Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

A whole lot of praying and praising was going on in Washington, D.C. when more than 1,450 United Methodists gathered for Aldersgate ’94, the 16th denomination-wide conference on the Holy Spirit. The four-day event was sponsored by United Methodist Renewal Services Fellowship Inc., an affiliate of the denomination’s Board of Discipleship. The conference focused on charismatic worship experience and prayer for renewal of the United Methodist Church by the Holy Spirit.

Much of the praise was in song, often accompanied by tambourines, interpretive dancers waving brightly colored pennants, guitars and other musical instruments. Prayer and Scriptures were integral parts of lessons and sermons. Days began at 6:30 a.m. with an hour of prayer and concluded with an altar call at the end of the evening worship. Bible-study sessions, workshops, and additional worship filled time between.

“Every area of the ministry is growing,” Gary L. Moore, executive director of United Methodist Renewal Services Fellowship, told Good News. “People are seeking a vital relationship with a living God. They are hungering and thirsting for real discipleship in Jesus, not just revamped religion.

“There is an intense desire for opportunities to worship Jesus and not just go through the motions of forms that fail to touch the heart,” Moore said. “I believe there is a smoldering fire in the heart of Methodism that only needs the wind of the Holy Spirit to stir it into a raging fire of revival. Our ministry strives to be a part of fanning the flame.”

The Rev. Rodney Smothers of Atlanta, preaching at the first of four 2 1/2-hour worship services, spoke of United Methodism’s tendency to over structure. Urging the church to go back to basics, Smothers said Jesus did not criticize but introduced sinners to the love of God: “We serve a God who is in the business of renewing us.”

The Rev. Robert Stamps of Arlington, Virginia, said the conference “Witnesses to the diversity of the church,” adding that members of the denomination do not look alike, dress alike, or worship alike, but are united. Addressing racial diversity, he projected that, by the year 2044, white people of northern European ancestry will make up less than half the U.S. population, a statistic he said most white people—himself included—may find threatening. But God is not threatened, Stamps said.

Church members’ reactions to these changes will determine the future, Stamps said. He warned that United Methodism could become “a small homogeneous sect with a few black congregations thrown in.”

“We’re to do as God did [at Pentecost] … learn to speak [others’] languages. Sooner or later you have to be a part of this whether you want to or not, and the later is heaven,” Stamps asserted. “Heaven isn’t going to make us homogeneous. Heaven itself is a rainbow.”

The Rev. Gregg Parris of Muncie, Indiana, told worshipers the third evening that “for too long … the charismatic movement [has] been overequipped and underchallenged.” Observing that members have great faith in the God of yesterday and of tomorrow, Parris urged belief in “the God of now.” He advised “a global perspective,” citing statistics about church growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

“We need to move in the power of the Holy Spirit,” he concluded. “The power of God has a single purpose … to empower the church to take the Good News where it hasn’t been heard.”

The Rev. Lawrence Eddings, an evangelist from WoodinviIle, Washington, warned against weakening the message of salvation to make it culturally and socially palatable. “People must be saved [by] the name of Jesus,” Eddings said. “Wherever the church has affirmed that faith, … the church flourishes.” He advised, “Boldness is the ability to articulate faith in love. … It doesn’t mean to be abrasive and attacking. It doesn’t mean to be controlling.”

Eddings challenged the church “to take up its ministry of healing” spirits, emotions, bodies, and relationships. God can work miracles through “unschooled, ordinary people” as well as through the highly educated, he said. He emphasized prayer as essential to a relationship with Jesus and to learning God’s will. Eddings said, “We are the people of God. We are authorized to be in ministry to the world in the name of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and there will be results guaranteed by God.”

Similarly, in one of the Bible-study sessions, the Rev. Seth Asare, the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at UM-related Boston University School of Theology, advised that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit “should be used in the ministry to bring people to know Jesus Christ.”

In 1995, the 17th annual conference on the Holy Spirit will be held in Orlando, Florida.

