by Steve | Nov 4, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: “By Water and the Spirit”—Understanding Baptism
The new baptism statement needs further study before it becomes the doctrine and practice of the church. At this point in time too many questions remain unanswered. The church should avoid the disaster of 1972 when the General Conference made a hasty decision on church structure and prepared a doctrinal statement.
The new structure gave us unwieldy boards and agencies and an unworkable “Council on Ministries.” The doctrinal statement imposed upon the church theological “pluralism,” the conciliar principle, the doctrinal standards as “landmark” (and thus not fully authoritative) statements, and the quadrilateral (a four-legged stool with uneven legs). We are still burdened with the structure, though a later General Conference was able finally to undo the damage of a doctrinal statement that was passed without careful examination.
The church ought not change its theology and way of doing things without a much more careful consideration of the implications of what is being proposed. That’s why the baptism statement needs more time.
Specifically, the General Conference should raise questions about:
1. The amount of time required between distribution of the final draft of the baptism statement and the beginning of General Conference. The baptism statement has undergone at least four revisions. After the last meeting of the study committee, the chairperson said that the final paper is “significantly different” from earlier drafts. There is enough difference between the revisions that one should legitimately ask, “What is it, really, that is being presented?” A major revision was made, with a new writer, since the document was presented to the General Conference in 1992 and presumably studied by the churches. It would be a travesty if the final document did not reach the delegates until after the deadline to submit petitions for amendment (December 15, 1995). One would wonder if the last-minute presentation of the document is a strategy to inhibit debate. Despite claims to the contrary, this statement has not yet been studied or understood by the church.
2. The Disciplinary changes that will be required since our understandings of baptism, church membership, and salvation are being radically revised. For example, one consistent theme throughout the statement’s revisions is its clearly stated objective that the basis of church membership is to be changed. According to the new baptism statement, persons will no longer be made church members by profession of faith in Jesus Christ, but by baptism. Is the church so quickly willing to jettison 200 years of American church belief and practice without carefully considering how this changes the nature of United Methodism?
Since the teaching that salvation and church membership is dependent not upon baptism but upon faith in Christ, and since this teaching is reflected in a number of places in our present Book of Discipline, should we not know exactly how radically our Discipline will need to be changed? It is certain, for example, that paragraphs 208 through 243 will need major revision.
3. How this fits into the beliefs and practices of United Methodists in central conferences and other Methodist bodies around the world. Discussions on the baptism statement to this point have been embarrassingly parochial. None of the previous drafts were translated into Spanish, or Korean, or any other language. The final draft has not even been seen by Americans, let alone any of the central conferences. Is it fair to impose on the church in Zaire this American parochialism? The baptism beliefs and practices in our world-wide denomination vary greatly. Those variations need to be treated with sensitivity. Do we leave ourselves open to the charge of cultural and theological imperialism?
4. Practical and logistics problems. Treating baptized persons as church members, which is without precedent in American Methodism, can lead only to confusion. What about infants baptized in one church whose parents attend elsewhere? What about persons baptized away from the church setting, at camps or retreats, for example?
If there is another category of membership (such as professed/confirmed members) in addition to baptized members, and if apportionments are based not on “members” but on “professed/confirmed members” can we believe that the “baptized members” roll will be kept with any seriousness? Since rebaptism is being disallowed, what will constitute a valid baptism in the first place (what about baptism in the name of a different god, such as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer)? How will baptized, but inactive, members be removed from the roll?
General Conference delegates have not distinguished themselves for their careful theological reflection. It would be a shame if the baptism statement is passed without a great deal more serious consideration.
by Steve | Nov 3, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Putting an end to the Catholic bashing!
My boyhood years during the 1940s were spent in a small town in southwestern Minnesota. That idyllic community had many virtues, but religious tolerance and ecumenism were not among them. The virus of anti-Catholicism was as pervasive as polio. Unlike polio, however, hating Catholics was popular and widely supported.
Catholics were second-class citizens, not quite fully American. They were supposed to have a secret plan to subvert cherished American ideals and undermine American institutions by means of parochial schools. The board of our public school was entirely Protestant and the superintendent was on notice to refrain from hiring more than a token number of Catholics.
