MainlineTruths

UMC: We aren't lobbyists, we just pretend to be

How's this for being disingenuous:

Linda Bales, an executive with the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, participated in a panel discussion on advocacy with representatives from the Episcopal and Evangelical Lutheran churches. She explained to non-Methodists that her agency bases its advocacy positions on the denomination's Social Principles, which outline the church's position on social and economic concerns and other human issues based on a "sound biblical and theological foundation."

"We're not lobbyists," said Bales, "but we do mobilize people to be a prophetic voice. We play the United Methodist card whenever we can, reminding politicians that there are 8 million United Methodists in the U.S. Of course, not all agree with every position we take. Our General Secretary, Jim Winkler, regularly speaks out against the war in Iraq and gets numerous pieces of hate mail because of that."

So essentially what Linda Bales is saying is that although they don't represent 8 million United Methodists, she doesn't mind pretending that the UMC lobbyists (and yes, they are lobbyists) represent 8 million people.

Where I come from, we call that lying. Bales calls it a "prophetic voice".

UMC Youth Minister sentenced to 20 years for molestation

OK... when do we admit there's a problem here?

A sometime youth minister and basketball coach has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to molesting a teenage boy in Liberty Hill.

The Williamson County District Attorney's office said Charles Edward Pinkard, 46, plead guilty to two counts of indecency with a child for molesting a boy from 2001 until 2005. He received 20 years in prison for each count. The boy was 13 when the molestation began, and continued until the boy told a therapist of the incidents in 2005.

The D.A. office says Pinkard had worked as a youth minister on service projects, mission trips and recreational activities at Northwest Hills United Methodist Church and as a chidren's coach for a basketball program.

Pinkard will serve at least 10 years before becoming eligible for parole and will have to register as a sex offender every 90 days after his sentence is over.

Another case of alleged abuse...

This one from the UMC:

The former pastor of a Columbia church pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of second-degree statutory sodomy and second-degree statutory rape in the 13th Circuit Court.

Columbia police said in a probable cause statement that Roberto Edgar Lopez, 36, had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl who attended Horeb United Methodist Church, a bilingual Spanish and English-langauge church Lopez helped establish.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if you added the sizes of the Mainline Churches and divided that by the number of allegations of abuse, if Mainline Churches don't have a larger problem than the Catholic Church relative to size. I don't know for certain but this seems to be coming up more frequently.

UMC group compares illegal immigrants to Jesus

Don't get me wrong here... God's love knows no boundaries and poor immigrants are no different than any other poor - they need our Christian compassion and our help. However, the analogy of illegal immigration to Jesus is becoming all too common and confused. From the UMC:

"We're challenged to take care of the foreign among us," said Bishop Aldo Etchegoyen, top staff executive of the Council of Evangelical Methodist Churches of Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Through the immigrants, the Lord of life is saying, 'Here I am without papers, far away from my country and alone.' Jesus' first experience was when he went to Egypt as an immigrant for political reasons. Since then, the protection of immigrants is a challenge and commandment of the gospel. To help the immigrants is a form of our faith and mission as a church," the bishop said.

When Mexico starts threatening to kill all infant boys, then we can talk about a real comparison... otherwise this is a little too politically opportunistic. Is it possible to focus on the issue of illegal immigration without bad references to Jesus?