Posted on 01/26/2008 4:14:25 AM PST by fweingart
Methodist renewal advocate Mark Tooley says United Methodist Church officials are urging church agencies and members to divest their holdings in Caterpillar Incorporated, for doing business with Israel.
Tooley, who directs the United Methodist Committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, says the UMC has about $15 million of Caterpillar stock in its pension fund. But he says the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society has unveiled a proposal to divest from Caterpillar ahead of the church's governing General Conference in April. Several United Methodist regional conferences have endorsed anti-Israel divestment, according to Tooley.
"It's another example of the anti-Israel bias of the mainline churches," he argues. "[They] tend to turn a blind eye towards the human rights abuses and support of terrorism of Arab regimes, but yet are very critical of and hostile towards Israel."
Tooley says the Methodist recommendation only targets Caterpillar because of the controversy that stemmed from the Presbyterian Church USA's divestment policy in 2006. "That was rather disastrous. The Presbyterians fairly quickly revoked their policy," he says. "So I think the Methodist lobby office is trying to avoid that example by simply going after one company in a symbolic way. But nonetheless, the intent is the same -- which is to punish Israel."
The Methodist renewal advocate says he is fairly hopeful that most Methodists will not go along with this divestment plan, and thinks most Americans will remain friendly toward Israel.
So this is how the Methodist church plans to bring about “renewal”? Good grief.
This is what happens when you hire professional Methodists. They need to justify their existence with this crap
“Another example of the decline of the Methodist Church into the mire of secular humanism. Any good ones left in congregations should be embarrassed enough by this action to leave.”
Many local Methodist congregations are very conservative. My Mom, Sister, and several nieces are devout Methodists and all are strong conservatives. The support the local church but send no funds to the national Methodist organization.
I stopped attending our local United Methodist Church after the Elian Gonzalez episode.
Well, I guess this is one way for the Methodist Church to ignore all those empty pews on Sunday.
And people wonder why church participation is down. It’s not that less people believe in God’s Word = it’s that they believe less in man’s organizations.
Churches devolve more and more into just another business enterprise. Seems nothing in the hands of man can stay uncorrupted for long
I’ve been a Methodist for many years. I keep hearing more and more bad things about the church. I’ve never seen or heard of anything by the churchs I’ve gone to like I keep hearing about on this site. Maybe its because I have always gone to smaller churches in a small town. I don’t know if this is a widespread problem or just everytime a few idiots do something stupid they make a big deal about it.
I used to live down the road from a Caterpillar factory. Its a pretty good company and everyone I know who works there love working there.
Mark Tooley and United Methodist Church officials, you are NOT the boss of me!
Church politics are very similar to national politics. Not enough people pay attention to what is actually going on day-to-day. If they did, they would throw out most of the bureaucrats.
LLS
I hope their pension fund goes broke with decisions like these.
“I’ve been a Methodist for many years. I keep hearing more and more bad things about the church. I’ve never seen or heard of anything by the churchs I’ve gone to like I keep hearing about on this site. Maybe its because I have always gone to smaller churches in a small town. I don’t know if this is a widespread problem or just everytime a few idiots do something stupid they make a big deal about it.”
Like the Episcopals, Presbyterians, and apparently the Lutherans now the Methodists have allowed certain radicals to obtain positions of leadership at the national level. Usually these people work their way in from an extremely liberal congregation in San Fran, Boulder, or parts of Wisconsin. Once in position they manipulate the system to push their liberal agenda.
Most Congregations have limited access to the information which IMO is intentional. Each church provides some monetary support and in many cases their property is actually owned by the national organization. They also exercise economic control over the clergy. For example Presbyterian ministers will lose their retirement if they move to another denomination.
And the media, academia, and our government bureaucracies, Federal, state, and local. It's Gramscian socialism - infiltration into the root institutions of our society so that they can drive our agenda. I believe Antonio Gramsci died in jail. At least I hope so.
No kidding! They have confused religion and politics to the point that they can't tell the difference any more.
Liberal Church “leadership” can kill a Church. Liberals always find a way to worm their way in.
This is - or at least was - the case with many small town and rural ELCA (Lutheran) churches as well. These local congregations were, by-and-large, traditional; as the more conservative pastors were removed through attrition, their replacements were generally new (left-leaning, if not socialist) products of the ELCA seminaries. The UMC hierarchy was taken over by leftists at an earlier date, but the ELCA's pact with the Episcopalians gave them a tremendous push towards the door of apostacy. The trend is obvious.
"I don't give the national organizations money," is a natural response, but the national bodies are very adept and assiduous when it comes to getting their shekels; one may believe the contents of the collection plate are staying well within the circle of the beloved and familiar, but wishful thinking counts for very little. The local congregations still pay for the "progressive" phagocytization of their church "home."
Nowadays, it appears that the more fundamentalist churches are being co-opted by the left through the likes of Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Rick Warren. The apostle Paul is clear enough about the wolves in sheep's clothing, and I see for myself more of these predators moving into what is popularly (if not accurately) described as "evangelical" church communities; the wolf population is growing and spreading to where there are enough remaining sheep to eat.
Mr. niteowl77
Well put and right on the money. These “mainline churches” are on the decline while non denominational churches are on the rise.
The Methodist heirarchy has the same stranglehold on their member churches as the RC's. Keep in mind that the local congregation does not own their buildings and they do not hire their pastors.
The diaspora from the UMC has become a deluge, a torrent, a river of souls pouring out of the maw of this godless institution.
These are the Methodists who tried to help the city of Durham throw three students in prison for thirty years at the UMC entity Duke University.
