Archive: Straight Talk
News, Views, & Uproars
Good News was saddened to hear of the recent death of Tom Skinner, the well-known evangelist and former chaplain of the Washington Redskins football team. At the age of 52, he died of complications related to acute lymphatic leukemia.
Skinner dedicated his life to raising up a new generation of leaders, and to challenging white evangelicals to address the sin of racism and respond to the special challenges of the inner city. He was a plenary speaker at the historic 1970 “Convocation of United Methodists for Evangelical Christianity” sponsored by Good News.
“Evangelist Tom Skinner performed open-heart surgery on every white man as he spoke plainly and prophetically about the contradictions of evangelical thought and evangelical living concerning the hellish plight of the black man in America,” reported one Wesley Foundation director.
“My evangelical friends would say Christ was the answer, but they would never come,” Skinner told the convocation. “They would spend millions of dollars to send missionaries to reach black people across the sea, but they would not spend one dime to cross the street of their own town to talk to a group of black people.”
He concluded his message with this challenge: “There’s no way that I can respond to your Jesus when I discover you have moved out of the neighborhood to avoid me …. There’s no way I can respond to your Christ if your church remains segregated and closed. There is no way that I can respond to your Jesus if you’re not willing to pay the price of being a real brother to me. And a brother is a person who lays down his life for his friend. That is what the Church is going to have to do if it’s going to meet the present crisis.”
Skinner also delivered the keynote address at the 1991 Good News Convocation in Washington, D.C. “Jesus is not just about stopping things. He’s about building his kingdom! The kingdom of Christ, his authority and rule in the earth,” he said. Once again, he challenged the participants to be the Church in a multi-cultural society and especially in the nation’s needy urban areas. “We are to colonize our world and our neighborhoods,” he said. “We’ve got to be willing to go where the people are. We must test the Good News in the crack houses where the sinners are.”
Skinner’s vision was demonstrated in an inner city Learning Center and a Leadership Institute established on a 35-acre farm. The Learning Center was the subject of a 1990 Good News cover-story.
Throughout his ministry, Tom Skinner was persistent in reminding the evangelical community that the kingdom of God transcends race, culture, economics, and politics. God is neither black nor white, Republican nor Democrat, liberal nor conservative. He is radically other.
“God is putting together this tremendous choir that the Bible says is going to stand up one day and sing, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,’” Skinner said. “That choir is going to put Africans and Asians and Hispanics and African-Americans and Chinese together. We will take all our instruments, languages, and cultures, and we will sing together, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive honor and glory and power and majesty forever and ever. Amen.’”
Tom Skinner is now a member of the celestial choir. We consider it an honor to have been challenged by his ministry.
Transforming Congregations recently held its first national board meeting. Through newsletters, workshops, and personal testimonies, Transforming Congregations has presented the hope of healing for the homosexual. Since its founding in 1988, Transforming Congregations has been under the leadership of the Rev. Robert Kuyper of Bakersfield, California.
The newly created board consists of a dozen representatives from seven states—from Pennsylvania to California. Board members include former homosexuals, mothers of gays and deceased AIDS patients, pastors, and other concerned persons.
The mission statement of the organization follows.
“Transforming Congregations is committed to provide information, resources and training to churches, districts and annual conferences for understanding of and involvement in a ministry of transformation of homosexuals, and also to encourage transforming ministry based on loving compassion, Scripture, and The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church.
“Transforming ministry seeks to: Affirm the biblical witness that homosexual practice is sin and that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to transform the life of the homosexual; Minister to persons struggling with homosexuality, their families, and all others affected by homosexuality, as partners in Christ’s work of healing; Call the church to recognize its need for repentance and healing of its homophobic and accommodating responses; Integrate all persons striving to live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ into full membership in the local church.”
For more information, write: Transforming Congregations, Trinity UM Church, 724 Niles St., Bakersfield, CA 93305.
After considerable discussion about the process being followed in presenting the Baptism Study before the church, the board of directors of Good News expressed its concern that “the Baptism Statement, By Water and the Spirit, the study guide, and the response sheet evidence a lack of evangelical input, are insensitive to former EUB traditions, and violate long-standing American Methodist convictions on the basis of church membership, as expressed in The Book of Discipline.”
Citing a written critique prepared by Good News board member, Dr. Riley Case (Kokomo, IN), board members conveyed concern that the proposed By Water and the Spirit statement gives baptism disproportionate prominence in the life of the church. Case has written in his critique that the new statement elevates “the importance of baptism to a level hitherto unknown historically in United Methodist circles.” This has important implications for United Methodism’s tradition of including on the preparatory role of the church all baptized children, and of the careful instruction of believers in preparation for becoming members of a local church.
The evangelical leaders also took action to officially endorse the Confessing Movement which was birthed at an April meeting in Atlanta during which a broad coalition of evangelicals gathered to discuss the crisis facing the UM Church. This unanimous action reflected the board’s strong affirmation of the purpose of the movement.
Finally, directors expressed disappointment that Dr. Al Yorn Steeg, senior minister from St. Luke’s UM Church in Fresno and recently elected president of the Mission Society for United Methodists (MSUM), had not been appointed to that post by his bishop. This reflects the continued unwillingness of many Steeg, a former missionary and successful pastor in UM bishops to appoint faithful United Methodists to the MSUM.
In refusing to get an “Appointment Beyond the Local Church,” Vom Steeg, a former missionary and successful pastor in the California/Nevada Annual Conference, was forced to take a “Leave of Absence.” At the same time, Good News directors note that UM bishops have made “Appointments Beyond the Local Church” to such secular organizations as Planned Parenthood, the March of Dimes, City Pride Bakery, and Chestnut Health Systems.
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