The current MethodistThinker Podcast features an address by the late Bishop William R. Cannon, a theologian and church historian who authored more than a dozen books, including History of Christianity in the Middle Ages, Theology of John Wesley, and Evangelism in a Contemporary Context.
Bishop William R. Cannon
William Ragsdale Cannon was born in Tennessee in 1916. He attended the University of Georgia, where he earned a B.A., and then went on to Yale Divinity School and Yale University, where he completed a Ph.D. in 1942.
He then joined the faculty of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta and spent the next 25 years teaching church history. From 1953-1968, he also served as Candler’s dean.
In 1968, William R. Cannon was elected to the United Methodist episcopacy, and over the next 16 years he served Annual Conferences in North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia.
After retiring to North Georgia in 1984, he served as bishop-in-residence at Northside UMC in Atlanta. A decade after his 1984 retirement, Bishop Cannon became one of the principal founders of the Confessing Movement Within the United Methodist Church, calling on the UMC to “retrieve its classical doctrinal identity.”
Bishop Cannon died in 1997 at the age of 81. Emory University’s Cannon Chapel is named in his honor.
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This address on this week’s podcast was delivered at the 1982 United Methodist Congress on Evangelism, meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.
To listen, use the audio player below (22 min.) — or right click (Windows users) to download an mp3 (10.5MB).
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For previous MethodistThinker Podcasts, and/or to subscribe via iTunes or other Podcast software, use the “Subscribe to Podcasts” link at the top of the right column.
December 6, 345 (traditional date): Nicholas, bishop of Myra (right), one of the most popular saints in the Greek and Latin churches dies.
Eventually, stories of his generosity and cheer became part of the Christmas tradition, and St. Nicholas became the basis for Santa Claus.
December 18, 1707:Charles Wesley, who founded the Methodist movement with his brother John, is born in England. A celebrated and prolific hymnwriter, his Hark the Herald Angels Sing is widely sung this time of year.
December 18, 1865: Slavery is abolished in the United States as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. Many of the abolitionists who pushed for its passage were Christians seeking to make America more like the Kingdom of God.
December 24, 1223:Francis of Assisi stages history’s first living nativity scene, complete with live animals, in a cave near Greccio, Italy.
December 24, 1818:Franz Gruber composes the music for Silent Night in the St. Nicholas Church of Oberndorf, Austria.
December 27, 1784:Francis Asbury is ordained superintendent of the Methodist Church in America at the famous “Christmas Conference” (left) held in Baltimore, Maryland. He later took the title, “bishop.”
December 29, 1851: The first Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) in the U.S. is organized in Boston.
December 30, 1823:Charles G. Finney, the most effective evangelist in American history, is licensed to preach.
December 30, 1852: Future U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes marries “Lemonade Lucy,” so called because, as first lady, she forbade alcohol in the Executive Mansion.
The Hayeses (right, photographed on their wedding day) were both devout Methodists who began each day with prayer and organized Sunday evening worship services at the White House.
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you’ve done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.
We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.
We thank you for our successes, which satisfy and delight us — but also for the disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
Above all, we thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ — for the truth of his Word and the example of his life.
We thank you for his dying, through which he overcame death — and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your Kingdom.
Father, may we — at all times and in all places — give thanks to you in all things. Amen.
A representative of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) appeared at a news conference this week to denounce an amendment — included in the recently passed House health-care bill — that would prohibit taxpayer-funded abortion.
Todd said the House health bill’s “Stupak amendment” (named for its author, Rep. Bart Stupak—D-Mich.) “penalizes women and immigrants [who don't have the] economic resources” to pay for an abortion.
The amendment, which passed the House by a vote of 240-194, would prohibit any public health insurance plan, or any private plans that receive federal subsidies, from covering abortion services (full text of Stupak amendment—PDF).
Todd also criticized the amendment as being guided by a “narrow” religious viewpoint. The Stupak amendment was supported strongly by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Measures like this effectively limit access and delivery of reproductive health care based on one, narrow religious doctrine,” she said.
Listen to Linda Bales Todd of GBCS.*
Listen to Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.**
*Audio from Public News Service.
**Audio from Talk Radio News Service.
Speaking at the same news conference, Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said he would rather Congress fail to pass health-care legislation than to pass a final bill that includes the Stupak language. “I believe it would better to dump this entire bill than allow it become law with these noxious provisions intact,” he said.
Other speakers at the Monday news conference included Carlton W. Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Sammie Moshenberg of the National Council of Jewish Women, Jon O’Brien of Catholics for Choice, and Sandra Sorensen of the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries.
