Free Republic

Tulsa’s largest United Methodist church is considering dropping its scouting program after the Boy Scouts of America decided to allow homosexual boys to participate. “We’re leaning in that direction. I don’t know exactly what we’ll do,” said the Rev. Tom Harrison, senior pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church, 6767 S. Mingo Road. The Boy Scouts’ decision can be troubling for troop-sponsoring churches whose denominations oppose the practice of homosexuality. The United Methodist Church, a major supporter of Boy Scouts, has maintained that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. “We find this to be a very troubling decision,”...

Actual title edited for space issues: United Methodist Seminary Ponders Removing Cross from Chapel To make the space more appropriate for Jain, Buddhist, and Islamic religious services After recently facing some financial challenges, the seminary decided to more or less literally sell itself for $50 million to a large donor who helped transform it from a Christian seminary into Claremont Lincoln University, devoted to jointly training Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Jain clergy. In celebrating the move, Claremont President Jerry Campbell bizarrely declared that Christians who seek to obey Christ’s command to evangelize non-Christians have “an incorrect perception of what...

AUGUSTA -- Gay marriage advocates turned in more than enough signatures to move ahead with a citizen initiative that would allow gay and lesbian couples to marry in Maine, the secretary of state's office ruled Thursday. More than 85,000 signatures were declared valid. The groups needed only 57,277 signatures for their bill to get to the Legislature. The decision means lawmakers will now be presented with a citizen initiative to allow gay marriage in Maine. Currently, seven states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriages. While lawmakers have the option of passing the bill as proposed, most likely it...

CLAREMONT, Calif. (AP) -- Southern California authorities are investigating vandalism of a church's Nativity display that includes depictions of gay and lesbian couples. The damage at Claremont United Methodist Church occurred late Saturday or Sunday morning. . . . Claremont police Sgt. Jason Walters tells the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin it's a hate crime.

Hundreds of United Methodist clergy are expressing deep concerns over a pledge made by a large group of fellow ministers to marry same-sex couples. They argue that if the pledge is carried through, the future of the denomination is in jeopardy. "We do not know how many, if any, marriages or 'holy unions' of same-sex couples will be performed by UM clergy in the near future," reads a letter, currently signed by more than 400 pastors, to the Council of Bishops. "But we do know the destructive effects that will result in our local churches and throughout the denomination if...

Chana Shapiro Stillman is appalled at what she discovered while doing research for the JCPA. Some UK church authorities, significantly the Methodists, are substituting a political agenda for Christianity. They have disavowed the Bible because it's too "Jewish " and associate with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups under the guise of religion.

HANNIBAL, Ohio -- Just a week ago, a bell decorated the front of the Hannibal United Methodist Church. But, that is not the case anymore. "We can't believe someone would steal a bell. You have to be pretty desperate to steal from a church. You have to be desperate to steal from anybody," Pastor of the church Lee Ann Dunlap said. It was stolen sometime during the overnight hours last Monday morning. Dunlap said when a custodian came to the church a few hours later, he noticed the bell missing.

The founder of a leading tea party group is showing himself to be quite the bizarre extremist, shocking I know. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips became worked up after seeing a banner supporting the DREAM Act on a Washington area Methodist Church. He promptly posted an anti-immigration screed on his website, wherein he said “My dream is the Methodist church goes out of business.” He then proceeded to paint the church as a breeding ground for “Karl Marx” Communists and socialists. If this makes no sense to you, join the club. “I have a DREAM. That is, no more...

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the soi-disant Cordoba Initiative, has gotten all the attention he deserves for his astonishingly insensitive attempt to build a 13-story mosque and community center at the site of Ground Zero. Rauf has largely escaped attention for his efforts to build a sawed-off version of the same on the grounds of the venerable and historically Christian Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. Although the resistance to Rauf at Chautauqua has not made the news, it is deeply felt, and it is coming from both Christians and Jews. As shall be seen, the forced feeding...

Vivian Cade remembers tension, even violence, when immigrants began settling in this agricultural region of central Florida a few decades ago. Trinity’s congregation was not easily integrated. But, now, Vivian is learning Spanish ... and about soccer.