Adapted from United Methodist News Service

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Robb responds to radical feminism, challenges bishops

Archive: Robb responds to radical feminism, challenges bishops

“Council of Bishops, are you listening? We will not bow our knee to Sophia,” the Rev. Edmund Robb Jr. said at the 1994 Good News “Summer Celebration ” in Dallas. “We will no longer support heresy with our money! … We demand something new and bold and courageous,” he said. “And we ask you to take a firm stand with historic Christianity and denounce the heresy that is plaguing our church today.”

On the closing  night of the national, three-day event, Robb gave an evangelical response to “biblical faith and radical feminism.” Christians must support feminism as fair treatment but “hold the line ” against feminism as anti-Christian ideology, he said.

Robb, a United Methodist clergyman who heads an evangelistic association based in Marshall, Texas, is a former Good News board chairman and is now board chairman of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Before his presentation, the Good News board honored him for 30 years in evangelistic ministry.

In his hard-hitting address, Robb defended Christianity and evangelicals in their historic support of women, charged that the contemporary feminist movement has strayed from its mission of full and equal citizenship for women, and condemned the “radical feminist movement as represented in the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference in Minneapolis” in November 1993.

The Church of Jesus Christ is the “greatest women’s liberation movement in history,” Robb declared. “Wherever the Christian faith has gone, women have been elevated and liberated,” he said. Evangelicals, he continued, should “rejoice in the new freedom and opportunities for women in the western world ” and “repent that we have not been in the forefront of the struggle for feminine rights and dignity.”

Drawing particular criticism from Robb were “contemporary expressions of ‘Christian’ feminism [that] strike at the very heart of the orthodox faith.”

“Some have accused us of trying to suppress freedom of expression in our criticism of the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference,” he observed. The accusers are “free to say anything they like, but if they do not uphold the basic doctrines of the church, they ought to have the integrity to get out.”

Robb said “most feminists deny or question the authority and divine inspiration of the Scriptures,” and “many radical feminists base the authority of their faith on the emotionally unstable experiences they have had as oppressed women, rather than the objective truth of the Bible.”

On the issue of inclusive language, he said that evangelicals object to the “neuterizing or feminizing of God language … [beyond] simply the meaning of words [to] the very nature of God … Jesus has taught us to pray ‘Our Father,’ and as evangelicals we will follow his teachings.” Arguing that the Christian faith is one of revelation and not the product of human experience, Robb said, “God reveals himself only in masculine terms .” He said the Minneapolis event has given visibility to the agenda of “radical feminism,” which “questions the centrality and uniqueness of Christ; denies the reality of personal sin; defends homosexual and lesbian life styles; and is anti-male, anti-family, and anti-traditional values.”

The “Re-Imagining” Conference’s “worship of the goddess Sophia has shocked many in the church,” Robb said, and should be seen as “beyond the bounds of tolerance for orthodox believers.”

Criticizing the Council of Bishops for not repudiating the Minneapolis event, he said, “The greatest enemy of the church is the institutionalist who defends every program and activity, regardless of the consequences, and opposes any call for reform. This kind of leadership will destroy the church.”

Robb said United Methodist evangelicals are often called divisive and are urged to read John Wesley’s sermon, “The Catholic Spirit,” in which the founder of Methodism says, “As to matters that do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.”

To that, Robb responds, “We are dealing with matters that deal with the root of our faith. I suggest that the contemporary feminist movement with its gnostic New Age heresy is striking at the root of Christianity.”

Adapted from United Methodist News Service

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Theological crisis decried at 1994 Good News celebration

Archive: Theological crisis decried at 1994 Good News celebration

Displeasure with a November ecumenical women’s conference was expressed repeatedly during the three-day “Summer Celebration” sponsored by Good News, the denomination’s evangelical caucus. The event was held July 21-23 in Dallas.

In opening remarks, Good News board Chairman Don Shell of Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, bemoaned the “church’s loss of a vital Christology, particularly as reflected in the recent ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference.” Soliciting comments and suggestions from the nearly 500 participants, Shell said board members are “disappointed in the lack of response by our institutional leadership to the agony our people are feeling about that conference.”