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Earlier, the General Board of Church and Society issued a written statement (PFF) about the House bill, noting that its opposition to the Stupak amendment is based on Resolution 2026 in the 2008 edition of the United Methodist Book of Resolutions.
That resolution — worded rather awkwardly and carrying the title “Responsible Parenthood” — says in part: “We therefore encourage our churches and common society to: …make abortions available to women without regard…to economic status.”
(Note: Apparently due to an editing error that has not been previously noticed, Resolution 2026 also includes extraneous words that make the passage actually read as follows: “…make abortions available to women without regard to economic standards of sound medical practice, and make abortions available to women without regard to economic status.” This error has appeared in the Book of Resolutions since at least 1996.)
A recent report (PDF—6 pages) by Liza Kittle of RENEW, a network for evangelical women within the UMC, noted that most items in the Book of Resolutions were written by personnel of various UM boards and agencies.
[T]he majority of the resolutions which ultimately are included in The Book of Resolutions, and which drive United Methodist policies and social action, originate from a handful of boards and agencies within the Church.
These groups, in turn, use the resolutions to advocate political and social agendas…[that] do not reflect the diversity of beliefs present among United Methodist Church members.
Of the 352 resolutions in the current Book of Resolutions (table of contents here—PDF), more than two-thirds originated with the General Board of Church and Society, the General Board of Global Missions, or the Women’s Division.
Although resolutions are not binding the same way that language in the Book of Discipline is binding, items in the Book of Resolutions are often used to justify board and agency policy.
In many cases, as noted above, boards and agencies actually write the resolutions, which are then passed at the General Conference with no debate — either due to time pressure or because the items are bundled together with other unrelated matters as part of a “consent calendar” (an omnibus piece of legislation intended for quick passage on a single vote). Once passed by the General Conference, the resolutions are then used to authorize the policies and actions of the boards and agencies that wrote the resolutions in the first place.
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Most of the language of the current Resolution 2026 dates to the 1976 General Conference, which met in Portland, Oregon. Delegates, facing heavy time pressure on the final day of the 1976 conference, passed the Responsible Parenthood resolution, authored by the Women’s Division, with no debate. The resolution has stayed largely intact since then.
The matter came to the floor of the conference on the afternoon May 7, 1976 — the last day of the week-and-half-long gathering. The Responsible Parenthood resolution was only one section of a larger eight-section, 6,500-word omnibus resolution on “Health, Welfare and Human Development.” The full resolution filled more than 16 pages in the Journal of the 1976 General Conference.
Each of the eight sections was to be presented separately for debate and then a vote. However, Section IV (the section on health care) engendered so much debate that, with time running short, Sections V, VI, VII, and VIII — which included the Responsible Parenthood section — were never debated.
Here is a description of the proceedings from the 1976 Journal:
Kenneth Cooper (Alabama-West Florida) observed that action on this report ["Report 31" from the Church and Society legislative committee] had already consumed more time than was allotted to it by the Committee on Calendar, and that it was not yet completed.
Mr. [Leroy] Hodapp, Committee on Calendar, replied that it was the judgment of the committee that it was more time consuming to stop a debate that was in progress and re-start it at a later time than to allow it to continue.
At his suggestion, the Chair [Bishop Ellis Finger] inquired whether there were additional amendments to be proposed to the remaining sections of the report; the Chair stated that there did not seem to be any delegates wishing to propose amendments.
Mr. [Gordon] Goodgame [Holston Conference] moved the adoption of Sections V, VI, VII, and VIII, and they were adopted. Report No. 31 was then put to a vote and adopted as a whole.
The 1976 Responsible Parenthood resolution was amended slightly in 1996 (apparently this is when the editing error mentioned above was introduced) and the item was readopted — again without floor debate. The resolution was bundled with several unrelated items on Consent Calendar B06 and was passed on April 26, 1996.
In 2004, the Women’s Division submitted a petition asking for re-adoption of the Responsible Parenthood resolution. Again, there was no floor debate. The matter was added to Consent Calendar B04 and was passed on May 4, 2004.
Two changes were made to Responsible Parenthood at last year’s General Conference, and the resolution was again readopted, via Consent Calendar B04, on April 30, 2008.
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As noted above, the basic language of Resolution 2026 dates to 1976. In the 33 years since then, the United Methodist Church has turned in a decidedly pro-life direction.
