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2011 Annual Conference

Model Resolutions

(pdf version) (Word doc)

March 2011 Newsletter


Speakers

Articles


News Update

Rev. Paul Stallsworth, along with his wife Marsha, went to Washington, DC on March 11, 2010 to hand-deliver the following attached letter to all 435 US House of Representative members.

 Read Letter


Lifewatch Special Appeal
 


ELECTION PRAYER FOR LIFE

O God, we acknowledge you today as Lord, not only of individuals, but of nations and governments.

We thank you for the privilege of being able to organize ourselves politically and of knowing that political loyalty does not have to mean disloyalty to you. We thank you for your law, which our Founding Fathers acknowledged and recognized as higher than any human law. We thank you for the opportunity, that each election puts before us, to exercise our solemn duty not only to vote, but to influence countless others to vote, and to vote correctly.

Lord, we pray that your people may be awakened. Let them realize that while politics is not their salvation, their response to you requires that they be politically active. Awaken your people to know that they are not called to be a sect fleeing the world, but rather a community of faith renewing the world. Awaken them that the same hands lifted up to you in prayer are the hands that pull the lever in the voting booth; that the same eyes that read your Word are the eyes that read the names on the ballot; that your baptized people do not cease to be Christians when they enter the voting booth. Awaken your people to a commitment to justice, to the sanctity of marriage and the family, to the dignity of each individual life, and to the truth that human rights begin when human lives begin, and not one moment later.

Lord, we rejoice today that we are citizens of your Kingdom. May that make us all the more committed to being faithful citizens on earth. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (original slightly edited)

 --Father Frank Pavone/Priests for Life/www.priestsforlife.org


Sen. Nelson, Health Care Reform, and Abortion

The Honorable Ben Nelson
United States Senate
720 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

18 January 2010

Dear Senator Nelson:

New Year's greetings to your staff and to you.

As fellow United Methodists and as leaders of the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality (TUMAS), we write to you. Also known as Lifewatch , this pro-life witness within The United Methodist Church has, for over 22 years, advanced and defended the God-given dignity of each human person. From the beginnings of Lifewatch until the present, our Advisory Board has included prominent bishops and distinguished seminary professors.

We have been very proud of your public association with Democrats for Life of America, your principled pro-life positions, and, until recently, your courageous attempts to remove taxpayer funding of abortion from the proposed reform of health care, against intense pressure from the White House and from other Democratic Party leaders. Also, we applaud your success in attaching to the US Senate's health care bill additional support for pregnancy, adoption, and parenting.

However, we are disappointed by your final negotiations on abortion, in the Senate's health care bill, late last month. The new abortion provisions fall short of offering strong, permanent guarantees that no taxpayer funds will be used to directly or indirectly subsidize medically unnecessary abortions. The abortion provisions now in the Senate's bill include circuitous accounting procedures that can be used to (falsely) claim that taxpayers will not be forced to directly pay for other people's abortions.

The Senate's health care bill is unacceptable -- to us, to many if not most United Methodists, and to the clear majority of Americans -- since it would have the effect of facilitating, and thus increasing, the incidence of abortion in our society. Furthermore, we are very concerned about the Senate bill's failure to include the House bill's conscience protections for health care providers who do not want to be coerced into participation in abortion. Finally, we are disturbed to read reports that your office "shut out" input from pro-life leaders during final negotiations on the final abortion language.

We understand that, in recent weeks, you have been the target of lobbying efforts by some United Methodist clergy and laity urging you to support the health care reform bill even if it means compromising your pro-life principles. While these individuals are certainly free to express their opinions to you, you should know that they do not speak for all United Methodists. Through our extensive experience in United Methodist congregations and organizations, we can assure you that many, if not most, United Methodists in Nebraska and in the United States share our concerns.

We understand the need to address the problem of the deplorably high number of people in our nation without health insurance. However, the first principle of the General Rules of The United Methodist Church, given by John W esley to the early Methodists, is "Do no harm."

With this principle in mind, as negotiations and votes on health care reform continue, we strongly urge you to reconsider your position and to work with pro-life leaders, including Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), to ensure that the health care bill that is passed will: (1) exclude any direct or indirect federal support for elective abortions; (2) exclude any provisions that may otherwise encourage or facilitate abortions; and (3) include strong conscience protections.

We respectfully urge you to apply this principle, "Do no harm," to your pivotal work in the shaping of health care reform. If you do, we are ready, willing, and eager to offer whatever moral, prayerful, or other support we can.

In Christ,

Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth
Lifewatch President, and Pastor
St. Peter's United Methodist Church
111 Hodges Street
Morehead City, NC 28557

252.726.2175
paulstallsworth@nccumc.org

Mr. John Lomperis
Lifewatch Advisory Board
Harvard Divinity School
28 Forest Street
Somerville , MA 02143

202.494.2565
 johnlomperis@yahoo.com


ECUMENICAL GROUP: CARE FOR TERRI SCHIAVO, DO NOT KILL HER


Presentation to the Study Committee

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for the invitation to address you, the Study Committee on the Worldwide Nature of The United Methodist Church. It is a privilege, an honor, and a rare opportunity to be with you and to work with you.

My name is Paul Stallsworth. An elder in the North Carolina Conference, I pastor St. Peter's United Methodist Church in Morehead City on the coast, serve as the president of the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality, and edit the quarterly newsletter Lifewatch, which many of you receive.

The task before us, this afternoon, is great -- especially so soon after lunch. I trust that this presentation will not facilitate any early afternoon naps...

As you know well, the summer of 2008 placed a denominational- reorganizational plan -- in the form of twenty-three (23) constitutional amendments, pertaining to the worldwide nature of The United Methodist Church -- before all the Annual Conferences across the church. Based on the reported votes to date, that plan will apparently not be ratified.

It is important for you, the Study Committee, to step back, consider why the Annual Conferences voted as they apparently voted, gather additional information, and set out on a new course for denominational reorganization. In other words, this committee should not simply rewrite the constitutional amendments that were placed before the Annual Conferences in 2008. To simply edit the presumably rejected amendments, and return them to the 2012 General Conference and perhaps the Annual Conferences, would squander the attention, time, and money of The United Methodist Church. Something more faithful to God and the Gospel, more thoughtful, and more courageous is required of this Study Committee.

In what follows, I will: (I) place my proposal for this Study Committee on the table; (II) explain what, in The United Methodist Church, makes this proposal necessary; and (III) revisit the proposal ....Read more>>


 DYK “Extra” Mr. Obama has promised for months that the health care overhaul would not provide federal money to pay for elective abortions, but White House officials have declined to spell out what he means. …. At least 31 House Democrats have signed various recent letters to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, urging her to allow a vote on a measure to restrict use of the subsidies to pay for abortion, including 25 who joined more than 100 Republicans on a letter delivered Monday.”

Call 202-224-3121 and ask for your Senator or Representative by name.

Source: “Abortion Fight Complicates Debate on Health Care,” by David D. Kirkpatrick, Sept. 29, 2009


What Does God Think
About America’s Health Care Debate?


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