Spinning John Wesley

Tribune Media Services | 3-26-2004 | Cal Thomas

[lilylangtree]

The other day, a lesbian Methodist pastor was acquitted on charges stemming from her sexual orientation and will continue in her ministry. A jury of pastors in Bothell, Wash., deliberated for 10 hours before a majority ruled that the homosexual relationship between the Rev. Karen Dammann and another woman, who were recently "married," is allowable under the church's social principles, even though the Methodist Book of Discipline declares homosexual practice to be "incompatible to Christian teachings."

Should anyone be surprised? Having abandoned Scripture and the teachings of Methodism's founder, John Wesley, who believed that the Bible was God's infallible Word to man, it is a short step to rejecting all statements, "doctrines" and "principles" based on eternal truths.

If the church can't uphold an eternal principle involving sexual expression and male-female relations, it puts everything up for negotiation in our increasingly relativistic age where the truth can never be objectively determined.

The conservative wing of the Methodist Church, known as the Confessing Movement, has it right. Its Web page (www.confessingumc.org/tract3.html) says, "The moral relativism of our time rebels against Jesus Christ's gracious rule over human sexuality. This relativism and rebellion have found their way into the United Methodist Church. There are those in the Church who understand marriage as a short-term contract, who desire to legitimize homosexual practice, and who care little about protecting the unborn child and mother. In some quarters of our denomination, premarital sex, extramarital sex and serial marriage are silently tolerated. A confusion has arisen in our Church between the Lordship of Christ and the reigning cultural virtue of tolerance. The Confessing Movement challenges the misuse of the principle of tolerance to set aside the authority of Scripture and (the) Church's teaching on human sexuality."

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[lilylangtree]

Cal Thomas writes some great editorials. He writes the way I think. He makes excellent points in this editorial.

[Tax-chick]

The moral relativism of our time rebels against Jesus Christ's gracious rule over human sexuality.

Gracefully phrased. First you deny Creation; then you deny the Creator's authority; then you deny ALL authority other than your own desires.

[aruanan]

The conservative wing of the Methodist Church, known as the Confessing Movement, has it right.

It was also known as the Good News Movement.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - METHODIST CHURCH APOSTASY

[tbpiper]

the homosexual relationship ....is allowable under the church's social principles, even though the Methodist Book of Discipline declares homosexual practice to be "incompatible to Christian teachings."

Reads as if John Kerry were the 'pope' of the Methodist Church.

[bigfootbob]

The pastor who prosecuted this case is from Port Townsend. We have friends who have friends that attend his church. Rumor has it the pastor is also homosexual.

[thackney]

Thank you for the post and the link to the Confessing Movement.

[lilylangtree]

Thanks for the info.

[RBroadfoot]

The CONFESSING MOVEMENT is a brilliant name for dissenting Methodists.

Martin Niemoeller, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer formed the "original" Confessing Church to resist the National Socialist Party's control of the German Christian Church and affirm orthodox Christianity.

I hope this new Confessing Movement will successfully resist the recent seizure of the 'mainstream' Protestant ecclesiastical establishment by modern socialists and continue to affirm the Truth.

[Mike Darancette]

Where will people go when all of the main line Protestant Churches become Gay Social Clubs?

[lilylangtree]

Colonize another planet and start all over. :)

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Where will people go when all the main line Protestant Churches become Gay Social Clubs.

God willing, they'll go back to their roots in the Reformed tradition of the Apostles, Augustine, Calvin, Zwingli, and theologians like Boettner, Pink, Piper and Bahnsen.

Saved by faith alone.

[HarleyD]

Here is their statement. Talk is cheap. The question will become whether they have the will to act upon their convictions like the conservative Episcopalians?

___________________

We repudiate teachings and practices that MISUSE principles of inclusiveness and tolerance to distort the doctrine and discipline of the Church. We deny the claim that the individual is free to decide what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil. We reject widespread and often unchallenged practices in and by the Church that rebel against the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

For example:

experimenting with pagan ritual and practice
consuming the world's goods without regard for the poor
accommodating the prevailing patterns of sexual promiscuity, serial marriage and divorce
resigning ourselves to the injustices of racial and gender prejudice
condoning homosexual practice
ignoring the Church's long-standing protection of the unborn and the mother

Any new teachings in the Church that seek to set aside the biblical witness cannot be established by votes, or appeals to personal experience, or by responding to contemporary social pressures. According to the apostolic faith, such teachings and practices are false and unfaithful to the Gospel.

[Lucas McCain]

Faith alone is worthless.

[ntnychik]

Wesley ping

[Wrigley]

Here is their statement. Talk is cheap. The question will become whether they have the will to act upon their convictions like the conservative Episcopalians?

That's the question now. Will the CM act, or will talk be seen as action? What will bappen at the meeting next month?