It is a time of purported visions and miracles for tens of thousands of Indonesians, as the world’s most populous Muslim nation experiences a rise in the number of self-proclaimed prophets thanks to social media.

But the emergence of new religious movements claiming divine connections, which often draw on elements of Islam and Christianity, has been highly controversial in the increasingly conservative Muslim nation.

Several new religious leaders and their followers have already been prosecuted and imprisoned under the country’s strict blasphemy laws.

Al Makin, an Indonesian expert in new religious movements at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, said the movements had gained traction mainly due to increased exposure on social media and people seeking answers during periods of economic and political uncertainty.

“Their existence often stems from uncertainties surrounding an unstable political climate,” he said, referring to the widespread social instability after the fall of former president Suharto and the 1998 Asian financial crisis, which caused job losses and increased poverty.

Read it all.

A monk credited with bringing Christianity to Germany could become the patron saint of Devon.

St Boniface, who lived in Crediton before travelling around Europe, was born in the 7th Century and killed by a mob aged around 80 in what is now the Netherlands.

The patron saint plan was put forward by a county councillor and is supported by the bishops of Exeter and Plymouth.

Devon County Council is due to discuss the motion later.

County councillor Nick Way, who represents Crediton, described St Boniface as a “significant historic figure”, and said making him Devon’s patron saint would be “important for the county’s identity and tourism”.

Read it all.

St Boniface could be Devon patron saint https://t.co/Zpg6EvjSsg pic.twitter.com/JveyqYesHe

— More UK News (@TweetMoreUKNews) March 13, 2019

Most gracious God, by the calling of thy servant James Theodore Holly thou gavest us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led thy people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom thou callest from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

1874 #JamesTheodoreHolly, an African American who emigrated to #Haiti in 1861, is elected bishop of #Haiti. pic.twitter.com/BrXmoPdGOR

— Charles Roberts (@mrcharleyr) November 3, 2016

O Lord God, keep ever in our remembrance the life and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Make the thought of his love powerful to win us from evil. As he toiled and sorrowed and suffered for us, in fighting against sin, so may we endure constantly and labour diligently, as his soldiers and servants, looking ever unto him and counting it all joy to be partakers with him in his conflict, his cross, and his victory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Furthermore the Lord said to me, ”˜I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people; let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. So I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin which you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened to me that time also. And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. Then I took the sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw the dust of it into the brook that descended out of the mountain.

–Deuteronomy 9:13-21

A teenage girl who did not play soccer magically became a star soccer recruit at Yale. Cost to her parents: $1.2 million.

A high school boy eager to enroll at the University of Southern California was falsely deemed to have a learning disability so he could take his standardized test with a complicit proctor who would make sure he got the right score. Cost to his parents: at least $50,000.

A student with no experience rowing won a spot on the U.S.C. crew team after a photograph of another person in a boat was submitted as evidence of her prowess. Her parents wired $200,000 into a special account.

In a major college admissions scandal that laid bare the elaborate lengths some wealthy parents will go to get their children into competitive American universities, federal prosecutors charged 50 people on Tuesday in a brazen scheme to buy spots in the freshmen classes at Yale, Stanford and other big name schools.

Read it all.

Federal authorities charged 50 people in what the Justice Department is calling the largest college admissions scandal it has ever prosecuted.

Here’s a full list of the people who have been charged. https://t.co/2v85gVwYyz

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 12, 2019

There are new ways to say goodbye.

While many still turn to the funeral rites that have comforted generations, others, led by baby boomers, are taking a different approach than their parents and grandparents. They are instead choosing individualized and symbolic memorials: a party with a punk-rock band for a tattoo artist, or a gathering at an airport hangar for the devoted mechanic.

“It’s more about a life lived than a ritual of religion,” says Jimmy Olson, a spokesperson for the National Funeral Directors Association.

