6/1/99 -- A quarterly news letter for United Methodists
It's time to get political
Guest Column:ADOPTION: DOING THE WORDWith around 3,800 unborn children dying each day in abortions, we need to encourage United Methodists to adopt, not abort. To choose life, not death! A version of the following article was written for the United Methodist Adoption Agency to be used as a bulletin insert on Adoption Sunday. However, after reading the article, the agency's board decided not to print it. The reason given was that some United Methodists would object to a couple adopting a child when they already had children. Twenty years ago, before I knew Christ, I drove my pregnant girlfriend to an abortion clinic. Then and there we ended the life of our child. For years, I ran from this fact. I wanted to hide what I had done. I wanted to forget about it and pretended that it had never happened. But then I encountered Jesus. My encounter with Jesus happened about seven years ago. I was married then, with twin boys age six. One day my wife came to me and said, "I want a divorce." This came as a shock to me, but it should not have. I had become obsessed with my work and with trying to make money. I had emotionally abandoned my family, and divorce was the consequence. I think God was sending me a wake-up call; but was I listening? After months of fighting in court over custody of our twins, I lost. The judge took my children away from me. Now God had my full attention. I was finally broken. God the Father allowed me to feel how had He felt when He allowed His Son to die for me. I got on my knees and asked Jesus to take control of my out-of-control life, and He did. In time, God reconciled my marriage and put my family back together. Praise be to God! Two years later, abortion came up in my life, once again, as our denomination, The United Methodist Church, struggled with the issue at General Conference. Confronted with abortion again, I was different this time. God had changed my heart and mind. I knew abortion was wrong and that honest "prayerful consideration" of abortion would never lead a person to take the life of an innocent child. When I surrendered my life to Jesus, I had asked Him to forgive me of my sins, and He did. I was forgiven for taking the life of my child. And I was free to talk about what I had done and wanted to talk about what Jesus had done for me. "[B]e doers of the word, and not hearers only..." (James 1:22, RSV). God wanted me to take action on what He had shown me. My wife, Carla, and I had been remarried for about three years, and God had blessed us with another child. However, we knew that there were children that might be aborted unless someone came forward to adopt. We began by expressing to a crisis pregnancy center that we were willing to adopt any child that needed a home. We surrendered this to God and asked for His will to be done. Within a few months we were contacted. We never dreamed that God would work that fast. We had no idea how we would take care of two babies born a month apart. But God is sovereign and knows what He is doing. God led us to the United Methodist Adoption Agency and Carla Proctor. Carla reassured us that everything was going to be okay, and it was. Christopher James Thompson is now five months old. His first name means "Christ bearer." What a blessing he is to us. Every smile brings great joy to our hearts. His birth mother stated that she wanted Christopher to have a father. That is quite a responsibility for me, but God is a God of second chances-for me to be a dad and for Christopher to have a dad. Praise God! -Don Thompson/belongs to Christ United Methodist Church of Memphis and attends Shiloh
United Methodist Church of Somerville/4950 Yum Yum/ Somerville, TN 38068-4526 LET'S GET POLITICAL"There is too much politics in The United Methodist Church," many people often lament with a disapproving nod of the head. That lament deserves two comments. First, politics is a fact of Church life. That is, politics always has been in the Church; politics always is in the Church; and politics always will be in the Church. Until the Kingdom of God comes in glory, that is. (And even then, there will be politics-the perfect politics of the Kingdom and the King.) The dream of having a denomination without politics is a pipedream that comes from overspiritualized wishful thinking. Again, politics is a fact of Church life. Therefore, we need to grow out of our spiritual wishfulness. We need to face up to the reality of Church politics. And we need to respond to the politics of the Church out of faithfulness to Jesus Christ, His Gospel, and His Church. The lament about too much politics in United Methodism deserves this second response: the issue is not whether there should be politics in the Church; instead, the issue is whether the Church's politics will be good politics or bad politics. Again, the real political issue confronting The United Methodist Church is this: do United Methodists practice good politics or bad politics in our denomination? Bad politics in the Church involves only grabbing and exercising power, as if power is all that counts, as if truth matters not in the least. Bad politics pursues one and only one end: power. Bad politics subordinates everything under the sun to power. On the other hand, good politics in the Church should involve: trusting God's providence (even when God's rule over the Church's life seems to be millions of miles away); knowing the truthfulness of the Tradition of the Church; serving the Church's Tradition in the congregation, the Annual Conference, and the General Conference; playing by the rules of the local church and the conferences; holding party spirit and individual ambition to a minimum; keeping the faithfulness and good of the church as primary goals; and accomplishing all of this with good cheer and with strong confidence in the work and will of God. So, members of the Lifewatch community, we should get used to playing politics in The United Methodist Church. But in the process, let us make darned sure that we are going to play good politics-not bad politics. CONGREGATIONAL POLITICSIn your local church, as you doubtless know, politics play a role. So the question becomes: what can you, as a United Methodist who knows that the Christian faith leads the Church to protect the unborn child and mother, do in your congregation? Well, just for starters, consider the following.
ANNUAL CONFERENCE POLITICSYour Annual Conference is another place for political action in The United Methodist Church. Consider attempting one of following actions.
HOW TO BECOME A DELEGATEHave you considered becoming a candidate for General Conference delegate? If so, you might consider these principles.
