For decades, the Rev. Mark Achtemeier believed gays and lesbians were unfit to serve as leaders in the Presbyterian Church.
He believed homosexuality to be a kind of affliction, a destructive addiction that ran counter to Scripture. In the 1990s he helped craft restrictions to keep gay and lesbian candidates from joining the Presbyterian clergy.
But on Saturday, Achtemeier will deliver a sermon at the ordination of his friend Scott Anderson, who will become the first openly gay minister in the church after the very restrictions Achtemeier once advocated were abolished.
In May, the Presbyterian Church USA voted to amend its constitution to allow gays and lesbians to serve as ministers and lay leaders. With the move, the 2.3-million-member church became the fourth mainline Protestant denomination to allow gay ordination, following the Episcopal and Evangelical Lutheran churches and the United Church of Christ.
For Anderson, the ceremony in Madison, Wis., will mark his return to a ministry he was forced to abandon decades ago because of his sexuality. For Achtemeier, the ceremony will mark the latest step in a journey of faith.
As Anderson was studying at Princeton Theological Seminary in the 1980s, he hid his sexuality to continue his quest to become a minister. “My sense of call was so strong that I felt I wanted to pursue that and keep the rest of this quiet,” he said.
In 1990, while working as parish minister at Bethany Presbyterian Church in south Sacramento, Anderson became embroiled in a dispute with a couple after he declined to use his position as minister to help raise money for a cause they were advancing. The couple began fishing for information to use against him and learned he was gay.
If Anderson didn’t help them, they threatened, they would out him.
Anderson instead chose to tell the congregation himself and stepped down as minister. He was met, he said, with a standing ovation.
“It was an empowering, liberating moment,” he recalled. “But there was also the sadness and grief to leave the work I loved so much.”
But Anderson remained active in the church and in 2001 was placed on a task force charged with guiding the church through a tumultuous period of debate over gay clergy.
Also on the task force was Achtemeier, a staunch supporter of excluding gays and lesbians from church leadership. “I was deeply informed by very traditional readings of Scripture,” he said.
They slowly developed a friendship. Achtemeier realized that Anderson, despite having reason to be bitter, showed no hostility toward the church. Achtemeier saw in him a love for Christ, the church and Scripture that was unwavering.
True Discernment 
It seems to me that by accepting this situation that by doing this they accept any and all sinful behavior.
I am a Minister of Word and Sacrament within the PCUSA, and my heart is grieved by what Scott Anderson and Mark Achtemeier have done to the church of my childhood. I had Mark’s mother, Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, as a professor when I was at Union Seminary. She is probably rolling over in her grave after what her son has done. He has thumbed his nose at God’s Word, and in the process has caused serious conflict within the denomination. Since my roots are so deeply tied to the Presbyterian Church, it is almost more than I can fathom. I am praying and asking God where I can go to use my gifts. I don’t think that I can stay in an apostate denomination. The fur is flying. Churches are beginning to leave the denomination, and pastors are either renouncing their affiliation with the PCUSA and going elsewhere or leaving the ministry altogether. Just as in the Book of Judges says, the “people are doing what is right in their own eyes.” Mr. Anderson and Mr. Achtemeier have a lot to answer for before the throne of God. I fervently pray that the PCUSA will see the error of its ways and turn back to God’s Word which is THE authority – the ONLY authority for life and faith. May it be so, O Lord.
Patricia