Posted on 01/26/2008 4:14:25 AM PST by fweingart
Methodist renewal advocate Mark Tooley says United Methodist Church officials are urging church agencies and members to divest their holdings in Caterpillar Incorporated, for doing business with Israel.
Tooley, who directs the United Methodist Committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, says the UMC has about $15 million of Caterpillar stock in its pension fund. But he says the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society has unveiled a proposal to divest from Caterpillar ahead of the church's governing General Conference in April. Several United Methodist regional conferences have endorsed anti-Israel divestment, according to Tooley.
"It's another example of the anti-Israel bias of the mainline churches," he argues. "[They] tend to turn a blind eye towards the human rights abuses and support of terrorism of Arab regimes, but yet are very critical of and hostile towards Israel."
Tooley says the Methodist recommendation only targets Caterpillar because of the controversy that stemmed from the Presbyterian Church USA's divestment policy in 2006. "That was rather disastrous. The Presbyterians fairly quickly revoked their policy," he says. "So I think the Methodist lobby office is trying to avoid that example by simply going after one company in a symbolic way. But nonetheless, the intent is the same -- which is to punish Israel."
The Methodist renewal advocate says he is fairly hopeful that most Methodists will not go along with this divestment plan, and thinks most Americans will remain friendly toward Israel.
Exactly!
“The problem isn’t the Church people, but the Church leadership. I don’t mean the pastors or the local boards, but the people sent to conventions, and the frequently very liberal people elected by the conventions to run the regional and the national organizations.”
this is where politics and political activism works, where saving souls is pas see but advocating to improve govt services/entitlements/protected statuses is paramount
the largest single category of programs, by dollar amount, run by the women’s division of the umc is race/gender political advocacy
“now the Methodists have allowed certain radicals to obtain positions of leadership at the national level.”
NOW!?!? No, it’s been going on in the UMC for a long time.
And God said "I will bless those who bless thee oh Israel, I will curse those who curse thee".
I'd say the Methodists better read their Bibles before making statements like cutting off Israel and Caterpillar.
What say you?
“Why does the Methodist Church against Cat doing business with Isreal?”
many UMC leaders are fellow-traveler sheeple who follow the latest marxist and leftist political fads, of which a current one - begun in europe - is divestment from israel
refusing to face the truth of the self-inflicted calamities that Palestinian-Arab choices have inflicted on Palestinian-Arabs - by preferring war and extermination of israel instead of peace - they buy the latest marxist political analogy equating israel with south african apartheid (the older rant of “zionism is racism” has become pas see)
“There’s madness in their Methodism.”
great line
Jesus was a law abiding Jew all his life, I believe He was and is the Messiah. I was born a Jew and still am a Jew but am completed. Messiah came first to save the Jews and graft the gentiles to the Olive Tree which He did. Amen and Amen. Thank God for His Son!
“Thus, I’m a political conservative and a religious liberal.”
For those who believe the truth in the bible must be experienced, not in the reading of text but in living the spirit of the law that the text only attempts to demonstrate, leaving it to God and your faith to experience the spirit within the story and live it out in your life - you are not alone.
Amen !
Same here. I am a Methodist, although not from a traditional congregation. If we embrace every belief of ANY denomination, we are straying from God’s word. What we have to do is get involved where we can serve and let the doctrine be the worry of people why worry about such things.
The Methodists are wrong to seek to punish the people of a nation because they disagree with some aspect of the government there. Israel has a right to exist, and the people there have a right to do business on the free market.
The rank and file methodists, most of whom are good conservative Christians, need to do a major house-cleaning. PC liberal beaurocrats should have no place in the church leadership.
I like your way of saying it. Thanks. Do you happen to belong to any denomination? Just curious.
Put the Methodists on my not worth a #@$$^%&*&* list.
Guess the Methodists identify with Yasser Arafat/Bin Laden more than the Jewish Line that brought Jesus, or do they dispute the divinity and line of Christ also.Why not just go Pagan, they can go pound sand and worship the sticks out in the forest.
Huckabee for example.
Then the people of the church bear the responsibility of allowing these Heretical teachers into positions of power, and to present the voice and direction of the church.
Agreed
‘Then it would be your duty to show them how to get the information they need.”
My duty? It is not “my duty” to bring down the leadership of the Methodist church. It is everyones “duty” to inform themselves and to know when their church is not complying with the Bible. Says so right in the Bible.
But most people don’t want to know.
She learned from an accomplished practitioner of the art. (See tagline)
Quit being reasonable. It clashes with the anti-Israel agenda.
At least Lutherans have a viable option with the Missouri Synod.
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