FINAL THOUGHTSAt the end of a day, when we stop, take a step back from The United Methodist Church, and consider our church's position on abortion, it is almost unbelievable that we have to swim against the stream, witness intentionally for the protection of unborn child and mother, and work politically to change our denomination's official, pro-choice policy. Again, this is almost unbelievable. Since abortion has been consistently and continually resisted by historic Christianity through the ages, since the matter of abortion has been settled in the Church for centuries, we should not have to be arguing about this matter in the conferences of our church. But that is the way it is. And therefore, we must be political. Again, some of us may not want to be political, but we must be. Out of faithfulness to Jesus Christ and to His Gospel. Over the centuries, politics has been understood as the way a community decides how it should best order its life together. In The United Methodist Church, every layperson and every clergyperson has a role to play in this political task. Unfortunately, in our day in the United States, politics has come to be considered, by some, a dirty word and a less-than-honorable endeavor. And for good reason. Too often, particularly at the national level, politics has been reduced to spin, to manipulation, to power plays, to operating without principle. Therefore, it is important that our politics in The United Methodist Church take a higher road. Though the Lifewatch community is a tiny, pro-life minority within an officially pro-choice denomination, we have reason to become politically active in a hopeful way. After all, we are on the side of the Gospel of life, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are are on the side of the witness of Scripture. We are on the side of Great Tradition of the Church through the ages. We are on the side of Christian experience and reason. And we are empowered and humbled by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, brothers and sisters, enter the fray that is the politics of The United Methodist
Church. But keep the faith all the while. Most importantly, strive for holiness along the
way. This holiness is not a born of a pietism that yearns to escape the rough and tumble
of Church politics. Rather, this holiness is tough enough to endure the many demands and
disappointments of political engagement-all in service to Jesus Christ, the Word of life,
and to His Church. (PTS) A LETTER, AT LONG LAST
This letter contains many, many points of theological and moral confusion. Just for starters, Dr. Fassett says "we [the General Board of Church and Society, or GBCS] are under mandate of the General Conference to function within its guidleines" [first paragraph]. If GBCS can advocate changing The Book of Discipline’s position on homosexual practice, why can it not advocate changing the the Discipline’s position on abortion? For another example Dr. Fassett depicts RCRC as an organization that does not promote abortion on demand [second paragraph]. However, RCRC’s political lobbying efforts are aimed at making abortions more widely and easily available to every pregnant woman at every stage of pregnancy; that seems to us like abortion on demand. For yet another example, Dr. Fassett states that "we [presumably GBCS] have supported the viability of laws that would not place the U.M. position on abortion outside of the law" [third paragraph]. Lifewatch is under the impression that the Church’s calling is to conform her teaching to the love and law of God, and to witness for justice [especially for the least of these] in the political arena; the Church’s calling is not to sit around and worry about whether or not United Methodist positions are outside United States laws. Just one more comment must be made. In the underlined portion of the letter, Dr.
Fassett admits that Paragraph 65J of The Book of Discipline , as it now reads, is
in need of revision. Furthermore, Dr. Fassett notes that he is, in the main, in agreement
with the revision offered in the Model Resolution by Lifewatch. We are thankful for this
word from Dr. Fassett, and we hold him to it in the months and years ahead. (PTS) YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT
"We are the people who, when the Romans would throw their unwanted newborns on the garbage heaps outside their cities, would go out by night, bring those children in, and love and raise them. "We are the people who were always known for the way we honor life. In a second-century, anonymous document called the Letter to Diognetus, we read these words: 'Christians...marry and have children just like every one else; but they do not kill unwanted babies.' "We are the people who do not kill the unwanted because we know that every life is precious and wanted by God. "We are the people who know that our bodies do not belong to us. 'Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body." (I Corinthians 6:19-20, RSV) "Still today, it is God's call to the Church to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner. It is when we embrace the single mom who is considering having an abortion to provide her and her children with the necessities of life that we are encountering Jesus. It is when we plead for the life of the unborn saying, 'We'll raise your child and provide him a home and love,' that we are fulfilling the mandate of the Gospel. "'Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms. Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold, and Martin gave him what he had. He took off his soldier's coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar. That night he had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and all the angels and Jesus in the midst of them; and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier's cloak. One of the angels said to him, "Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?" And Jesus answered solftly, "My servant Martin gave it to me."' "As we reach out to women, families, children, and the unborn in crisis, we will experience unutterable joy because we will encounter Jesus Christ face to face. In moments of ministry, we will hear Jesus say, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'" (Matthew 25:40, RSV)
"Someone once asked me if I weren't contributing to the population explosion. I replied, 'My children will contribute more to the world than [taking] the bread they eat.' "Today those eleven children have seventeen college degrees. There are three lawyers, two doctors, an occupational therapist, a Christian music teacher, a Christian substitute teacher, a Christian realtor, a Christian trained to be a teacher who has home schooled and been a Bible Study Fellowship leader, and a devoted mother, trained to be a teacher who has home schooled her four sons, each for part of their schooling..." What a beautiful witness to the Gospel of life! Lifewatch is published by the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality, a network of United Methodist clergy, laity, and congregations. It is sent free to interested readers. Editor, Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth: P.O. Box 177, Rose Hill NC 28458 (910)289-2449/Administrator, Mrs. Ruth Brown: 512 Florence Street, Dothan AL 3630/ (334)794-8543/E-mail: cindy@lifewatch.org Web site: http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/tumaslw |
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