Posted on 08/29/2018 8:15:56 AM PDT by Morgana
PLEASE RESPOND BEFORE AUGUST 31st
https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/social-principles-revision/social-principles-2020/sp2020-english
PLEASE RESPOND TO UMC SURVEY BEFORE AUGUST 31st
https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/social-principles-revision/social-principles-2020/sp2020-english
Since they’re inventing moral doctrine, maybe they’ll invent an Abortion Sacrament too. Combination of Baptism and Last Rites.
We went through this onslaught of heresy early on in the dense Boston-to-DC conferences. My southern Methodist relatives' conferences took longer, but now are all secular politicized, as well.
The church is not a building or a denomination or even a congregation. It is the unbroken thread of belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Once that goes and there's little hope of a congregation making a recovery, it's time to shake the dust off your feet and go. The prophet is honored everywhere except his own home town and among his own people. The Son of Man has no place to lay His head.
It was wrenching, but finally I did leave the church of many generations of Methodists in my family and sought another, which took much research and some years, including divesting myself of prejudices, suspicions and snobbery towards other denominatons.
God took me on a winding journey through several denominations and half-a-dozen dedicated prayer groups that met regularly, as well as participation in the wonderful Community Bible Study program. At last I found a Bible-believing church that is right for me.
Bible-affirming is the must-have component; after that, the way the church is organized, the mission statement of the denomination (or independent organization), and whether the local church has ministries and groups in which you can grow.
The rationales for abortion put forth by the second-wave feminists in the 60s have largely disappeared. Prior to the legalization of access to birth control for the unmarried in the early 60s, families still were humiliated and shamed by extramarital pregnancy of a daughter and were sometimes rejecting and punitive. Social remedies then were "sending her away" and having the child adopted to an unknown couple, forcing an early marriage on teenagers, or the parents of the pregnant girl raising the child as their own. For older women who became pregnant, they would usually have to leave work as soon as they began showing, whether married or not; so for an unmarried woman, there would be no way to support herself and the child. Single women raising children were shunned and shamed, and the children labeled "bastard" and "illegitimate." And illegal abortions were often quite dangerous and unsanitary. For these reasons, the feminists wanted access to "safe, legal and rare" abortion.
Seventy years into the so-called "sexual revolution", society has moved past most of these conditions, so young women do not feel the same urgency to take drastic steps. Many young people don't bother to be married or even to know the other person well before having unprotected sex. Employers are enjoined from firing women outright for pregnancy and must give pregnancy leave. And from what we read, abortion faciities are not always sanitary or safe, either; but the pc brainwashing has convinced many irresponsible women otherwise.
Who wouldn't want to see a world in which all children are wanted, lovingly anticipated by both parents and prepared for? Unfortunately, unwanted pregnancies will always be with us. Adoption is sometimes the kindest and most humane option, but even there, the agencies are under great lib/prog pressure to favor adoption by LGBT's and singles—and in UK, Christians are disfavored because of their "religious extremism." In this country, activists have passed laws in various localities insisting that prospective parents allow their adopted child to choose his/her own gender, religion, etc. The far neediest group of children are black, but race separatists object to white families adopting African-American kids. Young women who have tried to have their child placed with married heterosexuals of the same religion are often subjected to punitive and spiteful placement of their child with just the opposite kind of adoptive person(s). The same holds true in divorce when one partner has "discovered" their "gay identity"—the heterosexual partner has no right to prevent their biological child from being thrust into joint custody with daddy's boyfriend or mommy's girlfriend.
We must pray for our whole society to be freed from this pc tyranny against Christianity.
I think I’d be ok with a Wesleyan or Lutheran MS congregation.
The problem is that none in my area has the ministries/groups Im looking for.
I credit the UMCs youth programs with keeping me from going any further from God than I did. I want that foundation for my kids.
Fond memories! We had MYF meetings every Sunday night, with games and musis, and also sleep-away church camp in the summer. (But several of our youth pastors were gay, even back in the 50s. That's the Northeast Conferences for you.)
I hear you on the importance of good activities for kids. Try the Baptists -- most of them are still sticking to the Bible. And if anyone in your family, such as a grandparent or a stay-at-home parent, can take the kids to Community Bible Study, their teaching and activities are really great even here in a blue state.
For me, one of the most valuable parts of the Methodism I grew up with, which was then the Methodist Episcopal Church (not the UMC, the merger which ruined it), was singing, both in the choir and in the congregation. Later in life when trouble struck, the words of the hymns would come back to me. Only as an adult did I realize that most of the hymns are based rather literally on the psalms and scripture (not the praise song crap on the big screen monitors, but the real four-part harmony hymns in the Methodist Hymnall).
musis = music
Agreed!
I have been in a UMC choir since 2nd grade (some 45 years ago)
The music is the foundation of my faith awakening, and I’d miss that terribly.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.... A larger Baptist Church might be my only real option.
They are not a church. At least a Christian one. Maybe they should change their name to Sunday morning social club
A woman’s right to choose (to kill an unborn child).
A blessing on your search and journey. Pray for an answer. It may not come immediately, but God hears your prayers and answers in His time.
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