{"id":68,"date":"2019-02-05T10:32:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T05:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilgrimsprogress.ca\/?p=68"},"modified":"2019-02-05T19:15:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T14:15:40","slug":"united-methodists-face-vote-on-lgbtq-issues-will-it-rip-the-church-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pilgrimsprogress.ca\/?p=68","title":{"rendered":"United Methodists face vote on LGBTQ issues. Will it rip the church apart?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The above is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courant.com\/nation-world\/sns-tns-bc-relig-methodists-lgbtq-20190204-story.html\" target=\"_blank\">headline from an\u00a0article<\/a> about an upcoming vote later this month at the United Methodist General Conference in St. Louis. \u00a0A special session has been called to vote yet again on a plan regarding same-sex marriage and the acceptance of LGBTQ clergy in the church. According to this article,<\/p>\n<div class=\"card collection-item\" data-type=\"text\">\n<div class=\" card-content \">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The United Methodist Church faces the possibility of a schism because of the vote. It&#8217;s inevitable that people will leave the church because of how polarizing the issue is, according to congregants, clergy and experts. It&#8217;s also possible entire congregations could leave the denomination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">This sounds all too familiar to this former member of the Anglican Church of Canada. \u00a0The argument in favor of allowing seems to be, that\u00a0&#8220;<span class=\"\">love would be at the core.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: large;\">\u201d The article also notes,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"\">&#8220;United Methodist churches and properties are currently owned by the denomination.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: large;\">\u201d\u00a0<\/span>That was the same with the Anglican Church of Canada. One the largest Anglican congregations in Canada,\u00a0as well as the most overtly evangelical,\u00a0had to give up their buildings when they chose to be faithful to their understanding of the way, the truth and the life. See\u00a0<a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vancouversun.com\/life\/Anglican+diocese+retains+ownership+four+disputed+church+properties\/2266487\/story.html\">http:\/\/www.vancouversun.com\/life\/Anglican+diocese+retains+ownership+four+disputed+church+properties\/2266487\/story.html<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, serif;\"><span class=\"\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\">Perhaps the one thing Methodists have going for them is a church leader largely forgotten in\u00a0the Anglican Church of Canada, but still very much at the essence of the United Methodist Church, John Wesley. It would be interesting to do a study on his teachings particularly as they would apply to the situation the church currently finds itself in.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>So I googled \u00a0what John Wesley would say to us today on this issue and came across an\u00a0article \u00a0published the last time this issue was raised in the United Methodist Church. The author,\u00a0Donald A. D. Thorsen, professor of theology and chair of the Department of Theology and Ethics at Azusa Pacific Seminary in Azusa, California writes,<\/div>\n<div class=\"\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Wesley, the founder of Methodism, affirmed the primacy of scriptural authority. But he also acknowledged the genuine, albeit secondary, religious authority of tradition, reason, and experience. By doing so, Wesley simply made explicit what is implicit in all theological reflection, even when it ostensibly is based on Scripture alone.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Given this so-called quadrilateral of religious authority, how should Methodists \u2014 or any Christian interested in considering a breadth of relevant data \u2014 view homosexuality? Although Wesley did not specifically deal with the issue of homosexuality, his theological legacy provides a comprehensive and integrative way of evaluating it.\u00a0<a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/goodnewsmag.org\/2016\/04\/john-wesley-revelation-and-homosexual-experience\/\">https:\/\/goodnewsmag.org\/2016\/04\/john-wesley-revelation-and-homosexual-experience\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card collection-item\" data-type=\"text\">\n<div class=\"\">\u00a0This article in turn led me to research\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wesleyan_Quadrilateral\" target=\"_blank\">Wesley\u2019s Quadrilateral<\/a>.\u00a0I believe this presents a schema for approaching this discussion in a way that would be blessed and guided by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The above is the headline from an\u00a0article about an upcoming vote later this month at the United Methodist General Conference in St. Louis. \u00a0A special&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mens-group","tag-john-wesley"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>United Methodists face vote on LGBTQ issues. 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