North Central Jurisdiction to elect 3 bishops 

The 24-member Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) delegation to the North Central Jurisdictional Conference has endorsed the Rev. Sally Dyck, clergy member of the East Ohio Conference, for election as bishop. The North Central Jurisdictional Conference will meet in Davenport, Iowa, July 14-17, to elect three new bishops. Up-to-the-minute election results are available at the United Methodist Church web site: www.umc.org"

General Conference 2004

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General Conference 2004 Newsletter

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News from Good News

The United Methodist Reporter 2/25/04
Digest with Links to Full Articles
For Northern Illinois Conference Laity

HERE I STAND: Why I'm afraid of Passion
02/27/04
By Barak Richman, Special to Reporter Interactive, Assistant Professor of law at United Methodist-related Duke University.

The Romans brutally tortured and killed my ancestors too, and my Jewish experience was built on their martyrdom, not the acts of Jewish political appointees.

Nonetheless, Passion only tells of certain corrupt Jews and encourages guilt by association. The memories of similar accounts fanning American Christians' hatred for American Jews remain vivid, and so I am afraid.

I am no historian and cannot speak to the movie's veracity. In any event, it is of course absurd to blame me and my family for evils done by individual Jews of earlier generations, and similarly it would be absurd for me to assume responsibility (or to feel guilty by association) for those evils.

Now there is a movie, pledging historical accuracy, that revives the image of the Jewish Christ killer.

Passion Watch
02/27/04

"I found myself distanced from Jesus because of the violence. I could not identify with him." -- The Rev. Philip L. Blackwell, senior pastor, First UMC-Chicago Temple, part of an interfaith panel of Christian and Jewish clergy members and laypeople who watch the movie. He was quoted by the New York Times.

"My concern about it is the use of graphic violence and heart-wrenching emotional trauma to get people to follow Jesus. It seems to me enormously manipulative." -- Susan Bond, associate professor, Vanderbilt University Divinity School, who teaches a course on Jesus in film. She was quoted by United Methodist News Service.
 

In what could become a major legal conflict over how church law defines "homosexual union," a United Methodist pastor in San Francisco participated recently in the much-publicized mass of same-sex weddings at city hall and later conducted a ceremony for two men in her church's sanctuary during Sunday worship.

But her bishop in the California-Nevada Annual Conference stopped short of saying that she would bring the Rev. Karen Oliveto up on charges of violating the denomination's Book of Discipline's prohibition against clergy conducting "homosexual union" ceremonies.

Dr. Oliveto, pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church, one of the denomination's original "reconciling congregations," presided over at least eight ceremonies in San Francisco City Hall during a period when the city was issuing marriage licenses to some 2,600 gay and lesbian couples. City officials married five other Bethany UMC couples.

During the morning worship service Feb. 15 at Bethany UMC, where she has served as pastor for 12 years, Dr. Oliveto also officiated at a ceremony for parishioners Dan Johnson and Bill Hinson. She described the ceremony as "the first legal gay marriage to take place inside a United Methodist sanctuary."

"We are in a whole new world, and the church better catch up," Dr. Oliveto told the San Francisco Chronicle.

"The Discipline specifically says 'homosexual union,' but I don't think that's been interpreted in an official way," Bishop Tuell said. "I would describe this as a new question that has come up, and I don't know how it will be addressed."

Bishop Tuell said although the deadline has passed for petitions to the General Conference April 27-May 7 in Pittsburgh, a delegate could attach to a petition an amendment addressing the question of whether "homosexual union" means the same thing as "gay marriage."

'Discipline is silent' But Dr. Oliveto told the Reporter that she found no prohibition in the Discipline specifically against "gay marriage."

"I did not perform a holy union," she said. "I performed a legal gay marriage. I was not disobeying the Discipline. The Discipline is silent on gay, legal marriage.

"I performed legal marriages for members of my congregation who asked me to provide this pastoral service. My congregation would expect nothing less of me. I would not be a faithful pastor in this setting if I refused them."

Bethany UMC has 172 members, half of whom are gay and lesbian, Dr. Oliveto said.

