The idea that “gracious exit” plans should be the first order of business during the all-important Special Session of the General Conference of The United Methodist Church—opening today in St. Louis—is wrongheaded on many levels, many of which have been helpfully highlighted elsewhere. What I want to emphasize here are the flaws with this approach …
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Love of God; Love of Neighbor
” Eternal life begins, in each of the gospels, when our lives reflect a love for God and for our neighbor. We read scripture not to win a legal argument – but to become disciples of Jesus who practice mercy toward one another, and who live in trust and confidence that God offers that same …
Even Aaron’s Beard Stands for Unity
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.” (Psalm 133 NIV).
Person to person, eye to eye, heart to heart . . .
For peace, people must meet across differences. … All need to change. Fear must be changed into openness. … It is only as we meet and share together person to person, eye to eye, and heart to heart that we discover what it means to be human and to discover the joy of being together, …
Don’t Divide.
“It’s only in mediocre books that people are divided into two camps and have nothing to do with each other. In real life everything gets mixed up!” Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago
The Main Theme: Revisited
In this blog’s very first entry, I sought to outline a principled rationale for “The United Methodist Church to remain … well … united, … notwithstanding its members’ continuing disagreement over whether or not “the practice of homosexuality” is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” as our Book of Discipline’s Social Principles first declared in 1972. I did not advocate that …
The Main Theme: Recapitulation Following Publication of the “One Church Plan,” as Proposed by the Commission on a Way Forward
The Main Point: Stay Connected As this blog’s title suggests, I am fully dedicated to the proposition that The United Methodist Church should remain . . . well . . . united, and that it should do so notwithstanding its members’ continuing disagreement over whether or not “the practice of homosexuality” is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” as the denomination’s Book of Discipline has …
Our Job: Love.
“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can.” Thomas Merton, Letter …
Broken Body
“When Jesus took the bread and said, ‘This is my body which is broken for you’ (1 Corinthians 11:24), it’s hard to believe that even in his wildest dreams he foresaw the tragic and ludicrous brokenness of the Church as his body. There’s no reason why everyone should be Christian in the same way and …
Even when our differences matter, they don’t ultimately matter.
Each morning I receive an email from a website dedicated to the writings of my dad’s favorite preacher-writer, Frederick Buechner. Yesterday’s passage was entitled “Friends,” and the essence of its message was that, for each of us, there are some friends — only a few — who we count as friends “for no particular reason,” …