“Teachers, especially coaches, get very close to students,” reflected one board member. “We don’t want any proselytizing.” Protestants inwardly rejoiced when a succession of priests were unsuccessful in raising money to build a parochial school. They breathed a sigh of relief when the inadequate funds went to refurbish a bingo parlor. “How characteristically Catholic,” mused a Baptist pastor.
Fifty years ago we called Catholics “mackerel snappers” and nuns “penguins.” There were lurid tales of lascivious sex between priests and imprisoned sisters behind monastery walls. The pope was called the anti-Christ by a number of preachers.
Those were the days before John F. Kennedy. His election in 1960 was supposed to have symbolized the final acceptance of Catholics as full-fledged citizens. In Boston, his ancestors had seen signs, “No Catholics or Dogs Need Apply.” Mobs had burned monasteries and rectories when Nativism and the Know Nothing Party rode high in the saddle. During the Civil War WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) subject to the draft paid Catholic immigrants $120 to wear the Union blue in their stead. Tens of thousands of Catholic proletarians died to preserve the nation and free the slaves.
But Kennedy’s election proved, said most political scientists, that this form of religious bigotry was now finally over. Tragically, recent events have proved them wrong:
- In Boston, members of the militant Queer Nation have thrown condoms and shouted obscenities at newly ordained Catholic priests and their families.
- In Los Angeles, nine Catholic churches have experienced a wave of anti-Catholic hate crimes and have been vandalized with graffiti, painted swastikas, and smashed and decapitated statues.
- At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, demonstrators routinely desecrate the Mass by shouting protests and holding lewd parodies of the Catholic liturgy.
- During “Saturday Night Live,” millions of viewers witnessed singer Sinead O’Connor tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II.
As a Protestant religion professor, I am deeply troubled that the media has failed to come to the defense of the Catholic Church. If such attacks were directed against an African-American denomination, an Islamic mosque, or Native American rituals, outrage by the media, the academy, and the opinion makers would be fortissimo. When the Pope recently visited Denver the media again gave the back of its hand to Catholics. It focused on those who disagree with established Church doctrine, such as Catholic feminists, homosexuals, and those who no longer participate in the church.
When a gay man, infected with HIV, suddenly recovered a “repressed memory” after 20 years and said that Chicago’s Cardinal Joseph Bernardin sexually abused him, why did the media give knee jerk credence to his charges? The accusation has now been withdrawn but a sterling character has been defamed and sullied. Meanwhile, both the California and Minnesota Boards of Medical Examiners are bringing charges against psychologists and psychiatrists who have been charged with injecting “repressed memories” of sexual abuse in their adolescent clients. The Catholic Church, it seems, has “deep pockets” for unethical counselors and their clients.
Catholic bashing makes good copy, for there is a deep and visceral hatred of Catholicism among the media elite and opinion makers. To be sure, at times their church officials have not properly handled mentally and sexually sick priests. But then, has not this also been true of the legal, the medical, and the Protestant church ad judicatories? Where in the media is fairness, compassion, and understanding?
Hilton Kramer, a former New York Times reporter, states that “the bias that the media has against Catholics has no rival anywhere in the population.” When Khalid Abdul Muhammad, a disciple of the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, delivered his infamous Kean College attack against Jews, Catholics, Nazis, whites, and homosexuals, the Times strongly criticized the speech, but neglected to mention the tirade against Catholicism. Indeed, Mr. Muhammad spent more time blasting Catholics than he did homosexuals. The following is a small sample of his speech:
“Go to the Vatican in Rome when the old no-good Pope—you know that cracker, somebody need to raise that dress up and see what’s really under there—when the old Pope was shot, he didn’t pray in front of no white Mary.”
Why didn’t the New York Times mention the attack on the Pope? Perhaps this is more than callous indifference to Catholic bashing. “Put plainly,” comments William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League For Religious And Civil Rights, “if the politically correct police have assigned a victimizer status to the Catholic Church, then the Church cannot readily be transformed into a victim.”
