I found The Runaway Train rather self-indulgent. The purpose is to
persuade representives to Conference to back an amendment which would
allow churches to secede from the Connexion and take their assets with
them on payment of a token £1. I know of one circuit which is hoping to
do this.
Helen & Neil Bishop 48 Hockley Lane, Coventry, CV5 7FT T 02475 310174 M
07850 160558 (Helen) 07803 592206 (Neil)
From: John Barnett <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 24 June 2021 11:32:29 BST
To: methmins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [methmins] Re: The Runaway Train
Thank you for that post, Joe. I found it moving and helpful.
I wasn't intending to suggest we should have kicked the matter into the
long grass. My concern was for the essentially good people in our
congregations who may find it hard to cope with what may seem like
drastic change. As I write that, I am aware that there are others who
feel that change has been far too long in coming.
This discussion has made me think and helped me examine my own position,
and I would not now write in the way I did when I sent my first post. I
pray for the grace to be able to help others whose view of Conference's
decisions may be more influenced by the headlines than the facts.
John Barnett
On 24 June 2021 at 10:57 "jn.adams"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John writes - Why go for a vote that will inevitably divide us,
when we might have been able to find a middle way?
The current situation has been exactly that since the 80s. We have been
divided all these years and It hasn't been cost free for the huge
numbers who are LGBTQ+ their families and friends. I understand
completely the points MET put forward because I was a card carrying
member of EA and HEADWAY the forerunner of MET for many many years and
hold still an evangelical zeal . But the middle way was a promise that
we would journey together - perhaps it wasn’t that for some and it’s
hard not to think some never wanted inclusion or equality and saw lgbt
people as a problem to be tolerated but never cherished.
Constantly saying let’s kick this into the long grass is desperately
hurtful. We have talked about this prayed about it and I pray listened
to others for decades - if we haven’t that probably means we have not
engaged because we didn’t want to.
The idea that only liberal unbiblical lgbt people want change in this
area is nonsense- the parents / grandparents / friends Who have learned
to love their child’s / grandchild’s / friends sexuality and understand
it was never a choice have moved so many on. The experience of lgbt
ministers being loving faithful biblically sound pastors has changed
minds too. And it has been such a slow and lifetime long journey.
Just as people had to learn god was leading on slavery or child labour
or women in leadership the road has been rocky and many have struggled
to accept the spirit is at work, yet the evidence of the spirit working
seems so obvious to me. So many churches and synods across our nation
have understood that god is at work. It’s not just been a sudden lurch
to unbelief.
What I am unsure people realise I think is how LGBTQ+ people are made
to feel and I wish we would think of these when we say we can push this
down into the long grass and wait it out. I like many I’m our churches
and communities was told I was unacceptable to God, a mistake that
proves sin is at work. And much much worse.
The ridiculous gay conversion nonsense used on me and countless others
caused life long mental damage to us and those we love. If I pray that
your ethnicity be changed by God to Jewish before god could love
you, or asian or black and that only then would you be acceptable to
your church your friends and your God I would be condemning you to a
life of deep despair sadness and futility, suicide even, or pushing you
out of church as many have been .
And it would be completely insane and impossible . Sexuality isn’t a
choice anymore than ethnicity. If it was who would choose this hate
riddled path?.
The beating I received to drive the devil out happened at the instance
of a Methodist minister and I married a woman because he said that would
confirm and indeed make the cure. After almost 25 years marriage my ex
wife was left scarred and deeply damaged by that ridiculous policy as
have I and our children, and only after many suicide attempts did I
escape and finally realise that what I have preached to others actually
applied to me, that I too was fearfully and wonderfully made. That God
didn’t hate me. It wasn’t loving or kind or necessary and we should be
ashamed as a Church that happened and indeed still happens. Ashamed of
the hurt we have caused. Yet many of us think it should continue.
We have lived with a middle ground that has oppressed people like me and
left us damaged and hurt by church district and Connexion who think it
is acceptable to allow churches ministers and circuits and indeed
Connexional office holders to treat me like scum that pollutes the
whole. I was told homophobia is acceptable just like racism and sexism.
Utter rubbish. We need to be Christ like once again and start
challenging unChristian behaviour - not sexuality but hatred and
prejudice .
People don’t have to get on with me but they don’t get to abuse me
anymore than they can a woman or a black or Asian minister. Yet they do
and we pretend it is acceptable.
Yet No one needs to leave - we hold contradictory positions on so many
things that do not destroy our fellowship; war, pacifism, abortion, sex
outside marriage, cohabitation, divorce, Palestine, the place of other
faiths, hell, heaven, the role of women, politics, taxation etc. There
are Methodists who still won’t receive HC from a woman or a black
person. I am astounded and repulsed by that and want to scream that we
allow it. There are still places where a woman cannot be stationed where
a black minister cannot be stationed, where I cannot. We accept that
though I wish we would grow and understand how horrible such things are.
That they are against the spirit not just of liberal laws but the spirit
of Jesus.
I still cannot understand why my sexuality is such a stumbling block or
why it would cause people to break fellowship. I didn’t leave when I was
told if I walked into a church everyone would leave because of my sin
polluting the church. Or when I saw the racism exisited in the
church. So many lgbt people and their friends and allies have stayed
for decades waiting for the conversation and understanding. We are still
here, serving faithfully. And hoping that god and the church will stand
with us.
The MET document worries me on many points BUT these are part of my
Methodist family, and more important they are family in Christ and I
won’t walk away from them or break fellowship . These are members of
churches I grew in the faith in and are people I have served and served
with. And i would be denying the faith Jesus called me to have if I
didn’t love them and see the, as family. Which is I guess why I am
hurting so much reading posts that threaten resignations I just don’t
understand because I will not walk away or give up, I will continue to
stay and continue to know that my calling and my church are worthy of my
commitment and presence. God never called any of us to live in Holy
huddles or enclaves separate from the rest of the world rejecting those
we don’t think are our enough . That is not the Methodist or the Jesus
way.
No GILUU doesn’t require anyone church or individual to act against
their views but does ask that we respect one another. Paul Smith is a
wonderful example of the journey I think we have made as a denomination
over the last decades in our church , proof I think that the spirit is
at work.
Joe
On 24 Jun 2021, 09:39 +0100, methmins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, wrote:
Why go for a vote that will inevitably divide us, when we might
have been able to find a middle way?