Last April, the 2008 United Methodist General Conference passed legislation acknowledging “the sanctity of unborn human life” and noting that United Methodist are bound to “respect the sacredness of life and well-being of [both] the mother and the unborn child.”
The United Methodist Book of Discipline also states that the UMC “cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control” (¶161J).
Graphic from Bound4Life.com
Findings from a 2005 study suggest that, at a minimum, nearly three-fourths of abortions are for reasons of birth control. The study found that 74 percent of women having abortions chose to abort their pregnancies because having a child “would dramatically change my life.”
Other research suggests that birth control may be the paramount reason in more than 90 percent of abortion decisions.
In addition, a 2002 study discovered that 54 percent of women having abortions had used contraception during the month they became pregnant, suggesting that abortion is widely used as a “back-up plan” for birth control if other methods are not successful.
Until 2008, the Responsible Parenthood resolution suggested that abortion as a method of birth control could be morally justified.
Part of the resolution read: “When through contraceptive or human failure an unacceptable pregnancy occurs, we believe that a profound regard for unborn human life must be weighed alongside an equally profound regard for fully developed personhood, particularly when the physical, mental, and emotional health of the pregnant woman and her family show reason to be seriously threatened by the new life just forming.”
As a result of a petition to the 2008 General Conference (submitted by former presidential speechwriter Janice Shaw Crouse), the words “through contraceptive or human failure” were deleted from the resolution.
The sanctification of human life (a historical overview of the Christian church’s position on abortion and other issues related to the sanctity of human life) — Chapter 2 of How Christianity Changed the World | Alvin Schmidt (Zondervan, 2004 — via Google Books)
Before being elected to the episcopacy in 2000, James R. King, Jr. served as a pastor in Alabama, California, and Tennessee, and as a District Superintendent in the Tennessee Conference.
Prior to being assigned last year to South Georgia, Bishop King served for eight years as the leader of the Kentucky Annual Conference.
Bishop James King blogs and posts photos at BishopKing.com.
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This sermon on this week’s podcast was preached at the January 2001 Convocation for Pastors of African-American Churches held in Dallas, Texas — an event sponsored by the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship.
To listen, use the audio player below (21 min.) — or right click (Windows users) to download an mp3 (10MB).
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For previous MethodistThinker Podcasts, click the Podcasts tab at the top of this page.
As the U.S. House of Representatives approached a vote last week on H.R. 3962, legislation that would vastly expand the federal government’s role over the U.S. health-care system, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) asked Methodists to “contact your member of the U.S. House of Representatives this week and urge them to support H.R. 3962.”
A GBCS ad urging support of the House health bill
In pushing for passage of the House bill, and for approval of health-care legislation in U.S. Senate, GBCS has made a point of quoting a portion of ¶162V of the United Methodist Book of Discipline: “Health care is a basic human right.”
UM pastor and blogger Donald Sensing has argued (here and here) that the concept of health care as a “human right” is difficult to sustain logically, unless one alters the traditional definition of what is meant by “rights.” Even so, the assertion of a “right” to health care is part of the Social Principles of the United Methodist Discipline.
How did it come to be there?
Language asserting that health care is a right was first added to the Book of Discipline by the 1996 General Conference. That language was reaffirmed (and expanded) by the General Conference in 2008. However, in neither instance (1996 nor 2008) was the matter was actually discussed on the floor of the conference. Details below.
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1996: Two years after the Clinton Administration’s health-care plan failed to achieve congressional passage, the General Board of Church and Society submitted a petition asserting a “right to health care” to the 1996 General Conference. (In other words, GBCS authored the assertion it now quotes in support of its lobbying on the health care issue.)
The GBCS petition was approved by the 1996 Church and Society legislative committee and sent to the full General Conference with a recommendation for “concurrence.”
The committee-approved petition did not come to the floor as a separate item, however. Instead, it was bundled with several unrelated items as part of a “consent calendar,” a parliamentary vehicle aimed at speeding the business of a legislative assembly by packaging several “noncontroversial” items as one and having them adopted in a single vote.
The GBCS language describing health care as a right was included as part of Consent Calendar A02, which was moved on the floor of the conference and approved with no discussion (or verbal description of the included items) on April 22, 1996.
At that point, or at least when the language was subsequently included in the 1996 Book of Discipline, the United Methodist Church officially endorsed the concept of a right to health care.
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2008: Last year, the General Conference reaffirmed the “right” to health care, again without any floor debate. In a manner somewhat similar to 1996, the legislative petition was bundled with other items, although this time the bundled items — three in all — related to the same topic: health care.
