The issue of whether or not the church should embrace homosexuality comes down to its acceptance or denial of the authority of Scripture, R. Albert Mohler Jr. told a national television audience on CNN’s Larry King Live last month.

The church is called to lovingly confront the sin of homosexuality and all other sins with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, said Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and council member for The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).

"The first thing [to consider is] whether or not as Christians, God has set a standard to which we are obligated," Mohler said. "The issue is, always has been, and always will be, the authority of Scripture.

"The Scripture very clearly tells us that our Creator has a purpose for our sexuality and that homosexuality among other sins is a violation of that purpose and so love compels us to tell people the truth, and, also, as we understand the depth of their struggle with this, to tell them that there is a way out."

Mohler and six other panelists addressed the topic of gays in the church. Panelists included Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Anglican bishop; TIME magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan; lesbian Jo Hudson, who pastors the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas; David Anderson, president and CEO of the Anglican American Council; Roman Catholic priest Michael Manning, and Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA).

Gays and the church has been a prominent topic in the news of late in light of the ECUSA annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Three years ago the ECUSA ordained Gene Robinson in New Hampshire as the first openly gay bishop in the denomination’s long history. The denomination is deeply divided over the ordination of homosexuals and some analysts predict a split.

Hudson, a United Church of Christ minister who pastors one of the largest gay and lesbian congregations in America, said God created her as a homosexual and thus being in a same-sex relationship is "wholly and completely" natural.

"I have a wonderful, living, dynamic relationship with God," Hudson said. "And I know, in the core of my being, that the most natural way for me to be is exactly who I am."

Mohler said he sympathizes with the desire of anyone who wishes to know God, but that the church that fails to follow Scripture and instead celebrates diversity is bound to celebrate sin.

"The Gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it," Mohler said. "A church that buys into the logic of (celebrating a diversity of views) is a church that's obligated to ordain homosexuals openly and unrepentant or anyone else because it has moved away from the clear authority of Scripture.

"A church that worships diversity is a church that's destined to accept a death knell because the church itself is grounded in truth. The true church always celebrates the truth."

Sullivan, an openly gay Catholic, accused evangelicals of forcing their own interpretation upon Scripture to prove the sinfulness of homosexuality. Sullivan pointed out that the Old Testament prescribes the death penalty for homosexuals.

"I say the Scripture is clear and Scripture says that I should be put to death," Sullivan said. "The very verse that says that ‘(you) shall not lie with another man as one does with a woman,’ says that I should face the death penalty. That's clear . . . Why is that not taken seriously?"

Mohler pointed out the importance of understanding Scripture within its proper context. The death penalty for homosexuality was given as a law for Old Testament Israel, he said. With the advent of the new covenant, Christ has now borne the death penalty in the place of sinners and thus the theocratic laws that governed Old Testament Israel are no longer binding, Mohler pointed out.

While homosexuals no longer face capital punishment, their behavior is still sin according to the Bible, he said. The majority of Christians have understood the Bible this way, he said.

"There is always the danger that we will read our interpretation into Scripture," Mohler said. "That's why for one thing we're dependent upon how Christians have read the Scriptures for centuries in which there has been a universal consensus about what the Scriptures had to say about sexuality."

Robinson said Jesus was always reinterpreting Scripture, and, therefore, Christians are to continue to interpret them in light of culture. He said the key to Christianity is what is "in one’s heart" and that Jesus would embrace homosexuals just as they are.

"We follow a person (Jesus) who was always reinterpreting Scripture and letting people know that it's the spirit of what's going on in one's heart that is the real key and when he said ‘love one another as I have loved you,’ it means that we need to be moving to the margins, doing justice work, working against racism," Robinson said.

"[These are] all kinds of things that Jesus would be doing in this day and time. I have no question in my mind that Jesus considers me beloved—just as I am."

Scripture is clear in teaching that homosexuality is a sin, Mohler said. Christians are merely sinners who have been saved by God’s grace out of any number of sins, Mohler said. Thus, there is forgiveness for homosexuals and sinners of all types through faith in Jesus Christ, he said.

"I know the one thing that must not change is this: as one sinner saved by grace to other sinners, I say come to Jesus Christ and come to newness of life," Mohler said. "It will change your sex life. . . . It will change every dimension of your life . . . by the grace and mercy of God."

