.

From their seats in the pews, congregation members often imagine that their ministers spend each week deep in study, preparing sermons. And that is certainly the image prospective clergy bring to their seminary studies. Once they get out in local churches, however, ministers quickly find their days dominated by a series of interruptions--from phone calls from people wanting to know what time services will be held to visits from vendors peddling supplies.

The rev. ray gibbons, a minister who helped Protestant churches in the United States address major social and political issues as director of the Council for Christian Social Action from 1944 to 1968, died of natural causes March 18 at Pilgrim Place retirement home in Claremont, his son David said last week. He was 105. The council was an agency of the Congregational Christian Churches of America and, starting in 1957, the United Church of Christ.