Perhaps the issue is abortion. Polls indicate that those in the media are 98 percent “pro choice.” Journalists find it hard to be objective about an issue they feel passionately about. Simply put, their fault is ethical reductionism. Are there not many issues—poverty, health care, race, unemployment, peace—where the church is on the side of the angels? Catholic parochial schools are one of the few bright lights of our urban ghettos—with minority children struggling to enroll.
Among many of my liberal friends, it is fashionable to bash Catholicism. It is their form of anti-Semitism. The very existence of the Catholic Church offends them. “How can people believe that stuff” is their common mantra. Of course, as a Protestant, I see Catholic doctrines with which I disagree.
Nevertheless, I am pleased that the Catholic Church is strikingly countercultural. It holds to a moral hierarchy in spite of the moral rot, drift, and pathology that stalks our land. A “go-with-the-flow” morality is no morality worthy of a name. Instead, Catholic moral universals are an anchor of comfort and guidance to millions in a way that “feel-good” situationalism, relativism, and nihilism do not provide.
Unlike mainline Protestantism, evangelical Protestantism is forging common bonds with Catholic social witness. Neither group can condone the increasing disrespect for life, media sensuality, public school incompetence and arrogance, statist intrusion into familial and private matters, or the diminishing of decency and civility in our public life.
Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law has stated: “The tension between Church and culture has increased in this past decade. In the past, even those who disagreed with the Church acknowledged with respect the validity of her role to offer our society a vision of life which everyone understood was intended for the common good. That has changed. There is an evident anti-Catholic bias that manifests itself constantly. The Church’s refusal to bend her teaching to the ways of the world has escalated the attacks upon her. What once would have been veiled has become a blatant and mean-spirited prejudice.”
As a Protestant, I want Catholicism to flourish. The church has a core of teaching and tradition that has endured. It is not a weather vane that is subject to every changing moral or cultural fad. After 37 years of teaching I find that many of my Catholic students have a firm hold on life. They have been enriched—not impoverished—by their faith. There is little that is antiquarian, regressive, or bigoted in their familial or church training. They seem to have a spiritual centeredness and a moral compass that will guide them well in life.
“There are so many more reasons why I am grateful for the spiritual and moral formation given to me by my church,” commented one of my Catholic students, “that I can tolerate a few of the instances in which I disagree with its teachings.”
Liberals should embody that cardinal virtue of tolerance, and pledge themselves to make Catholic bashing as politically incorrect as antipathy toward African-Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Native Americans, and homosexuals. Moreover, they should read contemporary Catholic theology and ethics so that their data base is larger than a few hoary stories of those who left the church some time ago. Let us get beyond the paradigm of “Us v. Them” prevalent during an earlier era of bigotry in America.
Our society needs a vibrant Catholicism to help heal the terrible social pathologies of our society.
Walter W. Benjamin, Ph.D., is professor of religion emeritus at Hamline University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he taught for 28 years. His area of concentration is medical and business ethics in both teaching and research.
by Steve | Nov 2, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Servant Evangelism
Opening Closed Hearts to God’s Love
By Steve Sjogren
To earn the right to speak words of love, we must first willingly demonstrate deeds of love to the hurting people in our cities.
It was the Friday evening before Labor Day, and rush hour traffic was backed up for nearly a mile at the corner by our church. The temperature was 95 degrees, with matching humidity. About ten of us from the church quickly went into action to touch several hundred hot, frustrated motorists with God’s love. We iced down 400 soft drinks and set up signs just down the road: “Free Drinks Ahead!” As the cars came to the stop sign, we asked, “Would you like diet or regular?”
“Diet or regular what?” was the skeptical reply. “We’re giving away free drinks to show God’s love in a practical way.”
“Why?”
“Just because God loves you.” Reactions varied greatly—some people smiled, some shook their heads, several mouths dropped open. Most were a little stunned to receive something for free. A UPS driver drove away saying, “But I don’t even know you guys. Why would you do this for me?” In less than one hour, we spoke with about 600 people, gave away all the drinks on hand, and were even given coverage on a local radio station’s traffic report.