In addition to the petition (submitted by GBCS) reasserting a right to health care (and further expanding the language in that section of the Discipline), the bundled items included a petition from GBCS General Secretary Jim Winkler strongly advocating a “single-payer” (i.e. government-managed) system for health care in the U.S.
A third item — a petition from the Norway Annual Conference’s Board of Discipleship/Church and Society — simply declared: “We believe it is a governmental responsibility to provide all citizens with health care.” (Norway has compulsory, tax-funded health-care system.)
All three of these health-care-related petitions came to the floor of the General Conference after 9 p.m. on the conference’s final night — May 2, 2008. Rushing to conclude legislative business (approximately 50 items were on the legislative calendar for that evening), the conference dealt with all three health-care items as one, following the recommendation of presenter Frederick Brewington, who represented the Church and Society 2 legislative committee.
The General Conference quickly approved the items — with no debate — by a vote of 690-114.
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As is common when legislative assemblies are up against a deadline, floor debate was generally in short supply that evening.
Delegates had apparently taken to heart the advice of Bishop William Hutchinson (Louisiana Conference), who was serving as chair on that final night. Near the beginning of the session, he had reminded delegates of the “significant amount of work” yet to be done and urged them to “keep moving in the voting process.”
Use the audio player to listen to Bishop William Hutchinson warn that time is of the essence during proceedings on Friday evening, May 2, 2008. You’ll also hear the successful motion to limit debate.
About a half-hour before the health items were presented, with 40 calendar items still remaining and the deadline for adjournment drawing nearer, a delegate from the Oklahoma Conference moved to “suspend the rules and limit debate” so that items could dealt with even more quickly. With delegates keenly aware of the press of time, the motion to limit debate drew only minimal objection and was passed handily.
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The presentation of the three health-care items began at approximately 9:10 p.m. and the vote occurred less than four minutes later. The proceedings are transcribed below.
(The the right-to-health-care legislation is Calendar No. 738; the “single-payer” petition is No. 737; the petition from the Norway Conference is No. 1198.)
Use the audio player to listen to the proceedings.
Bishop William Hutchinson: We’re ready to move now to Church and Society 2. Frederick Brewington.
Frederick K. Brewington (New York Conference, chair, Church and Society 2 legislative committee): Thank you, Bishop.
Bishop, the next three petitions we’re going to bring as a group in an attempt to bundle them, if they are so allowed to be bundled by the body.
Bishop Hutchinson: All right.
Frederick Brewington, chair, Church and Society 2 Cmte.
Brewington: They deal with the issue of quality health care. They are found at the following DCA [Daily Christian Advocate] pages — 2175 — excuse me, 2174 and 2268.
They are Calendar Numbers 738, 737, and 1900 — excuse me, 1198 — found in the Advanced DCA 347, 348, and 379. The petition numbers are: Petition Number 80642, 80568, and 81011.
These three petitions, Bishop, deal with strong statements dealing with the need for quality health care and the right of all people to that as a basic human right. It sets out — they all set out, as strong statements rooted in a positive way that discuss the responsibility of government to partner and be involved and making sure that health care is made available to all.
Two deal with paragraph 162T of the Book of Discipline [now ¶162V] — and the other deals with resolutions 108 and 113 of the Book of Resolutions and seek to combine the intent of those resolutions into a single resolution.
If further information is needed, Bishop, I would provide that — but the committee has recommended that each of these petitions be adopted.
Bishop William Hutchinson
Bishop Hutchinson: All right. The request is that these be bundled into one vote and you would be adopting all three at the same time.
Do I see any, uh, heartburn with us doing it that way? I don’t think I do.
Yes, do you have a question? Back here in section C, to microphone 8.
Timothy J. Riss (New York Conference): I heard that we’re adopting all three of these. Is one of them on a consent calendar — I’m sorry — is one of them something that you wanted to reject?
Bishop Hutchinson: That is not the recommendation of the committee.
Brewington: They are “to adopt” as to all three.
Riss: I’m sorry.
Bishop Hutchinson: I think we’re ready to vote on this. If you will vote for the adoption of all three petitions you will do so by pressing “1.” If you will reject all three petitions you will do so by pressing “2.” Vote when the timer appears. [A pause as the delegates vote.] All right, we have adopted all three petitions.
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As noted above, the 1996 petition asserting a right to heath care was submitted by the General Board of Church and Society, as were two of the three health-care petitions passed in 2008.
Once such items are approved by the General Conference, GBCS is empowered to promote them as official church policy, even to the point of lobbying for specific congressional legislation that would seem to advance those policy aims.
