UMs are not known for holding to standards, and we continue to pay the price for our lack of resolve.

Sin is sin no matter how we try to “dress it up.” It’s still detestable in God’s eyes.

We need to become more involved and “take back” our church.

Lord, have mercy on our souls.

As far as “difficulty” goes, I suppose Jesus had an easy time on the cross dying to redeem us from our sins! Glad Jesus thought it was worth the difficulty of dying for my salvation — and everyone else’s.

Why am I not surprised that the declaration calls for “A faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights, including access to…abortion.”

How do Methodist clergy and bishops who publicly endorse statements such as this declaration (which are in large part in direct contradiction to the Book of Discipline) remain on the payroll (or retirement benefits) of the church? Most employers do not require their employees to take an oath to uphold. Yet anyone, especially a manager or executive, who makes public statements against their employer’s policies and procedures is subject to termination of employment.

1) Our sexuality is the primary means of our identity; and
2) We have no more control over our sexual urges than common barnyard animals.

Our problem is that as a society we totally lack self-control and discipline (which is, as I recall, a fruit of the Spirit). I suspect this has something to do with the ethic of indulgence that is by necessity an integral part of a consumer culture.

Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined…to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’ own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behavior outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.

Where is the accountability these people face?

For a much richer and Biblical take on sex, I recommend the following wholeheartedly!

http://www.examiner.com/x-8276-Methodist-Examiner~y2009m9d3-Sex-and-the-Christian

Blessings,

JMS

I wonder how parishioners would feel if they knew what their pastors were advocating.

Here’s the declaration: http://www.religiousinstitute.org/religious-declaration-on-sexual-morality-justice-and-healing

[Ed. note: The list of endorsers is at http://www.religiousinstitute.org/list-of-endorsers.]