"Dr. Oliveto's playing games with the Discipline will not change that, but it has revealed her lack of covenantal concern for her brothers and sisters in the denomination."  [said Bishop Peter Weaver]

Dr. Oliveto wrote Feb. 12, in her weekly e-mail to parishioners, that the city-hall union of Bethany parishioners Michael Eaton and Sean Higgins was "one of the most moving experiences of my ministry. I have presided over countless holy unions, and have treated them with the same solemnity and respect that I would any straight wedding. But to be able to say the words, 'You are now legally wed' was a powerful thing!"

Dr. Oliveto's participation isn't the first time California-Nevada conference clergy have challenged The United Methodist Church's stance against homosexual practice.

In 1999, during the term of the previous bishop, Melvin G. Talbert, 67 pastors -- dubbed the "Sacramento 67" -- and 700 others participated in a blessing of a lesbian couple. A conference committee dismissed charges against the pastors, and 15 evangelical pastors quit the denomination as a result of the decision. On Jan. 18 at St. Mark's UMC in San Francisco, some of the participants celebrated the ceremony's fifth anniversary, according to Connection, the conference's newspaper.

Bethany UMC was the denomination's fourth "reconciling congregation" 20 years ago. Dr. Oliveto co-chairs the Reconciling Ministries Network, which works toward "full participation of all people" in the UMC. The network includes 192 congregations, 26 campus ministries, 19 other ministries and 17,000 United Methodists.
 

DENVER, Colo. -- Iliff School of Theology, nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, is the only United Methodist -- and the only mainstream Protestant -- seminary between Kansas City and California, between Canada and Mexico.

Iliff's location on the vast prairies of the inland West is what has shaped its outlook, said the Rev. David Maldonado, president. "We're in Colorado. This is not the Bible Belt. You cannot assume a religious culture. And we're dealing with distance and expanse."

Since it is the only mainline seminary in such a large, sparsely-populated geographical area, Iliff's student body is small (300-350 students) and ecumenical, Dr. Maldonado said. About 40 percent of the students are United Methodists; 40 percent are men and 60 percent are women. One-third of Iliff's faculty are people of color, and they represent various traditions and faiths, officials said.

"No one has a monopoly on knowing God. We all have a glimpse of the Divine," he said, "and everybody's glimpse is probably different -- each has a different angle, a different perspective, a different nuance. The more I learn about your glimpse of the Divine, the more I am enriched, so that I can understand my own glimpse of the Divine. Without diminishing my glimpse, or questioning it, I am enriched by yours."

It's not only Iliff's location in the "wild west," and its mix of students, faculty and staff from more than 40 faith traditions that have created its progressive outlook. . . . It's the seminary's history.

This particular United Methodist seminary was founded by a 19th century Methodist bishop who was disturbed by fundamentalism. Henry White Warren, elected bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1880, was also a scientist and the author of a well-known book on astronomy. With his wife, Elizabeth Iliff Warren, he established the school in 1892 as a graduate theological school of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

At the time Iliff was established, there was deep division in the Methodist church over Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and its implications, Dr. Troeger explained. The founder's response to that controversy was firm: "Warren said, 'we are founding this school to inspire more Darwins,'" said Dr. Troeger [dean of academic affairs and senior vice president].

Dr. Troeger said Iliff's founder "stood against any form of fundamentalism. He believed fundamentalism was an act of disfaith in God, because it took the Bible literally when God was clearly making new revealations through science."

Third-year divinity student Karen Stauffers from the California-Nevada Annual Conference said, "Iliff is not the 'one size fits all' liberal-radical seminary that people make it out to be. There are a variety of theologies and people here, with different ideas about how they approach the Divine, different Christologies, and different politics."

"Iliff kind of relishes the question more than it does the answer," said alumnus the Rev. Paul Kottke, pastor of Denver's University Park UMC and chair of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference's board of ordination.

That open-ended approach is to be celebrated, Mr. Kottke said, because "out of the questions, the answers will come. If we fear the question, then we pre-set our answers. And I wonder if the church doesn't do that too often. It so fears that if open-ended questions are asked, then the knowledge will collapse."

A student at the seminary in the early 1980s, Mr. Kottke admits that Iliff at that time was weak at helping students reassemble their minds and psyches after being challenged by teachers. The idea then, he said, was that the local churches seminarians attended would help them "put it back together."