Although competing solutions to particular societal problems may exist, GBCS often lobbies for a specific approach, hence its strong support of H.R. 3962. (For an example of an alternate approach to dealing with the issues of health-care availability and affordability, see here.)
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The text of the Book of Discipline’s ¶162V (“Right to Health Care”), as approved by the 2008 General Conference late on Friday evening, May 2, is here.
The resolution, “Heath Care for All,” submitted by GBCS General Secretary Jim Winkler and approved as part of that same Friday night vote, is now included in the UM Book of Resolutions. Read it here.
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(Thanks to MethodistThinker reader, Mark Smith, O.D., for suggesting a post on this topic.)
The United Methodist Judicial Council, reversing a decision by Bishop John Schol, has ruled that a resolution passed this earlier this year by the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference is at odds with the United Methodist Book of Discipline’s official teaching on human sexuality.
Bishop John Schol (UMNS photo)
The resolution, which mirrored legislation rejected by the 2008 General Conference, said that United Methodists “have been and remain divided regarding homosexual expressions of human sexuality.”
However, the official church teaching of the United Methodist Church, approved by the General Conference and included in ¶161F of the 2008 Book of Discipline, clearly states that the UMC “does not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider[s] this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Further, the Discipline language notes that “sexual relations are affirmed only within the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.”
In its ruling (Decision 1120), the Judicial Council, the denomination’s highest court, wrote that the “effect of the Baltimore-Washington resolution is to negate the church’s clearly stated position.” Moreover, “the Baltimore–Washington resolution attempts to articulate a new and different standard of church belief using language that has been specifically rejected by the General Conference.”
The Council ruled that an annual conference “may not negate, ignore or violate” the Book of Discipline, “even when the disagreements are based upon conscientious objections.”
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A report from the United Methodist News Service offers additional background:
In previous decisions, the council had determined [that] statements of beliefs on sexuality from the Desert Southwest [Decision 913] and Pacific Northwest [Decision 1021] conferences — and even an earlier Baltimore-Washington resolution calling for inclusive behavior in the acceptance of congregational members [Memorandum 1044] — were permissible because they did not negate, ignore or violate the Discipline.
But a California-Nevada resolution directing the conference to distribute a list of retired clergy willing to perform same-sex union ceremonies was considered an endorsement of actions prohibited by the Discipline [Decision 1111].
Applying guiding principles from such previous decisions, the Judicial Council found that the Baltimore-Washington statement’s claim to communicate a “more authentic and truthful representation” of the church implies the denomination’s position is less than authentic.
The group “seek[s] to affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and ensure the full participation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the ministry and life of the United Methodist Church, particularly in the Baltimore-Washington Conference.”
The Maryland churches are Emmanuel UMC in Laurel, Christ UMC in Columbia, and St. John’s UMC in Baltimore. The D.C. congregations are Capitol Hill UMC, Wesley UMC, Dumbarton UMC, and Foundry UMC.
In 2008, one of the seven churches, D.C.’s Foundry UMC, began “recogniz[ing] same-sex unions in special ceremonies that fall just short of an official wedding,” according to a account from the United Methodist News Service.
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In other rulings, the Judicial Council affirmed a decision by Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster that a five-year-old Western North Carolina Conference plan that gave local churches leeway in choosing which conference and general church funding requests to pay is in violation of ¶247.14 of the Book of Discipline.
Quoting the Discipline, the Council noted that payment in full of “apportioned” items is “the first benevolent responsibility of the church” (Decision 1121).
In a matter arising from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, the Judicial Council agreed that a retired elder is allowed serve as chair of a local church Finance Committee (Decision 1126).
In a case from the California-Nevada Conference, the Judicial Council upheld Bishop Warner H. Brown’s ruling that an annual conference is allowed to set the retirement-pay rate for retired clergy as long as it does not reduce compensation. The case stemmed from a conference decision to forestall an “automatic” 2 percent annual increase for retired pastors (Decision 1141).
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Below is a United Methodist News Service summary of several additional rulings.
The Judicial Council:
Ruled the secretary of the General Conference has the authority to determine the number of delegates that each annual and missionary conference will elect to the General Conference within the provisions of the Constitution and the legislative enactments of the General Conference.
Affirmed the ruling of Bishop Jonathan Keaton that a request for a decision of law in the Detroit Annual Conference regarding identifying local church membership in the Reconciling Ministries Network was “moot, hypothetical and improper.”
