The season of Advent always comes as a time of “now-and-not-yet.” Scripture readings for this period of the Christian year hark back to God’s promise to Israel of a deliverer and forward to the time when God’s promise of salvation…
United Methodists will welcome President Biden for Communion
Roman Catholic bishops may bar President Joe Biden from receiving Holy Communion because of his political beliefs, but United Methodists are ready to welcome him to the Lord‘s Supper without question. Anyone who has attended Communion in a United Methodist…
Now there appear to be three paths for once-united Methodists
For more than half a century, leaders of The United Methodist Church have seen the denomination as a “big tent,” a place where different theological and ecclesiastical identities could co-exist and perhaps even co-mingle as a single entity. Now that…
Visionaries seek new creation from United Methodist chaos
In 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in the fledgling United States of America at a gathering that became known as the Christmas Conference. This year, The United Methodist Church, descendant of that first denomination, faces a Christmas of…
African bishops demand independence in deciding United Methodist Church’s future
The conflict over acceptance of LGBTQ persons in The United Methodist Church has become a three-way fight — with even more contenders likely waiting to turn the bout into a battle royal between opposing American forces and the rest of…
Bishops issue rare letter urging United Methodists to vote
While still uncertain of their own institutional future, United Methodist leaders recently called on clergy and church members to vote in the 2020 U.S. presidential election in order to “protect democracy.” Although some in pew and pulpit complain that their…
Inclusion can get messy: gospel implications of a ‘Wider Welcome’ for United Methodists and the rest of us
Christian history is replete with the expulsion of persons from the church; times when sin, sex, orthodoxy and “special needs” all run together and somebody or some bodies had to go. Perhaps we should add an asterisk to “Everybody is Welcome” on our church signs.
For my Methodist friends (and others): how to survive the death of your denominational home. Or not
My sisters and brothers in the Methodist tradition (and elsewhere), if you do have to leave your denominational home, I hope that you keep your eyes and ears open for a God you or your tradition can’t hold on to: a God at the bottom of the slippery slope, in a field Rumi famously described as one beyond right doing and wrong doing.