A slow start
I met Christ in the revival atmosphere of the “Jesus People” movement in southern California. A lot of evangelism was going on, but most of us doing it at the time were high on enthusiasm and low on understanding about how people come to Christ. We had an oversimplified picture of what bringing someone into relationship with Christ involved. Our model for evangelism worked extremely well in southern California, but it depended on highly gifted leaders doing evangelism in public meetings. Little person-to-person evangelism was going on outside of corporate gatherings. We naively thought we could use the same approach elsewhere with identical effectiveness. We joked that you could sneeze at meetings and a dozen people would accept Christ! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that God was doing his own sovereign work of evangelism. Doing evangelism during the Jesus Movement was like fishing during a salmon run. Anyone with minimal availability could “catch fish.”
Today we are no longer fishing in a salmon run.
The day of “easy evangelism” has not been with us for more than a decade. People aren’t nearly as open to listening to evangelistic appeals as they once were. In their hearts, many non-Christians say, “You have no right to tell me about your God until you have shown me you have integrity.” The scandals of prominent leaders in the body of Christ have made it more difficult than ever to share the gospel. For whatever reason, unchurched people are jaded. It’s tough sharing Jesus with skeptics.
Ten years after I came to Christ, I found myself in a very different spiritual environment than the fertile fields of the Jesus Movement era. I moved my family to Cincinnati to plant a new church. We began in a conservative, Midwestern community with five people. During my first 18 months, I shared my vision for planting a church with 1,000 people. Yet for all that effort we started our first Sunday with 35 people. That’s enough rejection to give Norman Vincent Peale a challenge. At that point we were unenthusiastic about evangelism. Mentioning the “E-word” caused us to feel guilty and reminded us of our failure at reaching out to the community.
Seeing their pain
One day while sitting in a restaurant, having just told a visitor our vision for starting a church—and being rejected again—I felt the Lord speak to me: “If you will befriend my friends then you’ll have more people than you know what to do with.”
Until that day, I wondered if there would be any people to pastor. Now God was saying I would have more people than I know what to do with if I befriended his friends.
I began to look in Scripture for the kinds of people Jesus interacted with during his short ministry. I began to see something new: though Jesus loved everyone, he apparently enjoyed spending the better part of his time with three types of people: the poor, the sick, and the lost. Even the apostles came from the hurting of society. All the apostles came from Galilee, the most hurting part of Palestine.
I began to see Jesus’ friends as the ones who are in pain from bad decisions they have made, from rejection, and from living in a fallen world that knows little of God’s acceptance, forgiveness, and love. We all have our own version of pain—those tension points that make life somewhere between difficult and impossible to live.
I realized that almost no one is having a good time in life. I went to the mall one day to go people watching. As I looked into the face of each person, I realized almost everyone is experiencing a significant level of misery. Jesus longs to touch and heal this pain. Somehow, my job was to be around and minister to those people. But how? I’m too shy to go door to door knocking. Besides, people seemed more skeptical than ever. I had already heard several hundred people tell me no to the invitation to become involved in this new church.
Then an idea began to form. If we could somehow lighten some of the pain these people are going through—even for a moment—maybe we would get their attention. By serving our way into their hearts, maybe we could gain their ears.
As the idea of servant evangelism crystallized, we organized an “absolutely free car wash.” We stationed a couple of former cheerleaders on the corner with signs to direct dirty cars to the rest of our crew. We had several who washed, some who did windows, some who vacuumed, and a couple who were “designated” evangelists, explaining to people the reason we were doing this. Amazingly, many wouldn’t believe we would do something for free—no strings attached. The first car was a station wagon driven by a single mom with six squirming kids. She cried as we shared with her and prayed for her.
The owner of the second car turned out to be a well-known Cincinnati businessman. We told him we were doing this for free. He said, “That’s nice. To whom shall I make out my check?”
“No sir,” someone replied, “we aren’t receiving any money for washing your car. We did this just because God loves you.” It was one thing to see the mother cry, but I wasn’t ready to see this powerful businessman wipe away the tears.
I believe he was touched because we went around all his established defenses that had kept people—and God—away from his life. If we were to “battle” at a philosophical or theological level, we would not have gotten through to this sophisticate. In a sense, we broke the rules and were not “fighting fair.” We sneaked in the back door of his life where he was least expecting it—his heart—and made a significant impact.
