Friday, May 02, 2008

Religious news you can appreciate

With all the talk of Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright, you might not have seen this, but the United Methodist Church has been meeting this week for its General Conference. Despite the long, slow slide into liberal unorthodoxy that the leadership of the church has been making over the last several decades, the conference maintained its position that homosexual behavior is "incompatible with Christian teaching."

This is good news, though the war is far from over. Sometimes I wonder how the UMC became so infested with those who would put liberal claptrap and liberation theology, as well as their own power, ahead of the actual purposes of the church, such as the gospel and missions.

Whatever the case may be, this development is encouraging. For now.

Hat tip: Dr. Mohler and Mark Hemingway

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

(twitching in unorthodox liberal frustration)

The war is indeed far from over.

Hal said...

Two points, Jen:

1) You're not Methodist. Why would you care?

2) Do you disagree that the Bible teaches against homosexuality, or do you disagree with anyone who would take such teachings seriously?

Anonymous said...

1) I care because I hate that an ancient work of literature is being used--again--to justify modern discrimination.

2) I'm not taking the bait here. You know perfectly well that my knowledge of Christian scripture is inadequate to hold a proper discussion with you. :-)

Hal said...

Jen, I won't get into a scripture discussion with you just yet, because I don't have my bible with me, but I will ask this:

How does saying, "Homosexual behavior is not consistent with biblical teaching," equate to wrongful discrimination?

Anonymous said...

It doesn't equate to discrimination. It provides a tool that can be, and is, used to justify discrimination. My problem is less with the words than the behavior they can be interpreted as sanctioning.

Hal said...

That's silly. That's condemning the tool because it's put to an illegitimate use. Condemn instead the one who misuses it.

Anonymous said...

What, then, is the "legitimate" use of said tool? This is the great mystery to me. What is the great societal harm that is feared from same-sex relationships? Why bother to teach against them at all? (And don't say "Because God/the Bible/Christian tradition says so." That's a cop-out that's been used to justify everything from selfless charity to ruthless genocide.)

I don't mean that rhetorically. I truly do not understand what the fear is.

Confanity said...

A comforting thought for Jen: As Hal points out, all he's saying is that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching." Since "Christian teaching" as I understand it is compatible with ideas like "dinosaur fossils were buried by the Divvil to fool us," it's safe for us to ignore that sort of crackpot philosophy until they try to violently enforce it, at which point we get auto-win by the "You are being evil" rule.