Most plenary speakers here referred to the controversy; and several leaders publicly and privately declared that the “issue isn’t going to go away.” A large number of United Methodists attended the conference, and the Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries paid expenses for 56 staff, directors, and other women.

In his report as editor and executive secretary of the unofficial caucus, the Rev. James V. Heidinger II said “Re-Imagining” may prove to be a “gift from God.”

“For the first time the church is talking about theology,” he said. “We are being forced to think doctrine again.” Heidinger made clear that the issue is not the church’s support of ecumenical events, or the Women’s Division’s mission history, or women’s theology, but “a frontal assault on foundational Christian doctrine at a gathering that was supposed to have been sympathetic and supportive of the Christian faith.”

He called the event a “coming-out of radical feminist theology … a poignant example of the near-fatal collapse in mainline Protestantism of authority, doctrine, memory, and tradition.” To stop a “theological and ethical free fall,” he said, “it’s time we pull the rip cord on the emergency chute.”

In his keynote address, the Rev. William H. Hinson, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Houston, the largest congregation in the denomination, chastised the Council of Bishops for failing to criticize the Minneapolis event. At its meeting in early May, the council agreed to conduct a study of wisdom literature in the Bible but did not comment collectively on the event.

Hinson described as “intellectual tyranny” and “intimidation” efforts to silence critics of the “Re-Imagining” Conference, which, he said, “reconstituted the Godhead” and in which participants “prayed to something other than Jesus Christ.” The church is in a struggle with doubts that damage its effectiveness, Hinson said, including “preachers … who wonder whether or not Jesus Christ is even necessary [for salvation].”

A major challenge during the conference came on the closing night when the Rev. Edmund W. Robb Jr. of Marshall, Texas, spoke on “The Biblical Faith and Radical Feminism: An Evangelical Response.” (See page 34.)

“Some have accused us of trying to suppress freedom of expression in our criticism of the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference,” Robb said, ” … but if they do not uphold the basic doctrines of the church they ought to have the integrity to get out.” Evangelicals are not antiwomen, Robb said, but are concerned about the “radical feminist movement as represented in the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference.” On the eve of the convocation, more than 200 persons gathered to honor Robb for his 30 years in evangelistic ministry.

One Bible study leader, the Rev. Joe Harris of Ardmore, Oklahoma, called on United Methodists to build their relationships on covenant, not conditions. He said people had the right to attend the Minneapolis conference, but not to ask for the church’s support. “Worshipping Sophia does not further the kingdom of God,” he declared. Harris, superintendent of the church’s Ardmore District and a member of the Good News governing board’s executive committee, said the 1996 General Conference should “renew our covenant and life together on the basis of what God wants us to do.”

Before an evening plenary session, the Rev. William Hines of Findlay, Ohio, prayed for “some leaders who refused to defend what we believe is non-negotiable .” Hines is vice chairman of the Good News board.

During a free afternoon, participants were invited to a previously unscheduled meeting to discuss the Minneapolis conference with Dottie Chase, a long-time Good News leader from Willard, Ohio. Chase, who attended the event, said the central issue it raised is “Who do you say Jesus is? He’s either the Christ and the Lord of the Church or he’s not.”

Also leading the two-hour informal session was Faye Short, director of the Evangelical Coalition for United Methodist Women (ECUMW /RENEW). More than 80 people attended.

Other plenary speakers during the “Summer Celebration” included the Rev. William J. Abraham, a faculty member at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas; Elizabeth B. Brown, author and speaker from Chattanooga, Tennessee; the Rev. Joseph Harding, cofounder of the church-wide “Vision 2000” program; and the Rev. Cornelius Henderson, president of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

Eleven seminars dealt with topics ranging from abortion and prayer to ways of increasing the evangelical witness in United Methodist schools of theology. This year’s event, geared to all ages, was attended by people from 30 states and Canada.

