Saturday, November 05, 2005
Defrocked Pastor Turns The Other Cheek
What is most remarkable about the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud is her Christian response to the church that has discarded her. After Stroud announced to her United Methodist congregation that she was in a committed relationship with a woman, the local bishop filed a complaint against her last year. The church's lower court stripped her of her credentials as minister. Her home church immediately rehired her as a lay minister, but she can no longer perform baptisms or celebrate Communion. Still, a day after the United Methodist Church's Judicial Council defrocked her because she is openly a lesbian, Stroud said, “I love the Methodist church.”
-- Connie Schultz, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland
-- Connie Schultz, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland
