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United Methodist Church, Anglicans in Tanzania, and Tough Teachings
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
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I'm an Anglican Priest in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (my pronouns are he/him/his) and I get to serve in the Parish of St Margaret of Scotland, in the beautiful city of Halifax, NS, that sits on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people. Email me at rev.ed.onlineministry@gmail.com and I will do my best to respond.
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God bless you and keep you!
I am a pastor in the United Methodist Church. The joy I feel that I am no longer compelled to exclude anyone is beyond description.
I’m a Native American Animist who uses Traditionalist and Christian teachings to reach out to the LGBT community. I don’t tell them when I slip some Christianity in there, so it pulls non-Christians in while restoring Christians to their faith. I also use some Islam and Buddhism, just to reinforce that all roads lead to the same place.
The Methodist Church adopting this stance will cut into what I do, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I welcome the help in bringing back in the people that have been cast out by other denominations. The goal is to get the lost sheep back into the safety of the flock, isn’t it?
The best thing that you could do is to remind your parishioners that God doesn’t make mistakes. He made gay people gay too. Every one cast out by the churches makes God make more gay people, just so they will have a new flock to accept them for who they are if the other flocks cast them out.
If God truly hated gay or trans people, there wouldn’t be any. That’s a lesson that the rest of the churches haven’t picked up yet. If God was as all-powerful as they claim, he could eliminate homosexuality with a thought. The mere existence of gay people means that either God doesn’t care or that he had a purpose behind making them gay. To think otherwise is like saying that God could create a rock that even he couldn’t lift, which means that he isn’t all-powerful.
I will have to wait for your church to come to the realization that all sin against god is impossible. Jesus tried to teach that, but it appears to have been muddied over the centuries. You can only sin against your fellow man, not god. That’s an animist teaching that became lost when the churches came out of the wilderness. You’ll get there in time. This is just the first step towards that.
I used to go to the Methodist church and watched that happen. It was so very sad. Our church left. When I moved to NH, I joined the Episcopal church, and we have a female priest with rainbow banners in the church. It's refreshing to see real Christians.
Episcopal is Anglican without the King of England as the nominal head of the church. That’s the major difference between them.
I have been a United Methodist for all of my 68 years. I am happy to say that I have stayed the course and the church I attend stayed with the fellowship in the USA. Your CZcams videos have helped me so much to see and remember what I have always known. Jesus is love and he loves all of us inspite of our selves.
Irony is that churches seem to reject the idea that ALL people are God's children and God loves ALL of us. Therefore ALL should be welcome in said church.
Open doors, open minds and open hearts. God bless everyone that accepts our neighbors and brothers and sisters, the children of GOD.
"the last couple of years" has literally been my entire life.
I am so sad that so many have chosen to cling to false certainty and disaffiliate...
But I have been using my privilege to educate toward inclusion since high school... and many have been fighting the fight much longer with much more skin in the game.
And I am so glad that the journey from tolerance to affirmation is finally underway, when we have been stuck behind the gate for decades.
My UMC church in Palm Springs is _very_ pro LGBTQIA, and that is what attracted me to them.
I watch the sermons online every week, as I don't have transportation to attend in person.
I see so many similarities between Pastor Jane and you, Rev. Ed. She's funnier, but then she's a former professional stand-up comic and actress who used to be a member of the Second City Improv group in Chicago. She was friends with the Belushi brothers!😃
I've learned so much from her, and you. You both explain the Bible and why things were written the way they were thousands of years ago. You both teach with a spirit of Love, that follows Christ, and I love you both for focusing on Love, Charity, Acceptance, and everything Jesus -held- holds dear.
I just don't understand our churches in this day and age. As a child, I grew up thinking God was an angry God. As an adult I've learned that isn't true. I believe that we are all God's children. He loves us all. Until our last dying breath, we all have the chance to choose salvation. This is what puts us above all living creatures. The free will to choose. God loved us so much, he gave his only son to save us. It is not my place to judge. Only to love and help one another. If a christian chooses to do something wrong, I feel God will place that upon their heart. We are here to be the light out of the darkness, to show God's glory and love. God knows are hearts. Thank you Reverend Ed. God bless you.
Change is hard for humans for the most part; but, that’s life’s way. Everything changes, progresses, it’s our human experience. I’m so glad these changes are catching up with some of what we have always professed just not always in actions. This is a gentle kind and powerful way of explaining the circumstances at hand with the churches and the people. You are ever the kind, gentle, yet strong voice. Thank you for that.
Promiscuity isn’t a loving way of life in my mind, but committed loving relationships seem to me to reflect what God wants for us. I really don’t care what consenting adults in this committed relationships do when they’re alone. How they display Christ’s love in their lives toward others is what I do care about.
I'm an optimist. We'll get this straightened out in about another 2000 years.
Humanity went to wars over religion, conquered people, inflicted horrific atrocities all in the name of God for over 2000 years. At least now we seem to have dropped our swords and started talking among ourselves and to others.
In my hometown, there was a Lutheran church which split about a hundred years ago over language. It was founded by immigrants from Germany, some of whom were still active in it at that time, while others saw the use of German language as tradition or honoring their ancestors. But by that time (as I've been told), most of the congregation spoke English and wanted services and hymns in that language. The English speakers left to form a new congregation and both continue to this day, their buildings separated by less than a hundred yards. The German speaking church changed to English a decade or two later and the two cooperate in local Lutheran programs. Hopefully at some point churches which split over LGBTQ, ordination of women, or whatever can at least be on friendly terms
@@davidmehling4310 That reminds me of a Methodist church in Missouri where my father is buried. It was founded by German immigrants and they used German in the services and had their own little parish schoolhouse. There was a German Methodist Conference because of the large numbers of German immigrants in the region. When WW I came, German speaking was viewed with suspicion. The German Conference was folded into the regular English-speaking Methodist Conference. This caused a schism in the congregation and a group left and formed a new church affiliated with the Lutheran Church. The Methodists adapted to English worship and sent their children to the public schools. Ironically, that congregation was one of the ones that disaffiliated from the UMC recently.
As for the UMC church here in the United States, I used to attend the Church of God in Anderson, Indiana. They are smaller than the UMC but have the same issue. I started attending the Church of God in my early 40s; today, I am 82. My Mother attended the same Church of God in her youth. If both churches would take the time to look at their past and what was acceptable or not. The list could be nearly endless. I know the Church of God over the years had issues with movies, dancing, and what to wear in church; one of the first was medicine, to name a few. My grandmother would not take medicine. Both UMC and the Church of God have accepted many things over the years, so why is the LGBT that big of an issue when dancing was a major issue in the 50s and 60s.
I support all of God's children. I try not to look at a few verses to find a fault but to love them as God/Jesus has told us to. Is Love your Neighbor harder to do than to hate them?
It took me longer to get there than it should have. I always saw that the way people were being treated was wrong, but getting from the it's not of my business to embracing them took a lot of time and effort. But I do like to remind people who do get frustrated that No one is more fanatical than a convert.
So when these people really get it. When they really understand they're not only serious, but have contact with other people who need that message. It's how it's always worked. The damn has to crack before it can break. But it is happening.
Great message Rev. Ed! So cool to hear about Tanzania!
Thank you ❤Amen
Years ago, Billy Bragg and Wilco took unfinished songs/poems of Woody Guthrie's and recorded a wonderful album called "Mermaid Avenue".
I love these lyrics from the song, "She Came Along To Me":
"...But never never never
Never could have it been done
If the women hadn't entered into the deal
Like she came along to me
And all creeds and kinds and colors
Of us are blending
Till I suppose ten million years from now
We'll all be just alike
Same color, same size, working together
*And maybe we'll have all of the fascists*
*Out of the way by then*
Maybe so..."
We don't have ten million years, so we have to make this happen NOW!
