Any other United Methodists here?

Am I confusing the Methodists with the Lutherans in each having conservative and liberal branches?

 

My wife is. She's devastated by this news.

 

I wish I had such an attachment to the Catholic Church that such news would upset me. I've always viewed faith as the thing and the various organizations and hierarchies have as much to do with my faith as the stadium my favorite team plays in.

People that require a rigid religion to stay on the straight and narrow, really have a warped idea of Christianity.

 

This is one reason I like being a Reformed Jew. We accept LGBTQs based on the belief that God made everyone uniquely.

Plus, I like to point out that God calls homosexuality an abomination, but he doesn’t call slavery an abomination. A man owning another man is OK in God’s book, but heaven forbid if the two of them have consensual sex.

 

I liked this column on it.

The Methodist mess in St. Louis

 

I mean, yes, sure. “Religion” exists in part to create some accountability, some framework. And, in some cases, denominations exist because of schisms. Like the one about to happen here.

The LGBT/Christianity question is among the hardest to have. Where I often end up in the argument with others is: If there’s a Christian God - and I believe there is - then God is God, and far be it from me to declare, for absolute certain, the eternal fate of any practicing member of the LGBT community. But far be it from you to do the same in certain opposition. Let’s both pray and read more on it.

 

Adam Hamilton - the superstar pastor and thought leader - is considering leaving the UMC.

A Way Backwards: Winning the Battle, Losing the Church

 

Our family is Methodist. Honestly, the church should just go ahead and split.

The One Church Plan was weird, even if it was better than the Traditional Plan. In 2019, it's hard to have a major denomination like UMC co-exist with such a major split on a huge social issue. IMHO, it would be incredibly strange in the U.S. to have some UMC churches that were "gay friendly" and some that weren't.

 

The reason that the Anglican church in the U.K. is called the Episcopalian church in the United States is because the church split after the Revolution. The Americans did not want the Archbishop of Canterbury to be the had of their church and adopted a separate governing structure.

 

Nope. It happens in virtually every Protestant churches.

 

Potential translation error in the KJV, which should not surprise you.

http://religiondispatches.org/does-the-bible-really-call-homosexuality-an-abomination/