Next year’s Good News event will be held in Cincinnati July 13-16 . Keynote speaker will be the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, recently elected president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Seminar topics will include “Organizing Annual Conferences for General Conference” and “Ministry to Homosexuals.”

Adapted from United Methodist News Service.

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Straight Talk

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.

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Pannenberg: “Re-Imagining” shows churches “surrendering faith”

Archive: Pannenberg: “Re-Imagining” shows churches “surrendering faith”

by Patricia Lefevere.

The now-notorious “Re-Imagining” Conference that ignited so much controversy in the Presbyterian and United Methodist churches in the past six months is an example of “neo-paganism” and of ecumenical liturgy and theology run amok, says a leading ecumenical theologian. Professor Wolfhart Pannenberg of Munich, Germany, has called the women’s theological conference held in Minneapolis last November a sign that Protestant churches are “surrendering the substance of the Christian faith.”

So profound is this surrender to secularism, predicted Dr. Pannenberg, that the only surviving ecclesial communities in the third millennium will be Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant evangelical churches. Furthermore, unless main-line Protestant churches stop “wavering” in their faith and their Christian identity, they will not present a suitable alternative to “the spiritual emptiness of modem life,” said the Lutheran theologian who teaches ecumenical and systematic theology at the University of Munich.

Dr. Pannenberg didn’t specify the “Re-Imagining” Conference in his speech, but amplified his remarks in a subsequent interview. He said he wasn’t present in Minneapolis, but said he read the speeches and liturgy text.

He characterized the worship ceremony as having “enthroned” Sophia as a female goddess, which “is not in line with Christian teaching and is flagrantly opposed to biblical understanding, especially in the Old Testament.”

The professor noted that it wasn’t inevitable that Anglican and Reform churches would succumb to “the attractions of secularism.” He added, however, that “to the degree that they do, they lose their Christian authenticity and become less attractive ecumenical partners for Roman Catholics.”

Dr. Pannenberg added that “the greatest obstacle to ecumenism anywhere” is women’s ordination. The issue has grown in magnitude, he said, because the Vatican sees it as being linked to radical feminism. Women pastors in Germany as well as Protestant clergywomen in North America have become “spokeswomen for radical feminists, especially for lesbians.”

Such a linkage can only discredit women’s ordination and do disservice to the future of feminist theology, he said. Radical feminism is “counterproductive to women’s best interests in the church,” he added.

Reprinted with permission of The United Methodist Reporter.

Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering

Archive: Praise the Lord and Raise the Taxes

Archive: Praise the Lord and Raise the Taxes

The Rise of the Religious Left

By Steve Beard

“I’ve been so criticized by the religious right community, its good to have religious people who understand what I’m trying to do.” —President Bill Clinton to a group of liberal religious leaders

Just as there is a Religious Right, so there is a Religious Left—and President Clinton could not be more pleased. As a movement, the Religious Left has attracted very little media attention. Consequently, the phrase is rarely heard. That may be explainable in that high-profile religious liberals such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Gov. Mario Cuomo, and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton are more well-known for their secular accomplishments than for their spiritual underpinnings.

Nevertheless, the Religious Left is led by a sophisticated network of “peace and justice” advocates from within “mainline” Protestantism. In his critically-acclaimed book, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, sociologist James Davidson Hunter describes members of the Religious Left as the “progressives” whose “moral authority tends to be defined by the spirit of the modem age, a spirit of rationalism and subjectivism.” This group translates historic beliefs “according to the prevailing assumptions of contemporary life,” he says. Hunter describes their counterparts on the right as the “orthodox” who are committed to “external, definable, and transcendent authority.”

By whatever definition, the Religious Left is alive and well. After spending 12 long years wandering in the political desert, they have finally stumbled upon the promised land: The Clinton White House. The 1992 election resurrected and rescued a movement that had arguably been relegated to obscurity during the Reagan-Bush era.

It was remarked not long ago that “mainline” Protestantism had simply become “oldline” and was quickly becoming a “sideline” religious movement because of its staggering drop in membership and waning cultural influence. No longer sidelined, the Religious Left’s domestic agenda is now shared by the political establishment: tax-and-spend economics, abortion rights, homosexual rights, sex education and condom distribution in the public schools.

