Posted on 02/25/2019 7:46:24 AM PST by xzins
In a key United Methodist General Conference vote setting voting priorities for the next three days, delegates preferred the Traditional Plan backed by global evangelicals over the liberalizing One Church Plan backed by most bishops.
The Traditional Plan, which got nearly 56%, reaffirms current United Methodist teaching on marriage as male and female. One Church Plan, which got nearly 49%, would overturn that teaching and compel local congregations to choose their own definition of marriage.
In one swoop, delegates were asked to vote their preference on dozens of legislative proposals and could vote yes to each one. The vote sets the order by which proposals are considered.
This vote ensures the Traditional Plan will be considered before the One Church Plan and reveals most delegates are not siding with the considerable forces of liberal institutional United Methodism in the USA. Nearly 43% of delegates are from overseas, mostly Africa, and they overwhelmingly supported the Traditional Plan.
Two proposals backed by global evangelicals allowing local congregations to leave the denomination if they dissent from the official teaching on sex also got more votes than the One Church Plan. Potentially liberal congregations could quit United Methodism and take their property under these plans.
The plan receiving most priority votes uncontroversially protects clergy retirement benefits under whatever proposal prevails.
In other good news, Joseph Harris, a senior evangelical clergy leader from Oklahoma, was elected to chair the General Conference during its initial legislative committee session. Legislation must pass in this committee session before the General Conference considers it in final plenary before Tuesday adjournment.
1. Evangelicals are outvoting liberals 2. Traditional Plan prioritized over pro-homosexuality plan 3. Amicable departure preferred over pro-homosexuality plan. (Means a church can leave the denomination with the property and finances.) 4. African churches are pushing evangelicals over the top in voting strength.
Huge News INITIALLY (it could change via shenanigans by poweful forces):
1. Evangelicals are outvoting liberals
2. Traditional Plan prioritized over pro-homosexuality plan
3. Amicable departure preferred over pro-homosexuality plan. (Means a church can leave the denomination with the property and finances.)
4. African churches are pushing evangelicals over the top in voting strength.
Great News!
Hopefully, it will start a trend.
I’m cautious. The bishops are primarily liberal and they cheat when they get a chance to.
I realize there is probably great diversity among Methodist fellowships, but my recollection of a Methodist wedding I attended had only a single reference to God. That was when we prayed the Lord’s Prayer.
It did not impress me as being a particularly religious religion.
Perhaps if I had more interaction with the Methodist church this article wouldn’t surprise me.
No Doubt.
BTW...I am ALWAYS cautious about these things. }:-\
Still the #1 contributor of Christians to anti-gun rights.
I’m an NRA member. I own a good number of guns. I shoot in my back acreage regularly. The difference between the rural Methodist and the urban Methodist is huge.
#3 Would be good across the major Christian churches:
#3. Amicable departure preferred over pro-homosexuality plan. (Means a church can leave the denomination with the property and finances.)
Many mainline local churches with declining attendance/members find their local bishops ending up with the church property, fiscal assets and cash reserves when they break up.
Then, they sell the property and seize the financial assets.
In one small mid west town, they literally moved the church building to another city about 10 miles away. Then, they seized the financial assets left by members in their wills and finally sold the property the church used to be on.
That enabled the church receiving the assets to survive for about a decade. Now, that church is getting the same process applied to it to save another liberal church in another town.
The traditional Methodist wedding service is so short it can be accomplished in 5 minutes or less. If done correctly, though, as the worship service that it is, there will be scripture, prayer, sermon, blessing and could last an hour.
There is great opposition to amicable departure with property and finances for just the reasons you mention. They would live off the corpses of dead churches for a decade or so while hoping that liberal Christianity will finally do well.
It won’t. How can telling people your own scripture of God is all wrong, that God is a figment of imagination, that behavior is anything you want, and that lives are expendable...BUT...we do want your money...
How can that EVER win a following???
Somebody's math doesn't add up....
105%?
It’s how we vote. Each one gets a separate vote.
Each proposal gets a separate vote.
The same with delegates.
Sometimes you can vote for a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. depending on how the voting rules are laid out prior to any vote.
If the Traditionalists win, things will stay the same. We’ll still have gay pastors and same-sex marriages. They will still be allowed to oppose the church.
If the liberals win, it will be “illegal” to oppose the church and the policy. Worse yet, members will be forced to endorse it. That’s why the first thing they did was work on Retirement.
Methodists need to kick the liberals out.
A split is the only thing that will save the church, and the liberals don’t want one, they want to be able to continue to bully the conservatives.
Close to 60 years ago, my wife and I were married at the Methodist Church, she grew up in and folks were members for generations.
We saw the minister 3 times before the wedding, and sharing with him what marriage meant to God, his church.
Flash forward 30 something years, and one of our sons’s best friend was married in a local Methodist church and we attended.
Thhat wedding prayer could have been written by a non believer.
My wife was stunned.
This is the case with many protestant denominations. Methodist churches for sure are all over the map. Many have severed their formal ties with the bureaucracy and such. Lutherans too have a very broad array of flavors.
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