By the way, churches exist to promote the gospel of Christ, which is the ultimate forward movement for all of mankind.

No use arguing with you or the professors at Claremont, since they and you obviously have a different agenda.

Separatist? Depends on how you define it. As Christians we are called to be in the world but not of it.

You say we will “fight for Christianity yet not the forward movement of human kind?” Since when are those goals mutually exclusive? As a matter of fact, they’re mutually inclusive.

Progress? Who defines progress, cd? You? The “dying” of our church is the result of the kind of progress you appear to endorse. We need to take another approach — the one that got us here in the first place.

“cd” has sarcastically accused David of not fighting for “the forward movement of human kind”? According to “cd,” this must be considered “progress” and it must be “scary.”

Really? I missed that part in the gospels where Jesus called us to the forward movement of human kind. I thought, silly me, we were to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Progress? Progress? Since when is universalism progress?

You cannot remember Jesus wanting to call forward the peacemaker? You do not search for progress in your dying church?

Progress requires change which can be scary. Just say you are too afraid to be open in your faith instead of using it as an excuse for why this cannot work.

I have supported the UMC with my time, talent and treasury for over 40 years. Each day it becomes more difficult to do so. After serving as delegate to the past four Jurisdictional and General Conferences I have about decided that any time and money spent on the UMC, at least beyond the local church, is a total waste. At the same time I continue to think of the possibilities for the transformation of the world for Christ through the UM connectional system if and when that became our purpose.

The way I see it, the problem is that a large number of the leaders of the UMC worship education and liberal idealism more than they worship Christ, and that the UM financial resources are spent on keeping the establishment funded rather than on the mission Christ put before us.

This situation at Claremont and this article is just the latest thing to push my button. I for one (of a very large group) am not sure how much longer I can hang in with the UMC. Until that decision is made I will continue to pray that the UMC will refocus on Christ and will begin to dismantle its general agencies and refocus its resources on the local church and making disciples for Christ. I also pray that the UMC will stop funding Claremont and drop it as an official UM seminary.

In circles of religious leaders it has become almost embarrassing to admit to being a United Methodist — and at least it has become a time consuming effort to explain many of its practices as presented by the heads of many its general agencies.

It is far past time for the UMC to reverse its direction!

The church has fallen from trying to hold people accountable for their actions (or inactions). It isn’t specks we see in our neighbor’s eyes but big logs of abuse and negligence (of the Bible and our own polity).

The devil, like a lion, is alive and well in the UMC — and in our country — and is destroying much.

Since when did Claremont become “Savior”? Since when did pluralism become the primary value of a Christian education? And enough of dismissing concerns with the lame excuse that education and religion are slow to change! It’s an irrelevant cop-out! As a UM pastor, I’m thoroughly disappointed with Claremont School of Theology.

I’m all for loving others, being compassionate, even working together for God’s justice and mercy, but not for deconstructing Christian theology in favor of a secular, political ecumenism.

Neither should they have any ties whatsoever to the UMC. We need to cut them off entirely.

He also gave a series of sermons on “What it means to be saved.” His conclusion: He couldn’t tell us, and who the heck knows, anyway? (Implicit: Not that it matters all that much).

As you’d guess, that church is dying but its elderly, affluent members keeps kicking up taxes to the conference so all is well as far as the Bishop and D.S. are concerned.

One has to wonder if all these sanctimonious machinations by Claremont officials about solving the world’s problems are really just cover for a plan that they believe will increase enrollment/funding for the school.

As Mark Tooley has pointed out, none of this is especially surprising given the school’s history of endorsing process theology (which, ironically, as I understand it, flies in the face of traditional Christian, Judaic and Islamic understandings of God).

I have no problem with civil interaction among individuals of different faiths, but, at some point, there are irreconcilable differences that cannot be dismissed. That’s not to say that these differences should be points of tremendous contention (or in the case of radical Islamists, violence), but we simply cannot remain true to reality and pretend that these fundamental differences don’t exist.

The relationship of process theology to liberation theology (discredited in recent years) should also be noted since both hold that God changes in relation to humanity in an ongoing effort toward “liberation.” What that “liberation” will look like, ultimately, cannot be totally predicted because it, too, is an evolving, nascent, and, therefore, from the standpoint of most of humanity, unclear, subjective process. We have to rely on the guidance of the self-anointed, like Dr. Campbell, to add needed focus.

The current vision of it, as evidenced by Claremont, appears to involve a supreme emphasis on anything other than traditional concepts of religion and culture.