In the public policy arena, United Methodism is solely represented by the Religious Left. With regard to controversial social issues, there is virtually never an occasion when comments made by UM leaders reflect the feelings of moderates or conservatives. The scandal within our church is not that the liberal social and political witness is espoused. Our crisis is that liberalism is the only vision espoused in the name of United Methodism. In a denomination of political diversity, why is it that only the Left has a tithe-subsidized voice?

A 1990 survey conducted by the General Council on Ministries (GCOM) confirmed that the people in the pews are far more conservative than the denominational executives who speak on their behalf. According to the official results, a whopping 69 percent of United Methodist laity described themselves as conservative. The results showed conclusively that we are a conservative denomination led by liberals.

Only the General Conference speaks for United Methodism. With seeming regularity, however, it appears as if the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, chief executive of the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), is the only one behind the microphone. Unfortunately, those outside our church are under the mistaken impression that all United Methodists share his enthusiasm for liberal politics.

In recent comments, the Rev. Fassett claimed that the board’s “credibility is questioned when we speak on society’s issues out of the depths of the policy positions of the United Methodist Church.” He went on to say, “We have been told that we have no right to engage in the criticism of decisions enacted through the political process when, in fact, we are enjoined so to do by the very mandates of our church and the New Testament.”

No responsible critic has questioned the board’s “right” to “engage in the criticism of decisions enacted through the political process.” Many have questioned, however, whether or not the board accurately represents the United Methodist Church. Let’s be very clear about what is being said. No one is asking to silence the Rev. Fassett or the liberals at our Board of Church and Society. Instead, it seems only reasonable that our bishops, agencies, and media outlets recognize and utilize United Methodism’s rich tapestry of opinion rather than one predictably liberal voice.

Let’s look at a few specifics.

Economics

After analyzing President Clinton’s 1993 budget plan of “progressive taxes and program cuts,” the Rev. Fassett said that it “would move the country toward the long-stated public-policy goals of the United Methodist Church.” He even went so far to say that “most United Methodists will rally to the opportunity to give more so that local communities and the nation will benefit.”

“We have long expected our members to tithe to the church,” he said, “and this budget represents a tiny down payment toward the tithe of justice and love” (Luke 11:42). There is a deeply significant difference between the tithe and the tax. Unfortunately, the Rev. Fassett fails to make the distinction.

UM executives were also universally opposed to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and joined with other U.S. religious leaders by placing an advertisement in the Nov. 8 edition of Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, that read: “Reject This NAFTA.” Among the signers were the Rev. Fassett; the Rev. Randolph Nugent, general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM); Joyce Sohl, deputy general secretary of the GBGM’s Women’s Division; and Bishop Joseph Yeakel, GBCS’s president.

Recognizing the diversity within the UM Church, who speaks for those who did not support the Clinton economic plan? What about those who supported NAFTA?

Abortion

The Rev. Fassett recently claimed that the board’s “position on maintaining full reproductive health care in any new national health-care policy has been used to falsely accuse the church of supporting abortion.”

Most concerned United Methodists are now aware that the Board of Church and Society and the Women’s Division of the GBGM are members of what was formerly known as the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR). Its new name is the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) but their philosophy is the same: “We oppose any laws and regulations that, by dictating one position, force women to conform to other Americans’ religious belief.” This position effectively undercuts religiously motivated argumentation for anything. Would that be defensible when speaking of the civil rights movement, abolition, or the peace movement?

RCRC is also a firm supporter of federally-funded abortions and the radical Freedom of Choice Act. Likewise, it rejects even the modest laws for parental involvement, waiting periods, and informed consent. These are some of the reasons why many United Methodists believe that the Board of Church and Society supports abortion. Injudicious entanglements with fringe organizations are most certainly a contributing factor in the declining credibility of the UM Church’s social witness.

In a full-page May 18 New York Times advertisement, the Women’s Division was listed as a participating organization in a national call-in campaign to Congress demanding that abortion coverage be included in health care legislation.