A new commentary on the New Testament offers biblical insights on a myriad of issues pertinent to women and seeks to offer evangelical women a biblical alternative to egalitarian commentaries that have interpreted the text of Scripture according to feminist ideals.

Written from an evangelical and complementarian perspective, the Women’s Evangelical Commentary on the New Testament (Broadman & Holman) includes study notes and articles that carefully interpret the text as well as interact with contemporary issues facing women. The single-volume work is edited by Dorothy Kelley Patterson and Rhonda Harrington Kelley.

Why the need for a commentary written specifically for women? To provide evangelical women with a resource that is committed to the inerrancy and absolute integrity of the Word of God, the editors assert.

The editors point out that past efforts such as the feminist-oriented work entitled The Women’s Bible (a work published in 1895 by feminist pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton) have sought to achieve "freedom" for women from the so-called "constraints" of historical Christianity’s interpretation of Scripture.

However, contributors to the Women’s Evangelical Commentary approach the Word of God with no such revisionist agenda, the editors say in the introduction. Instead, they interpret the Scriptures in the same manner as other evangelicals have for centuries.

"The commentators have a passion for woman-to-woman exposition, and the passages selected for comment within the limits of a one-volume commentary on the New Testament were selected with the volume’s audience in mind," the editors write. "However, in interpreting those passages, the contributors have been committed to evangelical hermeneutical principles that have been tried and proven throughout the generations . . . The team of women accepted the absolute veracity and uniqueness of the Bible. They did not need revisionism or accommodation or relativism."

Patterson serves as professor of theology in women’s studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. She also serves as a council member for The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and is the author of numerous books including A Handbook for Minister’s Wives and A Handbook for Parents in Ministry. Patterson’s husband, Paige, is president of Southwestern Seminary.

Kelley serves as professor of women’s studies and director of the women’s ministry and the student wives programs at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of numerous books including A Woman’s Guide to Personal Holiness and Raising Moms: Daughters Loving Mothers in Their Later Years. Kelley’s husband, Chuck, is president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Both Patterson and Kelley hold Ph.D’s.

The commentary numbers nearly 1,000 pages and its commentary and articles accompany the Holman Christian Standard translation of the New Testament. The volume is designed to provide conservative evangelical women with a scholarly resource to be used in Bible teaching, small group or personal study or daily quiet time.

Numerous other female scholars and authors, including CBMW council member Mary Kassian, have also contributed articles, commentary, and analysis to the volume. The work also includes instructional sections on how to study and interpret the Bible.

The work throughout engages contemporary women’s issues from a biblical perspective. For example, one article contrasts feministic ideology with biblical womanhood and provides exhaustive biblical evidence for the complementarian view of womanhood.

In one of the key passages on the gender debate, 1 Timothy 2, the editors point out the primacy of male leadership in the church, but also offer instruction from the text on how women should attire themselves for worship: "The apostle addressed what were appropriate attire for women in the worship assembly," the editors write. First, he made the more general exhortation that they should dress themselves in modest clothing . . . the apostle then singled out some items of adornment the Ephesian women were wearing that he deemed especially inappropriate."

The Women’s Evangelical Commentary is the first in a series of resources for evangelical women. A companion volume on the Old Testament is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2007.

A recent trend toward full-blown egalitarianism continued to gather momentum in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) this month during the denomination’s annual Synod when delegates made several strategic moves designed to open all church offices to women.

Like several mainline denominations, the CRC is deeply divided over the biblical propriety of women in ministry with a number of vocal conservatives opposing the rising tide of egalitarianism within the church.

However, the division did not stop the synod from approving three female candidates—among 34 overall candidates—for the pastorate during its annual meeting June 10-16 at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The denominational leadership also continued to bulldoze a wider path for women to hold pastoral and leadership positions in the future by voting to remove the word "male" from the qualifications for ecclesiastical office listed in the Church Order. The synod must adopt this decision at the 2007 meeting before it takes effect.

The synod gave a cursory nod to conservatives by imposing provisions that women ministers or elders will not be permitted to serve as delegates to synod or as synodical deputies. The synod’s advisory committee told delegates that the recommendation is a compromise that will enable the church to "remain united," despite deeply-felt differences about women in office.