In addition to the master of divinity degree and the master of theological studies, Iliff offers master of arts degrees in justice and peace studies, pastoral care and religious leadership. Special programs include Anglican studies, urban ministry studies, and women and religion studies.
 

With regret, with respect, I have decided not to see Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ.

. . . I have decided not to see the movie for a simple reason: I don't need to see it.

As a Christian writer and teacher, and especially as a biblical storyteller who has acted the Passion story, I don't need to see Mr. Gibson's interpretation because I'm aware every day of what Jesus endured for my salvation. Humbly, I realize that this makes me more blessed than many people. I believe that it's for these many that Mr. Gibson has made his film; if you wish to see it, by all means, go.

Is the film authentic? Magazine articles have documented The Passion's cinematic licenses. Yet even the Gospel stories of Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection disagree, so factual inaccuracies must be allowed.

What matters about The Passion is that Mr. Gibson tells the story of Jesus as he has been touched by it, to everyone who will listen.

The Passion gives all Christians a priceless moment -- what we call a "kairos," or "teachable" moment -- for us to tell the Gospel to others as we have experienced it. Our own faith stories may not be as stunningly presented as Mr. Gibson's, but they will matter just as much, because they are the true stories of our relationship with Christ. God gives each of us the capacity to reach someone who needs to hear The Story, told in our own way, if we stay alert to the possibility.

I believe now is such a time, and The Passion has helped to create the time. For this, Mel Gibson has my appreciation, my respect and my prayers.
 

Whether from last summer's annual conferences or United Methodist publications, the story is the same: the church is running out of money.

The retrenchment exercises being implemented are signs that the basic problems of fiscal failings are not being addressed. Cutting back does not solve anything; it merely delays the inevitable.

It is easy to question whether our church really wants to "get well" fiscally. How many congregations, even annual conferences, have to go bankrupt before we get down to the business of relating faith to finances in functional ways?

It can be done. I wonder when the first signs of genuine recovery will begin to surface.
 

Thinking biblically

In "Christians must think morally about homosexuality," the debate on homosexuality in church leadership is much clearer than the authors have written (see Reporter Interactive, Feb. 11). The writers seem preoccupied with defining homosexuality. They also fail to present what the Bible clearly states about homosexuality and its consequences.

I side with the biblical viewpoint that sin is sin, including homosexuality. God instructs us to turn away from sin, not redefine or candy-coat it. Since we are all sinners, what morally qualifies us to lead, or be ordained, in a church is whether we turn away from our sin.

The fruit reflective of a life walking closely with God is the ultimate moral qualifier for any church leader. "Let's think biblically about homosexuality" would be a more accurate title for this debate.

Cindy Coleman
Longview, Texas

Homosexuality, hospitality

I read Kathy Rudy and Mary McClintock Fulkerson's commentary, "Christians must think morally about homosexuality," after reading Strategic Hospitality by John Piper. Dr. Piper questions why Christians would be interested in hospitality or any morality not related to Christ. He points everything to God, not the morals of hospitality.

The article on homosexuality is basically about whether certain morals qualify us for clergy. While I agree with the statement that "being straight" is no guarantee of a good clergy, there was a definite attempt by the authors to "muddy the waters" regarding God's holiness and we can be as hospitable and generous as the writers commend and allow anyone who is "moral" to become clergy.

But as Dr. Piper points out, "The only ethics and the only morality that have eternal value are ethics and morality that are shaped by God's will, performed by God's power, and aimed at God's glory through Jesus Christ."

We do not do homosexual people, or any person with sinful desires or practices, favors by telling them they're ok. I need to be exhorted to be remade in the image of God. Love me as a sinner, but don't love my sin, church, or you cannot bring glory to God!

Trip Rodgers
Rocky Mount, North Carolina

Bible: final authority?

In the "Point/Counterpoint" columns, Dean Snyder and Leicester Longden missed an opportunity to address a real problem within The United Methodist Church: the lack of respect and authority given to God's holy word, the Bible (see Reporter Interactive, Jan. 21).

Is it or is it not the final authority?

The issue of accepting homosexual clergy and homosexual behavior has been answered in Scripture. The real question is whether the UMC is going to stand for God's Word.

