Methodist Church Gets Pro-Life Spin
As Pro-Lifers prepare to meet on the Washington Mall for their 39th annual March for Life, the Chicago Tribune ran a lengtthy story Saturday that can only be described as “life affirming”. Indeed that phrase is used in the article by Manya A. Beachear.
The "life affirming" front page article in the Chicago Tribune January 21, 2012.
And, an integral part of the article is a Methodist Church.
It was about what to do with leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization.
Not, the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake which we attend, but the Elmhust United Methodist Church is specifically mentioned favorably.
Imagine that.
We Pro-Life members of the United Methodist Church in the Chicago area chaff at the complete domination by local liberals whose primary goal is to turn the Methodist Church into the Episcopal Church.
We dispise the representation of Methodists as being radically pro-abortion by the Church’s Board of Church and Society.
We detest the renting of office space next to the U.S. Supreme Court to the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice.
Fortunately for the denomination, the liberals are in decline and those who take what the Bible says more than a bit more literally are in ascendancy.
In short, most Methodist Churches in Northern Illinois are losing membership, while those in Africa are burgeoning. Fewer votes for the local liberals, more votes for the conservative Africans.
That matters in the arena of social issues because once every four years, there is something called a General Conference. It’s something like the national conventions of political parties, except the Methodist General Conferences are about policy, not picking leaders. One would think it would be about saving souls, but as one African Delegate put it eight years ago, “I don’t understand why we spend half our time talking about sin. I thought we were supposed to talk about saving souls.”
One is scheduled for this spring in Tampa in which the Discipline approval of stem cell embryonic research will be challenged, the proposals probably being coordinated by LifeWatch.
Want to read what Methodists as a church have voted to approve? That part of the Discipline, approved in 2004, is here.
