Posted on 10/06/2022 7:07:32 AM PDT by fwdude
I mostly agree with your assessment.
“I would describe what is happening as a hostile takeover by LGBTQ at the management level.”
While that is true, I think a significant number of pastors and congregants have drifted left.
“At the moment, there are plans for disassociation and the setting up of a new international church (the Global Methodist Church).”
I can’t wait. The sooner, the better.
It will be interesting and informative to see how it shakes out. I suspect there will be more liberal pastors with empty pews, than conservative pastors with empty pews.
I would vote now with my feet, but my wife is a life-long methodist and has a sense of community where we are currently going.
That was the situation in Nazi Germany. The state paid the pastors so they controlled what they preached. A copy of Mein Kampf was required to be on every pulpit.
Pastors don’t work for the state and aren’t there to mollify they congregation. They work for God, and if they are faithful to their calling, God will provide. If preaching the true gospel sends the congregation flying, then the church will be purified. Many are called, but few are chosen.
If pastors work for the State, they are not working for God.
Is the issue of abortion and trangendering children something that should not be addressed from the pulpit?
Those issues are not political but moral. And how a church responds to those issues is what separates the wheat from the Chaff and the wolves from the lambs.
That is my default view also.
But his view is “Well, you pastors can’t preach on abortion, divorce, or anything the government supports now without losing their tax exempt status. How is that better?
I didn’t have an answer that.
What, in your opinion, is your definition of political speech?
BTW, “division of church and state” is a Leftist construct designed to elevated government as the supreme lawgiver.
Not that I won’t read it, but I’m thinking the pastors in the usa support it. The neutral middle that’s theorized is actually the group that voted in obama.
The Apostle Paul didn’t take a salary.
Yes he did.
He made tents. He accepted money for use in mission.
He even talked about supporting preachers.
Now, he did not have what I would call a comfortable lifestyle. His list of hardships is long, and he was executed.
I am not saying what is going on is good, but if you have ever sat on a church board the primary concern is always “What is the budget?” Buildings, salaries, missions, all are from donations.
That is what the pastor from the Czech Republic was talking about. Our churches are not like St Paul, they are more like Walmart. They depend on the money paid by parishioners, who then demand to hear what they want to hear.
Going back to Paul’s joke about “super Apostles!” that isn’t a new problem, but it is a problem.
His view was that having an independent funding source to support the Church meant he could apply good teaching from the pulpit. Now that leads to places we as Americans are opposed to, but the majority of Christian history had a state Church supported by King and government.
Getting back to the subject of the article. Many if not most Pastors/Priests are silent because to go against the grain means having to find another job rather quickly.
That’s why I haven’t attended church since the 60’s, last time I saw a priest was in 1980. I wanted him to baptize my first born, he said he would only do it if both my wife and I joined his church and promised to raise our children in the Catholic faith.
And here I always thought baptism was done to save and preserve a soul for GOD ALMIGHTY, guess I was wrong, or the PRIEST WAS WRONG!
I am pretty sure that JOHN THE BAPTIST would have baptized my first born and he would have taken great joy to bring another soul to the LORD.
I told the priest it’s not about numbers, and that I would do it myself, so I DID!
WHEN I NEED TO TALK TO GOD THROUGH HIS SON JESUS, I just go out into the front yard, look up through through Pine trees into the limitless universe and speak my piece, sometimes standing-sometimes kneeling.
My pastor preaches all those things.
The pastor’s job is to preach the gospel truth. Call a sin a sin and tell people they will go to Hell if they don’t repent and turn to Christ. If you have to temper your sermon so as not to offend, then you shouldn’t be a pastor.
Yes, baptism is initiation into the body of Christ, that sum total of all Christians everywhere, for all time. It is a gift freely offered by God to all believers, or in the case of children, a gift from God accepted by the parents for the child. The priest was wrong but he was following the dictates of his church. There is only one baptism so those churches who re-baptize are wrong also. I have know some folks who have been re-baptized every time they moved to another town, or just a different church.
Paul didn’t take a salary from a church. That’s why he made tents.
That doesn’t mean others can’t, Paul says that. But, he didn’t because he didn’t want folks in new areas to think it was all about the money.
I can’t see a state supported church as a good thing.
In Germany while I was there the churches were empty. They were state supported for the most part, the Lutheran (Evangelisch) and the Catholic, always.
The allegiance of the church is to the state. The allegiance of the individual was to vote with their feet. They could opt out if they wished because of atheistic or other beliefs.
How many Pastors have a non pastoral means of support?
And your point is what I made to that pastor. Granted, the Czechs being out of the Iron Curtain may be more religious ( I don’t know/remember).
He raised a good point “Your churches are full, but how many preach, teach and live the Word of God? How many are just an afternoon’s entertainment?”
He was, to put it mildly, unimpressed with the state of the church in the USA.
Like I said, it has given me many moments of reflection. I don’t agree with all he said, but his insights sting enough to make me think about it.
I do agree that entertainment is a big issue in a lot of our churches. That kind of church would have a lukewarm quality about it that would match the Lord’s evaluate of the Laodicean church.
It’s a slippery slope, though, because we don’t want them to be sloppy, either. A good preacher and a good worship program isn’t a bad thing unless that becomes the purpose rather than glorifying the Lord and preaching the Word.
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