Posted on 07/02/2010 7:42:20 AM PDT by ZGuy
For the second time in less than a year, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), an official agency of the denomination, has published an article arguing that sexual relationships outside the covenant of marriage are not necessarily improper.
“An Ordained Single Woman and the Discipline,” published June 7 as part of the “Sex and the Church” series in GBCS’ weekly Faith in Action online newsletter, contends that sexual relationships should not be off-limits for unmarried UM clergy.
Last August, the controversial series featured an article by Unitarian “sexologist” Debra Haffner who wrote that one can have “a moral, ethical sexual relationship” regardless of ”whether one is married or single, 16 or 35 or 80, gay, bisexual or straight.”
The current article, written by a divorced, female United Methodist elder, takes issue with language in the United Methodist Book of Discipline that states that a failure to remain “celibate in singleness” is a “chargeable offense” for UM clergy (¶2702.1). The writer, who is not identified by GBCS, asserts that the exchanging of covenant wedding vows is not necessarily “a dividing line between moral and immoral” sexual relations.
[The] demand for celibacy [on the part of] an unmarried clergyperson leaves little room for the heart’s search to find a home in our human world.
We are extraordinarily confused by years of theological tradition and imaginative biblical reflections on: the “perpetual” virginity of Mary; a supposedly celibate Jesus; …and effusively generous women errantly assumed to be asking for forgiveness from some sexual sin….
Yet, I can’t look at this great creation of such deep, creative erotica as found in an orchid, the mossy green of the deep forest…a passion of a thunderstorm, a hill of daffodils…the rich textures of rock and sand or the…sun setting across the city in the evening announcing a coming nighttime of dreams without wondering what if… [final ellipsis in original]
I cannot look at this great creation without wondering where we might find ourselves if we insisted that rather than “just say no,” we explored what expressions of rich, loving, abundant, heart-filled, kind, honest, truly mutual, vulnerable human sexuality might look like.
Though our delusions are rich, I think we all know that a wedding and its exchanged promises are not the dividing line between moral and immoral sex…. To label true expressions of intimate, sexual love of our unmarried ethical leaders as innately “immoral” seems a bit off….
What if within this context of the 21st century, we focused on the way that good sex, within a trusted relationship, is mutually healing, mutually humbling, touching, mutually vulnerable, connected to God’s deep and powerful mysterious grace?…
What if we determined that our sexual expressions of this love is [sic] part of God’s creative, wild, abundant abandon, and part of a “for God so loved this fecund, creative, wildly [sic], passionate, colorful, diverse, energy-filled world.”
Imagine a Church that talked like this…. Imagine a Church without the attitude that a wedding or a hymen is the dividing line between moral and immoral….
Imagine how many of those things that everyone is afraid of — embodied in a fearsome rule such as that in Discipline ¶2702.1 — would dissolve as we began to truly govern ourselves knowing when “moral sex” is ready to be manifested with a partner and when it is not.
In an “editor’s note” preceding the article, Faith in Action editor Wayne Rhodes noted that the author of the column requested “that it be printed anonymously due to the strong opinions expressed and the nature of the Disciplinary strictures on her role as an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church.”
∞
Responding to the article via a letter to the editor, North Georgia Conference layman Mark Smith criticized the General Board of Church and Society for acting as “a willing conduit for unbiblical, nontraditional and unwise views on sexuality.” By publishing such a piece, “GBCS continues to be a lightning rod for denominational division,” he wrote.
Mr. Smith also characterized the writer of the column as demonstrating “narcissistic myopia in supposing that she’s presenting a new, more positive perspective on sexuality.”
What her article [advocates] — libertine sexual practices, and among unwed Methodist clergy, no less — is exactly what Jesus warned against and is exactly what the ancient Israelites were told by God to resist…. And it is precisely what has wreaked untold havoc on our own society — the major victims being women and children — since the sexual revolution of the 1960s….
We don’t lessen sin by supposing it to be something else or by using creative language to explain it away. That’s what children do. We are supposed to aspire to spiritual maturity.
The Rev. Jim McConnell Another letter to the editor, from the Rev. Jim McConnell, a retired clergy member of the Texas Annual Conference, argued that the Book of Discipline’s moral guidelines for UM clergy, including those governing appropriate sexual behavior, are “important and necessary standards for clergy and models and guides for lay persons.”
He said such standards reinforce key “biblical and traditional values of restraint, boundaries and covenant.”
[Restraint] is at least in part an expression of love because it denies self for the sake of another….
Boundaries protect the vulnerable. They also help keep those of us in positions of power or authority from inappropriate behavior that would injure others or ourselves….