When the afternoon was over, we had washed more than 40 cars. Surprisingly, almost everyone accepted prayer when we offered it. Our group stood in a circle, prayed, and cried together. We began to feel the pain of those we had served that day.
Since that time we have tried more than one hundred creative outreaches. Almost all of them have worked extremely well—putting us in touch with the community.
Reaching out to people has been the key to the significant growth we have experienced. Last year alone we touched more than 60,000 in our community. Our fellowship has grown from 35 people nine years ago to more than 2,800 today. We have seven weekend services and have planted six more fellowships in the area. What has happened here has caused us to see evangelism with new eyes.
Seeing the ”process”
Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 3:6 transformed our view of evangelism: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” Paul saw evangelism as a process, a view unlike our American mindset that focuses mainly on “closing the deal.” According to Paul’s agricultural analogy, harvesting comes after much planting and watering. Americans naturally value the harvest aspect of evangelism. Our culture extols results and the bottom line. Paul, however, valued the early stages of evangelism groundwork, as well as the final loop of the evangelism process.
Paul states a basic farming principle: the more you plant and water, the more you will eventually harvest. Because of the American church’s credibility gap, we must first willingly demonstrate love before we’ll earn the right to share the words of love with our society. We must learn to value what I call the first 90 percent of evangelism—the planting and watering—before we begin to see significant harvesting.
I define evangelism with this simple formula:
DEEDS OF GOD’S LOVE + WORDS OF GOD’S LOVE + TIME
Deeds of kindness and love give us entrance into people’s hearts. We design our deeds to relieve their pain and cause them to ask us, “Why are you doing this for me?” The deed of love or service is the initial seed planted in the hearts of people. As we serve people we tell them of God’s love by sharing the gospel message at whatever level they are open. Then, after a season (that amount of time is different for each individual), the Holy Spirit begins to work on the hearts of those seekers.
This approach to evangelism puts the pressure squarely on God instead of people or a program. I don’t think people can take that sort of pressure. I have found that they become guilt-ridden when pressure for doing evangelism is put on their shoulders. We determine to have fun when going out to serve the community, and leave the results with God. We have adopted a motto coined by George Bernard Shaw: “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong.”
To date we have seen many come into relationship with Christ. By approaching “pre-Christians” with a desire to serve them and relieve their pain we avoid battling in a mental or verbal arena and go straight to their hearts. I haven’t seen much fruit in trying to convert people at the head-to-head level of apologetics—telling and arguing. A heart-to-heart witness is hard to resist. As we go for the hearts of people we bypass their defenses.
Paul echoed this thought in Romans 2:4, “… it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.” Kindness is a key that opens hearts. It opened one man’s heart to God when we were doing a “Free Lawn Care” outreach. We had loaded a couple of mowers and rakes into a truck and driven around until we saw long grass. We approached the house and knocked on the door to tell the owner what we were up to. Through the screen door this man barked, “What do you want?” We gave him a brief explanation and, without even looking up, his response was simply, “Yeah, whatever.”
We mowed enthusiastically and finished in about 30 minutes, then we stopped by to tell him we were done and ask if we could pray for any needs in his life. He was sitting motionless in front of the TV watching a Reds baseball game and told us he didn’t have any needs. As we stepped away from the door, one young man in our group said he was sure this man was in great emotional need and that we ought to insist on praying for him, so we turned around and prayed a simple little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit and touch this man’s pain, whatever it is.” The response was instant and surprising—he broke down in deep sobbing, grabbing the nearest person in the circle and wetting his shoulder with tears for some minutes. When his crying died down, he told us his son had been arrested the night before for stealing a car to support a drug habit.
That day God’s presence and power penetrated this man’s pain and isolation in a tangible way because we were willing to cut a little grass.
Getting started
You and your church can begin to reach out to your city in significant ways through Servant Evangelism outreaches. This approach can be condensed in the phrase: “Low Risk — High Grace” activity.
