by Steve | Dec 9, 2011 | In the News
By Sam Hodges
Hamilton and Slaughter sounds like a law firm one wouldn’t want to mess with, but those are in fact the last names of two well-known United Methodist megachurch pastors. They are good friends and close collaborators on efforts to renew the UMC.
And, as it happens, the Rev. Adam Hamilton and the Rev. Mike Slaughter each has a book on Christmas that’s just out.
To read the rest of Sam Hodges article in The United Methodist Reporter, click HERE
by Steve | Dec 9, 2011 | In the News
By Peter Marshall
Many human rights are neglected, but religious freedom is often strikingly so. The late Abe Rosenthal, looking back over five decades working at the New York Times, wrote: “I realized that in decades of reporting, writing or assigning stories on human rights, I rarely touched on the most important. Political, legal, civil and press rights, emphatically often; but the right to worship where and how God or conscience leads, almost never.”
To read more, click HERE
by Steve | Dec 7, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Rob Renfroe
For the first time, the United Methodist Council of Bishops has issued a collective statement that all of its members “will uphold the Book of Discipline as established by General Conference,” regarding the various issues related to homosexuality.
The statement was the direct result of a letter sent by 59 leading pastors to all active bishops, asking the Council to address the then 900 pastors who had pledged to perform gay marriages, contrary to the Discipline. (You can read the entire statement from the Council of Bishops at www.GoodNewsMag.org.)
Since the letter was sent, more than 2,500 pastors have added their names to the letter and more than 12,000 laypersons have signed an even more pointed statement at the website www.faithfulumc.com. As reticent as the Council has been in the past to address the topic of homosexuality in any sort of unified way—even as it was tearing the church apart—it is obvious that the letter and the 14,500 signatures were effective in motivating the Bishops to do what they should have done long ago.
We are grateful to the Council for issuing a statement and to the thousands of United Methodists who asked them to do so.
So we have a statement. That’s the good news. The statement itself—well, that’s another story. In a 21-sentence document, two sentences deal with upholding the Discipline. Out of 526 total words, only 41 state the Bishops’ commitment to defend the covenant that holds us together. In fact the UM position regarding gay marriage is never stated. Nor does the statement promote our beautifully balanced, biblically faithful, and compassionate position regarding human sexuality. (See page 30.)
Instead, much greater attention, verbiage, and passion is given to the same issues we regularly hear touted by the Bishops: the importance of “being in ministry…for all persons,” a warning “not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends,” and a commitment to offer “grace upon grace to all.”
There is a place for such statements. But those issues are not the ones that are threatening the unity and the future of the UM Church. I believe what evidently many of our Bishops are not convinced of: United Methodists, in general, and UM pastors, in particular, are among the most compassionate, grace-filled and grace-giving persons on the planet.
When 1,000 rogue pastors have promised to break our covenant, what we need is something more pointed and more theological than a document that devotes the majority of its content to telling us to be kind to one another. We get that already. United Methodists have always gotten that. And it’s not a lack of kindness that is threatening to destroy the unity of the UM Church.
We needed a statement that addressed firmly and specifically the proposed actions of those who have rejected holy conferencing, who have pledged to throw the church into chaos, and who believe they can represent the UM Church while rejecting the clear teaching of the Scriptures and 2,000 years of Christian tradition.
What we wish the Council of Bishops would have said.
Grace and peace to you in the Name of Jesus Christ.
We live in a time of great social change. In particular, our culture, and even some in the church, are confused about sexual wholeness. In such times, it is imperative for the church to be clear about its teachings. As Bishops of The United Methodist Church, it is our responsibility to make certain that the church and the world know exactly where we stand.
A statement is especially necessary at this time because 1,000 UM pastors have pledged to perform marriages for homosexual couples, contrary to the Book of Discipline which states that no UM pastor may do so and no such service may be held on UM property.
Our UM position concerning homosexuality is one that has received careful consideration, much prayer, and constant reaffirmation for over 40 years. We believe that it is biblically faithful—all persons possess sacred worth, but the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
As shepherds of the church we are committed to upholding, defending and promoting our position which offers sacred worth, sexual wholeness, and the beauty of holiness to all.
To those who possess a same-sex attraction and to those who love them, we want you to know that the UM Church is a safe place for you. You are welcome in our churches, and we are deeply sorry for any actions or words which purposefully or inadvertently have been hurtful to you.
To those pastors who have pledged to perform gay marriages, we admonish you not to do so. If for conscience sake you feel that you must, know that we will not allow you to fracture the unity of the church or break our policies without severe penalties. We pledge that we will not wait for others to file charges against you if you perform same-sex marriages. We will do so. In addition, you will immediately be suspended and not reappointed until your case has been resolved. You have the right to disagree with our UM positions. We have the responsibility to enforce them. And we will faithfully do so.
We have a time-honored, Wesleyan tradition of resolving our disagreements. It’s holy conferencing. Not only are we troubled by your pledge to perform services not allowed by the Discipline, we are also grieved that you have decided no longer to follow our Wesleyan way of resolving conflicts together. Your pledged actions make future conversations difficult if not impossible. And that is most regrettable.
We implore you to live by the Discipline and recommit yourselves to holy conferencing. It is our hope and prayer that you will. If you are not able to do so, integrity may require you to find another denomination. Integrity will require us to enforce the Discipline, offer both grace and truth to the world, and not allow the actions of those who disagree with our positions to divert our energies from making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
—The Council of Bishops
Rob Renfroe is the president and publisher of Good News.
by Steve | Dec 6, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Thomas A. Lambrecht
Three years after the United Methodist Council of Bishops declared that ordinations conducted by Church Within A Church (CWAC) have “no official status,” two more ceremonies resembling ordination rites were conducted by CWAC on October 23 at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona.
