A Methodist Pastor speaks his mind on “privilege”

If you believe the MSM, the political hacks, critical race theorists, socialists, progressive church leadership and the community organizers/agitators life in the US is horrible, unjust, violent, bigoted, and extremely difficult. Further, from my position of White Privilege I can neither understand nor sympathize with the plight of the non-white populace. That may very well be true. However, those of us of any color in the US cannot even begin to understand how difficult daily life is in Venezuela and Peru and Honduras and Ecuador and Guatemala, etc. The inequity is truly incomprehensible. For my own tribe (Methodists) this is an appropriate time for a correction of perspective. “The least of these” may not be those of us living in the most prosperous nation in history. And yes, I know there are poor and oppressed people here. But we need to bring some comparable perspective to the current narrative.

Warren Lathem

Skipping church on purpose during pandemic panic

It was such a pleasant change to be able to attend church services here at Lakeside two weeks ago. Even in a park, even with social distancing, even with no hymns, even wearing a mask.

But not today. First, it's only about 50 degrees, and it will be much cooler near the lake (service is in the Steele Memorial gazebo). But second, it's a Methodist service, and if I know anything about Methodists, we'll have a lecture on race relations. Methodists, like Catholics, are always in the forefront of social issues, and they do an excellent job. Of all the Protestant denominations, Methodists are the closest to Catholic in obeying Christ's commands in Matthew 25. It's not just "me and Jesus," but it's the Holy Spirit changing the heart for service for God. And I get it. But I don't want to sit in the cold, after the churches, all churches have abdicated their leadership role during this time of unrest and pandemic. They simply closed their doors, closed down their ministries to those mentioned in Matthew 25--poor, sick, imprisoned, thirsty--and decided that skyping and zooming and preaching online was just fine and met their obligations. Even churches with huge parking lots paving over acres, could not seem to find a way to call their congregations together in worship and service. Like ours. UALC with two locations and two huge parking lots and loads of technology.

So I'm not going to sit in a park in a gated community that is 99.9999% white and be lectured about systemic racism and how we white folks need to do better. I don't want to listen to an academic preach it who hasn't studied the statistics about government transfer programs, who are the victims of crime, how many millions of contacts do we have with the police and how many end badly (virtually none) and what is the role of the media. I just won't listen to one more harangue when I know the 60 years of government and business policies that have made things worse, but more often better.

The UMC split began a long time ago

“ In 1968 the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church finalized the plan of union to form the UMC. But by the time they completed their 1972 Book of Discipline, the die for the UMC’s dissolution had already been cast. The doctrinal section of the Book of Discipline reframed Wesleyan doctrine around the newly-coined Wesleyan quadrilateral in a way that privileged theological pluralism at the expense of doctrinal fidelity. Whereas Wesley emphasized spirituality in Scripture through his Explanatory Notes and tradition through his Christian Library, the theological commission behind the Book of Discipline turned theological pluralism into a principle emphasizing human experience as the core of theological method.”

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/a-failed-experiment-in-methodist-unity

I wonder what will happen at Lakeside?

UMC “minister” in West Ohio Conference blesses abortion clinics

  “This year, [Laura] Young, a United Methodist minister in the West Ohio Conference, was assigned by Bishop Gregory Palmer to serve as executive director of the Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. The coalition, which had gone about two years without a director, had fallen largely quiet. Young aims to change that.

Calling herself a “progressive theological thinker and a feminist,” Young said goals include encouraging clergy members to testify at legislative hearings on anti-abortion bills and advocating for organizations that provide women’s health care, including abortions and contraception.”

When we rent our cottage at Lakeside for West Ohio, we’ll have to put a qualifier besides “no pets.” No Methodist ministers who advocate for abortion.

Historic site for United Methodists

Sunday at 3 p.m. I walked two blocks to a ceremony to unveil a plaque commemorating Lakeside as an official Historic Site of The United Methodist Church (UMC). The final approval came in June, and the plaque will be placed on the original Lakeside Chapel (now a museum). If you're on our Christmas card list, you've seen this building before. The first camp meeting was held September 11, 1872, and the first sermon preached with 20 tents on August 27, 1873. The first two buildings on the 30 acre site were Hotel Lakeside and the Lakeside Chapel built 1874-1875. But there's more to come in this designation. Now we have to become a Heritage Landmark of the UMC and that might take another few years because the meeting is in 2020. The honor will actually be for a cluster of seven buildings, and our archivist prepared a lot of research on the history of the buildings.