Covenant expresses caring, dependability, and faithfulness…. God has repeatedly covenanted with God’s people and said something like: “You can count on me and I am counting on you!” The marriage relationship is described as a covenant and I believe expresses the same kind of thing. A husband or wife says, “You can count on me and I am counting on you!”
∞
In launching the “Sex and the Church” series last year, Bishop Deborah Kiesey (Dakotas Conference), president of the General Board of Church and Society, and Jim Winkler, the board’s chief executive, issued a joint statement saying the series would “help provide needed education to our children and ourselves.”
The “Sex and the Church” series is overseen by Linda Bales Todd, director of the Louise and Hugh Moore Population Project at the General Board of Church and Society.
∞
Paragraph 2702.1 of the United Methodist Book of Discipline reads as follows:
A bishop, clergy member of an annual conference, local pastor, clergy on honorable or administrative location, or diaconal minister may be tried when charged (subject to the statute of limitations in ¶2702.4) with one or more of the following offenses: (a) immorality including but not limited to, not being celibate in singleness or not faithful in a heterosexual marriage; (b) practices declared by The United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings, including but not limited to: being a self-avowed practicing homosexual; or conducting ceremonies which celebrate homosexual unions; or performing same-sex wedding ceremonies; (c) crime; (d) failure to perform the work of the ministry; (e) disobedience to the Order and Discipline of The United Methodist Church; (f) dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrine of The United Methodist Church; (g) relationships and/or behavior that undermine[s] the ministry of another pastor; (h) child abuse; (i) sexual abuse; (j) sexual misconduct or (k) harassment, including, but not limited to racial and/or sexual harassment; or (l) racial or gender discrimination.
Or then can get an "annulment"from the Catholic church ...same thing except the church gets moneySame thing? Nope, it is a recognition that no valid and binding marriage actually existed.
Is there a fee?
The current fee for a formal annulment case is $400.00. Fees for other types of cases may be only $25.00. The annulment fees cover approximately 1/3 of the actual cost per case. The remainder of the Tribunal budget is subsidized by the people of the Diocese through the parish assessments and the annual stewardship campaign.The Petitioner receives notice of the fee at the beginning of the case. The fee may be paid in installments.
It is important to know that the progress of one's case or the eventual decision of the Tribunal is never affected when someone is unable to pay the fee.
What troubles me about it is there is no biblical precedent for men calling what God has joined together as invalid... as if it never occurred.
I know too many cases where it was valid for 25 years and then suddenly called invalid by the church that married them and baptized their children .
The church declares the children are then the product of fornication and illegitimate in the eyes of God.. because He never recognized the marriage
To many of us on the outside looking in it looks like a convenient way to allow divorce by changing its name.So the church can claim “Moral superiority” by saying they do not allow divorce..
Divorce or annulment is a sin, I have a God that is in the forgiving business.. so just like any sin repented , God sees it no more.
Many Protestant pastors will not remarry a divorced person unless the divorce was before they were saved ... others will if the party is clearly repentant..
I hate divorce, I hate annulments but we are a fallen race subject to our fallen nature.. praise God for His mercy
There is no defending this article and our General Board of Church and Society that enabled its being written and broadcast. They are lapsed into heresy.
Time to nail your 95 Theses to the door and wait for the inquisition.
I will keep you informed.
Independence Day
“Let my people go”
What troubles me about it is there is no biblical precedent for men calling what God has joined together as invalid... as if it never occurred.
Rightly or wrongly, that's not what the Church thinks it is doing.
The concept of invalidity can't be a problem, can it? If it turns out they're brother and sister, or Oedipus and Jocasta?
Then we go to a marriage contracted fraudulently. He married her for her money only, and was planning on having a serious extracurricular love life once he got his part of the loot. If a person MEANS to perjure himself, can the other party to the deal still be bound? Is there a deal at all? Or what if there's the romantic gleam of the moon off the barrels of her father's shotgun? Is an oath taken under duress binding? or valid?
Then we move to what if one or both of the parties are incompetent. I used to tell the people over whose weddings I presided that if I got one whiff of alcohol, then the wedding was off, until everyone was sober.
As my alleged ministry progressed, I got more and more focussed on explaining the vows, on going over what "for better or for worse," implied, and on, as I said, doing my best to assure that the only way they could get an annulment would be if one of them was committing deliberate fraud.
Yeah I had spiritual advice and suggestions and all, but the main thing was doing my best to clarify just what it was they were promising.
I don't see how anyone can question that there are abuses of annulment. I have no clue how anyone (or IF anyone) thought Teddy Kennedy was competent to commit matrimony. That is, if I were king of the universe I would have no qualms about annulling a Teddy The Hutt marriage. I would have serious qualms about allowing him to pretend to a sacramental marriage. Serious.
But I think the principle makes sense. And few principles are so good that they cannot be abused.
and why are the methodists paying attention to a Unitarian?