You've helped keep me grounded. I have a REALLY difficult time with this. (Bigotry) or excluding in general. How can either one be "the right" thing to do?? Its the opposite of Christ's teachings and the way he treated others. 😞
This reminds me of the division in the church in first Corinthians over eating sacrificed meat. Two thousand years, and the church hasn't changed.
Amen👍👍👍👍👍
Great Message!!. You Always do need room to grow!..A lot of Changes take a very long time.. God Bless 🕊️
Inclusivity must include people who are not inclusive or it's not inclusivity. It's easy to include people with whom you agree. It's compassion to include those you don't.
No. That's the paradox of tolerance. When we tolerate the intolerant, it emboldens them to be more intolerant.
@CricketsBay and tends to create an inhospitable environment for the marginalized, so extending tolerance to the intolerant ends up effectively excluding everyone else.
Dunno if it's the technical term, but the name for it I'm familiar with is "The N*zi Bar Problem"
Thank you
The soul and heart of a person should be more important than archaic rules that no longer belong in modern society.
In the end, choose love over hate.
I spent 10 years trying to decide if I would leave the denomination of my youth because of their exclusion (was not aware of the depth of the exclusion until Reverend Frank Schaefer made national news).
My compromise was to support my local congregation but include instructions not to support the denominational body with my offerings. This was especially weird since prior to that my year end giving was often designated to support the denominational body.
If I am wrong, when I come to the pearly gates, I will plead that I was told to love and I tried to love everyone.
I guess the opposite plea would be ..."But, Leviticus"...?
Just a reminder God may have inspired the words, but had to work within the puny vocabulary people with the limited understanding of that time. And those words have been copied and paraphrased and translated and reinterpreted for a very long time.
I consider myself a follower of Jesus, even though I can't honestly affirm the traditional creeds because I simply have come to the point where I no longer accept that conventional theology. I've become more focused on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. This does not mean I feel animosity to those who differ from me in my beliefs. On the contrary, these are the people whom I loved when I shared their beliefs and creeds. That love has not ended because I have moved on in my journey. All this being said, I have had to reconceptualize WHO God is, and what God's relationship to Jesus is going forward. I've had to realize that the Bible contains passages that I can't support or accept, because they seem openly opposed to what I've come to accept as the nature of the Divine. I have had to take the huge step of discarding ideas of Scripture as inerrant and completely divinely inspired. Sifting through what's left gives me what I see as a coherent portrait of the Presence. And I'm still in process.
The church I attend supports radical affirmation, curiosity, and engagement with the mysterious. The mainline denominations are witnessing a seismic shift in where people are prepared to plant themselves. I can't help but wish them luck and good fortune as they RE-discover the apple-cart-upsetting persona of the Holy Spirit active in our world today.
🌈🤠💜
What you are saying now, IMHO, is a validation that we must have separation of Churches and State.
the story of Christ you give here is ubiquitous in all religions. the root of this behavior is hubris. this is people telling God that what they are used to is more important than God's teachings. all manifestations of God have dealt with this because everyone of them has brought new teachings that built on top of the previous teachings. some people had difficulty leaving their old routines behind 🙂
~Respect the process~
I am having a conversation this sunday with a pastor about forgiving the religiously sanctioned and societally condoned systematic dehumanization of homosexuality that lead to the permissive atmosphere of contempt and hatred through subjective ( and therefore, contextually unfair and invalid) comparison which caused emotional damage which suppressrd my innate potential to the point of lifelong emotional disability. He wants me to forgive those who effectually destroyed me due to this. I wish him luck on getting me to forgive them, because it is doubtful that i wilm forgive them for that bright and promising mind that was never able to be all that it should and could have been.
My observation of current and historical events is that people tend to be more inclusive to the intolerant; than the people, just asking for tolerance, that the intolerant tell us not to tolerate.
It pushes out and feeds marginalization.