Speaking of Methodists, I've seen some mean, nasty battles on Facebook, even between family members. But nothing beats the Wesley family's political and religious battles of Susanna (mother of John and Charles) and Samuel Wesley back in the 18th century. Both Susanna and Samuel were offspring of dissenters, Christians who refused to conform to the Anglican Church, but they in turn dissented against their own parents and joined the Church of England. But the couple had political differences--he supported King William III and she liked James II. Their political differences were stronger than their shared lives and beliefs (they had 6 living children and 8 deceased) and Samuel eventually changed bedrooms and then moved out. With Queen Anne, they could reconcile and he moved back, but they continued to sleep separately. You know how old political differences divide us. But a fire in July 1702 burned 3/4 of their home and Samuel returned to the marriage bed. On June 17, 1703, little John Wesley was born, and 4 years later Charles Wesley (their 18th child). John and Charles went on to found the Methodist Church, and I've looked at a few web sites (I'm not a Methodist) and can't determine if Susanna ever supported them in this. Independent thinker to the end, she's nevertheless called the Mother of Methodism. (Story source: The One Year Christian History by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten, Tyndale, 2003, Sept. 3, pp. 494-495)

Francis Asbury, 1745-1816

On August 7, 1771, Francis Asbury answered John Wesley's call for Methodist preachers to go and evangelize the colonies. In 45 years he covered about 300,000 miles on horseback and crossed the Appalachian mountains more than 60 times; he ordained more than 4,000 Methodist ministers and preached more than 16,000 sermons.

Week 7 Lakeside 2015

The programs this past week were excellent--at least for me.  I’m sure some people didn’t want to hear a Methodist seminary president from Moscow, but I enjoyed it.  I’d been a little puzzled about Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church--he never struck me as a Christian, being former KGB.  But as Dr. Sergei Nikolaev explained it, Russia recognizes 4 religions, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist. The Russian Orthodox cooperate with the government.  It’s a draw, I think, who is infiltrating whom. And it was that way under the Tsars, the USSR and the Russian Federation.  The Tsar that invited the Orthodox to Christianize the Slavs was Vladimir—and that’s also Putin’s name.  Methodists, Pentecostals, Adventists, etc. are considered cults.  Even atheists consider the Russian Orthodox their church.  The afternoon programming was on China, Pakistan, and Thomas Merton and Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. A little syncretic, but since I watch so much Catholic TV, I’m a bit more tolerant of that than I used to be. It’s such a big tent, something we Protestants don’t have.  Next week is on travel and art—two of the countries (Italy and Egypt) I’ve visited, so looking forward to that.

Evening shows were also very good.  Of course, this is symphony time.  Saturday was ballet, and one of the best I can remember here.  Thursday with the Good Lovelies (Canadian) was a fun evening.  Last Friday, although not technically week 7, was the team from Happy Days, Donny Most and Anson Williams who played Richie’s friends on the mid 70s TV show “Happy Days.” It was fun to hear them tell stories of the cast relationships, try outs, mentoring and softball team. Both are very good singers, and Most has a night club act. We occasionally get Happy Days on retro TV stations, and saw one the next day.

On Wednesday I attended the Herb group discussion on the Lakeside daisy at the Train Station.  Very interesting.  It’s not actually a daisy.

That’s me in the second row end.

Two great worship services, one Sunday morning at the Lake

Services on the East side of the Pavilion at Lakeside at 8:30 a.m. is always wonderful.  Communion looking over the lake, brilliant sun, cool breeze, and a good sermon by Pastor Irwin Jennings. Then breakfast at the patio.  Today I decided to also take in the more formal service at Hoover Auditorium at 10:30  to hear Dr. Sergei Nikolaev, professor of Evangelism and President of the Moscow United Methodist Seminary in Moscow, Russia.  There were four selections by the Firelands String Quartet, prelude, postlude, offertory and anthem with the choir—a different kind of wonderful. Dr. Nikolaev told us a little about himself—raised in a atheist home in the USSR, he became a Christian while studying engineering physics.  One grandfather was educated and a teacher, but an atheist who travelled giving “sermons” on atheism, and the other was a simple bee-keeper, an Orthodox Christian who had icons in his home and would cross himself before meals. When the children of the family would ask what he was doing, they were told he was just a crazy old man.  I’m looking forward to his lectures this week.  He said as a Methodist, he doesn’t experience overt persecution, but his church is considered a cult by many and there is peer pressure and some harassment. With the problems between Russian and Ukraine he doesn’t see the Methodists as having some of the problems of the other Protestant groups in part because they are unified by one bishop and one seminary.  They pray for each other.