A changing society is fueling this trend. Nearly a quarter of adults in the U.S. aren’t affiliated with any organized religion, according to a 2014 report from the Pew Research Center. A rise in cremations, which now outnumber burials, gives leeway on when and where to hold memorials. Although there are some laws about where ashes can be scattered, many people spread them surreptitiously in especially meaningful places. In the past year, more than half of around 1,000 people surveyed had attended a memorial in a non-traditional place—in a backyard, atop a mountain, aboard a boat—according to the NFDA.

These non-traditional events have given rise to funeral celebrants, who custom design memorials for anywhere from $250 to $1,000. Pam Vetter, a certified funeral celebrant in Los Angeles, says she decided to go into the field after her sister died of cancer and the pastor at their church refused to show a farewell video. Ms. Vetter has a podium, speaker system, and CD player that she brings to hold memorials in gardens, homes and on board yachts….

Read it all.

The Free-Form Funeral – WSJ https://t.co/lEHKmz14EE

— Scott Hirons (@SMSMrHirons) March 10, 2019

[The] Reverend Robert Duncan served as the Bishop of Pittsburgh for two decades before being elected the first Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America 10 years ago. He served until 2014 when he attempted to retire. Instead, he says he soon learned the church was looking to update its venerable Book of Common Prayer, an important and tangible link between the American church and its English forebear.

“There came to be the assessment that the 1662 (book) was the standard for both doctrine and worship within Anglicanism,” he explained. “So the 2019 book is actually a fresh assessment of 1662; an attempt to be completely continuous on what it is that Anglicans have always believed and how they’ve always prayed.”

But no sooner had Duncan accomplished that formidable job, than the church had a new assignment for him. The newly elevated St. Peter’s Cathedral parish in Tallahassee, Florida found itself without a dean. The congregation’s longtime leader, Father Eric Dudley, had resigned this past summer amidst allegations of alcohol abuse and an improper relationship. Robert Duncan was sent into the breach.

“This is one of the half-dozen most significant congregations in the entire Anglican Church in North America,” he insisted. “In the midst of a difficult moment, the bishop of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese Neil Lebhar and the archbishop, my successor Foley Beach, both called me and said, ‘You need to go to St. Peter’s.’”

Read it all.

Read it all.

Diocese of #SouthCarolina 228th Convention Begins this Friday https://t.co/rr6yvsAmil #anglican #ministry #parishministry #lowcountrylife #religion pray for us pic.twitter.com/CbIzsT0yrN

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 12, 2019

After the loss of his goods, the death of his children, the wounds of his body, the words of his wife persuading him to evil, the insulting language of his comforters, and the darts of so many sorrows boldly received, blessed Job ought to have been praised by his Judge for such great power of constancy, if he had been now going to be called out of this present world. But after he is here about to receive back yet two-fold, after he is restored to his former health, to enjoy longer his restored possessions, Almighty God is obliged to reprove with strict justice him, whom He preserves alive, lest his very victory should lay him low with the sword of pride. For what commonly slays a soul more fatally than consciousness of virtue? For while it puffs it up with self-consideration, it deprives it of the fulness of truth; and while it suggests that it is sufficient of itself for the attainment of rewards, it diverts it from the intention improvement. Job, therefore, was just before his scourges but he remained more just after his scourges; and, having been praised before by the voice of God, he afterward; increased from the blow. For as a ductile tube is length ened by being hammered, so was he raised the higher in praise of God, as he was smitten with heavier chastisement But he who stood thus firm in his virtues, when prostrated by wounds, needed to be humbled. He needed to be humbled, lest the weapons of pride should pierce that most sturdy breast, which it was plain that even the wounds that had been inflicted had not overcome. It was doubtless necessary to find out a person, by comparison with whom he would have been surpassed. But what is this, which is said of him by the voice of the Lord; Thou hast seen My servant Job, that there is no man like him upon the earth. Job 1:8; 2:3. By comparison with whom then could he be surpassed, of whom it is said, on the witness of God, that he cannot be equalled, on comparison with any man? What then must be done, except for the Lord Himself to relate to him His own virtues, and to say to him, Canst thou bring forth the morning star in its season, and canst thou make the evening star to rise over the sons of men? Job 38:32. And again, Have the gates of death been opened to thee, and hast thou seen the gloomy doors? ib. 17. Or certainly; Hast thou commanded the dawn after thy rising, and hast thou shewn the morning its place? ib. 12. But who can do these things, but the Lord? And yet a man is asked, in order that he may learn that he is unable to do these things; in order that a man, who has increased with such boundless virtues, and is surpassed by the example of no man, may, that he should not be elated, be surpassed on comparison with God.