I, for one, come from the perspective of an individual POC, and I know historically, just on the merits of skin color, we were often not truly offered a seat at the table. It’s how the concept of Black or White churches exists in the first place. Some of that intolerance where it is even seen, by intolerance, as blasphemous to have such a skin color of people in the church of God. Some have acted in less than peaceful manner, and even someone who is not yet a Teenager has lived to see that happen.
But I don’t want to dwell on that per se, but note of how it was also a teaching moment for me, one who may be on the targeted end of the spectrum. That to truly follow Jesus is to not follow the way of those who persecuted you, but also don’t become like them and at the slightest hint the door is open to you, you turn around and lock the door behind you.
I learned that the same amount of intolerance given against bringing new people to the fold as the United Methodist is entertaining, was the same intolerance that was given to people like me. The road to acceptance is slow, I get it,but from my perspective, the intolerance is cruelty, just picking a different face of people to use it on. Using the exact same tactics.
I don't know which hatred is more pervasive. The hatred of Black people, the hatred of Jewish people or the hatred of members of the LBGTQ+ Community.
Hatred isn’t a quantifiable thing,every group faces hatred no matter who they are,odds are if you hate one specific group you probably hate another or even more as well.
It’s a virus that spreads easily
I am southern Baptist but I am afraid to come out to my southern Baptist friends that I support gay marriage and the LGBTq and they should allowed to be married
...I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of the head of a congregation in africa being pro discrimination...of any sort...
Of not being for acceptance of all...
To the visceral point of refusing to occupy a moment with those that embrace 'all gods children' to mean...all
The ACNA. The Anglican Church in North America.
Certainly, all persons of whatevrer creed or belief should be welcome in a church. But why would it take 30 yrs to discuss new ways? Who says, when it is plainly recorded in the Book of Romans Ch, 1 re qualifications and conduct for ministers and elders, besides teachings of mainline, or any Bible believing church? Perhaps it was taking 30 yrs in attempt to come w some "new" excuse to circumvent plain word, according to ones desires: same sex, etc.,? Doesnt it say, Not to add to, or take away from the Word?
I can understand opening up to what's new, but you could have chosen a less repugnant metaphor to illustrate your point than going all in on the Donnor Party ethos.
I'm sorry, but there are still churches where members believe the Sacrament is actually the body and blood of Christ. Rev. Ed's metaphor is very apt.
Wait a minute, Ed! Jesus' teaching in John 6 caused people to leave for a very different reason. They left because they deemed His analogy to be extremely offensive and over the top, not because He required His followers to actually embrace a sinful practice.
Homosexuality is clearly a sin, and those who practice it are sinning. Being welcoming of all people does not mean that we should allow our church members and leaders to practice the sinful things that outsiders do.
Paul clearly writes, "But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. 'Expel the wicked person from among you'” (1 Cor. 5:11-13).
Embracing members and leaders who practice the sin of homosexuality, rather than confronting them, is the reason people and churches are leaving their denominations, not because of some biblical teaching that their denominations are following that they find too challenging.
Also, it only clouds the issue when one likens the LGBTQ issue with the one of female leadership. Similarities exist, but like slavery at one time, the female leadership issue is about tricky textual interpretation rather than condoning what the Bible blatantly calls a sin. It's never a core value to accept that Christians continue to practice sin. Or don't you believe that practicing homosexuality is sinful?
Furthermore, you can't willy nilly liken the reception to your stance to the biblical occasion in John 6. By likening the response made to Jesus' hard teaching about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, to that of Christians who reject having to accept those who are practicing homosexuals as brothers and sisters and leaders in the church, you're not unlike those who hijacked the King Cyrus narrative to explain how Trump is being used by God.
As I see it, you've got it the wrong way around. The really hard teaching is to be able to lovingly welcome all sinners into God's presence to hear the gospel, to clearly outline what God calls sin, and to deal with those in the church who practice sin.
God never affirms the practice of sin. This so-called affirming approach to homosexuals prevents members and leaders from dealing with the sin in the church, and it obscures the need for those trapped in the sin from seeing their need to repent and seek God's mercy and help.