Risk has to do with the “cost” of the given outreach. Cost comes in a variety of ways other than money—emotion, time, energy. The “grace” factor has to do with how much of God’s blessing and presence is necessary for something significant to happen in the given outreach. I have done ministry that has been so heavily programmatic, there was little need for God to show up to ensure success in the ministry. We need to sponsor outreaches in which it is easy enough for the average layperson to succeed, and almost impossible to fail. If our approach to ministry requires an Olympic level of skill then we will have only a small percentage of our people reaching out.
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In other words, it doesn’t take much gifting, or much money, or even much boldness to begin to affect large numbers of people. But as we step out to do these acts of love, God in his mercy shows up in “high grace” ways. So how do you get started in opening closed hearts to God’s love?
1. Begin to ask the Lord to show you the pain in your city.
Ask the Lord for the gift of knowing and identifying your community’s pain. Every city is unique in its problems, hurts, and pain. What Cincinnatians feel as a need will differ from the needs of your city. Cincinnati has long and wet winters that leave road salt on cars. During the cold weather months we offer free desalting washes. Cold weather also gives us a chance to give out free coffee at grocery stores.
There’s a park in Toledo where many parents walk with their families on pleasant summer days. A pastor there has photo teams that walk about the park offering to take free pictures of the families— “just because God loves you.” They place a sticker on the back of the picture with the church name and phone number. I believe those families will save pictures taken of them for years. Every time they look at that picture they recall the kindness of the Christians that served them. One thing is for sure: As you begin to address people’s pain with the mercy and compassion of the Lord, you will draw a crowd. Few of the unchurched are looking for church. All of us are looking for relief from our pain.
2. Begin to meet the practical needs of your city.
In other words, scratch them where they itch. Robert Schuller says, “Find a hurt and heal it.” As you begin to look at the needs in each stratum of your city, you’ll begin to see some of what God sees.
A friend of mine pastors a church in a Colorado college town. Here, his church does servant evangelism by going door-to-door in the dorms, offering to clean rooms for free “just because God loves you.” They are beginning to see a lot of curious college students coming to their fellowship. They have a second outreach to the students by providing free tutoring, then praying for their success on the upcoming test.
3. You Step out First
Most pastors I know aren’t natural evangelists. However, we have all been called to do the work of an evangelist (II Timothy 4:5). Your people will listen to all you teach and talk about, but they really won’t do more than you do as their primary leader. By nature, pastors are often more Bible “studiers” than Bible “doers.” When I take personality inventories, I consistently come up as borderline introvert, but I find these low-risk outreaches feasible for me.
I look forward to mobilizing more outreaches into the community. We are now using our small groups as our primary force for doing these projects. Just think what could happen if it became commonplace for each small group to do a monthly outreach. It’s exciting to consider the sort of impact a church could make if it’s organized to serve its way into the hearts of the community.
Steve Sjogren is pastor of the Vineyard Community Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, and the author of Conspiracy of Kindness (Vine Books).
by Steve | Sep 25, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: UM official reveals lesbianism; Good News responds
The Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, associate general secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concern (GCCUIC), identified herself as a lesbian when she addressed the Reconciling Congregations Convocation in Minneapolis on July 15. The Reconciling Congregation movement is comprised of UM churches and other groups that welcome the participation of homosexual men and lesbians.
Powers, an ordained member of the Minnesota Conference, noted that “many, many people in our church” already were aware of her sexual orientation. The 63-year-old clergywoman called her announcement “a political act,” designed as “an act of resistance to false teachings that have contributed to heresy and homophobia within the church itself.”
Ms. Powers believes, “As long as the phrases ‘homosexuality and the Christian faith are incompatible,’ and ‘celibacy in singleness’ continue to stand in our Discipline, no matter how these phrases are introduced or framed, our church is on record as perpetuating heterosexism in its life and homophobia in its teaching.”
Powers said she has no intention of withdrawing from the ministry or surrendering her ordination papers nor does she plan to indicate whether she is a “practicing” lesbian. In a statement, she said, “no one has the right to know intimate details of any other person’s loving sexual practices.” Practice, she added, “makes no sense, for identity is a matter of ‘being,’ not ‘doing.’”
Powers claims that she withdrew from “an almost certain episcopal election in 1976 because I did not want, as the first woman bishop and for the sake of the church, to have my life under a magnifying glass.”