—-Gregory the Great (540-604), Book of Morals 6.Preface.1

St. Gregory the Great, Pray for us!🙏✝️ pic.twitter.com/gZ3ifjbnCm

— Joan Marie (@Jj051301) March 12, 2019

Almighty and merciful God, who didst raise up Gregory of Rome to be a servant of the servants of God, and didst inspire him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in thy Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that thy people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

#OTD 12 March 604: death of Pope Gregory the Great, who sent Augustine to England. pic.twitter.com/zQRd4j3pXR

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) March 12, 2019

Almighty and everlasting God, who for the well-being of our earthly life hast put into our hearts wholesome desires of body and spirit: Mercifully increase and establish in us, we beseech thee, the grace of holy discipline and healthy self-control; that we may fulfill our desires by the means which thou hast appointed, and for the ends thou ordainest; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in God’s house. Yet Jesus has been counted worthy of as much more glory than Moses as the builder of a house has more honor than the house. (For every house is built by some one, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ was faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope.

–Hebrews 3:1-6

O Lord our God, grant us, we beseech thee, patience in troubles, humility in comforts, constancy in temptations, and victory over all our spiritual foes. Grant us sorrow for our sins, thankfulness for thy benefits, fear of thy judgment, love of thy mercies, and mindfulness of thy presence; now and for evermore.

The Role Of The Church Fathers In Anglicanism

“Religion, Discipline And Rites Of The Church Of England. Chapter V.” (John Cosin)https://t.co/ZNUcehh7hV pic.twitter.com/0i4EgnP0sp

— Lancelot Andrewes (@LancelotAndrew3) February 15, 2019

“Take heed lest you forget the LORD your God, by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes, which I command you this day: lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage…

–Deuteronomy 8:11-14

A new study from Exponential by LifeWay Research found 6 in 10 Protestant churches are plateaued or declining in attendance and more than half saw fewer than 10 people become new Christians in the past 12 months.

“Growth is not absent from American churches,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research. “But rapid growth through conversions is uncommon.”

The research gives a clear picture of the state of Protestant churches in America today. Most have fewer than 100 people attending services each Sunday (57%), including 21 percent who average fewer than 50. Around 1 in 10 churches (11%) average 250 or more for their worship services.

Three in five (61%) pastors say their churches faced a decline in worship attendance or growth of 5 percent or less in the last three years. Almost half (46%) say their giving decreased or stayed the same from 2017 to 2018.

Read it all.

The state of Protestant churches in America today:

Most have fewer than 100 people attending services each Sunday (57%), including 21 percent who average fewer than 50

Around 1 in 10 churches (11%) average 250 or more for their worship serviceshttps://t.co/awgk1LTJBe

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 9, 2019

A little girl was asked what she did when she was tempted. She replied,”Well, when I hear Satan come knocking at the door of my heart, I just say to the Lord Jesus, who lives within my heart, ‘Lord Jesus, will You please go to the door?’ And then, when the Lord Jesus opens the door, Satan draws away and says, ‘Oh, excuse me, I have made a mistake.'”

God has given us Himself to dwell within our hearts. The Living Word is there with a full command of the Written Word. When we let Him meet the temptation in our behalf we shall know the joy of positive victory. We are fortunate that one victory does not help us to win another, for our hearts are kept from feasting upon an experience so that we may gaze upon the living Lord Jesus Christ.

