Posted on 06/05/2006 4:46:36 AM PDT by rhema
The United Methodist Church of Minnesota, which held its annual conference in St. Cloud last week, has a knack for detecting and embracing the "social justice" cause du jour. When Minnesota Methodist leaders congregate, buzzwords like "celebrating diversity" are generally front and center. "I believe when you embrace diversity," ran a recent United Methodist advertisement, "you embrace God." In the past, Methodist leaders have often focused on racism and sexism. This year, however, gay issues jumped to center stage. The Minnesota Annual Conference outdid itself, passing nine petitions on various aspects of the topic. The conference went on record as supporting both gay marriage and the ordination of gay clergy.
Still, the Minnesota United Methodist conference will have to work overtime if it wants to keep up with the top brass at the church's national headquarters. Leaders there have set the activist bar high indeed. Recently, Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, called for the impeachment of President George Bush, a Methodist himself. Winkler condemned America's "secret police establishment" and advocated slashing the U.S. defense budget by 80 percent. "The war on terror is a war of terror," he proclaimed.
Meanwhile, the United Methodist Women's Division is manning the barricades on other fronts. It has called on Staples, the office supply giant, to "permanently stock 'processed chlorine free' paper." It has urged its members to "Save the Filibuster," promoted eco-friendly ant control and sounded an alarm about the Patriot Act.
Clearly, Methodist Church leaders are an energetic lot. Why, then, is United Methodist membership heading south? Here in Minnesota, church membership fell from 121,000 in 1980 to 95,000 in 2000, according to the Atlanta-based Glenmary Research Center. Minnesota Methodists reported 86,000 members in 2004.
Nationally, the United Methodist Church lost about
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I have been a Methodist all of my life, and will probably die as one, but I don't attend or support a Methodist church - due to its support of gay issues. I attend/support a conservative Lutheran church now.
I grew up in the Methodist Church. My grandfather, great grandfather and several relatives were Methodist ministers. I think they would be rolling in their graves. I will never step foot another Methodist Church unless they seriously mend their ways. It's scary what secular humanism has done to a once decent church.
I'm still a Methodist but don't attend church. The last time I was in the church of my childhood it was pretty clear that it had become a temple of liberalism.
---But there may be a deeper answer. Most people -- whatever their politics -- don't flock to churches, synagogues and mosques to find outlets for political and social activism---
Very apt of the reporter...
My parents' Methodist church has had so many members stop giving because they refuse to have their money go to the denomination that it had no money to pay for fuel this winter. Several Sundays they had church in a basement room which could be heated by a plug-in heater.
As is the case with most formerly Biblical churches, there's a reform movement seeking to stem tide of apostasy: the Methodist Laity Reform Movement.
As the founders of the Methodist Laity Reform Movement have noted, "Where the UMC is political and uncertain about Jesus Christ, it is dying. Where the UMC is faithful to Christ and the Bible, it is growing."
Maybe it's the focus on hedonism and unscriptural doctrine?
We had three dozen or so people in attendance at the service this time. Turns out ths was the COMBINED membership of two of the churches on this four-point charge. (for the non-methodists among you, that means a four-church circuit, serviced by a single preacher, who preaches at pairs of churches on alternate sundays.)
The young people in attendance all appeared to be descendents of current elderly members, rather than members themselves. Quite a contrast to the congregations I attended some 30 years ago, when each had around 100 in attendance per Sunday, and a lively youth group. (Vicky and I met, in fact, in the context of charge youth group activities.)
The pastor, a young and passionate expositor of the word, is rightly to be honored as a faithful servant of God. A clue as to why the churches he serves are aging out, dying, appeared in the responsive reading. It was Psalm 100, as updated, modernized, and sanitized by editors who were smarter than God. The vile, contemptible, evil, sexist, and degrading pronouns God had chosen to reveal Himself by had all been deleted by those who were wiser than Him, and replaced by the androgynous noun "God."
The pastor was stabbed in the back by the hymnal makers and providers of sunday school material. If I want feminist humanism, I can turn on the TV or pick up any magazine at the supemarket checkout counter. Most serious Christians prefer a denomination whose publishers are not ashamed of God, and feel no need to correct Him as though He were an Asperger's Syndrome case, Who needed to have His utterances constantly curbed, corrected, and explained away.
I had red pen in hand, but decided against "correcting" the hymnal folks' "corrections" of God's original message. A sad voice in the back of my head said, "Let the dead bury the dead. The living have work to do." The remaining faithful members, those who are deeply loyal to what the church used to be will pass on within the next few decades. Unless a miracle happens to reverse settled trends at the denominational level, however, a lot of Methodist churches are going to be closing their doors.
I left the Methodist Church (or should I say they left me) years ago. Liberalism has become they god. What a shame, because John Wesley was one of the greats of the faith....but his fire has been all but stomped out by liberals who hijacked the church.
Liberals KILL whatever they infest, be it education, industry, government, or religion.
Maybe you can find out if it's part of The Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church.
> Very apt of the reporter...
It was obscene of the reporter to put "mosque" in the same sentence.
I wonder what the numbers of converted Catholics is now??? I crossed the Tiber a few years back myself.
I know the feeling. I grew up in on of the New England mainline Baptist denominations. My Great Grandmother was one of the founding members of our church, and she and my grandmother were strong women of God. But by the time Maine passed its "Human Rights ordinance" that was everything the gay activists wanted, my church was openly backing it and spouting the usual claptrap about how these laws are an example of loving your neighbor.
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