>>The UMC way is to talk about all we are doing much like a Kiwanis club. All outreach has to be faith-free.
Yep. I’ve been told that by liberal pastors. We don’t want to scare them away by evangelizing when we should be “helping” them. All I wanted to do was put a card with a bible verse in a bag lunch.
>>We are open-minded EXCEPT when people disagree with the liberal policies of the church. Then we are driving people away.
I was always seeking a clear statement of what we believe on a certain topic. The answer would be liberal drivel or a reminder that “we aren’t a confessional church, so what do you think it means”. I thought a confessional church was a bad thing until I read Metaxxas’ biography of Bonhoeffer and found out that the confessing church is the one that resists being a weather vane in the hurricane of political and societal pressure.
>>I was in an Emmaus meeting and they asked if I wanted to hold teaming at my church. My response was It may not be my church by then. Jaws dropped.
Decolores! I still group with some Methodists, but I am a Presbyterian (PCA, not PCUSA) now.
Liberal political stands are always disguised as “social justice”. The UMC even has lobbyists. Every popular liberal political narrative gets the social justice treatment.
But if Falwell does it, it is “preaching politics from the pulpit”.