[GeronL]

this article's characterization of the denomination as split into "progressive" and "conservative" camps based in the north and south

The article also compared it to slavery, wasn't it subtle??

[xzins]

The article also compared it to slavery, wasn't it subtle??

Their bias is so evident in their sliming of the orthodox position.

[aikido7]

Silliness. Confused disbelief, but mainly--silliness.

A Methodist and child of the South, I remember well the undercurrents of the slave trade. Definitely separate, definitely unequal. Like ancient Hebrew "purity codes"--the ones Jesus was able to break beyond.

"Certain things" do not "belong" with "certain other things." Imagine the social fear of a harmless but pervasive purity code rule that is unquestioned (Why, for instance, is it allright to swallow one's own saliva only when it is IN the mouth to begin with?). Forget about whatever is actually occuring in true, common-sense reality--that is just (eeeww) GROSS.

Purity--racial and sexual. Don't mix the races and don't let that primitve sexual out-of-boundedness contaminate our white world. Just look at the African dancers, the rhythm of rap music or anywhere where the "blacks dance better than whites" is displayed. Watch our white women!

The West and its Enlightenment's primacy of mind fears the ancient wisdom of the body. There's surface envy from the Caucasian and buried rage. And rage is always a cover for fear. Fear the body, fear sexuality, fear the Other.

Not yet, my Lord. No WAY we are yet ready to love others as ourselves.

Myself included.

[dangus]

I would think the reference was to the (obviously) southern based Southern Methodists versus the (northern) United Methodists and the black AME and AME Zion churches, but she seems to be indicating a split within the United Methodist church.

A funny thing was Bush is Methodist, but since the UM churches in the DC area were so patently hateful, he had to go to AME churches.