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Juicy Ecumenism – The Institute on Religion & Democracy's Blog

Juicy Ecumenism – The Institute on Religion & Democracy's Blog

Tag Archives: Institute on Religion and Democracy

Liberal United Methodists “Not Optimistic” about Future of Denomination

18 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis, Methodist Federation for Social Action, New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Reconciling Ministries Network, United Methodist

Photo Credit: SwedentoAfrica.com

Photo Credit: SwedentoAfrica.com

By John Lomperis (@JohnLomperis)

As more and more liberal United Methodists admit that they are “not optimistic” about the direction of our denomination, they are increasingly mulling over their future options.

“[T]here is there is no indication that given the present structure of our United Methodist Church the official policies and positions” which affirm biblical standards on sexual morality “will change.”

That declaration was made in a resolution adopted in 2012 by the heterodox-dominated New York Conference of the United Methodist Church and reaffirmed by the 2013 session of the same conference last month.

Meanwhile, in its March Katalyst newsletter, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), the main caucus agitating for United Methodist endorsement of homosexual practice (as well as other varieties of sex outside of man-woman marriage), revealed that through a recent large-scale survey, they have learned that now its own constituency is divided in half between those who are committed to staying within the denomination and angrily fighting other United Methodists to the bitter end and others who say, in one representative comment, that they are “[d]one waiting four more years” for the next United Methodist General Conference to  liberalize church policies and that “RMN should be helping people talk about separation.”

Our denomination’s last governing General Conference, which met in Tampa, Florida, in 2012, was dubbed by heterodox activists as “the most conservative General Conference ever,” affirming biblical standards for sexual morality by a GROWING majority, and with many further points of evangelical reform only being stymied (until next time) by indefensibly Machiavellian, anti-Golden-Rule tactics shamelessly adopted by the liberal protest caucuses.

As we have reported earlier, in response to the United Methodist Church increasingly being liberated from the theological liberalism which has oppressively dominated our denomination for decades, last year two of the most heterodox-dominated United Methodist conferences, New York and California-Nevada, adopted identically entitled resolutions calling for “A Study Committee for an Inclusive Conference” to promote structural alternatives for heterodox United Methodists. The California-Nevada resolution openly mentions the creation of a new, liberal Methodist denomination as one option for such an alternative structure, while the 2012 New York resolution drew encouragement from other oldline denominations that have caved in to the sexual revolution.

Liberal New York City-area United Methodists are now making clear that such talk is more substantial and sustained among heterodox United Methodists than a short-lived emotional outburst.

The New York Annual Conference Study Committee on a More Inclusive Church was structured to exclude supporters of biblical teaching on sexual morality. After a year of regular meetings, this Study Committee is maturing into its next stage. Its 2013 resolution, adopted by the Annual Conference session, reiterated the 2012 resolution’s protest of General Conference’s orthodoxy on sexual morality, expressed fear over what future General Conferences may do, and called for all United Methodist congregations in the conference to send a representative to a November 16 forum to discuss the evolving, heterodox-led movement for structural alternatives.

On the one hand, the Study Committee expresses a commitment to making the United Methodist Church more sexually liberal, and neither its report nor its resolutions explicitly endorse schism as a possibility.

But on the other hand, the Study Committee’s report states “We are not optimistic that there will be a timely openness to change that would make greater LBGT inclusiveness possible, given the present disposition of the General Conference….” The report shares that the Study Committee “took comfort and courage from” looking at how John Wesley’s strong prejudice against church schism was balanced with his conviction that he “should be under an absolute necessity to separate from” a body of Christians if the price of remaining was “lying and hypocrisy,” preaching contrary to his own beliefs, or other perceived sins of commission or omission. Thus, the group is “consider[ing] ways we might remain in communion with The United Methodist Church, but with the ability to establish enough room for the inclusiveness to which we are committed.” In these efforts, they are “actively networking with other Jurisdictions and Conferences across the connection that share our goals” of “loyalty to our denomination, tempered by our growing unwillingness to participate in the on‐going and in our view discriminatory exclusion” of homosexually active clergy candidates.

Of course, an independent new denomination could both be “in communion” with the United Methodist Church while doing whatever it pleases in terms of its internal policies on sexual morality and other matters. It is not clear what other long-term, sustainable, and politically realistic options would meet the standard of both “remain[ing] in communion with The United Methodist Church” and “establishing enough room” to have official, sexually liberal policies.

For over four decades, activists in the “Reconciling” movement have devoted massive amounts of time, energy, and money to try to get General Conference to directly liberalize our denomination’s governing Book of Discipline – only to lose a large and growing amount of ground on that front.