Found that the Louisiana Annual Conference did not violate the Discipline by establishing clergy compensation before knowing the cost of health insurance premiums because such a cost is a benefit, not compensation.
Upheld a decision by Bishop Mary Ann Swenson regarding implementation of the California-Pacific Conference’s Annual Conference’s Clergy Benefit Charge to cover the costs of the health premiums for retired and incapacitated clergy.
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The nine-member Judicial Council met last week in Durham, North Carolina. Current members and alternates are listed in this post.
Members of the Council are elected by the United Methodist General Conference.
November 5, 1414: The Council of Constance opens to end the Great Schism. It deposed all three rival popes, but it also executed Bohemian reformers John Huss (Jan Hus) and Jerome of Prague, and anathematized the teachings of John Wycliffe.
November 6, 1935: American revivalist Billy Sunday (right), a professional baseball player who became one of America’s most famous evangelists, dies at age 73. More than 100 million people heard him speak at his evangelistic crusades.
November 12, 1660:John Bunyan is arrested for unlicensed preaching and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, he writes Pilgrim’s Progress, which continues to be the second-bestselling book of all time (after the Bible).
November 15, 1917: Oswald Chambers (left) dies while serving as chaplain to British troops in Egypt during World War I. His widow, Gertrude, spends the rest of her life compiling his notes, lectures, and sermons into books, including the best-selling, My Utmost for His Highest.
November 18, 1874: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union is founded in Cleveland, Ohio. Claiming the power of the Holy Spirit, Protestant members would march into saloons and demand they be closed.
The WCTU was the largest temperance organization and the largest women’s organization in the U.S. before 1900.
November 21, 1964: The third session of Vatican II closes with the approval of three documents. One of these, the “Decree on Ecumenism,” declared both Catholics and Protestants to blame for past divisions and called for dialogue, not derision, in the future.
November 22, 1873: The French ship, Ville du Havre, sinks in the north Atlantic, killing all four daughters of Chicago lawyer Horatio G. Spafford. His wife survived, and Spafford immediately books passage to join her in England.
While passing over the spot where his daughters died, he begins writing what would become the famous hymn, It is Well with My Soul.
November 22, 1963: British scholar, C.S. Lewis (right), author of Mere Christianity, dies (on the same day that an assassin kills Pres. John F. Kennedy).
November 24, 1771: Methodist Francis Asbury begins preaching in America. For the next 45 years, he was the main figure in establishing the Methodist church here.
November 28, 1863: The first annual national Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the midst of the Civil War. Several weeks earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as a national day of thanks.
November 30, 1725:Martin Boehm (left) is born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He became a Mennonite bishop, but later was excluded from the Mennonite communion because of his “experimental” (i.e. emotional and evangelistic) preaching, as well as his association with persons of other sects.
Boehm joined with Philip W. Otterbein and others to form the United Brethren in Christ, a predecessor denomination to the United Methodist Church.
A statement on sexuality approved by the Baltimore-Washington Conference and a Western North Carolina Conference plan allowing flexibility in the payment of apportionments will go before the United Methodist Judicial Council this week. The two cases are among 21 items the denomination’s highest court will consider when it meets for its fall session starting Wednesday.
The sexuality case stems from a resolution passed by the 2009 session of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference that mirrors a resolution rejected last year by the United Methodist General Conference. The Baltimore-Washington resolution also uses language from ¶161G of the 2004 United Methodist Book of Discipline, language that was superseded by action of the last year’s General Conference.
Delegates to 2008 General Conference rejected proposed language suggesting that the church has no clear teaching on homosexual relations. Further, the delegates strengthened language on sexual activity outside the bond of marriage, noting that ”sexual relations are affirmed only within the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage” (now in ¶161F of the United Methodist Book of Discipline, 2008). The UM General Conference, which meets once every four years, is only body empowered to speak for the entire denomination.
The Baltimore-Washington resolution, similar in language to the legislation rejected by 2008 General Conference, noted that the “we have been and remain divided regarding homosexual expressions of human sexuality.” The Rev. Charles Harrell, pastor of Trinity UMC in Prince Frederick, Md., asked Bishop John Schol to determine whether the resolution “establishes a new and different standard on sexuality from the Discipline.”
Bishop Schol, who was elected to the episcopacy in 2004 and has served the Baltimore-Washington Conference since then, ruled (PDF) that the resolution neither “contradicts the Discipline [n]or establishes a new and different standard on sexuality from the Discipline.”
