METHODIST OFFICIAL: “I NEVER HAVE ASKED JESUS TO DEFINE MARRIAGE”

First Things ^ | July 4, 2015 | Matthew Schmitz

[NYer]

One measure of the decline of mainline social justice activism can be found in a recent Facebook exchange between the Methodist civil rights leader Maxie Dunnam and the Methodist civil rights official Bill Mefford. Dunnam was a heroic opponent of Jim Crow as a young pastor in Mississippi and went on to become the president of Asbury Theological Seminary. He also happens to believe in the historic Christian understanding of marriage, so in response to Obergefell v. Hodges, he made the following post on his Facebook wall:

To which Mefford, the “Director of Civil and Human Rights” for the United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society, replied:

It is hard to see why anyone who professes a faith in which Christ is lord would say, “I never have asked Jesus to define marriage.” 

Harder yet is the question of why someone who confesses the Trinity would pit the Holy Spirit against Jesus Christ while elevating the U.S. Supreme Court to the status of a new Word. 

This is not Mefford's first such performance. On January 22, 2015, he responded to the annual March for Life that seeks to end the legally sanctioned killing of the unborn by holding up a sign that said “I march for sandwiches.”

Contrast this statement with another, from January 1963. Dunnam, then a young pastor in Mississippi, invited three other Methodist pastors to his river camp in order to draft “Born of Conviction,” a historic challenge to Jim Crow amid one of its darkest moments. Only a few months before, rioting had broken out when James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. A few months later, a white supremacist shot and killed Mississippi NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers (whose wife would later honor Dunnam). 

“Born of Conviction” cited the official Methodist teaching that all men were equal, denounced resegregation under the cover of Christian schooling, and rejected the charge that the civil rights movement was Communist. Several of the twenty-eight Methodist pastors who subsequently signed the statement were forced to leave the state. Some received death threats.

The distance between Dunnam's statement in 1963 and Mefford's in 2015 provides another measure of the loss of moral seriousness in mainline social justice activism. The comparison is not, I think, an altogether unfair one. Mefford's official position makes it impossible to dismiss his comments as the mere product of one man's glibness, rather than to admit them as evidence of a church bureaucracy that has lost touch with scripture, tradition, and the believers it purports to represent.

[ICE-FLYER]

Just another in a long line of fake Christians who deny the God of Creation in their dismissal of His word when it conflicts with their world view...they’re not just blind but an apostate preacher when they do such things.

[elpadre]

I have known a couple Methodist pastors over the years, one was a next door neighbor, and they were just as conservative as anyone on FR.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I’m sure that’s true, but every one I’ve known, save one, were ultra-liberal to the point of being communists.

[randita]

They don’t want schism, but they will campaign for new rules to allow conferences to follow the cultures that they are in.

The UMC in the US is bleeding members while the UMC in Africa (and Asia) is exploding.

At the last General Conference, the ordination of self avowed homosexuals was voted down with a 61% majority. With the growing influence of orthodox churches, esp. those in Africa, I can't see that it would be any closer in 2016.

Some have advocated that each Annual Conference should make its own decision on this issue, but that won't fly either because the more conservative UMC churches will not share leadership with an institution that doesn't stand 100% against ordination of homosexuals.

If the orthodox churches hold firm next year, I wouldn't be surprised to see the liberal churches breaking away. It will be interesting to see what the denominational leadership, who are more liberal, will eo.

[elpadre]

admittedly, those I have known have probably been retired for a while.

[2ndDivisionVet]

One female pastor was there for exactly one year and somehow always turned her sermons into a pro-gay lesson.

[Bryanw92]

>>If the orthodox churches hold firm next year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the liberal churches breaking away. It will be interesting to see what the denominational leadership, who are more liberal, will eo.

The liberals always talk about breaking away if they don’t get their way, but after GC2012, it was the Conservatives who started talking about it and the liberals got scared. They knew that the majority of UM churches survive on the money of conservatives and that the rural and suburban churches pay most of the apportionments. An exodus of conservatives would doom the UMC.

So, the liberals started walking back the talk of a split once the the conservatives started agreeing that it would be best.

The libs will never split off. Their whole agenda is about making others bow to their will, so they will always stay. IMO, Methodists of good conscience should just leave and find a new church home. That’s what I did. Leave the UMC to wallow in its own Progressive filth.

[verga]

Our monsignor read a letter today from the Conference of Bishops, stating that they are not backing down in opposing gay “marriage”.

[RobbyS]

Nor do they need Anthony Kennedy, but surely they ought to appreciate what Jesus is recorded as saying in Matthew 19. That human beings are created male and female, that as Black stone put it,” Man embraces woman. Monogamous marriage is the joining together of one man and one woman in a conjugal union which is enjoined to be fruitful.

[RobbyS]

If they change the Discipline to allow same-sex marriage, then John Wesley will turn over in his grave.

[hinckley buzzard]

No surprise. The Methodist church's general board has been a left wing whorehouse for decades now. Nothing new here, just more shameless liberal evil behind the fig leaf of "love."

[elpadre]

I have observed from people in my orbit that there is a great divide in these churches between the clergy and the people in the pews. The clergy may be liberal, but the people are mostly right of center. In my coffee group and at the “club,” they come from half dozen denominations and are regular in attendance, and they would all agree with my observation. And they aren’t about to be shoved out by a liberal preacher as they will tell you quickly that their family has been in the church for generations and built the church way back when. No whipper-snapper preacher is going to run them out.

[Kay Ludlow]

I quit attending the UMC I grew up in about 15 years ago when she (the pastor) told us to say a prayer to “Mother Earth” for earth day,which just seemed to me to be suggesting we pray to false gods...

[Kay Ludlow]

I quit attending the UMC I grew up in about 15 years ago when she (the pastor) told us to say a prayer to “Mother Earth” for earth day,which just seemed to me to be suggesting we pray to false gods...

[laweeks]

I am astonished the United Methodist Church has not just come out openly for gay marriage

Why, hell, they still can't decide if an unborn baby is worthy of protection from the abortionists . . . They just can't figure out if abortions are killing . . . not even the 10 Commandments can settle their decision.

I asked my so-called Methodist pastor if he'd allow a homosexual marriage in our church, and he started to say, "Well, if they ever asked me to allow it, I'd probably have to blah, blah, blah." I turned and walked away before he was done blah-blahing. I showed my disgust by walking away.

[RichInOC]

Well, perhaps not, Mr. Mefford, but one would think that an ordained Christian minister and senior church staffer might, even if only momentarily, taken interest in what He had to say about it.

[mom.mom]

It is disturbing when Christian ministers advance the communist agenda. Do they realize that they are complicit in establishing the State as a religion?

[Twinkie]

If anyone had asked Christ about it; He, as a perfect keeper of the Mosaic Law would have gladly told them that He kept the Mosaic Law PERFECTLY. Otherwise, He would not have been an unblemished lamb & offering for our sins.

[RichInOC]

Oh, yes, Mr. Mefford. If I were you, I’d consider the unparalleled benefits of withdrawing from any unmoderated contact with media, mass, social or otherwise.