A few years ago, such liberal activists eagerly championed the informally nicknamed “Global Segregation Plan,” which would have given United Methodists in the United States some freedom to set their own policies without the input of largely orthodox African United Methodists. But that plan went down in flames as evangelical United Methodists in America understood why sexually liberals were so eager for it while United Methodists in Sub-Saharan Africa understood that its primary practical effect would be to drastically squelch their voice in denominational affairs. An effort by the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), a liberal caucus group, to revive a version of this plan at the 2012 General Conference received a grand total of five supportive votes in a committee of 62 delegates.

At last summer’s Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference, a liberal clergywoman’s resolution to “Eliminate Jurisdictional Conferences” was referred to that jurisdiction’s College of Bishops. At last month’s New York Annual Conference session, the conference Study Committee on a More Inclusive Church submitted a resolution “expressing concern” that the Northeastern bishops have not prioritized this and demanding to know why they are taking so long. But even if cleverly framed as an effort “to eliminate jurisdictional conferences,” such proposals to create a new national US-only church structure devoid of international input amount to little more than thinly disguised attempts to resurrect the already rather dead Global Segregation Plan.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what happens with such conversations increasingly taking place throughout what can already be fairly described as the Not-So-United Methodist Church.

Disciples of Christ Denomination Affirms Sexual Liberalism, Transgenderism

18 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by jeffreywalton in media

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Disciples of Christ, Gnostic, gnosticism, homosexuality, Institute on Religion and Democracy, mainline, Mainline Protestant, mainline Protestantism, Mark Tooley, Transgender

Members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) met July 13-17 in Orlando. (Photo credit: Jennie Adams/Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) met July 13-17 in Orlando. (Photo credit: Jennie Adams/Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Contact:  Jeff Walton 202-682-4131, 202-413-5639 cell

“By embracing sexual liberalism and Gnosticism,  the Disciples have further sidelined their church. Exalting Western notions of radically individual moral autonomy above shared understandings of the faith alienates many of the denomination’s own members.
-IRD President Mark Tooley

Washington, DC— The General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has joined with several other oldline Protestant denominations in embracing sexual orientation and gender identity as specially affirmed categories in the church. At their meeting July 13-17 in Orlando, Florida, the church’s governing body passed a resolution listing sexual orientation and gender identity alongside race, age and other categories to which the denomination is “striving to become a people of grace and welcome.”

The resolution also affirms the “faith, baptism and spiritual gifts of all Christians regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity” and states that neither is “grounds for exclusion from fellowship or service within the church” but celebrated as “part of God’s good creation.” This statement implies affirmation of clergy sexually active outside traditional marriage. The Disciples have a very congregationalist polity with nearly all ministry decisions made at the local church.  So the new denominational stance is mostly symbolic.

The Disciples of Christ are the smallest of seven Protestant churches historically classified as Mainline. The denomination has lost two-thirds of its once nearly 2 million membership since the 1960s and currently lists 639,500 members. Prominent members have included Presidents Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and James Garfield.

IRD President Mark Tooley commented:

“While the resolution calls for the ‘welcome of and hospitality to all,’ the Disciples of Christ include far fewer members than at any time in their modern history.

“The mainstream of U.S. and global Christianity still holds strongly to traditional Christian teaching upholding the marriage of man and woman as the standard for Christian sexual behavior.  Universal Christianity also rejects the Gnostic idea that “gender identity” is fluid and self-determined.

“By embracing sexual liberalism and Gnosticism, the Disciples have further sidelined their church. Exalting Western notions of radically individual moral autonomy above shared understandings of the faith alienates many of the denomination’s own members. The Disciples of Christ now follow the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church on the road to even greater theological marginalization, internal division and accelerating membership loss.”

Mary Stachowicz: Martyr for the Faith and Hostis Humani Generis

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by irdinterns in News

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Diocese of Springfield, DOMA, Gay Marriage, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Marjorie Jeffrey, martyr, Mary Stachowicz

(Photo Credit: TotallyHistory.com)

By Marjorie Jeffrey (@MarjorieJeffrey)

For the past few weeks, I, a young Catholic, have pondered the question: what does it mean to be hostis humani generis, that is, an enemy of the human race? After all, that is the title which has been bequeathed upon those who oppose gay marriage, according to Justice Antonin Scalia, by none other than the highest court in the land. In his dissent in the DOMA case, he said something which rang both true and terrifying, in the eyes of many American Christians:

“In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to disparage, injure, degrade, demean, and humiliate our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence—indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.”

