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The “Director of Civil and Human Rights” for the United Methodist Church, Bill Mefford, posted a picture to Twitter yesterday mocking the pro-life marchers. Mefford, who works for the Church’s lobby arm, the General Board of Church and Society, ridiculed the marchers by posting a picture of himself standing before them with a sign saying “I march for sandwiches.”[...]

A Methodist pastor who was disciplined after he officiated at the wedding of his gay son will be allowed to remain an ordained minister. The Judicial Council of the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination ruled Monday that a Pennsylvania church jury was wrong to defrock Frank Schaefer last year after he would not promise never to perform another same-sex wedding. The council ruled on technical grounds and did not express support for gay marriage in general. Its decision is final. Reached by phone after the decision, Schaefer called it “amazing.” …

Father James E. Coyle, an extraordinary priest and Knight of Columbus in the early 20th century, courageously stood up against widely-held anti-Catholic views at the risk, and then cost, of his life.The Irish-born priest was scarcely in his 20s when, after his ordination in Rome, he was dispatched to Alabama to begin his priesthood. The Catholic population in Alabama had exploded with a promise of jobs, especially in and around Birmingham’s network of coal mines, steel mills and iron foundries. Father Coyle arrived in the city shortly before a wave of anti-Catholicism flooded the country, and the revived Ku...

My church loyalties Why I am not yet a Catholic Jul 28, 2014 by D. Stephen Long In 2005, after Benedict XVI was elected pope, I wrote an essay for the Century titled “In need of a pope?” That essay cost me a job at a Protestant evangelical institution. A Catholic friend told me at the time that I should think of that result as a gracious preemptive strike. Since then I have repeatedly been asked, “Why are you not Catholic?” The main reason I am not (yet) Catholic and remain a Methodist and an ordained Methodist elder is that...

The story behind a case that made headlines a few months back, from The New York Times: Father and son had always been close, from the moment Tim Schaefer was born, six weeks premature, with blood poisoning, a weak heart and lungs, and a doctor who thought he would not make it through the night.His father, the Rev. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist minister, thought of his eldest son as a miracle child, saved by some combination of medicine and prayer, saved for something special.“We couldn’t even touch him; he was in an incubator, and we had to reach in...

The Connectional Table, one of The United Methodist Church’s governing bodies, has decided to draft legislation that could change church law “to fully include LGBTQ persons in the life and ministry of the church.” The draft would be brought back to the Connectional Table at a future meeting for consideration. The April 29 decision to draft the legislation came the same day the Connectional Table began a series of three public discussions on human sexuality. The dialogue “is an exercise of our responsibility to be a common table for the church and to confer with one another as representatives of...

Methodist Health Care Ministries whose logo claims they are serving humanity to honor God is giving money to the nation’s top abortion provider Planned Parenthood. Methodist Healthcare Ministries (unitedmethodistchurchMHM) is a private, faith-based, not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing medical, dental and health-related human services to low-income families and the uninsured in South Texas. The mission of the organization is “Serving Humanity to Honor God” by improving the physical, mental and spiritual health of those least served in the Southwest Texas Conference area of The United Methodist Church. MHM is one-half owner of the Methodist Healthcare System – the largest healthcare...

Rainier Beach United Methodist Church celebrated Scout Sunday April 6, days after news broke that the Boy Scouts of America said it was banning a volunteer Scout leader and church member because he is gay. The Rev. Monica Corsaro, pastor of Rainier Beach, said Geoffrey McGrath will continue to serve as the leader of the church's scouting program. “I am a chartering partner with BSA … . If I take responsibility for who is hired then I also take responsibility for who is fired. Our church is thriving and happy, and we support Geoffrey,” Corsaro said. McGrath, an Eagle Scout,...

Last October Dr. Thomas Ogletree (above), a clergyman in the United Methodist Church (UMC), performed the wedding ceremony for his gay son. UMC pastors are not supposed to marry gay couples, family members or otherwise. They’re instead supposed to believe what their Book of Discipline (which is to the UMC what, say, the Tax Code Book is to the IRS) tells them to believe, which is that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” ....................................................... So guess what happened this morning instead of the trial of Thomas Ogletree? The UMC bishop overseeing the trial dropped all charges against the pastor. And...

The Four Chaplains   What these four have in common is that they were all chaplains; all four loved and served God; and all four voluntarily sacrificed their own lives to help soldiers survive the sinking of the U.S.A.T (United States Army Transport) Dorchester. In the midst of World War II, the Dorchester, moving troops from America to Europe, was approaching Greenland when it was torpedoed by a German submarine just after midnight on February 3, 1943. Within twenty minutes of being struck, it plunged beneath the black and icy waters of the North Atlantic. In those twenty minutes,...

