This week, a Tea Party leader said, "If you hate America, you have a great future in the Methodist Church" and called for the denomination to disband because of their positions on the DREAM Act and other social issues. Here, Rev. Josh Hale, explains and defends the church's stance.
Religion is necessarily social. And therefore, in our exercise of it today, it touches on all the great areas through which human beings create meaning and exercise our authority: politics; the military landscape; economically and financially; our cultural life: art, music, sports, writing, and the like; and communication individually, as well as on social media and through news organizations.
And now I must read again reports today that decry the "socialist" nature of The United Methodist Church. Once again, we're in the headlines (not in a good way!) for having certain social postures which result from theological and doctrinal positions.
I have to confess I hadn't heard of Judson Phillips before today. I would imagine he and I would disagree about this or that political issues, were we to be in a room together today. That's okay. There are big disagreements about the role religion plays in governance, about how to be responsible for all the citizens of our nation, and the exercise of faith in an increasingly diverse nation. We should disagree--there's a lot at stake!
But if the goal of Mr Phillips' post was a broader dialogue about how the United Methodist Church engages social, political, and economic issues in the United States, it was unnecessarily inflammatory, and just wrong in some of its facts. And if the goal was to score some cheap points by exploiting our mass fascination with hatred, then it just makes me sad.
Viciousness is not a virtue. It's not a Christian virtue, and it isn't an American virtue...
Read the entire article here:
http://blogs.chron.com/spiritedchat/2010/12/methodists_hate_america_local.html