–Donald Grey Barnhouse (1895–1960)

Rev. Donald Grey Barnhouse [1895-1960] https://t.co/NXYlUdXxgr pic.twitter.com/vzQF3ffy0n

— Presbyterian History (@pres_history) March 28, 2018

The ‘digital world’, that is an environment composed of digital services facilitated by the internet, plays an ever-increasing role in all aspects of life. It is the internet that makes the world go round today. It is the internet that that provides heat and light. The trouble is that as the control of this world settles in the hands of a few very dominant players, there seems to be more heat than light.

In the past year many of us have woken up to this. Our data is the currency with which Facebook makes its billions. We thought we were the customer; we have discovered we’re the product. Darker still, all sorts of inappropriate and illegal material are available to anyone who has a smart phone in their pocket, whatever their age: from on line bullying to do it yourself advice on how to self-harm, things that would not be tolerated offline flourish in the online environment. Parents in particular feel anxious and out of control. At the same time fake news, the misuse of personal data and abusive and hateful speech diminish and toxify our democracy and our public life.

For Christians and people of faith this is a particularly important issue. Jesus reserves his most stinging opprobrium for those who make life difficult for children. And it is children who are most at risk from an ineffectively regulated internet. Equally important, a faith perspective maintains that human flourishing requires the foundations of a strong and agreed ethical framework. It is this that is lacking online.

When other things that are wrong in our society and people demand that something must be done. With the internet, people are aware of the problem, but feel powerless. They don’t think anything can be done.

But it can.

Read it all.

O Lord and heavenly Father, who hast given unto us thy people the true bread that cometh down from heaven, even thy Son Jesus Christ: Grant that throughout this Lent our souls may so be fed by him that we may continually live in him and he in us; and that day by day we may be renewed in spirit by the power of his endless life, who gave himself for us, and now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins.”

–Mark 2:18-22

Next to Augustine and a figure like Von Balthasar, Edwards is one of the Christian theologians who has given the closest attention to the subject of beauty within theology. And for this reason alone, he merits deep engagement. And I think people will find this particular aspect of the work very thought-provoking in a number of areas. I will be taking some of Edwards’ insights about beauty and thinking, and reflecting upon them, and seeking to integrate them into my own thinking.

His understanding of typology is also closely related to this. Reality is typological. It is something about the very nature of reality: I will maybe make a few comments about that later on. That gives him a very typological reading of Scripture, but also of the wider world. His theology is very God-centred, but not just in a narrow way that is focused upon divine sovereignty. It is focused upon God’s beauty, upon God’s ordering of his creation, upon God’s presence—all these sorts of themes—not just narrowly upon divine sovereignty, which it can be within certain Reformed contexts.

His understanding of God is also very important, his focus upon the fact that God is Trinity; his understanding of the Trinity is one that might unsettle people in various ways. At certain points, it would seem to raise questions about its orthodoxy relative to the tradition. It is argued that he challenges things like divine simplicity: ‘[He] departed from the Western Trinitarian tradition by rejecting its emphasis on divine simplicity, which was one of the ways in which Augustine and his successors guarded the faith against recurring Arianism [197].’

He takes the psychological analogy for the Trinity, but then holds it alongside a social analogy, to which he gives slightly more weight. He also believes that we can reason through the Trinity, which is a striking and quite controversial statement.

Read it all.

Transcript for Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott, ‘The Theology of Jonathan Edwards’ https://t.co/3y0YbgrZTy pic.twitter.com/NNVmfPRjf7

— Alastair Roberts (@zugzwanged) March 9, 2019

What we are is a set of walking contradictions: our inner lives are not partitioned like day and night, with pure light on one side of us and total darkness on the other. Mostly, our souls are shadowed places; we live at the border where our dark sides block our light and throw a shadow over our interior places. . . . We cannot always tell where our light ends and our shadow begins or where our shadow ends and our darkness begins.