Under United Methodist legal procedure, a bishop’s “decision of law” is automatically appealed to the Judicial Council.
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The apportionments case involves a 2004 vote by the Western North Carolina Conference to institute “Choice Empowerment,” a plan that allowed local churches to have greater leeway in responding to conference and general church funding requests.
Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster
A 2006 “Stewardship of Managing Report” (PDF) presented to the Western North Carolina Conference noted that Choice Empowerment had “begun to assist local congregations in prioritizing their giving. While giving for apportionments remains flat, much more money has been given through Advance Specials and local missions given directly by local congregations…. [M]ore congregations are providing more total money for missions than ever before.”
Still, questions lingered about the “validity” of the Choice Empowerment program, leading to a request from the conference’s Council on Finance and Administration for a bishop’s ruling on the matter.
Bishop Larry Goodpaster, who assumed leadership of the Western North Carolina Conference in September 2008, ruled that the five-year-old “choice” plan violates the Book of Discipline.
“For an annual conference to adopt a policy that gives permission to local churches to choose not to pay, or to choose to shift payments from one item to another, is a violation of the letter and spirit of our church law,” Bishop Goodpaster wrote. He noted that ¶247.14 states that “[p]ayment in full of these apportionments by local churches is the first benevolent responsibility of the church.”
As with the case mentioned above, a bishop’s “decision of law” is automatically appealed to the Judicial Council.
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Below is a roundup of other items on the Judicial Council’s current docket, as summarized by the United Methodist News Service.
An item from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference raises the issue of whether retired pastors should [be allowed to] serve in local church positions usually allocated to lay people. A retired pastor who had been chairperson of a local church finance committee since 2002 was told in the fall of 2008 that his occupying that position violated the Discipline….
The UM Judicial Council — April 2009
When the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference met in 2009, the members adopted a resolution requesting that the Judicial Council make a declaratory decision on the matter because there are retired clergy serving as chairpersons of local church finance committees across the connection….
In another sexuality matter, the council will review a Detroit Conference decision concerning the Reconciling Ministries Network, an unofficial organization promoting the full participation of people of all sexual orientations in The United Methodist Church.
During the conference session, an individual asked a question about local churches identifying themselves as reconciling congregations. Bishop Jonathan Keaton ruled that he was not going to address the question because the matter did not deal with conference business….
Other docket items include a question about the legality of the Northwest Texas Conference’s vote on constitutional amendments; a ruling regarding adjustments in the number of delegates to the denomination’s General Conference and a decision about pension rates for retired clergy in the California-Nevada Conference.
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The nine-member Judicial Council will meet Wednesday through Saturday in Durham, North Carolina. Current members and alternates are listed in this post.
Members of the Council are elected by the United Methodist General Conference.
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All 21 docket items for the fall 2009 session are listed below.
Automatic review of decisions by bishops
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster of the Western North Carolina Conference as to whether the “Choice Empowerment” apportionment paradigm adopted in 2004 and still in effect in the annual conference is in violation of ¶247.14.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop John R. Schol of the Baltimore-Washington Conference as to whether a resolution on human sexuality was properly before the conference in light of ¶161F.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Jonathan D. Keaton of the Detroit Conference regarding the Reconciling Ministries Network.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Mary Ann Swenson of the California-Pacific Conference related to conference clergy benefit charge.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop John R. Schol of the Baltimore-Washington Conference regarding the authority of “adventure guides” who are not elders to conduct local church or charge conferences in light of ¶246.5.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of the Texas Conference regarding retirement incentives utilizing pension reserve in light of ¶613.1.
Review of a decision of law of Bishop Jeremiah J. Park of the New York Conference related to a request for a decision on legality of a resolution supporting persons who dissent from the Discipline.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Jonathan D. Keaton of the West Michigan Conference regarding adoption of a master group program for insuring all churches in the conference.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Warner H. Brown, Jr. of the California-Nevada Annual Conference as to whether or not ¶1506.7 permits the annual conference to adopt a past-service annuity rate that remains the same from one year to the next.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop William W. Hutchinson of the Louisiana Conference as to whether ¶247.13 is violated by the practice of the setting of clergy compensation by the Charge Conference prior to knowing the exact amount of the annual health insurance program.
Review of a decision of law by Bishop Susan Hassinger of the Wyoming Conference related to provisions for voluntary retirement.
Review of decisions of law by Bishop Elaine J. Stanovsky of the Rocky Mountain Conference related to return to conference membership after resignation from the episcopacy.