I feel so bad for you Pastor..
You are a wise man Dawg
....I have no doubt that there are marriages that one party was unaware of the truth of the other.. but they dont last 25 years
They have drifted so far..they may not care
This is a feeble desperate attempt to keep arguing, so let me preface it by saying, yeah. What? Who is kidding whom?
For the feeble defense part, let me try this. As I am fond of saying, "Always remember 100 IQ is average." Then consider, if you, probably being somewhat above 100 IQ, are as clueless and stupid as most of us are most of the time, remember there is somebody out there as much BELOW 100 IQ as you are above it.
NOT that intelligence is ALL that important. But at least some of us, some of the time, try to think HARD about what we're doing. A whole lot of people don't.
So my FIRST reaction is to say to most folks (I actually once lost my patience and yelled at someone who was whining to get out of her marriage -- praise God about 8 years later she and her husband wrote and thanked me, and they had a STRONG spiritual life -- I would think anybody married to me for more than a couple of weeks would need a VERY strong spiritual life, but I digress, did you notice? It's funny how sometimes I lose my train of thought and .....)
ANYWAY I would say, "D00d! You made the promise. It says so right here. 'For better or for worse, etc.' What the !%$#!&*)@#!!! did you THINK it meant? Nowhere does it say - 'but not TOO much worse.'"
Which may explain why some people told my that I was a ha... I mean that the part of my anatomy usually in contact with a chair was somewhat more obdurate than that of others ....
Have a great day! For Freedom Christ has set us free!
Actually I THOUGHT I was agreeing with you???
Have a blessed 4th
LOL
It’s like Adlai Stevenson who said we must all go more than halfway to meet one another (and so I always imagined people walking right past each other ....)
Yeah, you were agreeing with moi and I was agreeing with you about the 25 year, um, relationships, that suddenly are declared NOT to have been marriages.
I can imagine it, but it’s hard for me to believe it.
My mother's best friend was an old-fashioned Methodist, born in 1903. No better Christian has ever crossed my path. She was a pillar of her church. No dancing, caffeine, tobacco, liquor but did not push that on anyone else. No kinder person ever came my way.
Hilda's religious activity was centered on Scripture reading for hours every day. Eventually, Hilda was unable, in the area of New Haven, Connecticut, to attend the UMC churches because the clergy had turned their backs on Scripture and were running a trend of the week club. The last straw was when the Summerfield Methodist Church in New Haven welcomed to its parsonage (as a part time assistant) a New Hampshire communist minister (I would know the name if I heard it) who had just been released from New Hampshire prison after twenty years or more for running a communist training camp. The prosecutor who sent him to jail was then future Congressman Louis Wyman.
In any event, you are in my prayers. I ask the Lord to provide for you whatever He knows is best for you. God bless you and yours.
The children of a marriage annulled by the Roman Catholic Church are regarded as legitimate so long as their parents’ marriage APPEARED to be legitimate at the time it was contracted. Other Catholics will understand this better than I but that IS the Canon Law of Catholicism.
Thank you for your kind words, BlackElk. There is no church that has more aggressively stood for life than the RCC. It is something that would make any Christian proud, and I would not be embarrassed to be aligned with you.
If I were to draw up a list of places to which I could go, the RCC would be there because of that stand for life that is second to none. I admire your determination to trace your lineage back through the apostles. I admire the dogged determination to organize your witness world-wide in a manner that makes great sense. And I admire your unity of purpose.
There are other denominations on my list: none of them are mainline Protestant churches. They have all gone away from the gospel.
Independent, evangelical, orthodox, bible, and other churches are on my list. They each have some wonderful strengths. None, though, have so consistently stood for life as has yours.
It really does not matter how the church or men see the children, it matters how GOD sees the sex act and the children..when the church says a marriage was never valid in the eyes of God..it means HE never saw them as married..as a result.. every sex act was fornication and every child a bastard.. in Gods eyes..and after all that is the only one that counts in the matter of sin
It really does not matter how the church or men see the children, it matters how GOD sees the sex act and the children..when the church says a marriage was never valid in the eyes of God..it means HE never saw them as married..as a result.. every sex act was fornication and every child a bastard.. in Gods eyes..and after all that is the only one that counts in the matter of sinThat may be YOUR view, it may be the view of the heretical and apostate sect you adhere to, it certainly is not the view of the One True, Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church. Thank God!
What the church thinks is unimportant only Gods opinion counts..
The church says God did not see that marriage as valid.. He calls sex outside of marriage fornication and the product of that sex bastards.. and He curses bastards..
The church has to live with the fruit of its decision IF annulment is God ordained and IF they speak for God..
Pretty big IFs
yours is the opinion that I quoted, you want to define God. bad idea sister, bad idea.
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