Will they follow the lead of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America? Are the United Methodists preparing to follow the lead of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in allowing gay ministers?The ELCA spent a decade arguing over the matter before it voted last summer to recognize gay and lesbian ministers who are involved in monogamous relationships. The United Methodists aren't anywhere close to taking a similar vote; the best description of their situation is that they are thinking about thinking about it.At its meeting next month, the Minnesota Annual Conference has agreed to accept eight petitions dealing with...

Former first lady Laura Bush has broken with her husband on the premier social issues of his administration and said she backs gay marriage and abortion. After more than eight years of silence on the controversial issues, Mrs. Bush said in an interview with CNN's Larry KingTuesday, that gay marriage and abortion were points of contention with her husband, former President George W. Bush. Mrs. Bush in recent weeks has been promoting her memoir "Spoken from the Heart," in which she writes about her life both before and after becoming first lady. In response to a question about gay marriage,...

Leaders of the Methodist Church yesterday offered to surrender more than 200 years of independence from the Church of England. They said they were ready to 'cease having a separate existence' and merge with Anglicans to help the cause of Christianity. The promise, made to the Church of England's parliament, the General Synod, follows two decades of growing anxiety among Methodists over falling membership and its receding influence in society. Once seen as a pillar of working class culture and a major contributor to the thinking of the Labour Party, the church has seen its membership shrink to just 265,000.

The Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, NJ is praying for 15 missing members who are in Haiti. The missionaries went to Haiti to deliver medical supplies to Grace’s Children Hospital in Port-au-Prince.

Private meeting is one thing; cheap photo op is another. I don't mean to begrudge Billy Graham a Sunday afternoon visit from an admirer. I just wish he hadn't been used as a political prop. Picking up the paper Monday morning, I cringed at news of Sarah Palin spending the day with the evangelist at his home in Montreat. Especially cringe-inducing was the picture of Palin holding her special needs child, Trig, on her lap as mother and son shared what looked to be a less-than-spontaneous moment with Graham. It definitely wasn't a private moment, since a photographer had to...

Lutheran ministers who are in same-sex relationships will not be allowed to serve as clergy in United Methodist congregations despite the new full communion agreement between the two denominations. Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, made clear on Wednesday that UMC's ban on noncelibate gay clergy still stands. "Our Book of Discipline on that subject did not become null and void when they took that vote," said Palmer, according to the United Methodist News Service. "It still applies to United Methodist clergy." Palmer was referring to the highly publicized vote last week by the chief...

"What if church wasn't just a building, but thousands of doors?" asks a new website launched by the United Methodist Church. "Each of them opening up to a different concept or experience of church. . . . Would you come?" After watching its membership drop nearly 25 percent in recent decades, the United Methodist Church, which is still the nation's largest mainline Protestant denomination, thinks it knows the answer. So it's pouring $20 million into a new marketing campaign, including the website, television advertisements, even street teams in some cities, to rebrand the church from stale destination to "24-7 experience."...

Having rejected anti-Israel divestment of its pension funds last year, the 7.9 million United Methodist Church is courting new controversy involving anti-Israel bias again this year. Starting February 3, the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, from which the denomination conducts its political lobbying, will commemorate the nakba, as Palestinians refer to the "catastrophe" of Israel's creation. The opening reception on Tuesday, February 3, will kick-off a three-week exhibition in the Methodist Building lobby called "Our Story: A Photo Exhibit Commemorating 60 Years of Dispossession." Friends of Sabeel Canada, an advocate of Palestinian Liberation Theology among left-leaning Christians, has produced the...

"For most of his presidency, he was beset by critics on all sides. He found himself operating in a perpetual cross fire from congressmen, governors, generals, office seekers, ordinary citizens - all dissatisfied, and many sincerely convinced that he was incompetent and leading the nation down the path of destruction."[1] - Douglas Wilson, Lincoln's Sword "Towards all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Herosim." - Ralph Waldo Emerson Years,...

President Bush may follow in the footsteps of his brother Jeb and convert to Catholicism, several European papers are reporting. In the wake of the president’s visit to see Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Italian newspapers, citing Vatican sources, said Bush was open to the idea of converting to Catholicism. The Italian newspaper Il Foglio referred to such talk about Bush’s possible conversion and stated that “anything is possible, especially for someone reborn like Bush.” Noting that Tony Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office as Britain’s prime minister last year, the paper also stated that “if anything happens,...