Symbolic actions such as:
Posted on 07/17/2018 4:13:24 AM PDT by marshmallow
It’s too sad. Used to be a good place. No longer.
Sad to say it, Albion, but it’s just about dead.
Methodism in rural fly-over country is alive and well right now. However, faithful congregants will leave in droves if the ship is not soon righted.
Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists.
Symbolic actions such as:
There is no "but even" there. He didn't leave Anglicanism; it pushed him out. Just as Luther, an Augustinian monk, was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for trying to reform it when the scandal of selling indulgences was taking place, Wesley was ejected from the Anglican establishment for breaking the class system in England and opening the gospel to "the unwashed" laborers and social outcasts. Methodist Episcopalianism was also powerfully supportive of temperance movements, long before there was an A.A.—communion was unfermented grape juice, no alcohol. The liturgy of the Methodist Episcopal church I was raised in was very much like that of the old-time Episcopal (Anglican) Church. All that changed in the late 60s.
I had hopes it could come back to its roots, but the rot is so deep and the losses of congregants, properties, even the desecration of former facilities like the Duke University chapel, etc. are by now enormous. When I visited the Methodist Home in Washington DC in the 90s and 00s, there were two cross-dressing lesbians running it. The Methodist Home in Gaithersburg, MD began admitting non-Christians in the 80s and the residents soon did away with grace at mealtimes or any other vestige of Christian community. Not one of my many "Methodist" relatives who live all over the South is an actual witnessing believer, although many of them think of themselves righteously as good Christians. If I attempt to pray with them, they roll their eyes and avoid inviting me to family events for the next several months or years, until a crisis. Then they want to hear a prayer.
Isn’t it odd? I listened to a Catholic priest pray on TV the other night for marriage. He made a point of saying marriage is between one man and one woman
Pray anyway. Prayer is the only thing this churchless retired pastor has that is fulfilling.
I pray many, many times a day. (1 Thess 5:17)
Also, there are a group of us intercessors who pray for our country and our churches every single day here on FR, and have done so for years now. Please come on over and get on our ping list. We'd love to have you participate in any way, Chaplain.
Thanks Albion, I’ll check it out
Is it a list?
I linke you to the archive of daily threads. Open any one of them to get a sampling. You will see the names of the leaders who posted the daily threads as you scroll down. I’d be flattered if you read any of mine.
There are 14 of us leading, that is to say, posting the opening prayer of the thread; each leader posts a thread twice a month, so that fills up the calendar.
Many of us have been able to stay with it from the start of the nomination of Trump; others have cycled in or out. Always on the lookout for new leaders. And also for those who simply say or think “Amen” or who post their own additional prayers, praise songs, devotional graphics, etc. The thing it is NOT is a discussion. It’s a devotion.
linke = linked /typo
As you know I've been a vociferous Catholic defender, but to me, this attack on the Methodists is like watching the enemy take down a brother -- I can gain zero pleasure from it.
We must take a stand together.
put aside the theological differences - we can argue over how many angels stand on the head of a needle elsewhere, but this is a matter that requires unity.
I am constantly haunted by the fact that Islam succeeded in running into Egypt and Syria because one group of Christians (the future Catholic-Orthodox-Protestants) persecuted another group (the Orientals) and caused the latter to support Moslems over them. Shameful. And we see it repeated throughout history - 1683, the Dutch and the Hungarian Calvinists supported the Turks because Catholic hapsburgs had been persecuting them. Shame on BOTH Catholics and Protestants for that.
We should learn from the mistakes of our predecessors
Do you realize that this disunity in the face of the enemy is what allowed islam and anti-christian movements everywhere to flourish?
Because we Catholics, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Evangelicals, whatever said "Oh, group XYZ is expendable"
No, they are NOT.
Exactly - as I pointed out in my post above - in the 600s the Arabs invaded Egypt. Egypt was a stronghold of the Coptic (oriental church) Christian faith.<p.These people had been persecuted for centuries by the future Orthodox-Catholic-Protestant Church (byzantine) and they embraced the Arab conquerors. In hindsight that was a mistake.
Your posts reminded me of my Grandmother; thank you:) That side of the family fought in the Revolutionary War (and had members in the PA Assembly). They later became devout Methodists.
My Grandmother read the Bible studiously, wrote sermons, songs, & devotionals, was a Lay-Minister for the local summer camp, etc. As a child/teen I would ask her questions regarding issues...she would immediately have many verses at hand and could translate them into “this is what you should do.” Her understanding of the Bible was simply astonishing (and anyone who knew her would agree). When I went to Church with her, those values were also reflected in the sermons.
As an adult, I’ve longed to find a similar church home. But where?
I should have added; this was in small-town Midwest in the 60’s/70’s. Before things went south:(
What has happened to methodism is sad. What once was a great outreach in the name of Christ has fallen to irrelevant liberal social policy pronouncements. They are in the process of losing their candlestick.
Methodist Church left me years ago as well. At first it was the ministers who didn’t seem to believe in God; the final straw was the woman minister to told us, the Sunday before Earth Day, to remember to say a prayer to Gaia...
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