They aren’t just telling us what we cannot do or cannot say. The state has attempted to take away our ability to define who we are, as Christians. Not just our freedom of action, but our very identity is at stake. What is a believer to do, in the face of such a designation?

Mary Stachowicz died ten long years ago, when gay marriage was still something that could be debated between reasonable people. She was a 51-year-old Catholic mother of four children, who worked part time at a funeral home and part time as a secretary at a parish in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois. In her time at the funeral home, she reached out to the 19-year-old janitor, Nicholas Gutierrez, questioning the wisdom of his lifestyle. Gutierrez was a practicing homosexual.

On November 13, 2002, soon after Mary had received Communion at morning Mass, Nicholas Gutierrez beat, stabbed, raped, and strangled her, finally stuffing her body beneath the floorboards of his apartment. In a video-taped statement to police, he said he had done it because she questioned his homosexual activities, asking, “Why do you sleep with boys?”

On May 31st of this year, Bishop Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, gave a talk which included a description of the life and death of Mary Stachowicz, and stated, as he has in the past, that she died a martyr for the faith.

What does Mary Stachowicz have to do with us? Well, everything. I’m not suggesting that there are homosexuals lining up to torture and kill us; the persecution we face will most likely not provide for the obvious heroism inherent in acts of martyrdom. But what is a saint, if not a role model and intercessor? What more powerful witness can we be shown than this?

Some of the most popular saints in Church history arose as powerful examples for Christians who lived in difficult times. Such were the early Christian martyrs, who shed their blood for Christ in the founding years of the Church. Such have been martyrs in various countries, who died so that Christianity might grow to thrive in those regions. Such were Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, who became symbols to the recusant Catholics of England. Such were Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe, who died at the hands of the Nazis. Such, I pray, may be Mary Stachowicz.

These martyrs become powerful symbols because they are heroes. And because they are heroes for the faith, they are more than mere symbols. They’re real. We believe that the saints are in heaven, which is why we ask them to pray with us and for us. As Bishop Paprocki has noted of Mary Stachowicz,

“Her death as a martyr for the faith means that a miracle is not necessary for her official beatification or canonization. However, even a martyr of the faith does not enter the church’s official martyrology of saints without the promotion of her cause, and the promotion of her cause requires a group of people who recognize her Christian sanctity and pray not only for the official recognition of her sainthood, but also pray through her intercession for assistance in obtaining divine favors.”

Causes for sainthood are a deeply ingrained part of Catholic life – I’ve known many parishes and dioceses that pray for the cause of their local would-be saints. But Mary Stachowicz shouldn’t just be a local cause. The tenets of the faith that she died to affirm are what unite Christians across America – and, indeed, all over the world. The Catholic Church asks for a minimum of a five-year wait before a formal cause for beatification can be opened, and that time has passed. It’s time for the cause to be opened.

We feel despair in the face of being called enemies of the human race by unordained men in robes. But we must remind ourselves and each other that we are very much not alone. We should advocate for Mary Stachowicz, as she advocates for us.

St. Maria Goretti, pray for us. And pray for us, Mary Stachowicz. Truly, a saint for our time.

O merciful and loving God, you made your servant Mary Stachowicz pure of heart and devoted to chastity; listen, we ask you, to our prayers and, if it is in your divine plan that she be glorified by the church, show us your will, granting us the graces we ask of you, through her intercession, by the merits of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

United Methodist Annual Conference Evangelical Groups, Banquets Offer Fellowship, Inspiration

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ Comments Off on United Methodist Annual Conference Evangelical Groups, Banquets Offer Fellowship, Inspiration

Tags

Cal-Pac Renewal, East Ohio Evangelical Fellowship, Eastern Pennsylvania Evangelical Connection, Evangelical Fellowship of West Ohio, Evangelical Fellowship Within the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, Florida United Methodist Evangelicals (FLUME), Good News, Indiana Conference Confessing Movement, Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis, Mark Tooley, Methodist Renewal Movement, Mississippi Fellowship of United Methodist Evangelicals (MSFUME), New England Evangelical Renewal Fellowship (ERF), New York Conference Wesley Fellowship, NICEA, Renewal & Evangelism in Upper New York (REUNY), Rev. Tom Lambrecht, REVIVE! / Methodist Laity Reform Movement, United Methodist, Western North Carolina Conference Evangelical Movement (WNCCEM), WPA Evangelical Connection

Photo Credit: "What is Christian Fellowship?," TruthPressure.com

Photo Credit: “What is Christian Fellowship?,” TruthPressure.com

By John Lomperis (@JohnLomperis)

Notwithstanding encouraging long-term trends about the global direction of our denomination, evangelical United Methodists may sometimes feel discouraged over the heresies plaguing the UMC and lonely from a dearth of connections to more like-minded United Methodist believers beyond their local church.

