I was raised in the “white, protestant, suburban church closest in driving time to my house.” Military reassignments provided ecumenicism at a reliable, and moderate rate. However, I found out the “Black Protestant church actually closer to my house” had a better choir, and their picnics had better food. Eventually, I found out that the congregation without an actual church building that met in the local school auditorium had spent all the building fund for their church building on building a school, and then a clinic, and then a water system in another country for a bunch of heathens. They spent about twenty minutes “finding out who’s sitting near you” as the final part of the weekly service. The sermon in one of my favorite meetings was about “This is where you don’t keep your problems to yourself.” It ended with the message, “Let us help you. It’s good for us.”
No one I spoke to at that church said anything about homosexuality, ever. Kind of like Jesus.
My faith has little to do with religion, and even less with churches.
It was a financial decision. Religion as a business future is looking sad in modern America, but growing rapidly particularly in Africa, which unfortunately is not as LGBT friendly. Some Methodists in power passed on the chance to spread The Lord’s Peace to the world for dollars.
Well yeah. Society in general was pretty anti-gay – since when is that news? That doesn’t mean those people were bad, or evil or anything. (Ignorance, not malice, etc). But it still doesn’t make it right.
Just like women used to get the short end of the stick, as did non-whites, or anyone who wasn’t Christian, the disabled, etc.
Most of my colleagues aren’t Catholic, so the pope’s views don’t really impact their beliefs. My understanding is that this pope isn’t really more liberal, but expresses doctrine in a more humanistic way. Much of what he’s proposing isn’t really a big deviation from accepted catholic thought.
No, if you think being in a loving, supportive relationship with someone of the same gender is comparable to being an alcoholic, you’re a homophobe. Even if you’re really, really polite to gay people when you meet them face to face, you’re a homophobe. The idea that homosexuality is a sin is inherently bigoted. There isn’t a way to hold that belief, and not be a bigot at the same time.
He preaches that global warming is very real and he think trump is a evil wanker. That’s pretty liberal in my book, but if you would prefer enlightened I will go along.
Presuming that this hypothetical preacher said they can marry each other and then have homosexual sex within that marriage without it being a sin, then of course that wouldn’t be homophobic.
But that isn’t the real life argument. I’ve actually tried it on those who claim that homosexual sex is sinful because it is adultery. I’ve said that this means they should allow gay marriage. The response is always that marriage is just between a man and a woman.
If you won’t let gay people get married, and say that gay sex outside of marriage is a sin, then you are saying all homosexual sex is sinful. And that is homophobic.
I can’t not connect this split to the other GD thread on “The Decline of Religion in American Life” and its link to the 538 article documenting how young adults are becoming less active in religious institutions. Those left as active in many religious institutions are increasingly older and the United Methodist Church is made of more of older members than many other religious institutions. See this Pew graphic. Median age is 57 (for all U.S. adults it is 46). That’s not a good recipe for long term institutional health.
Playing to appeasing the older “base” is one tactic. Odds are the older and more conservative members are the most strongly identified and active. But that pushes away many who want religion in their lives but not a religion that strikes them as promoting intolerant and hateful dogma.
Or you try to appeal to a demographic in which your biggest competition is “nothing in particular” or “none” many of whom still have spiritual beliefs and who could find value in the social institutional value of religious organizations.
Hard to split the difference other than by … splitting.
FWIW it somewhat mirrors things on the Jewish side as well. Membership in Conservative congregations is shrinking, while the the Orthodox movement increases their numbers (birth rate is part of that) and membership and engagement in Reform congregations (which welcome interfaith couples and tend to have a heavy emphasis on Social Justice activities) is growing. Long term institutional survival is not going to happen trying to straddle the fence.
There are increasing numbers, especially among less old adults to younger adults, whose perspective is predominantly secularist and tolerant. Pull them in from becoming “nones” or write them off and double down on your already most active but oldest group but you can’t do both at the same time in one institution.
That last statement is erroneous. Views shape doctrines, in fact, Francis’ views are contrary to some of the established and controversial church doctrines.
Francis’s views undercut the rigid conservative view of conservative members of the College of Cardinals. It’s pretty clear to them that he’s pushing for inclusion of those the Church has limited or rejected. And it doesn’t end there. There’s a whole range of issues that have ignited the conflict between liberal and conservative clergy.
The rift in the UMC is not unlike the rift in the Vatican right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t split the Roman Catholic church as it has the UMC.
Chances are that if the church they belong to votes to join the conservative branch they were pretty unwelcome to begin with. At least this way they can easily determine which churches are likely to accept them just by looking at the name.
I remember both giving an opinion and asking for the opinions of others in the OP. I am now listening to the opinions of those that might have more insight on the matter.
I forgot to mention (as I did in the thread in MPSIMS) that I’m a Methodist; I belong to a UMC church that became a “Reconciling Congregation” a few years ago – we want to fully accept people of all sexual orientations into our church, and we’re strongly in support of removing the anti-homosexual sections of the Book of Discipline.
In talking with people at my church today, not everyone is confident that this proposed plan will actually get approved at the General Conference in May – though everyone does feel that, if the plan goes through, it would be a positive for liberal congregations like ours. OTOH, most members of our congregation are lifelong members of the Methodist church*, and most of them are sad that the issue has torn apart the denomination.
OTOH, I grew up Catholic, and have been a member of a CMA church, and two ELCA Lutheran churches, as an adult. I joined the Methodist church a few years ago, as several friends of mine were members of the congregation, and I liked the church’s philosophy. So, I don’t have the emotional investment in the UMC that my friends do.
That’s not doctrinal, though, at this point – it’s church governance policy. If the RCC stayed essentially intact as an institution after Vat2, this should be weathered. Now, if as you suggest the policies *become *doctrine-shapers…
I belong to a small (~35 average Sunday attendance) rural UMC in southwest Oklahoma and have been a member there for 25 years. Most of the congregants openly state that they believe that people should mind their own business but I’m afraid that when the vote finally comes, the majority will vote to join an exclusionary conference. If that happens, I’ll begrudgingly find another church.
Methodist here. First, nothing has happened yet. This proposal along with others will be voted on by the General Conference. To my surprising, the more conservative group is proposing to leave the UMC. I refuse to refer to them by their chosen term, “traditional,” because intolerance is not a Methodist tradition. One interesting part of the proposal is that they are agreeing that all property belongs to the UMC. They are proposing that the UMC give the new denomination some cash. I guess so they can buy some of the property. I had already decided that if intolerance was the route that the UMC was going to follow that I would have to find a new church. Now, maybe I won’t have to.
This will ultimately be a good thing. The iron law of oligarchy applies to churches too. If a denomination is to survive, they need to prune off off parts so that other areas can flourish.