Mark Tooley gloats:
The Adam Hamilton motion was considered the strongest attempt to dilute the United Methodist Church’s current stance that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The church prohibits same-sex unions and precludes actively homosexual clergy, expecting all clergy to be celibate if single and monogamous if in a marriage between man and woman. Legislative committees last week recommended retaining these current stances.
via United Methodists Reject Agree to Disagree Motion on Homosexuality « Juicy Ecumenism.
Such a statement is silly, I think. I know that this is going to get my liberal friends fired up, but honestly, all you are doing is actually causing the split with the agree to disagree statements. The UMC is an episcopal-style church. You shouldn’t have one group going that way and another that way. That didn’t even work for the Baptists.
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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Joel,
I agree with you. The problem I have with such amendments is that they simply state the obvious. We could propose amendments like this on abortion, capital punishment, and a whole host of other subjects. Individually we do not all agree, but the task of General Conference to put for what has been called “the mind of the church.”