In a prepared statement, Minnesota Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher—who did not attend the convocation—called Powers “a distinguished ecumenist in the global Christian movement and a respected leader in the United Methodist Church.”
“Throughout her ministry she has invited the church to reflect theologically and make decisions about the hard issues of life,” the bishop added.
The bishop said leaders of the Minnesota Conference, where Powers is a member, “will respond to her current invitation in a manner consistent with the compassion of Christ as well as the covenant of United Methodist people formed by their General Conference and described in their Book of Discipline.”
At its recent annual meeting, the Minnesota Conference approved a petition asking that the 1996 General Conference delete “all exclusionary references” to gays and lesbians in the Book of Discipline, including the statement about ordination.
The Rev. Bruce Robbins, the chief executive of GCCUIC, told The United Methodist Reporter that he believed Ms. Powers had “done a courageous thing by being truthful with people. She is convinced that her action will be good for the church.
“Her announcement will cause dialogue and hopefully result in better understanding of each other,” Robbins said.
The board of directors of Good News, an evangelical renewal movement within the UM Church, responded to the Powers announcement during its summer board with the following statement:
“The Rev. Powers, ostensibly taking the step of disclosing her lesbianism, is, from our perspective, doing no less than openly defying the witness of the United Methodist Church concerning human sexuality and using her position to advocate the acceptance of homosexuality. This is clearly in violation of Discipline Par. 906.12, which prohibits use of UM funds (staff salaries) ‘to promote the acceptance of homosexuality’; as well as Par. 402.2, which requires clergy ‘to maintain the highest standards represented by the practice of fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.’ While being applauded for her honesty and courage in ‘coming out,’ the Rev. Powers declined to be totally forthright about what was explicitly implied in her public announcement—she has refused to indicate whether she is a ‘practicing’ lesbian. Without ‘practice,’ the announcement would have no significance.
“In a time when clergy are being schooled in the dynamics and dangers of sexual harassment and sexual molestation, it is a transparent ruse for the Rev. Powers to claim that the sexual behavior of clergy is beyond the province of the church. While the resignation of the Rev. Powers might normally be expected, it is clear that she is raising the challenge as to whether United Methodism can and will effectively enforce its own Discipline.
“The supervisory personnel of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns is responsible for reprimanding or removing the Rev. Powers. In addition, the Minnesota Conference Board of Ordained Ministry has a supervisory responsibility for the Rev. Powers because of her membership there. In light of this premeditated attack on the standards of the United Methodist Church, and with the distinct possibility of an ineffective response by those charged to oversee the situation, we understand those United Methodist congregations which will choose to withhold apportionment monies from the General Church until it is demonstrated that the Discipline is being implemented.
“If the Rev. Powers’ public ‘act of resistance to false teachings’ goes without appropriate, albeit compassionate, accountability, it will make a mockery of our General Conference legislative processes and will cause more and more United Methodists to wonder whether their church has the will to enforce its own disciplinary standards.”
Adapted from United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | Sep 20, 1995 | Archive - 1995
Archive: Good News Celebration draws 600; says lordship of Jesus central to UM Church
“Nothing is more determinative of our life and faith than what we think about Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture,” Dr. Maxie Dunnam told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 700 persons on July 13, the opening night of the 1995 Good News Summer Celebration at the Marriott Hotel in Cincinnati.
More than 630 United Methodists from 27 states and all five Jurisdictions registered for the three-and-a-half day convocation which had as its theme, “Jesus Christ: The Heart of It All.”
Dr. Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and former world editor of the Upper Room, noted the struggles United Methodism has experienced in recent years and insisted the problem has been “a theological and doctrinal one.” He noted that “we institutionalized theological pluralism” in 1972 and “it became the driving energy for us.” The result was the church lost track of its core, its center. “We must keep the center clear. Without a center, you can’t define a circumference,” said Dunnam. He added, “The Confessing Movement [of which he was one of three convenors] believes this is the crisis of the church. Will we accept views that differ with the Articles of Religion?”