For a crime that they knew never happened. The Methodists have changed a lot since I was baptized in Tulsa 30 years ago.
I am not at all up to speed on this... Why does the Methodist Church against Cat doing business with Isreal?
The IDF uses Caterpillars for the destruction of Palestinian terrorist homes and other war efforts. Here’s an article from Human Rights Watch protesting such use - http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/11/22/isrlpa9711.htm
And it’s no secret that the increasingly liberal UMC has supported divestment from Israel for a long time now due to perceived “human rights abuses” against the Palestinians.
Mark Tooley opposes the United Methodist Church’s attempt to politicize their investment decisions.
He is a conservative trying to highlight the liberal control in the church.
It is typical of mainline churches. The Libs have a lust for power and they take over the national HQ and start mouthing the liberal party line. Of course, the grassroots congregations don’t know their church was taken over by nutcases.
“There’s madness in their Methodism.”
I recently joined a Methodist Church in Montgomery County, Maryland. We happen to be in a very Jewish area and a few of the congregants (including myself) have Jewish spouses. If the national leaders went after Israel, it would be rather unpopular in my church.
And as for why I’m a Methodist when the national leadership has these problems. I believe in God. However, I believe that large parts of the Bible can only be taken metaphorically. I believe there’s probably an afterlife, but we have no way of conceiving what it would be like or who is going to end up where.
Thus, I’m a political conservative and a religious liberal. The way churches are in the United States today, I can find fundamentalist churches filled with conservatives like myself preaching religous doctrines that I can’t accept. Or I can go to a more religiously liberal congregation and deal with the garbage of the national leadership’s politics. I have to pick between two imperfect options.
“Mark Tooley and United Methodist Church officials, you are NOT the boss of me!”
You might want to re-read the story. Mark Tooley, Methodist Church renewal advocate is NOT anti-Israel ... (the following is quoted from the story...)
“The Methodist renewal advocate says he is fairly hopeful that most Methodists will not go along with this divestment plan, and thinks most Americans will remain friendly toward Israel.”
ping
If it’s anything like Australia the smaller more towny sort of Methodist churches have stayed very conservative while the City churches are very left leaning. The left has gained control of most Synods and they have become a dogs breakfast of anti - biblical ideas and actions. Most don’t beleive or don’t treat the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Most are Israel hating socialists, pro-homo. antiwar; some are pro-abortion.
I hope this is not the case for you but the small town church I attended seemed quite conservative until pushed on issues such as homosexuality. Many are just biblically illiterate- the only time they pick up the scriptures is on a Sunday so it is tough for them to righfully divide the Word. Check out your Elders and Synod reps They may be lovely people but what do they beleive in regards to Salvation etc. You might be surprised.
Mel
“Most Congregations have limited access to the information which IMO is intentional. Each church provides some monetary support and in many cases their property is actually owned by the national organization. They also exercise economic control over the clergy. For example Presbyterian ministers will lose their retirement if they move to another denomination.”
Then it would be your duty to show them how to get the information they need. All of the information they need can be found on this page:http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=1&mid=2650
My understanding is that, if they support the local church they support the national church since the national church assesses, thru their districts, every church a certain and sizable amount .
“The diaspora from the UMC has become a deluge, a torrent, a river of souls pouring out of the maw of this godless institution.”
Exactly right, they have been putting communists in positions of authority for many years and now they are imbedded in almost every board and society.
Let's not forget a key difference that "Human Rights Watch" ignores... Before the IDF destroys the home of the family of a suicide bomber, they make sure that the home is empty... The suicide bombers try to make sure that there are as many people murdered as possible when they set off their bombs.
Nah.... Not a big difference...
Mark
Supporting the Islamofacists doesn’t make these fools peacemakers. It simply marks them as closet Nazis.
It seems that George W. Bush is a member of the Park Hill UMC, Dallas. However, the 8.4 million Methodists seem about as split between right and left currents as the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches.
No, *you* are wrong. I am the Financial Secretary of our local Methodist church, and I know the ins and outs of the legal and financial relationships between the local church and the district and national hierarchy. These relationships bear no similarity to the rigid centralization of the Roman Catholic church. Our congregation owns its buildings and hires its pastor. There are some rules and many guidelines for our financial operations, but we make all of the important decisions about the day-to-day “business” of the church. We do send our full apportionment (”tax”) to the district and national organizations, but several area UMC congregations do not, and there seems to be no penalty for not doing so.
Good! More stock for us.
“... the UMC entity Duke University.”
Duke University and the Methodist Church severed their formal relationship many (30 or 40) years ago. There is a plaque at the entrance to the beautiful Duke Chapel that explains the historical relationship and the current situation. The UMC has absolutely no control over the operation of Duke University.
Where’s the rachel corrie graphic?
Makes one wonder how large a pension fund portfolio the Methodist Church controls and who, besides pastors, are entitled to a pension.
Our church has one and only one position on Israel and the Jews...
Unwavering support of both!!!
Hillary claims to be a devout Methodist, but then she’s an habitual liar.
I don’t need Mark Tooley to do my thinking for me, he can stick his advice in the same place as United Methodist Church officials!
Think how pleased the islamists are with crap like this.
America should shove it's big nose out of Israel completely. As Netanyahoo stated a few years ago, Israel would be much better off and could clean up the arab mess quickly.
Peace talks. Failure. Jimmy Kahtah and Arafat won Nobel Peace Prizes for absolutely nothing.
This act, on the part of the Methodist elite, in punishing Caterpillar is patently ridiculous.
Remember: each Methodist Church sends money to their synod to support nonsense like this.
Apparently, they find they have more in common with Israel’s enemies.
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