Some claim that homosexuality is not a choice but inborn, and argue that "if God made me that way, how can it be wrong?" The Bible says that we are all born sinners. Jesus accepts sinners, but He also calls us out of our sin, such as the adulteress on whom he had compassion but did not tell her to live the lifestyle of her choosing.

We would all, leadership of the UMC included, be wise to heed God's words written in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Philip E. Davin
Tyler, Texas

War, structure top UM issues
02/18/04
By Steve Smith, Associate Editor

PITTSBURGH -- War, youth ministry, Holy Communion, structure and finances appear likely to top the work of delegates to the 2004 United Methodist General Conference April 27-May 7.

Observers said that they expect traditionalists to take the [General Board of Church and Society] to task for its anti-war stances. In previous conferences, traditionalists have sought unsuccessfully to get delegates to disband the agency--and this year may be no exception.

To cut costs, the General Council on Finance and Administration recommends that delegates slash the number of bishops by one per U.S. jurisdiction, a total of five. If passed, the reduction would reduce the number of bishops elected in July. Fifty bishops serve in the United States; 18 serve in Africa, Europe and Asia.

In addition, other petitions involve the role and duties of bishops. Although no exact numbers were available, Mr. Cropsey said 10 times the number of petitions on bishops were received for the 2004 session than in previous years.

Delegates will consider a proposed $585 million spending plan for the next four years, an increase of 7 percent from 2001-2004. The proposal will come at a time when agencies and local churches have suffered through layoffs and church apportionments are falling short of missions and ministry needs. In addition, delegates face tough decisions on how to pay for new missions programs under the General Board of Global Ministries, which wants to develop 11 new initiatives.

The denomination’s top pension expert said that they face critical decisions on how to deal with the “graying” and unhealthier group of clergy, whose age and health problems are driving up health care costs and diverting money away from mission and ministry.

Letters to the Editor
02/18/04

Nullification trend endangers UMC

The debate between the Rev. Dean Snyder and the Rev. Leceister Longden raises what may be the most divisive issue in The United Methodist Church today (see Reporter, Jan. 23 . . .).

Their debate also reminded me of what was and is one of the most divisive issues in the United States. That issue is known as "nullification."

The idea of nullification surfaced in 1798. U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun, later a vice president, became the most famous advocate of the political philosophy of nullification--the right of the people, or of the states, to nullify any law they believed to be unjust or unfair.

In recent years a small but growing number of United Methodists apparently have become convinced that the clergy have the right to nullify the Constitution, the Articles of Religion and the Book of Discipline of this denomination. Their view reflects the current parallel debate in international law and American legal circles about nullification.

If this is an accurate representation of contemporary reality, the right of nullification once again may turn out to be the road to division--just as Calhoun’s theory of "states’ rights" contributed to the Civil War.

Lyle E. Schaller
Naperville, Illinois

Here I Stand:  Can we accurately view poverty as a weapon?
02/11/04
By Lonnie Brooks

At a news briefing for communicators and first-time delegates to the 2004 General Conference, the Rev. Randy Day, general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries, as part of a panel on financial stewardship, said, "Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction."

I said during a question-and-answer session, "In my observation and experience a weapon is an instrument of intentional destruction, whereas in most instances poverty is an unintended consequence of a series of decisions intended to cause other results. . . ."

We must remember that there really are some evils in the world for which there is no sin or no one to blame. Not every victim can find somebody to sue.

For Mr. Day to make his metaphor defendable, he must redefine what a weapon is, and such a redefinition is probably not helpful in the search for solutions to the problem of poverty.

Commentary:  Christians must think morally about homosexuality
02/11/04
By Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Kathy Rudy

The ongoing debate about homosexuality in the church--which threatens to divide most mainline American denominations--misses the mark because both sides assume the validity of an unchanging identity called "sexual preference."

One side claims that one identity (heterosexual) is acceptable and the other identity (homosexual) isn't. The other side of the debate claims the church should be inclusive of everyone, including gays.

Both of these positions, we believe, wrongly assume that identity itself can function as a moral qualifier.

The idea that people are born with a sexual preference in the same way that they're born into, say, race or gender is troubling. While some people always have been "straight" and others always have been "gay," many people move in and out of these categories throughout their lives.