–Lewis Smedes, Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve (New York: HarperOne, 2009 ed. of 1993 original), p. 116

Food for Thought from Lewis Smedes in #Lent ‘What we are is a set of walking contradictions: our inner lives R not partitioned like day+night, with pure light on 1 side of us+total darkness on the other. Mostly, our souls R shadowed places…’ https://t.co/rTbpmsfzOb (Amazon) pic.twitter.com/8Gk2CdO5L4

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 9, 2019

Read it all. The whole piece as well as the links and comments are well worth the time. Of all the bits, I found this most revealing. If you look through the Christian Century article you see this quote:

[James B. Lemler, Episcopal director of mission] also said that officials were heartened that average Sunday attendance in 2005 did not decline as it did in the previous two years. The average Sunday worship attendance in 2005 was 787,000 people, down only 8,500.

Since that time, according to the most recent data available (from 2017) ASA has declined to 556,744, a decline of more than 29%.

But our argument in reply to this is ready and clear. For any one who condemns those who say that the Godhead is one, must necessarily support either those who say that there are more than one, or those who say that there is none. But the inspired teaching does not allow us to say that there are more than one, since, whenever it uses the term, it makes mention of the Godhead in the singular; as ‘In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead’ Colossians 2:9 “; and, elsewhere ‘The invisible things of Him from the foundation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead Romans 1:20.’ If, then, to extend the number of the Godhead to a multitude belongs to those only who suffer from the plague of polytheistic error, and on the other hand utterly to deny the Godhead would be the doctrine of atheists, what doctrine is that which accuses us for saying that the Godhead is one? But they reveal more clearly the aim of their argument. As regards the Father, they admit the fact that He is God , and that the Son likewise is honoured with the attribute of Godhead; but the Spirit, Who is reckoned with the Father and the Son, they cannot include in their conception of Godhead, but hold that the power of the Godhead, issuing from the Father to the Son, and there halting, separates the nature of the Spirit from the Divine glory. And so, as far as we may in a short space, we have to answer this opinion also.

What, then, is our doctrine? The Lord, in delivering the saving Faith to those who become disciples of the word, joins with the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit also; and we affirm that the union of that which has once been joined is continual; for it is not joined in one thing, and separated in others. But the power of the Spirit, being included with the Father and the Son in the life-giving power, by which our nature is transferred from the corruptible life to immortality, and in many other cases also, as in the conception of “Good,” and “Holy,” and “Eternal,” “Wise,” “Righteous,” “Chief,” “Mighty,” and in fact everywhere, has an inseparable association with them in all the attributes ascribed in a sense of special excellence. And so we consider that it is right to think that that which is joined to the Father and the Son in such sublime and exalted conceptions is not separated from them in any.

Read it carefully and read it all.

I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the #Trinity
By invocation of the same
The Three in One & One in Three#TrinitySunday#Prayer pic.twitter.com/1SeiCDvdvx

— McCrimmon Publishing (@McCrimmonsuk) June 11, 2017

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nyssa, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest now and for ever.

#OTD 9 March: feast of St Gregory of Nyssa, one of a large family of saints, including St Basil the Great and St Macrina. pic.twitter.com/nbTXGzOwjx

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) March 9, 2019

Grant to us, O Lord, the royalty of inward happiness, and the serenity which comes from living close to thee: Daily renew in us the sense of joy, and let the eternal spirit of the Father dwell in our souls and bodies, filling us with light and grace, so that, bearing about with us the infection of a good courage, we may be diffusers of life, and may meet all ills and cross accidents with gallant and high-hearted happiness, giving thee thanks always for all things.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Beth-sa′ida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathan′a-el, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathan′a-el said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathan′a-el coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathan′a-el said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathan′a-el answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

–John 1:43-51

In one large city in the UK, numbers of Muslim asylum-seekers have become Christians in recent years. There was no improper pressure to convert at the cathedral they went to for advice, friendship, and other essentials. Local Christians, who wanted only to help and serve, did so with grace and charity.

Curious questions were asked — “Why do you do this? Why would you help strangers?” — and feet were shuffled in a typically English fashion as slightly embarrassed volunteers explained why they were called to act like Christ.

Those asylum-seekers now make up 40 per cent of the volunteers at the cathedral’s foodbank, as they seek to pass on the love and generosity which they themselves were so freely given.

