/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

I am Methodist. Was baptized by an old Methodist man who pastors the old Methodist church my family has been involved with for many decades. Maybe 90% of the congregation is over 80 years old at this point, and they made the mistake of selling out to UMC a while ago. I affirm free will or else I’d be very tempted to go Lutheran, LCMS in particular. I think of my activity in the church as being like what James called pure and undefiled religion, looking after the widows and what not.

I had to leave the UMC, I was going to be a pastor in that conference a decade ago, obviously didn't work out.

General consensus I hear from everyone still involved in the UMC is that they are a dying church and many of the smaller churches want out, but are forced in with pastors who range from lukewarm to radical/liberation theology adherents. Many of the quartertime/halftime pastors they bring in treat their job like it's just a side gig, it's truly sad. This forces them to bring a lot of their old staff back out of retirement 3x times and any new pastors have a lot of ring kissing or at least pay lip service to whatever that bishop or committee's theological and even political leanings are. In a few isolated cases I've heard people having to lie to stay in, or at the very least stay quiet at seminars and summits.

It's sad because at heart i'm a methodist, but the direction of the church has been fairly discouraging. Much has been made about the gay issue, but the real issue are pastors just "not having time" for visitations, counseling, exc, having no office hours, no plan, no vision, and expecting the church not to fall apart. Until they boot the bums out who view this as a part time gig and not a calling, it won't get better.

>>825597

Your general consensus accurately describes my experience with the UMC. If I may ask, could you expound on what you mean by saying you’re a Methodist at heart? What church do you go to now?

I was born and raised in a UM church, as was my mother and father, my grandfather was a Pastor in the 60's and 70's. I want to say that my church is doing fine, but lying is a sin, and so I will say that things have gone downhill in a lot of ways. For a while our church had most of our congregation involved in bible studies and other activities outside of just services on Sunday, but last year we got a new Pastor and Associate Pastor who've made it a point to diminish the importance of many of those activities and turn the others into little more than sermons with meals. It's not all bad, they both have good speaking ability and decent theological beliefs, they don't talk about the gay issue but I get the feeling that they are on the right side, but apart from that they've been abysmal. It seems to me that a lot of churches are moving in this direction, away from community and towards a kind of consumerist Christianity.

>>825602

In a few words, that's mostly an emotional response since I have been in the church for 2 decades. There's obvious theological reasons, but otherwise the church always overall emphasized social justice and holiness.

The closest church around that has both of those values and has most of the same theological leanings were a Brethren in Christ offshoot that went independent 10 years ago. I just started going there a few months ago.

I read that the Methodist were splitting into a pro-Sodomy and anti-Sodomy churches.

Anyone care to comment on the rational for the Pro-Sodomy Methodist? Does that fall under "#6 Promote Tolerance" of Op's picture?

I'm curious because my Oldest Brother, God rest his soul, left the Catholic Church and became a Methodist because he married outside the Catholic Church… I think. I was wondering what Methodist believed.

Sadly, when my brother died he wasn't even Methodist any more.

>>825629

Maybe you should try a Church that emphasizes Christ instead

>>825735

It's number 6 and 7, if men = women, then logically sodomy = the reproductive act of man and wife. The poster above said they emphasize social justice, what else do you need to know that they don't believe in God? Social justice is an invention meant to supplant actual justice since actual justice includes loving the Lord and social justice activists hate God and worship worldly power. Just read their founder's manifesto, ignoring the ones that directly contradict scripture, he managed to work in exactly one of twelve that even has to do with faith. But if you want a more in depth breakdown of why the Church is dying we should go point by point:

1) Probably good in general but not a moral absolute, when taken to it's extreme becomes genocidal insanity, political position that is a prudential judgment to be made based on the context of each society, not an article of faith

2) Good policy, but will often contradict [1], not an article of faith

3) Political prudential judgment, not an article of faith

4) See [3]

5) Vague and open to stupid and ruinous interpretation

6) Incredibly stupid, vague, and in modern understanding directly contradictory to scripture, killing the methodist church

7) Incredibly stupid, vague, and directly contradictory to scripture in any context, killing the methodist church

8) Doesn't include the word "faith", vague, contradicts or at cross purposes with 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7.

9) Vague, prudential judgment (to help the brainlets: penal slavery still exists in every country), not an article of faith

10) Generally good policy, see [3]

11) Wow he actually managed to work in some lukewarm message about God, also totally vague and mealy mouthed, clearly not a priority.

12) See [10]

The Chruch was founded on a proto marxism that directly contradicts Faith, and people wonder why it's dying? Social justice is spiritual and social cancer, so terminal cancer is right there in the mission statement.

>>825760

Thanks, a good but highly critical analysis.

I didn't really come to bury the Methodist, but to understand them. Like the Anglicans, Lutherans and now the Methodist, they've fallen to the Sodomy sin, and are splitting. I was wondering how the Methodist reasoned that.

But you're right, the Op's picture is more of a social program than a religious one. Do they have any religious belief that sets them apart from other Protestant religions?

>>825760

When I saw the word manifesto, I didn't take it seriously because I thought it was either a joke or someone wrote some pseudomarxist general good feeling rules and slapped John Wesley on there.

Ive never seen any of these preached on other than helping the poor and downtrodden in UMC service.

>>825766

A lot of those are massive stretches and the ones that aren't are good teachings that should be spread.

>>825763

The most significant Methodist innovation in theology is probably the Wesleyan Quadrangle. It refers to the four sources by which Methodists are to draw from in order to build their theological understanding, these being (in no particular order) Reason, Scripture, Tradition, and Experience. Scripture is of course taken as the word of God, but its interpretation is guided by Traditional understanding as well as Reason and your personal Experience with God.

Hope that helped.

I know next to nothing about Methodism, but I know tons of Methodists and they're generally great people. This Manifesto seems to parallel quite a bit of America's political history, past and present; and even if it isn't purely scriptural, I can see all of these points as consequences of the golden rule.

>>825735

I've seen this in the news. Is buttsex the one thing dividing them? In this context, it seems like a pity.

>>825760

I'd like to see you elaborate on your critiques. As they are, they strike me as whiny and faithless.