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Letters
Cheers and Jeers

Narrow agenda and decline
It was a privilege to serve in the Florida Annual Conference (at their invitation) for 6 years. For two-and-a-half of those years the Rev. Charlene Kammerer was my district superintendent. She was an exceptionally fine leader and we knew she was destined for the episcopacy. Therefore, her stance on membership for an individual living an unrepentant same-sex lifestyle has been most disappointing. She applauds the Rev. Barry Burkholder for taking the "very courageous step" of moving such an individual into the membership of Virginia's South Hill United Methodist Church. I smile a bit at this. Where is the courage in taking a step your bishop assigned you to do?

I would submit the real courage was demonstrated by the previous South Hill pastor, the Rev. Edward H. Johnson, who was moved because he refused such membership. He stood against his bishop's wishes and suffered for it. Fortunately his actions were sustained by the Judicial Council; Bishop Kammerer's were not.

I am a native of Colorado and was a member of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference for 14 years. For six of those years I chaired the renewal effort for the conference. The last bishop I served under in Colorado once said to me, "This place has a death wish." He was right and the annual conference is now 52,000 laity smaller than in 1960 in a region three times larger. The entire Western Jurisdiction combined is now smaller than a single annual conference in the Deep South, and the Jurisdiction is collapsing.

Bishop Kammerer is pushing the same narrow agenda that is a major factor in the decline of United Methodism in the West. I trust that General Conference 2008 will follow the lead of the Judicial Council on this matter lest the mighty South join the West on a potemkin path.

JL Penfold
Greeley, Colorado

 

Membership for Klansmen?
There has been much debate about what it means to be a member of the United Methodist Church, and about the pastor's role in determining the readiness of an individual to receive vows of membership. Some have called for lowering the bar to include anyone who is willing to affirm membership vows, insisting the pastor has no right to set the bar higher.

Is this, and not acceptance of homosexual behavior, really the issue for these folks? If so, then they would also readily allow a self-avowed, practicing Klansman to join their churches. If the Klansman is willing to affirm the membership vows, the pastor has no right to bar them from membership. Right? Somehow, I doubt the voices calling for lowering the bar for a self-avowed practicing homosexual would do the same for a Klansman. So is their issue really the meaning of membership and the pastor's role in it, or is their issue really the acceptance of homosexual behavior?

J. David Trawick
San Antonio, Texas

 

The UM Church in trouble
The April 20, 2007 edition of the Wesleyan Advocate, the official newspaper for the North and South Georgia Conferences of the United Methodist Church, reported alarming statistics about the denomination. More than 40 percent of churches did not take in a single new member during the 2005-2006 year. Even worse, the UM Church lost one percent of its members. This translates into a loss of 70,000 members. That's a loss of 1400 members per week. Forty years ago, the UM Church had 12 million members. Today, the denomination has less than 8 million members. Some worry that if the slide continues, there may not even be a United Methodist denomination in a few years. Why?

Like the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter two, it is apparent that the UM Church has lost its first love. Leaders have intentionally abandoned what made the denomination grow. That is, winning people to Christ and growing people in the Lord.

Additionally, a pro-homosexual activist, Mark Miller, has been chosen by the denomination's bureaucrats to be one of the co-directors of music for the 2008 General Conference (Source: www.ird-renew.org/site). To put such an activist in a leadership role flies in the face of decency. As a result, the UM Church is declining in both membership and money which places more and more demand for the denomination to squeeze money out of its dwindling membership through increased apportionments that are sent to church headquarters to carry out their political agendas.

The money keeps the bureaucrats in power-the same people who have led the denomination away from our mission: "to make disciples of Christ."

The autocratic officials of the denomination are taking up every extreme liberal cause and using the tithes and offerings of good church members to do so. There is no stopping the headlong rush into the destruction of the denomination that once stood on the authority of the Bible and preached Christ crucified and the only hope of mankind. John Wesley (1703-1791), founder of the Methodist Church, said, "You have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work." The United Methodist Church today is far removed from the love that its founder had for the Bible, Christ, and the mission of the church-to save souls.

Christ gave this warning to the church at Ephesus, "Do you have any idea how far you've fallen? A Lucifer fall! Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle" (Revelation 2:5 MSG). With the hemhoragging loss of 1400 members each week, the light of Christ is well on the way of being removed from the United Methodist Church unless repentance and revival sweep over our leaders to love the lost and build up people in Christ.

Dan White
Shiloh UM Church
Appling, Georgia

 

Profound thanks
How can we ever thank you enough? I am thinking of Good News leaders through the years who have kept the faith, kept your balance, and saved our Methodist movement from crashing into the humanist culture.

With apologies to vanity, I was there at the beginning with Chuck Keysor and the other Good News founders. Since then, others have kept the faith with an increasingly excellent magazine and movement. My modest efforts include Trinity Bible Studies, and chairing the group (with Ed Robb and others) to establish the Methodist scholars program.

 You have worked effectively at General Conference for the gospel and spun off and led other organizations for renewal.

This note is prompted by recent positive church news here and abroad and your faithful contributions. Even United Methodist literature is now orthodox and useful. The dark side remains with some bishops, church officials, and humanist "correctness" that sets the climate in which we work, and seeps through many church walls. We are beyond the sexual revolution and into a really satanic cloud of violence, killing and perversion not only in the rap and video subculture, but the media which numbs beautiful and Christ-like goals. How can we compete for the souls of our youth? I am persuaded that God will find a way.

So I am full of gratitude, and all of you will reap an eternal reward.

Frank & Dorothy Warden
Searcy, Arkansas



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