Our evangelism must be deeply rooted in Christian ethics: above all, the call of Matthew 7.12 to “do to others as you would have them do to you”. We must start by putting ourselves in the shoes of others, understanding and respecting that other traditions offer people community, solace, and even deep wells of spirituality. In our conversations, we must seek to speak of our faith without belittling or ridiculing the faith of others. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said, “If you value faith, then you value the faith of others.”

Monologuing, manipulation, and marketing can be smelt a mile off. Engagement with others needs to meet them as, when, and where they are, like the volunteers at the cathedral whose witness was rooted in care and concern for those whom they helped.

Indeed, we can be born afresh in our faith, and gain a deeper understanding of our own tradition, when we converse with the religious other.

Read it all.

“When you communicate joyfully the glory of the Gospel story, therefore, be prepared to listen deeply to people of other faiths, and learn something yourself — perhaps even encounter something of God that you had not found before.” – @JustinWelbyhttps://t.co/lis9Hg69IX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 8, 2019

One would wish a report of the 2019 General Conference in St. Louis February 23-26 could be made that would go something like this:

The United Methodist 2019 special called General Conference is over. Charged with directing the church on a Way Forward and after nearly three years of discussion, meetings and prayer, the conference debated several options and finally chose the Traditional Plan as its directional path for United Methodism’s future. The plan calls for reaffirming the church’s historic stance on marriage and human sexuality but added several accountability features that should help to reinforce the church’s connectionalism in matters of faith and practice. The final decisions were painful for numbers of persons who wished the conference might have taken a different direction but there was a sense that because this conference was bathed in prayer, the decisions made represented God’s will for the church at this time. The conference closed with the singing of the Doxology and a commitment that United Methodism was now ready to walk in unity and direct its energy toward its mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

That report, unfortunately, is not the one being made. It is true the conference was held after nearly three years of discussion, meetings and prayer. It is true the Traditional Plan was chosen. But It is also true that the General Conference decisions were not the decisions preferred by bishops nor Mainstream UMC nor the Association of UM Theological Schools nor the presidents of UM-affiliated colleges nor a number of church agencies nor various progressive caucuses nor the several thousand visitors recruited by gay advocate groups who were in the stands to celebrate what they believed would be the church’s new movement toward sexual permissiveness. These people and groups were (and are) unhappy. The unhappiness was expressed on the final day when progressives sought to create as much confusion as possible in hopes that the Traditional Plan would not be able to come to the conference floor for a vote. The unhappiness was also expressed at the close of the conference when, instead of singing the doxology at the close of the final session with a prayer of blessing on the church, the chair of the session honored an earlier request by the “leadership team” of the Western Jurisdiction to be given the floor of the conference. It was at that time the “leadership team” basically announced as a Jurisdiction they did not intend to abide by the decisions of the conference. With that the conference ended.

Time for reflection.

The conference from the evangelical or traditionalist perspective.
The church has reaffirmed its historic stance. It was under great pressure to go in a different direction but the center held. The secular press and others may even pronounce the conference as a victory for conservatives. In the church we ought not to be talking about victories and defeats. We want the church to unite and be Christ’s presence in the world. We do not wish to be known for our infighting. Having said that, it can be said that the historic moral and doctrinal teachings of the church are still intact. And that is a positive.

Also a great positive; we are demonstrating that we are a global church. United Methodism outside the United States is growing and is in the process of assuming more leadership in the connection. The African presence had much to do with the outcome of the conference. In that respect the future for United Methodism is bright.

The conference from what should be a general unbiased perspective.
If the truth be known; the conference never had a chance to fulfill its purpose to bring together the church in unity. The expectations were unrealistic. There was good talk about A Way Forward and finding a solution that all groups in the church could live with but the goal was an impossible goal given the present divisions in the church. The one solution that might have promised some hope was one that would involve some form of amicable separation, but the bishops would not allow that solution even to be considered. It is premature to assess the General Conference as a failure (despite the cost of 6 or so million dollars and much time and effort) since it is quite possible that out of the ashes of St. Louis there may now be a willingness to consider options that previously have been ruled off-limits. But that is not apparent at the moment.

Read it all.