Posted on 10/30/2016 9:05:35 PM PDT by Morgana
Sadly, the United Methodist Church is one of a handful of Protestant denominations with clergy who strongly support abortion. LifeNews.com has frequently profiled UMC pastors and church leaders who advance abortion and the denomination has often pushed abortion as a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
Now, a pro-life writer has posted a collection of quotes from Methodist pastors pushing abortion. Here are a few selections form that list:
Pro-abortion Methodist pastor John M. Swomley:
It is not enough to say that abortion is not violent. Abortion is a positive decision and not a lesser evil. …[Abortion] is therefore profamily and pro-life. (1)
Rev. Phillip A. Wogamen, then affiliated with Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C.:
Real love for children means having the number of children that one can care for responsibly and lovingly…. Bringing every conceived child into existence is not “pro-life”: it is certainly not pro-love. (3)
Rev. Julia Mayo Quinlan, pastor of Parkway United Methodist Church in Pompano Beach, said the following at a service commemorating the 23rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade sponsored by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice:
Pro-choice is about choosing life. And it is moral.
Rev. Karen Vannoy, then pastor of Travis Park United Methodist Church, on her support of abortion:
I am willing to take whatever heat would be generated by my support of what I think is right and in God’s will.
As LifeNews reported, in Ohio, United Methodist Church pastor, Reverend Laura Young, says she believes pro-life protesters in front of Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities have “misguided faith.” In fact, she thinks these clinics should be blessed, which is why she went out to an abortion facility called Preterm on October 8th in Cleveland. In 2014, Preterm was involved in the abortion-related death of Lakisha Wilson.
Young explained her acceptance of abortion like this: “Christianity, like most faiths, is founded on love. Watching protesters shouting judgment and hate based on what they call religion is horrible. Is that loving God? Is that loving your neighbor as yourself?”
The United Methodist Church’s abortion advocacy is one many reasons millions of Christians have left the denomination and sought home churches that better espouse Biblical concepts and values. As the remaining members age and millennials look for churches that more accurate reflect their pro-life Biblical beliefs, Methodist churches are closing across the country and the denomination is struggling to remain a viable entity within organized Christendom.
This Methodist pastor’s sermon yesterday had an intense, direct rebuke of our nation and the blood guilt it now is under because of abortion, and particularly partial birth abortion.
That’s because you are a Methodist in your heart, not a UMC.
There are some absolutely wrong acts, never excusable or justifiable. Abortion, the direct intentional killing of a baby in utero for the purpose of killing that baby, is one of them.
Many don’t know it, but the “method” that is part of our name was a method for growing in the Lord after one was saved: 1) doing all the good you can, 2) doing no harm, 3) practicing the spiritual disciplines (prayer, devotion, bible, worship, communion, fasting, etc.)
That was the “method”.
In regard to point #2 - Abortion does great harm to anyone involved.
I agree; and the part of the “method” that these heretics are missing is the Bible part.
At the last Annual Conference I attended as a Lay Delegate, my conservative UMC pastor (who would even dare to preach against divorce!) leaned over at one point and asked me, “can you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in this place?”
I said, “to be honest, no.”
He said, “Me neither.”
I left the UMC shortly after we returned home. It was encouraging that pastors like you and him are sticking it out, but I don’t have to. Keep fighting the good fight!
I retire in 2 months.
She still blatantly professes that she is a Methodist. and no Methodust voice of authority says otherwise.
" Rev. Karen Vannoy, then pastor of Travis Park United Methodist Church, on her support of abortion:
'I am willing to take whatever heat would be generated by my support of what I think is right and in God’s will.' "
She has forgotten the Will of Jesus, Messiah and Lord:
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God (Mk. 10:14 AV)."
I don't think that Jesus meant to rip them out of the womb so they could be sent on real early. Karen is the one that most surely will do the suffering for those very words that she has said.
I find it incomprehensible that anyone could support partial birth abortion and ever have been a real Christian.
Therefore, I conclude that they are not Christian.
An Arminian religion "believes" in salvation by grace, but believes you can only keep it by "good" works. And that's a very poor outcome. My folks were moral, and loyal, but to what? Eh?
That is great to read, and I hope it succeeds. There has been an earlier movement that hasn’t yet succeeded in separating the (loud minority) goats from the (long-suffering majority) sheep.
Totally agree. The problem started in the protestant denominations that accepted women as head pastors of churches. They have all gone downhill as a result, accepting all the rest of the marxist agenda.
LCMS and the rest of classical Lutheranism does not allow women pastors, although women may become deaconesses and certified teachers after completing a course of study.
Then you can start your home church!
The problem is this: For the unwary or insufficiently well grounded, they can open the doors to an ELCA church on a Sunday, walk in, and think that it looks and feels a little bit like the Lutheran church they remember from years ago. And for some, maybe even many, that may be enough to keep them there ... at least for a while, long enough to be drawn in, and desensitized to what it really is ... and isn’t.
In a similar way you can open any empty spice container and tell from the aroma what used to be in it. But there is nothing left, only the smell of what you opened the container hoping to find. If the smell is enough for you then you need do nothing more. But if you want and need the spice that has that smell and, most importantly, that flavor, you will have to go out and find it.
Sadly, the pews in ELCA churches are filled with people who won’t do that. And the guilt for that rests firmly and chiefly on the ELCA pastors - so-called - who either from neglect or ignorance, failed to do what they should have done. And the still greater guilt lies with the seminaries who produced such chaff for ELCA altars and pulpits. But finally, guilt lies also with those people who continued to support such travesty whether out of fear of being unpopular, losing friends or whatever.
It is not fact that free will Christians believe that one’s salvation is kept by good works.
For example, the faith in which I was raised, Baptist, has had many branches that believe in free will AND believe in once saved always saved. Southern Baptists, for example, were that way for as long as I remember until the last decade or so some have gone a totally Calvinistic direction.
Even John Wesley didn’t believe we were kept saved by good works. He believed in the ‘assurance of the spirit’...that is “that His Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are children of God.”
So what are good works. They are evidence to others of the goodness of our Lord, they are evidence to us of our remaining close to Him, and they are the basis of rewards. 1 Co 3.
I plan to write a year long devotional of the Book of Isaiah.
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