Also, it's highly patronizing to say it may take people a little longer to get to believe as you do. Imagine, for a moment, if some church leader should one day say that about embracing Satan worshippers or pedophiles as church members or leaders.
Calling the acceptance of members and leaders who practice homosexuality a Christian core value is not only a fallacy, it clouds the issue of their sin for them, other members, and outsiders.
Finally, the reason people left Roman Catholicism was because the Church had embraced false teachings that they couldn't go along with. That's the same reason they're leaving the Anglican and United Methodist denominations.
A perfect example of what I am talking about. Thank you
@@revedtrevors4961
How so, Ed? If you read my comment prayerfully, you might think otherwise. I distinguish between the outsider who needs to be loved and affirmed in their humanity and the insider who, affirmed and accepted, needs to walk in loving obedience rather than have their sin condoned.
Btw, was thanking me sarcastically how you treat a true brother in Christ who stands up for biblical truth? Do you reserve affirming love for those in the church that Paul would have us expel?
Oh! You didn't say. Do you believe homosexuality is a sin?
@@RobertS.Morley I offered no sarcasm at all. I am grateful for your comments. And no, I don't believe homosexuality is a sin.
@revedtrevors4961
Forgive me, Ed. Thanking me seemed sarcastic in light of your response.
I still don't see how what I said is a perfect example of what you are talking about. Were you merely saying that my comment is an example of how many people in the church see the issue differently?
Thanks for clarifying your position on homosexuality.
For many, it's not that they can't handle a hard teaching from God as you have put it, but that they see passages in God's word that depict homosexuality as sinful, and they don't want to compromise with others who, they believe, ignore or explain these away. Consequently, they see the condoning of homosexuality by their denominations, and by way of that, the promotion of it, a godly reason to leave.
You do realize these entities are all imaginary !!!
The Methodist "Church" is totally against the teaching/preaching of the Wesley's. They never wanted their "discipline of prayer" to leave the Church of England. But strange people took over, and made it into just another man-made following.
I am a Catholic, been one all my life, until I was rejected by my parish priests. Why? Because I had been asked by the previous Parish Priest to do a two-year course at the Seminary, following Church Teachings contained in Christifideles Laici, "Christ's Faithful People". I gained my Diploma in Pastoral Ministry, presented to me by the Cardinal-Archbishop, Basil Hume, and commissioned to teach Sacramental Preparation for the faithful. "Not in this parish. It is OUR parish, not Rome's, or Westminster. You will never use that here". Shortly after that the old men in Rome, voted against ordaining married men as priests in South America, where there was a dire situation with no priest for nearly 70% of the Catholic population. Then, after the Church of England voted for women priests, a lot of the worst bigots were accepted into the Church, with open arms, including married priests, who were allowed to officiate as priests in the Catholic Church! With the hostility of the two priests, the decision to leave parishioners without priests, and the acceptance of the corrupt past into the Church of my whole life, I left and went to a "High" CofE parish. And even though they wouldn't allow women priests then, they do now.
The world wouldn't have JESUS, if it wasn't for Mary. And the people couldn't accept to receive the Eucharist from the hands of a woman? To my mind, too many present day Christians don't believe Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 26-27. "Made in the image and likeness of GOD". EVERYONE, not just the ones you decide are "IN". Judging those who you don't accept? That is the job of GOD the FATHER, not mere humans. Simply put, there seems to be a total lack of FAITH.
You are avoiding the elephant in the room. The Bible has been used against minorities and different classes of people for thousands of years, and those "old ways" only changed because of changes in social norms and information. It was not because the passages themselves changed, but it was no longer acceptable to take them in a literal way. Religious leaders used slavery passages to justify the practice - until it was decided that "you are taking them out of context." Women were subjugated to "be seen and not heard" status, until someone decided "we will listen to the words of Jesus." And let's not even get started the amount of suffering that has been brought upon LGTBQ people as a result of the "good book". Perhaps if you were honest you would just say it's a book, written by men that reflects the social time frame it was written in.