I haven’t read all the posts, so if anyone else has said this already, I’m sorry…it is 27 minutes before church starts at *** United Methodist Church…and I am the organist…
I believe that the reason the vote went the way it did is because of the conservative leanings of the country at this time. I am personally disappointed by it. The issue is not going to go away. I believe that eventually homosexuality will be accepted, at least by the United Methodist Church.
If you were so lucky as to be here at my church today, you would hear my pastor point out “how could a church that claims ‘open minds, open hearts, open doors’ not accept all people?” You would hear a great sermon about inclusion.
I am glad I am part of a UM church where we are able to voice our opinions and discuss them. (Kittenblue too)
If you’re going to change the world, it takes time, just like it takes time for the yeast to work. And the best place to start is within the church itself.
At my United Methodist church today, the pastor wore a stole with a rainbow on it, and talked about his memories of being a teenager during the Civil Rights movement, and about the Christians who had so much trouble accepting that Jesus did NOT want black people marginalized or excluded, and how, sometimes, forcing the issue was indeed the right thing…
He never said the word ‘gay,’ and I was disappointed that he didn’t address the question directly. But for those who had been following the story, it was very clear where he stood.
This isn’t the last time this vote will be taken. Next time it will be even closer. The voices calling for change will not be silent, and every year, more and more people will listen. Just like when they voted to ordain women, the change is inevitable, and eventually, people won’t even remember what all the fuss was about.
I know it’s painful for the people who have always been left out by the old system. But changing a culture is a slow, painful, messy process. A generation ago we wouldn’t even be having this argument. Maybe by the next generation it’ll be over.
I just find it highly ironic and amusing that they wouldn’t pass a resolution indicating there was a dispute about things in the Methodist church. Generally when you have to state your position in your rulebook, whatever it may be called, its because somebody disagrees! Its like a little kid with their fingers in the ears shouting “I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
That’s a good question, one I can’t really answer at the moment. I guess if I can not find a local congregation where we are accepted as who we are, I’ll just stop going to church. For now, the congregation where we worship is acceptable, it will take many years to weed out the all the closed minded individuals. This being true locally and nationally.
Cecil knows how hard it is to fight ignorance. :dubious:
Not content to watch the Episcopals and the Methodists duke it out, some Southern Baptists (the largest Protestant Demonination in the U.S. - can’t get more mainstream than that, can you?) have gone a step farther. There’s now a proposal for the SBC to encourage parents to homeschool because public schools are too gay-friendly and anti-God.
“Let’s raise an entire generation of homophobic, misogynistic, crypto-racist, totalitarian godbotherers without all this touchy-feely ‘tolerance’ devil’s work!”
I’d just like to clarify that this was posted in response to Homebrew’s post about the SBC and their homeschooling recommendation, not as an attack on all Christians.
Unitarians. Episcopalians (officially, anyway…can’t speak for Anglicana troglodytes). Wiccans. Pagans in general, mostly…it varies (yeah, big surprise). Reform Judaism. I’m sure there are more that I just don’t know about. There are quite a few I’m not sure about and don’t have the experience or knowledge of to be able to say.
The Unity Church? United Church of Christ? Some Quaker meetings? (Quakers aren’t really that organized, so the views vary from Meeting to Meeting.)
Ok, that’s not much. But how can such things ever change if people don’t try to effect change from within? I quit the church because I don’t believe there’s a god. My mother is still a member - a member who actively supports gay rights. She believes she can do more good by staying in the church and trying to change it from within than by leaving the church so nothing ever changes and it STAYS static and anti-homosexual.
All’s I’m sayin’ is that it’s pretty obvious that there is animosity toward them. If you can worship at a church that already accepts you, and your leaving the original church can weaken them (and their bigotry), why stick around and support them? Your purpose is to worship. I mean, it’s not like it’s government or anything.
The thing that really makes me angry at the Catholic Church is that right up until the whole priest pedophile scandal started to really burst out into the papers, the Church was on a path that at least had admitted that being homosexual was not in itself sinful. But then it became convenient to use us as scapegoats for the pedophilia that the hierarchy was so content to shuffle around to different parishes, and suddenly politician who so much as offer opinions that we deserve not to be discriminated against are being threatened with excommunication. Bleah.
It was a 60/40 split. Not as good as a 100/0 split in the other direction (which is where it SHOULD be, by all rights), but I scarcely say that’s enough to condemn the entire church as evil. And where else are they going to go? IS there a church that holds the exact same beliefs as Methodism but is fully tolerant of gays? There probably isn’t now, but there will be if people stick it out and keep trying to change things for the better!
God damn it. UMC General Conference fucks up again.
I am sad, disappointed, really pissed off.
I missed church on Sunday, so I don’t know if my pastor preached on it. But I’m sending him an email right now. I will be asking, among other things, how this will affect his work at the AIDS hospice, and his wife’s.
I am floored by this. I so wish that more people would make their voices heard within my denomination. Earlier, Jodi said “You’d give them that power over you, huh? They tell you what you can talk about or disagree about, and you just roll right over? Not me, man. They’re not making me leave. They’re not shutting me up. I don’t give a rat’s ass if they don’t want to discuss it; we’re going to discuss. Next conference, and the next conference, and the one after that. In our pulpits, in our outreach, in our schools. And allow me to say that a person who thinks it’s just ever so easy to go “shopping” for a new religion, as if it’s a pair of shoes you’ve just tried on, is almost always a person for whom religion is not very important.” I agree. I don’t want to abandon my church to a bunch of bigots. I want to fight.
That being said, I am as embarrassed today as I can be by the actions taken by someone else in the name of my denomination.
