Articles about developments of alternatives for the future of The United Methodist Church: discussions of options, other expressions of the Methodist or Wesleyan Way, new alignments, petitions and resolutions approved in annual conferences, etc.
Some churches have expressed a desire to withhold apportionments from the larger UMC as a result of the actions of the General Confeerence. In fact some have already decided to do so. The issue of how much is very complicated because of the wide variety of programs, missions, and structural entities that receive general church funding. The treasurers of the Western Jurisdiction have been talking about the issue.
Bishop Bob Hoshibata of the Desert Southwest Conference has encouraged his churches to continue giving to our common mission. Read about the letter from him and from his CFA chair here; and read the letter here. “Because of the many ways apportionments support the ministries of the Desert Southwest Conference as well as the mission of the global church, your CFA urges all of us to continue to support the apportionments,” the letter said.
Bishop Grant Hagiya has sent a letter to all of the churches of the California-Pacific Conference giving some information to help them make decisions about "giving faithfully" to the UMC. The Cal-Pac Council on Finance and Administration is developing alternatives to deal with this desire. Here's a key paragraph: "one of the ways many individuals and congregations have indicated they want to demonstrate their rejection of what happened at General Conference is through withholding or redirecting their apportionment contributions. We understand that desire as apportionments are one of the ways we live out our connectionalism. Signaling to the General Church that congregations will not help sustain an unjust system or broken structure is an important act of resistance and a testimony to the conviction that God’s love is for all people." Read the letter on the Cal-Pac web site, below, or a PDF of it.
This is a podcast from NPR's "Hidden Brain" series on how the United States has changed attitudes from under 12% to 68% acceptance of lesbian and gay persons in 30 years. The United Methodist Church was not a significant part of that change; if anything, we were part of the resistance to the change, with the exception of Affirmation (1975), Reconciling Ministries Network (1984), and later, MFSA, WMJM, and others. (But see also the first half of Bishop Karen's book, Our Strangely Warmed Hearts, for more UM history. Review)
From NPR: "In 1988, the GSS [General Social Survey] began asking Americans to share their thoughts on another topic: whether gay people should have the right to marry. That year, fewer than 12 percent of respondents said yes. Fast-forward three decades. In 2018, 68 percent of those surveyed said that gay couples should have that right." Listen now.
Diana was the speaker at the District gatherings in the Mountain Sky Conference Saturday, March 30. She sent these thoughts through Twitter and we captured it and put it together into this article. Be encouraged. Be emboldened. Be inspired!
Subject: A note from Diana Butler Bass on Methodism
A wee reminder to my #UMC friends -- Methodism began as a spiritual movement to renew a decaying institutional church and serve the outcast, the marginalized, and the poor. It is the WCA "traditionalists" who are NOT traditional. They are like 18th century Anglicans (sorry Anglican friends!) who tried to quash a spiritual movement of inclusion and love. It is the WCA "traditionalists" who are appealing to authority and order and ecclesial control -- like the Anglican bishops who criticized and chastised John Wesley and the early Methodists.
The Rev. Dr. Mark R. Holland is Executive Director of Mainstream UMC, a group formed to enccourage passage, this past February, of the "One-Church Plan." He has written an important article giving 5 reasons why the U.S. Methodist church should be its own Central Conference or denomination. Read his full analysis and argument here.
For an interesting take on the power of the more progressive U.S. church, see this Hacking Christianity article. And if looking at the denomination from a world-wide perspective interests you, see this collection of documents on the Report to the General Conference in 2012 on the Worldwide Nature of the Church. (We've been working at this for awhile.)
Excerpts:
Paragraph 101 in the United Methodist Book of Discipline codifies the colonial ethos of our church. This paragraph allows Central Conferences (those outside of the United States) to adapt portions of the rules to fit their cultural contexts. The U.S. church does not have the same permission. This paragraph was put in place when the U.S. church had an overwhelming majority of votes at General Conference and it was, ironically, an attempt to be less colonial than we had been in the past. Now that representation at General Conference between U.S. and non-U.S. delegates is nearly even, the lack of reciprocity in paragraph 101 is a glaring tribute to our enduring form of colonialism.