Thus, an important need is met through the annual conference evangelical breakfast, lunch, or dinner banquets held across the country every year in May and June. These events are organized by local renewal groups based in many of the United Methodist Church’s five dozen annual conferences (the basic geographic division in our denomination) in the United States.  While these annual conference renewal groups have no formal, organizational connection to IRD/UMAction, they share our broad goals of spiritual renewal and promotion of biblical, Wesleyan orthodoxy within our denomination.

Such evangelical banquets are not part of the official agenda, but take place in conjunction with the two-to-four-day spring business sessions of the annual conference attended by all of the clergy and lay representatives from every congregation. Most attendees are annual conference delegates, though anyone is welcome to attend.

IRD President Mark Tooley and I recently had the joy of attending several such annual conference evangelical banquets.

The Illinois-Great Rivers Conference encompasses most of Illinois. Its annual evangelical dinner packed the room with friendly people from across the state, who got to informally meet each other and share about the ministries of their local churches. The speaker was the Rev. Jim Slone, senior pastor of the second-highest-attendance congregation in the conference. While asked to speak on “what works for evangelicals” in ministry, he refreshingly shifted the focus away from human techniques to stressing the importance of faithfully preaching the pure word of God and relying on the Holy Spirit to lead people to respond to the Truth to which they were designed to respond.

The Northern Illinois Conference encompasses the northern band of the state (including Chicago) and is one of United Methodism’s most notoriously theologically radicalized, rapidly shrinking conferences outside of the Western Jurisdiction. The speaker for the Northern Illinois Conference Evangelical Association (NICEA) dinner was our friend, the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, a United Methodist pastor who now works as Vice President and General Manager of Good News. He stressed that the main problems facing our denomination are spiritual and doctrinal, rather than structural or programmatic, urging orthodox United Methodists to start working now to develop the networks to be ready to eventually lead even such a liberalized conference as our denomination turns around.

A couple of weeks after I saw Tom speak in Northern Illinois, Mark Tooley saw our him address the Evangelical Fellowship of Virginia, as Mark reports here.

I was invited to speak at the lunch of Cal-Pac Renewal in the California-Pacific Annual Conference.  My speech, which you can read here, urged recovery of an evangelical Methodist identity by making our churches more (1) biblically grounded, (2) cross-centered, (3) conversion-oriented, (4) thoughtfully active, and (5) renewed in devotion to Wesley’s often-ignored teachings about Christian perfection.

These evangelical annual conference banquets offer a much clearer articulation of the spiritual challenges facing our denomination than what is generally heard in official conference gatherings. They offer invaluable encouragement to orthodox United Methodists. They present exciting visions for how all of us can get to work in renewing and reforming the United Methodist Church, beginning with our local congregations. And they provide a place where you can get to meet other United Methodists from your area who share your hopes and concerns for our denomination.

Whether or not you are a delegate, it is worth making the time to drive to the evangelical annual conference banquet near you next year.

Here is a non-comprehensive list of the websites of some annual-conference-level renewal groups hosting annual conference breakfasts, lunches, or dinners:

North Central Jurisdiction

Northern Illinois Conference – Northern Illinois Conference Evangelical Association (NICEA)

Indiana Conference – Indiana Conference Confessing Movement

Iowa Conference – REVIVE! / Methodist Laity Reform Movement

East Ohio Conference – East Ohio Evangelical Fellowship

West Ohio Conference – Evangelical Fellowship of West Ohio

Northeastern Jurisdiction

New England Conference – Evangelical Renewal Fellowship (ERF)

New York Conference (NYC metro area) – Wesley Fellowship

Upper New York Conference – Renewal & Evangelism in Upper New York (REUNY)

Eastern Pennsylvania Conference – Eastern Pennsylvania Evangelical Connection

Western Pennsylvania Conference – WPA Evangelical Connection

Southeastern Jurisdiction

Florida Conference (excludes panhandle) – Florida United Methodist Evangelicals (FLUME)

Mississippi Conference – Mississippi Fellowship of United Methodist Evangelicals (MSFUME)

Western North Carolina Conference – Western North Carolina Conference Evangelical Movement (WNCCEM)

Virginia Conference – Evangelical Fellowship

South Central Jurisdiction

Southwest Texas / Rio Grande Conferences – Methodist Renewal Movement

Western Jurisdiction

California-Pacific Conference (Southern California + U.S. Pacific islands) – Cal-Pac Renewal

Check your local congregation’s page here to confirm with which annual conference it is affiliated.