CRC delegates took a second action clearly aimed at removing obstacles for women who desire to hold pastorates and other leadership offices, a reality which the denomination once opposed on biblical grounds. Candidates for the ministry must now be brought before a synod as a group. In the past, candidates for the office of elder or other pastoral office had been considered and voted on individually.

Voting on candidates individually permits delegates who oppose the ordination of women to abstain from voting for female candidates, the synod said. The synod reported that it had heard from some who said the process of considering candidates as individuals "has been hurtful to female candidates and their families."

The synod also designated the gender-inclusive Today’s New International Version (TNIV) as acceptable for use in CRC churches. Illustrating that the CRC is anything but united on gender issues, a number of delegates objected strongly to the TNIV’s use of gender-inclusive language.

The CRC began in 1801 in Vriesland, Netherlands. The denomination came to America in 1847 after enduring famine and severe persecution in its mother country. The denomination has undergone a decline in membership in recent years with numbers receding to 295,307 in 1995 from a peak of 316,415 in 1991.

The CRC includes 985 congregations and nearly 1,500 ministers and its churches are located primarily in the Norththeastern and Midwestern United States as well as on the West Coast and in Canada. The CRC owns both Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary.

The words the church has used for nearly 1,700 years to describe the Trinity is apparently too male-centered for some in the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA).

Delegates of the PCUSA are mulling the adoption of so-called gender inclusive language for worship of the divine Trinity alongside the traditional "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" this week during the denomination’s 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala.

The denomination has appointed a study panel to consider "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" to "expand the church’s vocabulary of praise and wonder," according to a PCUSA press release.

The reason? The panelists consider descriptors of the Trinity limited to "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"—the clear language of Scripture—as chauvinistic because the traditional formula "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women," panel members said.

So what are the feminist options for "updating" the Trinity? The panel is considering to place alongside "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" a number of feminist-friendly terms, including:

Apparently, not everyone in the liberal denomination is enthused with the new language. Conservatives are calling for the church to continue using the language of Scripture to describe the three persons of the Godhead.

According to a news release, two professors at the denomination’s theological seminary in Pittsburgh see the potential hazards of "updating" the language to assuage cultural sensibilities.

Professors Andrew Purves and Charles Partee said, "We not only lose the ground for our language of God, we in fact lose the Trinity. We lose God. We do not need a diluted, metaphorical Trinity; rather, we need our confidence in the Christian doctrine of God to be restored."

The issue risks further ostracizing the few remaining conservatives in a denomination already fractured over the issue of homosexual ordination. The PCUSA was set to debate on Tuesday a bill that would give local congregations and regional presbyteries significant leeway in deciding whether or not to ordain clergy or lay officers living in gay relationships.

On Monday night, the denomination celebrated the ordination of women with an odd ceremony in which a group of satin-clad dancers invited assembly attendees to "renew their baptisms."

The celebration of three important anniversaries of women's ordination has been a theme writ large throughout the annual assembly as the PCUSA is marking the100th year for women deacons, the 75th year for women elders and the 50th year for women ministers.

On Sunday, the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) became the first church in the Anglicanism’s 1,400-year history to elect a female as its leader.

ECUSA bishops elected Katharine Jefferts Schori by a narrow 95-93 vote as the denomination’s 26th presiding bishop during the church’s annual General Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

Schori was the lone female among four candidates for the ECUSA’s highest office. The choice must still be approved by delegates at the convention, where the bishops' vote is normally backed, according to the Episcopal News Service.

The choice of Schori is controversial since most other Anglican Churches around the world do not allow women to be bishops. However, the ECUSA has a recent history of departing from views held by contemporary conservatives as well as the majority of Christians throughout church history.

Three years ago, the ECUSA became the first Anglican denomination to ordain a practicing homosexual in ordaining Gene Robinson to the bishopric in New Hampshire. Thus, Schori’s election continues the denomination’s trajectory away from historic Christianity. Schori has gone on record in support of ordaining homosexuals.

The ECUSA, like most mainline churches, has been bleeding members in recent years, with studies showing scores fleeing the leftward-drifting denomination in favor conservative evangelical churches. A quarter of the remaining 2.3 million ECUSA parishioners are 65 or older, according to denominational statistics.

Some conservative sections within the church are threatening to break with the ECUSA over the ordination of women and homosexuals.