Church Nativity Scene Replaces Jesus with Bloody Trayvon Martin By Russell Goldman Dec 28, 2013 HT trayvon nativity nt 131227 16x9 608 Church Nativity Scene Replaces Jesus with Bloody Trayvon Martin John Zachary created a Nativity scene for Claremont United Methodist Church that employs a figure of Trayvon Martin as a commentary on gun violence. (David Allen/Daily Bulletin) A California church sought to make people think about the repercussions of violence, by replacing the baby Jesus with a bloody sculpture of Trayvon Martin in a nativity scene. What they got instead were threats. The crèche outside the church Claremont United...

Outside the Claremont United Methodist Church is a nativity scene with a bleeding Trayvon Martin. The California Church has turned their nativity scene "into a piece of art that comments on our times" for the last seven years. John Zachary, the artist, told me the acquittal in July of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot the 17-year-old African-American in 2012, struck him as a worthy subject for Christmas comment. For one thing, the backdrop to the Christmas story is the slaughter by King Herod of all infants in Bethlehem, a barbarous attempt to kill the Messiah.

A former Mormon bishop in Riverside County is expected to serve three years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls who attended a Menifee church, prosecutors said. Todd Mitchell Edwards, 49, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts related to the assault of the teens, ages 16 and 18, as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney's office. The counts were sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object. In addition to the prison time, Edwards will also have to register as a lifetime sex offender as part...

FULL TITLE: Sex, drugs, blasphemy, depravity, arrogance: The Crystal Methodist 'who didn't believe in God'... in his own brazen texts to his dealer Paul Flowers kept up an astonishing stream of sex and drug obsessed texts, even after his humiliating recent performance before the Commons Treasury Select Commitee and as The Mail on Sunday prepared last week’s revelations about his drug use. The texts are littered with references to ‘coke’ (cocaine), ‘ket’ (ketamine), and crack, as shown by this selection from exchanges with dealer Peter Wilson (whose name we have changed). They provide an insight into how he was leading...

Bishop Mel Talbert Retired Bishop Melvin Talbert conducted a ceremony celebrating the marriage of a same-gender couple in Center Point, Ala. A retired bishop in the United Methodist Church (UMC) conducted a same-sex marriage celebration in Cedar Point, Ala., on Oct. 26. On Friday, bishops of the UMC publicly rebuked the retired bishop, Melvin Talbert. The UMC Council of Bishops statement calls for charges to be filed against Talbert for both "conducting a ceremony to celebrate the marriage of a same gender couple" and "undermining the ministry of a colleague." Conducting such ceremonies is expressly prohibited in the church's governing...

<p>A United Methodist pastor was convicted Monday of breaking church law by officiating his son's same-sex wedding and could be defrocked after a high-profile trial that has rekindled debate over the denomination's policy on gay marriage.</p> <p>The Methodist church put the Rev. Frank Schaefer on trial in southeastern Pennsylvania, accusing him of breaking his pastoral vows by presiding over the 2007 ceremony in Massachusetts.</p>

The United Methodist Church’s division over homosexuality grew heated Friday (Nov. 15), as the denomination’s Council of Bishops called for charging retired Bishop Melvin Talbert with presiding at the Oct. 26 wedding of two men, which the church forbids. The council asked its president, Bishop Rosemarie Wenner, and Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett of the North Alabama Conference, to file a complaint accusing Talbert of undermining the ministry of a colleague and conducting a ceremony to celebrate the wedding of a same-gender couple at Covenant Community United Church of Christ in Center Point, Ala. Talbert, who served as bishop of the San...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a “faith-based” group that claims that Jesus would support abortion and has manipulated many in the church to follow suit and promote abortion as a God-given right that allows women to be in control over their own lives.Recently we’ve written extensively about the connection of the United Methodist Church to this abhorrent group. My disgust at this group is less about them promoting abortion, as it is about promoting abortion as if they are doing the work of Jesus. As I have been reading some...

There are many on the “religious left” who have decided that religion is nice, God is good, but culture is more important. Therefore, they have decided to take the pieces they like best of the Bible—good, loving God who forgives all weakness—and mix them with the lies of the culture—abortion should be a woman’s choice because it’s not a life until, well, they don’t know until when, but not until they say so at least. One of the threads in this religious left movement is the United Methodist Church who actually has written into its Social Principles in the Book...

Special to The Washington Post I am a Methodist minister and a Washington Nationals fan. I was there on Opening Day in 2005 at old RFK Stadium in Washington, and I try my best to plan my summer around Nats home games. I have only one issue with the ballpark experience, and it’s not with the beer prices. It’s with “God Bless America.” In his May 15 column, Washington Post writer John Kelly described the odd feeling of not knowing whether to stand during the singing of this song in the middle of the seventh inning. Like Kelly, I don’t...