Most scholars agree that what we now refer to as "homosexuality" is an identity that emerged around the end of the 18th century.

NEW!   The United Methodist Reporter 02/04/04
Digest with Links to Full Articles
For Northern Illinois Conference Laity

Experts: Attacks on religious freedom intensifying worldwide
02/04/04
By Ken Walker, Baptist Press

WASHINGTON -- The list of suffering reads like Hebrews 11:32-39: churches seized, people dragged from meetings and beaten to death, seeing their homes destroyed, or being arrested for carrying Bibles.

David Miller, managing editor of Compass Direct in Santa Ana, Calif., said atrocities often don't involve mass numbers of victims and fail to generate headlines.

"There's very little interest in the mainline press," Mr. Miller said. "People don't want to read about it, but it's happening, and people need to read about it."

Observers urged Americans to participate in intercessory prayer vigils and make such praying integral parts of their ongoing worship services.

Believers also can assist such organizations as Open Doors, Christian Solidarity and Voice of the Martyrs, which help persecuted Christians and families by providing Bibles, training and supplies, he added.

A major issue is the role the United States should play in advancing religious freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq as it helps rebuild those nations, she added.

"The big issue in 2004 is the new paradigm the U.S. is creating in Iraq. Whatever we do there, whatever we leave, is going to affect the entire Islamic world," Ms. Shea said.

Bishop's election clouds Methodist-Episcopal talks
01/28/04
By Steve Smith, Associate Editor

Most United Methodist traditionalists want no ecumenical connection with a Christian denomination that strays from biblical prohibitions against homosexual practice, . . . The Rev. William Abraham, a professor of Wesley studies at United Methodist-related Perkins School of Theology, said Jan. 16 that situations like last year's ordination of New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who is living in a committed relationship with a man, weakens the prospects of church unity.

"Many evangelicals would be fully prepared to form whole new bodies rather than compromise their positions on sexuality," said Dr. Abraham, a leader in the Confessing Movement, an unofficial caucus pressing for doctrinal purity. "Truth, as represented by scriptural authority, takes precedence over unity."

Three days after the Methodist-Anglican talks at Perkins, more than 100 evangelical Episcopalian bishops, pastors, missionaries and theologians from 12 dioceses gathered behind closed doors at a suburban Dallas church to form a group to protest last summer's ordination of Bishop Robinson.

The action is being watched closely by United Methodists who fret that the Episcopalians' action, coupled with recent gay-friendly court decisions, will provide momentum for the General Board of Church and Society proposal to change the denomination's prohibition against ordaining "self-avowed, practicing" homosexual people.

Bishop Duncan said homosexual people are welcome in the Episcopal Church, but should not act on their sexual inclinations.

"We treat homosexuality no different than heterosexuality," he said. "The question for Christians is whether we are prepared to live a holy life or act out a relationship that is apart from the one that is God's design -- and that is chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman."

Since the Robinson election, Roman Catholics and Orthodox leaders in Russia, Syria and Armenia have postponed ecumenical dialogue with Episcopalians.

Christian pollster George Barna sees Church's future in trends
01/28/04
Baptist Press

Dr. Barna leads the Barna Research Group, a marketing research company in Ventura, Calif., that specializes in Christian ministries, churches and nonprofit organizations.

A new Barna study, for example, indicates that The United Methodist Church's $20 million advertising campaign, Igniting Ministry, has increased public awareness of the denomination and first-time church attendance, United Methodist News Service reported.

SBC LIFE, the journal of the Southern Baptist Convention, interviewed Dr. Barna recently. Here are some excerpts:

SBC LIFE: What would you say are the five most significant changes, trends or shifts you have observed?

Dr. Barna: Certainly, one of them would be the decline in biblical literacy. Fewer and fewer people have any clue what Scripture really teaches, as opposed to what they feel it should teach.

Secondly would be an increased emphasis on mega-churches and corresponding stress on the importance of numbers rather than upon the transformation of lives.

The third change would be the rise and importance of the para-church ministry and how much of what churches traditionally used to do now has been taken over by para-church ministries.

The fourth would probably be increased negativity of the mass media toward Christianity -- that's a huge one.

Finally is church members' increased reliance upon clergy, rather than laity, to get ministry done.