“Ritter wrote on his People Need Jesus blog: ‘First World temper tantrums about the sexual expression of financially kept clergy ran into the patient ferment of God-fearing servants [in Africa] who know what it means to suffer for Christ.’” - The Great Divide
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)
Liberal Methodists may be digging in for a fight in the UMC
Since 2005
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Discussion
NewMay be?
As I noted earlier when the 53% “victory” was “won”, the liberal side here is not shamed, but emboldened. The main body of Methodists needs to ask themselves whether they are willing to not merely censure the false teachings of the left, but (as they did in the 1850s regarding slavery) whether they are willing to expel pastors and churches espousing false teaching.
My hope and prayer, as a former Methodist, is for a peaceful parting of urban/university/other liberal UMC churches and seminaries from the evangelical wing so that the liberal wing can sink under its own weight, and then the evangelicals can buy those buildings back for a song. I think the evangelicals are in fact protecting the left inadvertently by moderating their rhetoric; let the liberals speak and discredit themselves!
To draw a picture, when my mother was dying of cancer, she not surprisingly became very interested in issues of faith, and when I looked at her books (I have many of them), they were NOT from Methodist, liberal sources, but rather from more evangelical publishing houses. You can only say “I don’t believe this because…” so many times before people tune you out.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.