Review of decisions of law by Bishop Elaine J. Stanovsky of the Yellowstone Conference regarding clergy withdrawal between sessions of annual conference.
Review of decision of Bishop D. Max Whitfield of the Northwest Texas Conference regarding the legality of the Annual Conference’s vote on constitutional amendments.
Requested decisions
Request for a declaratory decision from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference as to whether a retired elder in full connection can serve as chairperson of a local church committee on finance.
Request for a declaratory decision from the Commission on the General Conference on the meaning, effect and application of ¶13 of the Constitution as it relates to ¶502.3E in determining any restrictions on the degree of adjustment in number of delegates to be made by the secretary of the General Conference.
Request for a declaratory decision from the Minnesota Conference related to meaning, effect and application of Section II, Article IV.2 and Section VI, Article I of the Constitution as they apply to ¶316.6 and ¶327.2 and the prohibition of local pastors and provisional members voting on constitutional amendments.
Request for a declaratory decision from the Baltimore-Washington Conference on the meaning, effect and application of ¶354 and ¶355 in determining if the bishop, cabinet, conference relations committee or board of ordained ministry can put requirements on an individual who is granted voluntary leave of absence.
Request for a declaratory decision from the Virginia Conference as to the meaning, application and effect of ¶639, ¶1505 and ¶1506 with respect to sponsorship and administration of the Ministerial Pension Plan.
Request for a declaratory decision from the Wyoming Conference regarding the complaint process with reference to ¶361, ¶362 and ¶2701.2D.
Request from the Western North Carolina Conference to determine the legality of a clergy couple housing policy adopted by the Annual Conference.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Foundation for Evangelism, founded in 1949 by the featured speaker on this week’s MethodistThinker Podcast, Dr. Harry Denman.
Dr. Harry Denman
As young man in the 1920s, Harry Denman showed exceptional gifts in evangelism and administration, both in his service at the First Methodist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, and as a lay leader in the North Alabama Conference.
A decade later, he launched the Foundation for Evangelism as a means of supporting the evangelism ministries of The Methodist Church. (Today, the Foundation’s work includes supporting professors of evangelism at United Methodist-related institutions, sponsoring the biennial Harry Denman Lectures at the UM Congress on Evangelism, and honoring outstanding efforts in local church evangelism through presentation of the Harry Denman Evangelism Award.)
Dr. Denman retired from the Foundation for Evangelism in 1965, but continued his ministry of lay preaching and personal witness. Billy Graham once said that he “never knew a man who encouraged more people in the field of evangelism than Harry Denman.”
Harry Denman’s “body” died (that is how he always described physical death) in 1976. He was 83.
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This podcast features a sermon by Harry Denman that probably was recorded in the late 1960s. Listen using the audio player below (17:30) — or download an mp3 file (8.3 MB; on a PC, right click and choose “save as”).
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For previous MethodistThinker Podcasts, click the Podcasts tab at the top of this page.
‘I Delight to Do Thy Will, O My God’ | A sermon by Harry Denman (audio), recorded at Lake Junaluska, N.C. (early 1960s) (posted on the Foundation for Evangelism web site)
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‘Living and Believing’ | A sermon by Harry Denman (audio), recorded at Lake Junaluska, N.C. (August 1965) (posted on the Foundation for Evangelism web site)
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‘A Lonely Place for Prayer’ | A sermon by Harry Denman (audio), recorded at Lake Junaluska, N.C. (August 1965) (posted on the Foundation for Evangelism web site)
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December 6, 345
December 30, 1852:
We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.
That resolution — worded rather awkwardly and carrying the title “Responsible Parenthood” — says in part: “We therefore encourage our churches and common society to: …make abortions available to women without regard…to economic status.”
The matter came to the floor of the conference on the afternoon May 7, 1976 — the last day of the week-and-half-long gathering. The Responsible Parenthood resolution was only one section of a larger eight-section, 6,500-word omnibus resolution on “Health, Welfare and Human Development.” The full resolution filled more than 16 pages in the Journal of the 1976 General Conference.
The group “seek[s] to affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and ensure the full participation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the ministry and life of the United Methodist Church, particularly in the Baltimore-Washington Conference.”
November 6, 1935:
November 15, 1917: 
November 22, 1963:
November 30, 1725:
The sexuality case stems from a resolution passed by the 2009 session of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference that mirrors a resolution rejected last year by the United Methodist General Conference. The Baltimore-Washington resolution also uses language from ¶161G of the 2004 United Methodist Book of Discipline, language that was superseded by action of the last year’s General Conference.