Who speaks for the vast UM constituency who do not support abortion on demand, let alone having it federally-funded?

Homosexuality

Shortly after the 1992 election, Bishop Melvin G. Talbert, secretary of the UM Council of Bishops, cosigned a letter to then President-elect Clinton commending him for his “courageous commitment to end injustice” by lifting the military ban on homosexuals which was called “intolerable.”

The Rev. Fassett voiced his disapproval of the compromise policy by saying that President Clinton’s plan “continues the practice of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation” and that it “disappointed those who believe in the protection of human and civil rights for all.”

Who speaks for United Methodists who do support the military ban on practicing homosexuals?

Sex education and condoms

The Rev. Fassett supported the controversial proposal of federally-funded condom advertisements on television. “I urge United Methodists to view the announcements as an opportunity for families to discuss the important issues of HIV/AIDS in the context of religious values,” he said.

One of the rising stars in the ranks of the Religious Left is Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, a prominent United Methodist. Her bravado is legendary. “If I could be the ‘condom queen’ and get every young person who is engaged in sex to use a condom in the United States, I would wear a crown on my head with a condom on it,” she said recently. Elders is also a sex education zealot who wishes to have training begin in kindergarten. “We taught them what to do in the front seat [of a car],” she says, “Now it’s time to teach them what to do in the back seat.”

Recognizing the diversity within the UM Church, who speaks for United Methodists who do not support government-sponsored condom ads, let alone allowing Dr. Elders to teach our children what to do in the back seat of a car?

Christian Social Action

The voice of the Religious Left within United Methodism is Christian Social Action—a publication of the UM Board of Church and Society. Only the most liberal politicians are highlighted in their pages: Rep. Don Edwards (D-CA), Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-CA), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-CO). Are we to believe that not one moderate is worthy of our attention? Why not call upon UM legislators such as Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), Sen. Robert Dole (R-KS), Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), or Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN)?

With paranoid regularity, Christian Social Action publishes major articles devoted to such topics as: “Religious Right Rediscovered: Coalitions of right-wing groups are still working hard to impose a narrow orthodoxy on American life.” (The phrase “left-wing groups” is non-existent.) John M. Swomley, professor emeritus of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology, is unsurpassed in his uncharitable venom. His attacks are directed toward Roman Catholics and fundamentalists whom he believes are to be found under every bed engaged in a “theocratic” conspiracy. He claims that conservative Christians are “opposed to separation of church and state, including the free exercise of religion as it applies to groups other than their own. They oppose equal rights for women, resist the right of personal and marital privacy, advocate censorship, and in general foster an atmosphere of hostility to various economic and civil rights.” This kind of dime-store characterization is commonplace.

The “U.N. Report” is supposed to serve as a insider’s look into the United Nations. Instead, it is a convenient place to bash diplomats from the Reagan Administration such as Ambassadors Richard Schifter and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Caricatures in a recent issue include: “Ms. Kirkpatrick is a neoconservative political scientist who sees the United Nations as a place where the United States can beat up the rest of the world.”

Unfortunately, Christian Social Action does not appear to be the ethical voice of United Methodists working toward a more just society through the power of the Holy Spirit. Instead, it often ridicules and maligns traditional Christian social ethics. None of this would be much of concern if the magazine were simply a journal of opinion. However, it is supposed to represent all United Methodists.

It goes without saying that United Methodism is not monolithic in its social agenda, neither is it particularly partisan. There are, however, roughly 70 percent of the people of our church whose conservative worldview is never articulated by our intoxicatingly politically correct bureaucracy. These members remain voiceless and alienated within their own church. They feel utterly disenfranchised.

In a denomination that brags about pluralism, diversity, and inclusion, United Methodism’s leadership speaks with a unified liberal voice while the people in the pews are left to blush with embarrassment and roll their eyes in disbelief.

Steve Beard is the executive editor of Good News magazine and a member of the steering committee of United Methodists for Faith and Freedom, a committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.