http://blog.lakesideohio.com/2015/08/02/preacher-of-the-week-the-rev-dr-sergei-nikolaev/

UMC General Board supports abortion

Rev. Laura Young, a UM minister, "testified in Ohio that the abortion-restricting policies discriminate against women from poor and minority communities and reduce health-care access for women." Really? 38% of abortions are for minorities. What a bloody way to "fix" poverty. Just who do Methodists think Jesus was talking about in Matt 25? John Wesley must be rolling in the grave. "Young said the Ohio coalition collaborates with other social-justice- focused organizations,... especially those that work for systems — fair wages, worker and economic rights, racial justice, LGBT rights — that support women who do choose to have a child." Where is the social justice for that unborn child that might be female, or poor, or gay, or might grow up to develop a cure for cancer or obesity or establish a business that employs thousands? (quotes from Columbus Dispatch, July 2)

“GBCS has a long history of ignoring traditional United Methodists. Every four years it writes legislation and lobbies for General Conference to change the Book of Discipline so it would radically alter United Methodism’s traditional and biblical stance on marriage and sexuality. Never has it promoted or even explained our balanced, compassionate biblical position regarding sexuality.

And who can forget its full-out lobbying for the passage of the Affordable Care Act that was praised by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?  The board was engaged in its efforts to pass the bill even when it allowed for government-funded abortions. http://goodnewsmag.org/2015/03/editorial-no-laughing-matter/

Bad idea all the way around

Gov. Ted Strickland, who has been quite two faced about gambling (outlawed cash-paying video games in bars and taverns, opposes casinos, but calls Keno just part of the lottery), and the state legislature last week approved a plan to install up to 2,500 video slots at each of Ohio's seven tracks as a way to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the state budget. So gambling’s OK as long as the state’s raking it in for social and education programs, but not if private parties get their cut by competing with the state. When Ohioans voted down casinos do you suppose that meant they wanted slots in their place?

No, Mr. Governor, Mr. former-preacher-man. It’s bad for people, bad for Ohio and bad for horses. State run gambling is a tax on poor people and stupid people and then we have to raise more taxes to help them out of the hole we helped them dig. Horses are thrown away like the racing greyhounds, over medicated, over raced. Who would adopt a has-been thoroughbred today? Good for dog food or to be shipped to Asia as steaks. There is just nothing good in this scenario.

Although it’s one of the few issues where I’d stand with the Council of Churches and the Methodists on their liberal social agenda. If the Lutherans have commented, I’ve missed it. The Methodists have got this one down cold. They put up a valiant fight against the state lottery--which was supposed to bring in all sorts of money for education, but it didn’t. Cleveland is probably lower now than it was then (just 28% of the class of 1998 earned a diploma; 23% of white students graduated -- far lower than any other district studied -- while 26% of Latinos and 29% of blacks graduated. Stats from Manhattan Institute

"Religious leaders vowed to fight Ohio's plan to install video slot machines at racetracks to help close a budget gap.

The Ohio Council of Churches and the United Methodist Church say they will ask the Ohio Supreme Court to declare the plan unconstitutional on multiple grounds. The churches say they will urge local leaders to delay installation of slots until the court completes its review or state leaders back down.

The churches say they will also mobilize their members to begin a grassroots campaign against the plan. The churches will hold a news conference on Wednesday to outline their opposition plan.

"For 19 years the Ohio Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church and tens of thousands of other in the faith community have successfully stopped predatory gambling from entering the state of Ohio with slot machines and casinos," the churches said in a joint statement. Cincinnati.com

The Wesleys must be rolling in their graves

"The United Methodist headquarters in Washington, DC, is hosting a month-long exhibit that portrays the founding of Israel as a catastrophe.

The display, which is titled "60 Years of Dispossession," chronicles what Palestinians call the "Nakba" -- the Palestinian word for "catastrophe." Palestinians use the word to describe Israel's founding, an event that is reviled in the Arab world. The photo exhibit trumps what it describes as "the 1948 mass deportation of Palestinians, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages" following Israel's creation." Link

What a sad end to a once great leader in the Christian church.