Posted on 03/01/2006 2:23:47 PM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
A letter to Presbyweb concerning their coverage of the recent (leftist) World Council of Churches Assembly (emphasis mine):
I am deeply grateful for the excellent balanced coverage you have given to the just concluded 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. Unfortunately, it is difficult also to be grateful for many of messages that have come out of that Assembly. For example, while some declarations called for increased evangelical and Pentecostal involvement in the WCC as crucial to the future health of the ecumenical movement, at the same time WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia condemned American megachurches as promoting a kind of Christianity that is "two miles long and one inch deep." Is he really so clueless as to think that we evangelicals would be interested in an organization which by the testimony of many of its own leaders is faltering and yet whose General Secretary finds it necessary to issue denunciations of the ministries of the likes of Bill Hybels, Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes? If the WCC is really serious about dialogue with those of us in the evangelical and Pentecostal camps, then we need a sustained dialogue about how one goes about measuring the breadth and depth of strategies for promoting the cause of the Gospel! Richard J. Mouw President and Professor of Christian Philosophy Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, California
Left of center mainline denominations are bleeding membership, while, as I understand it, "conservative" Evangelicals and the like are gaining. Myopically holding to the siren-song of politics while slighting the real and original "mission" is a phenomenon not confined to college campuses alone.
Never had a global warming sermon at my Southern Baptist church, its about souls!!
No, sir, you need to jump on board while we win souls to the Lord.
WCC must really be in bad financial condition. WCC has to be grasping at straws to think that a conservative Evangelical Christian denomination would want to join them.
Here we have the Evangelical Assemblies of God that have grown from 572,000 members in 1965 to 2,730,000 members in 2003. This is a 377% increase.
Meanwhile, the mainline protestant churches who have been loyal members of the WCC for these past 40 years have collectively lost about 10,000,000 members or about a 25% drop.
The conservative Evangelicals would have to be crazy to be associated with the WCC.
Especially since the WCC is not even exclusively Christian. A few years ago at their annual bash, which was in New Zealand IIRC, they opened proceedings with the ritual of a band of indigenous Korean pagans.
The UCC has a bash evangelicals campaign going on, both in their press releases and in the pulpits.
I still get the monthly newsletter and the pastor, she bashes the lack of depth and intellegence of prominent evangelicals.
This is a 300 pound woman who cannot give a decent sermon, visit her flock or help the sick. She is too busy with the UCC agenda.
The forefathers and foremothers of my old Congregational Church...which went UCC 20 years ago....are crying in heaven.
I was not aware the UCC was bashing the evangelical churches. Is this a case of jealousy? Or are the mainliners hoping that by bashing the evangelicals that the evangelicals will crumble like they are?
Is this a case of jealousy? Or are the mainliners hoping that by bashing the evangelicals that the evangelicals will crumble like they are?
I think that the UCC figures it has nothing to lose. They are trying to set themselves apart as the "thinking Christians" for everyone KNOWS that evangelicals don't think, that they're shallow and that they are easily led.
http://www.stillspeaking.com/resources/indexvis.html
This is their Still Speaking initiative which makes it clear that they are NOT the NeoNazi churches that the rest of Christianity enjoys.
Funny. My experience with the UCC is that they were often liberal racists. The had a difficult time with our multiracial family and our evangelical faith. In the evangelical church we are pastored by Chinese and Spanish speaking peoples with a very diverse congregation.
Oh I thought that you might have been describing my 300 lb. pastor...until you said it was a woman :)
Cheer up. We old Congos are still around. We just don't have anywhere to go to church.
I do miss the music.
Cheer up. We old Congos are still around. We just don't have anywhere to go to church.
I do miss the music.
So do I. In the local church the UCC has requested that the church building and trust fund be turned over to UCC if the church closes. Sound like our Episcopal friends?
> In the local church the UCC has requested that the church building and trust fund be turned over to UCC if the church closes.
You don't identify your state in your profile. In Massachusetts, churches' governance and finances must comply to state law. The Puritans set it up that way. If our church closes, it will take a vote of the Deacons and then a congregational meeting to decide to give it to the UCC. When I left there were still about 60 souls who attended, mostly old folks and of course our "progressive" pastor. There are 200 of us who would love come out of the woods and tell the UCC to go to hell.
Funny how right-of-center mainline denominations happen to be left out of the above statement...
If there are 200 of you and only 60 of them, why don't you all show up one Sunday at church, call a congregational meeting, vote the minister out and tell the UCC to go to hell? Sounds like a substantial number of congregations have been doing that just recently. See http://faithfulandwelcoming.org/faw/content/show.asp?mne=withdrawn-churches
Seems to me you guys have an opportunity to take the church back over. The problem we Presbtyerians have is that we are tied to a national structure where the presbytery can threaten to take away our properties and toss our pastors out, although at least our presbytery has been leaving our church alone (for the moment).
I've always understood the reason for congregationalism was to prevent exactly this type of oppression.
There are 200 of us who would love come out of the woods and tell the UCC to go to hell.
If there are 200 of you and 60 of them, rejoin the church and vote yourselves the church you want
There was a rebellion while I was deacon, but people for the most part do *not* want a fight. I can't say that strongly enough. The Congregational Church functions through consensus, and when consensus disappears, the place falls apart. Maybe when this pastor leaves, we'll see about taking back the church...if it doesn't go bankrupt first.
There was a rebellion while I was deacon, but people for the most part do *not* want a fight. I can't say that strongly enough. The Congregational Church functions through consensus, and when consensus disappears, the place falls apart. Maybe when this pastor leaves, we'll see about taking back the church...if it doesn't go bankrupt first.
As a former Mennonite and friend of many Friends...I know that thes churches use consensus. The Congos that I have been familiar with and have gone to have used old fashioned democracy.
Why don't you? I walked out on the ELCA. It is liberating.
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