According to a CWAC press release, DeLyn Celec was discontinued from the United Methodist ordination process when she answered “yes” when asked if she was in a civil union with her partner.
“I am called to Extraordinary Ordination with the Church Within A Church Movement,” Celec said. “Its distinctively Wesleyan heritage, and commitment to ending oppressions of all types, makes it feel like my Church.” Celec will continue serving as Worship Arts Coordinator at United Methodist-related Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.
Robyn Morrison stopped her United Methodist ordination process when her lesbian daughter asked her why she would want to be ordained in a denomination that would not allow her to perform the wedding of her own daughter.
“I feel called to sacramental ministry within the Methodist tradition,” said Morrison. “Sadly, exclusion in the United Methodist Church continues to harm me, my beloved daughter and my beloved friends, who are gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual.”
United Methodist ordained elders participated in and led the ordination service. The preacher for the service was the Rev. I. Malik Saafir, senior pastor of Theressa Hoover United Methodist Church and lead consultant for the Janus Institute For Justice, LLC, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Leading the ordination ceremony was the Rev. Greg Dell, retired member of the Northern Illinois Annual Conference known for his 1999 conviction and suspension for officiating at the union of two gay men; the Rev. Susan Morrison, retired and currently teaching at Boston University School of Theology; and the Rev. Dr. Traci West, Professor of Ethics and African American Studies at Drew University Theological School (Madison, NJ).
Additionally, the worship was led by Mark Miller, the co-worship leader at the 2008 General Conference.
Three years ago, the UM Council of Bishops issued a public statement that the ceremony in which two ordinations were conducted by CWAC “was not approved by any United Methodist annual conference, board of ordained ministry or cabinet” and that the ordinations had “no effect within The United Methodist Church.”
Good News believes that this “extraordinary ordination” was a sign that proponents of the acceptance of homosexual behavior are prepared to go outside The United Methodist Church to get their way. The fact that four United Methodist ordained elders led this event signifies how broken our church really is.
The Church Within A Church Movement is actually an incipient new denomination. It offers to credential pastors, holds regular training and support meetings, and sponsors new church plants by its ministers. While evangelicals have been accused of preparing to start a new Methodist denomination for years, CWAC has already done so, to little fanfare and no objection from those concerned with the unity of The United Methodist Church.
It seems that the CWAC would be the perfect place for those clergy and congregations who can no longer live within the United Methodist covenant.
By Thomas A. Lambrecht, vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Dec 6, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Shane Raynor
You can learn a lot from reading just one sentence. Consider the first of the United Methodist baptismal vows: “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?”
If you read it quickly, you might think this is a basic promise to “be good,” stated in three different ways, but it’s not. There’s a lot of information packed into this one question. In these 17 words, you find the three basic evil influences with which Christians struggle, and three things we have to do (the three R’s) to help us overcome them. You’ve got to wonder if most of us knew what we were really getting into when we said yes to all this.
As we travel the road to become more like Jesus, we run into three main obstacles: the world, the flesh, and the devil. By “world,” I mean the negative human influences and the corrupt, unregenerate culture around us. By “flesh,” I mean our own human tendency toward sin. And by “devil,” I mean Satan himself as well as demons.
Reject. The world is referred to in the baptismal vows in the phrase “evil powers of this world.” We promise to reject these evil powers. These powers don’t include anything supernatural, but they are often under demonic influence. Evil powers of this world include evils like slavery, abortion, sexual abuse, persecution, oppression, corruption, systems that perpetuate poverty, drug trafficking, exploitation…the list is endless. Cultural influences such as various movies, television shows, video games and music could also be included as part of the evil powers of this world. Rejecting these means refusing to accept them, rebuffing them, discarding them as useless, or casting them out or off. How many of us are truly rejecting the evil powers of this world?
Repent. It’s been said that each of us is our own worst enemy. This makes sense to me, because a lot of times we don’t even need an outside influence to make us sin—we manage to handle that just fine on our own. When we become Christians, we still have to deal with the flesh—that part of us that, if not disciplined and brought under the power of the Holy Spirit, will take us down the wrong road every time. I think of our flesh like a car that isn’t in proper alignment. If we take our hands off the steering wheel long enough, we’re usually going to wind up in a ditch, or worse, in another lane crashing into some other vehicle. The Holy Spirit helps us control our flesh and keep it in check. Repenting is what we do when we make an active choice to change both our hearts and our lives—a choice that helps transform us both on the inside and the outside.
Renounce. This is a strong word. It means something along the lines of disavow, disown, forsake, or repudiate. When you renounce someone, you’re publicly declaring that they have no authority over you anymore and you’re dissociating yourself from them. In the baptismal vows, you’re not stopping at merely condemning forces of evil (denouncing), you’re severing any and all ties between you and those forces completely (renouncing). When you say you renounce something and you mean it, you’re doing something powerful in the spiritual realm, even if you only feel like you’re saying words at the time.
Our war with evil is happening on three fronts: between our spiritual nature and our corrupt one, between us and the world, and between us and spiritual forces of wickedness. We can’t focus on only one front and be effective. As with other parts of the Christian life, balance is a major key to maximum effectiveness.
Shane Raynor lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is an editor and blogger at MinistryMatters.com.
