[Magdalen] UMC TV Ads

[John R Robison]

I just had a heart to heart with a younger cousin about his ordination in the UMC. Both of hi parents are good "liberals." He's afraid of being trapped in a denomination dominated by a radical rump. The aren't a majority, per se, but are the largest faction. They also played a careful game to take control of key pieces of the polity.  For example, Bishops are named by a set of commissions that are formed by otherwise none acting bodies, policy wise that is. While everybody else was fighting in the Conferences and boards, the Rads were getting in place to name the Bishops. Combined with the skewing of the ages of many General Conference to well over 50, and a tendency for older, rural Methodists to be conservative, and the current ascendency in the UMC is well rooted.

I didn't have that much yo advise Nate.  

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 12, 2015, at 8:03 PM, <thedonboyd at austin.rr.com> <thedonboyd at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> The UMC includes as members both ardent Tea Party Republicans and equally ardent liberal Democrats, with the religious-right folks more ascendant than they were when my Methodist-minister father--a Social Gospel devotee who believed social justice was as important as personal holiness--was active (1930-1970).  Many Methodist clergy today are graduates of an evangelical seminary that claims a Methodist heritage but is unaffiliated with the UMC.  There are Methodists (lay, clerical, & episcopal) who view gay marriage as a social justice issue, but they are AFAIK way outnumbered.  I became an Episcopalian 55 years ago (then aged 23) because (a) I wanted and needed to be in worshipping communities that shared Holy Communion every week rather than once in three months, and (b) I could see the ascendancy of the evangelical know-nothings coming.  
> 
> 
> ---- Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote: 
>> Not bad...for an outfit that rejected gay marriage.
>> 
>> The Lutheran church I go to partners with the UMC across the street on a
>> lot of community service projects. The social gospel, at least, seems to be
>> alive and well over there. One of my dear friends in Tennessee, who grew up
>> Roman Catholic and was estranged from all church for a long time, is now a
>> lay minister in the UMC and very active in mission work (mostly in health
>> care--she's a nurse) and was for a time one of the parish nurses in the
>> church she attends.
>> 
>>> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 2:17 PM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Have any of you seen the United Methodist Church TV Ads/
>>> 
>>> They've bought spots on over the air TV -- saw two of them on the news
>>> this morning; caught one of them last week in Harrisburg too.
>>> 
>>> See:
>>> 
>>> http://www.rethinkchurch.org/
>>> 
>>> And see one of the TV Spots.
>>> 
>>> Neat stuff.
>>> 
>>> I wonder if they managed to put it together in less than the 2 1/2 years
>>> it took the folk at 815 for TEC <g> ?. It's clear that unlike TEC, there
>>> was money left in the budget to place the ads as well. .
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Jim
>>> 
>>> "The enemy isn’t liberalism;
>>> the enemy isn’t conservatism.
>>> The enemy, is baloney." - Lars Erik Nelson
>