In another rousing sermon, Dr. Andrea Bishop, until last month copastor with her husband, Tom, of Jubilee UM Church in Waterloo, Iowa, said the gospel is about a God who sent his Son to redeem, reconcile, and restore us and to make of us a family intimately related to one another. She questioned why we don’t see more miracles. “We take wine and make it into water. We take God’s good stuff and dilute it. The wine of our Wesleyan heritage is on the verge of becoming water,” said Bishop. In response to her invitation to “throw off the symbol of your infirmity and allow God to work afresh in your life,” nearly half of those listening went forward in the meeting to renew their commitment to Jesus Christ. (The Bishops will be moving to Ghana, West Africa, at the beginning of 1996 to train pastors within the Ghanian Methodist Church.)
Celebration participants were also challenged by the personal witness of Dr. Jerry Kirk, for many years senior minister of the large College Hill United Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. He told how the Lord led him out of the security of a successful pastoral ministry to unite Christian leaders of all denominations in a fight against pornography. In leading the battle, Kirk formed the National Coalition Against Pornography, now the National Coalition for the Protection of Families and Children. Kirk winsomely challenged worshippers to get a vision from the Lord for the rest of their lives: “For awakening to come, revival must start in the individual life.”
Kirk believes that “if we don’t change the way the country thinks about pornography, we’ve lost the country.” He warned the audience that the equivalent of a million adult bookstores have just come on the Internet, a giant, international computer information hook-up. Kirk added, “No one can remain on the sideline of this battle. The adult video porn industry has grown 75 percent in the last two-and-a-half years.”
In still another high-octane address, Dr. Al Vom Steeg, president of The Mission Society for United Methodists in Decator, Georgia, and for some 30 years. A clergy member of the California/Nevada Conference, challenged those gathered by saying missions must also be at the heart of the church. In an effort to put the world’s needs in perspective, Vom Steeg said, “The 2.5 billion unreached peoples of the world won’t care about who is going to Denver [General Conference] next year. The lost are wondering why they are living.”
The passion of The Mission Society, said its new president, is, “We want to make sure that anyone who has a call can get to the mission field. We have a covenant with some 20 different mission agencies. We second missionaries to them or send them out ourselves, but in either case we care for them.”
Vom Steeg lamented the need for such a thing as a Confessing Movement within the UM Church. “With all those who are lost, here we are having to try to get convenes our theology straight about Jesus. We can’t even say, ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’”
Dr. Steve Harper, executive director of A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE) and founder of Shepherd’s Care, was the morning Bible teacher. Good News board vice-chairman, the Rev. Bill Hines, and executive committee member, the Rev. Greg Stover, also gave plenary addresses. The Rev. Bob Snyder, along with his wife, Peg, served as co-chairpersons for the Celebration, and were honored for having served in that capacity for a third time.
Participants received training and equipping through 12 different afternoon seminars.
In his update to the Celebration audience, Good News president and publisher, James V. Heidinger II, cited theologian Alister McGrath’s remark that amidst the renewal and revival we are seeing around us, “The Christian vision of the future now seems increasingly to belong to evangelicalism, which is coming more and more to constitute the mainstream of American Protestant Christianity.”
Heidinger cautioned about the Church of Christ Uniting (COCU) proposal passed by numerous annual conferences, will be coming before the 1996 UM General Conference for approval. The COCU plan attempts to unite a number of mainline churches “that are themselves widely divided in their theology.” Most pastors and lay persons know nothing whatsoever about the proposal, he added.
Heidinger also reported that the initial tally from General and Jurisdictional Conference elections suggests that the delegation for next year is noticeably more conservative/moderate than in 1992.
Good News board convenes
At its summer meeting following the Celebration, the 40-member Good News board of directors met and dealt with a number of immediate concerns, which included the controversial May 4 Chapel service at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (see p. 35), and the public announcement of the Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, associate general secretary of the Committee on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, that she is a lesbian (see p. 40).
The board elected a new class of seven members, discussed plans for the upcoming General Conference in Denver, reflected on movements of the Holy Spirit in America and around the world, and heard reports from other unofficial UM ministries and organizations. Dr. Donald Shell, layman from Lake Junaluska, NC, chaired the board during its semiannual session.
