Thread by @frodofied

My heart and hope are with @revjelowe and Pastor Susan Patterson-Sumwalt as they join the thousands converging on St. Louis Missouri this weekend for a Special Session of @UMChurch's General Conference.

The Church will decide the fate of #LGBTQ participants in the church.

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The question before the delegates this weekend is not nearly as complicated as some pretend. In fact, it is quite simple. At its heart, really, the question is simply this: What kind of church does @UMChurch want to be?

@revjelowe

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One that errs on the side of inclusion? Or one that, instead, embraces exclusion?

How the delegates answer that question this weekend will reverberate far beyond the Church.

In these chaotic political times the @UMChurch will decide what side they will take moving forward.

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For many Americans this decision will be seen as either a validation of Trump's values, or a repudiation of them.

For many in the Church, the answer to this question is likely to decide their future participation with the denomination.

#UMCGC @revjelowe

It is my hope that influential laity within the church will make their opinions known as the weekend takes shape. @HillaryClinton, @ewarren, @ChelseaClinton, and @Beyonce I call upon all of you to join this debate both through public statement and social media support.

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Biblical proscription of homosexuality is not nearly as clear as so many of us have been taught.

What has been made out to be the most important moral question of our time actually hinges on the interpratation of only six or seven biblical passages.

@UMChurch #UMCGC

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None of these, it should be noted, can be attributed to Christ himself or directly connected to his teachings. If homosexuality was truly the great culture destroying force many argue for, then it would seem that Christ would have discussed it during his lifetime.

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But he did not.

Not once as far as we know.

To base a decision about excluding an entire group of people from Christian participation on the basis of six fairly insignificant Biblical verses seems remarkably wrong.

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Especially when that same text contains an entire litany of proscriptions & moral demands that go largely ignored today for precisely the same reasons the @UMChurch should put this non-issue to rest for: they do not reflect our current or moral or legal standards & shouldn't.

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We don't put children who disobey their parents to death, nor do we make women follow three paces behind men.

Why?

Because we recognize the inherent evil of such practices.

We don't do these things today because they are wrong and we know that.

@UMChurch #UMCGC

The evolution of culture and society was not on the minds of Old Testament writers, nor was it, it should be noted, on the minds of those who wrote the various texts that make up the New Testament, on which the entirety of Christianity is based.

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St. Paul lived and died believing that the return of Christ was imminent. He would not have considered it appropriate to suggest otherwise. His writiìngs then must be view through a lens of cautionary skepticism.

For all of his piety St. Paul led a political life.

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And his efforts to influence the political and moral direction of his times must be brought to bear. For Paul, maintaining the status quo was essential to his plans as the apocalypse approached.

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