There are many other evangelical annual conference banquets besides those sponsored by the groups listed above.  If you are interested in seeing if there is an evangelical annual conference banquet near you (or may be interested in helping organize one), please email me.

#FacepalmFriday and Weekly Wrap-up

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by irdinterns in News

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#FacepalmFriday, abortion, Ben Sherman, Brochoice, Down syndrome, Fr. Vander Woude, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Marjorie Jeffrey, Preachers of L.A., Texas

(Photo credit: Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm Statue: http://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/4199675334/)

By Marjorie Jeffrey (@MarjorieJeffrey)

This week started off on a note of hope, but we’ll save the good news ‘til the end.

—–

Most of our readers have probably heard about the war on abortion going on in Texas. Yes, those hateful pro-lifers are trying to restrict abortion rights even further, by moving the last possible date at which a pregnant woman can get an abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, which is just before the generally-accepted point of viability.

Via Emily Zanotti:

If that seems straightforward, even pro-science to you, you’re not alone: if a kid can survive outside the womb, than it’s kind of hard to make the argument that they are an inhuman parasite. But, whatever. This is abortion legislation, so the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. What matters is, we’re all like, ten Texas legislators away from starring in our own post-apocalyptic Margaret Atwood novel, where us poor folk are chained to beds and forced to have children against our will. Never mind that by the time the Texas deadline rolls around you’re more than four months pregnant, you’re an idiot who simply can’t make up her puny female mind about being a parent, and need to have available a procedure that most of the world (except Canada!) views as barbaric.

At any rate, it’s been fun to watch. (And who can forget pro-abortion activists shouting “Hail Satan!” in an attempt to drown out pro-lifers singing “Amazing Grace”?)

But a brave young man named Ben Sherman (a University of Texas undergraduate and Think Progress intern) came out in support of late-term abortion and lower health standards for abortion clinics with an op-ed entitled “Bro-Choice: How #HB2 Hurts Texas Men Who Like Women”. (Isn’t that homophobic? What about men who don’t want to have meaningless sex with women, but still advocate for their ability to kill their young?)

My favorite part:

Your sex life is at stake. Can you think of anything that kills the vibe faster than a woman fearing a back-alley abortion? Making abortion essentially inaccessible in Texas will add an anxiety to sex that will drastically undercut its joys. And don’t be surprised if casual sex outside of relationships becomes far more difficult to come by.

Read the whole thing here. And in case any of you want to try to give the young man the benefit of the doubt by believing that his statements must have been satirical, read his follow-up article here.

—–

Are you ready for a new reality show about the fabulous lives of Los Angeles pastors who are changing the world with their Ferraris, Rolexes, security details, and prosperity theology megachurches? Life is really hard for them, especially when it comes to their relationships with their girlfriends and the mothers of their children. (And doubtless for the children themselves, who don’t appear in the trailer for the show.)


The show is coming to you courtesy of Oxygen. The channel describes the new series as follows:

“Preachers of L.A. gives a candid and revealing look at six boldly different and world renowned mega-pastors in Southern California, who are willing to share diverse aspects of their lives, from their work in the community and with their parishioners to the very large and sometimes provocative lives they lead away from the pulpit.”

It’s about time there was a television show to highlight the daily lives of men of God and their baby mamas.

(h/t First Things)

—–

There was a ray of hope this week for those who believe that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.

Many of you who are active on Facebook may have seen and/or shared this status on Monday:

URGENT!!!! Chance to Save a Life! Please share ASAP with your friends:

“There is a couple in another state who have contacted an adoption agency looking for a family to adopt their Downs Syndrome unborn baby. If a couple has not been found by today they plan to abort the baby.

If you are interested in adopting this baby please contact Fr. Vander Woude IMMEDIATELY.
We are asking all to pray for this baby and the wisdom that this couple realize the importance of human life and do not abort this beautiful gift from God.

To contact Fr. VW call the office at Holy Trinity Parish (Gainesville, VA) after 9:30 or e-mail him immediately at
pastor@holytrinityparish.net. Please re-post.”

Well, that day, Father Vander Woude and the parish office at Holy Trinity received over 900 emails and hundreds of phone calls from all over the world, offering to adopt the baby. Three couples have been submitted to the adoption agency, and there seem to be plenty of backups if those fall through.

So much for those pro-life activists who don’t care what happens to babies after they’re born.

It’s an incredible story, which you can read more about at the Washington Times. God be praised!

—–

From all of us here at the IRD, to all of you out there, have a great weekend. See you in the pews!

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