Who is a member? Are there any standards??

Please read this very thoughtful article about an important decision the church will need to make by clicking here.

 

 

In his May 18th article Rev. Andrew C. Thompson has done a tremendous job of outlining the history, and possible ramifications of one of the constitutional amendments for which we will be voting at next week's annual conference.

 

Though I appreciate Rev. Thompson's analysis I believe he gives the authors of the amendment too much credit.  He writes as though there is doubt about the way it will be interpreted- ultimately by Judicial Council.  I believe the words "all" and "shall" in the second to last sentence ("All persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ shall be eligible to become professing members in any local church in the connection.")  leave little doubt as to the intention of the amendment.  It is intended to prohibit pastors and congregations from making any spiritually discerning, doctrinal or moral judgments with regard to church membership.  

 

I will be the first to say that discrimination has absolutely no place in the church if discrimination is understood in the sense of Webster's first definition: "unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice."  I would also like to point out that as Christians we are called to discriminate in the sense of the second definition:  "discriminate - recognize or perceive the difference.” 

 

Jesus understands that not all sheep are of his fold  (John 10:16.)  John calls us to discriminate between true and false teachers (1 John 4:1)  and Paul understood that there are different kinds of motivations and “spirits”  (2 Cor 11).

 

We are in an age when we are attempting to move past prejudice.  But in moving past the evil of prejudice, we cannot allow ourselves to be forced to condone the very evil we abhor.   The new and acceptable prejudice is against those who take a stand for right and wrong, truth and falseness, good and evil.  When the church gives up the responsibility of pointing to “right,” “truth” and “goodness” she has lost the battle against the kind of milk toast religion Jesus condemned so long ago.  And we might as well stock up on whitewash.  Out tombs will soon need it.

 

We cannot vote affirmatively on Constitutional Amendment #1.

 

 ((FYI the UMC has a constitution and there are 32 ammendments approved by general conference that must be ratified by 2/3 majority of the voting members in order to be ratified.))