As our denomination’s slow-motion separation accelerates, we hear all kinds of nice-sounding, extraordinarily vague rhetoric from various United Methodist leaders that, even as the United Methodist Church liberalizes on marriage, it will still tolerate and even welcome conservatives and liberals who choose the post-separation United Methodist Church (psUMC). Such rhetoric usually lacks anything binding or specific, and is often accompanied by dismissing concerns as “fear-mongering” or “misinformation.”

However, such promised United Methodist tolerance is impossible, for three basic reasons:

United Methodist promises of tolerance are logically and pragmatically unsustainable.
Leaders of the new United Methodist Church already refuse to extend basic tolerance to conservative believers.
Liberal United Methodist leaders have already made clear their extreme “alienation of affection” from traditionalists.
Whatever changes on other issues, it is universally agreed that the denomination is on track to liberalize its official standards on sexual morality. So before too long, the United Methodist Church will be a denomination that officially affirms same-sex weddings and non-celibate gay clergy. In American United Methodism, this is now already the officially supported ethos of the leadership of every region and the de facto reality in all but a shrinking number of annual conferences.

In this context, these three factors make the end of tolerance for United Methodist traditionalists not just likely, but inevitable.

1. United Methodist promises of tolerance for conservatives are logically and pragmatically unsustainable.

Others have broadly explained the logical necessity and observed reality of Neuhaus’s Law: “Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.”

Read it all.

Promised United Methodist tolerance for conservatives and liberals who choose the post-separation United Methodist Church is impossible, for three basic reasons. #umc https://t.co/4c79JCG5pm

— IRD (@TheIRD) January 18, 2023

There is also more there.

Today's pick: Caravaggio: St John the Baptist (1604) https://t.co/4GpRchR5GI pic.twitter.com/n9obXdpmzL

— Art and the Bible (@artbible) May 7, 2021

Washington is gearing up for another big fight over whether to raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit, with Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen telling Congress on Thursday that the United States had reached its existing borrowing cap of $31.4 trillion.

The United States borrows huge sums of money by selling Treasury bonds to investors across the globe and uses those funds to pay existing financial obligations, including military salaries, safety net benefits and interest on the national debt. Once the United States hits the cap, Treasury begins using “extraordinary measures” — suspending some investments and exchanging different types of debt — to try to stay beneath the cap for as long as possible. But eventually, the United States will need to either borrow more money to pay its bills or stop making good on its financial obligations, including possibly defaulting on its debt.

Responsibility for lifting or suspending the borrowing cap falls to Congress, which must get a simple majority in both the House and Senate to vote for any change to the debt limit. Raising the debt limit has become a perennial fight, with Republican lawmakers using it as leverage to try to force spending cuts.

This year is shaping up to be the messiest fight in at least a decade. Republicans now control the House and they have adopted new rules that make it more difficult to raise the debt limit and strengthen Republicans’ ability to demand that any increase be accompanied by spending cuts. Senate Republicans have also insisted that increases to the debt limit should be tied to “structural spending reform.”

Read it all.

The U.S. Will Hit Its Debt Limit Today. How Bad Will It Be? – The New York Times https://t.co/Dw7I3uRvAx

— Louisette Lanteigne 🌎✌️⚖️♥️ (@lulex) January 19, 2023

The percentage of Americans reporting they or a family member postponed medical treatment in 2022 due to cost rose 12 points in one year, to 38%, the highest in Gallup’s 22-year trend.

Each year since 2001, Gallup has tracked Americans’ self-reports of delaying medical care in the past 12 months due to cost. The latest reading, from Gallup’s annual Health and Healthcare poll conducted Nov. 9-Dec. 2, is the highest by five points and marks the sharpest year-over-year increase to date.

This change came amid the highest inflation rate in the U.S. in more than 40 years, which made 2022 a challenging year for many Americans. A majority of U.S. adults have said inflation is creating at least a moderate hardship for them. The public continues to view the state of the U.S. economy negatively, and Americans were more likely to name inflation as the most important problem facing the U.S. in 2022 than at any time since 1984.

Read it all.

The percentage of Americans reporting they or a family member postponed medical treatment in 2022 due to cost rose 12 points in one year, to 38%, the highest in Gallup’s 22-year trend. https://t.co/G37mr1fW1M

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) January 17, 2023

Almighty God, whose only-begotten Son hath led captivity captive and given gifts to thy people: Multiply among us faithful pastors, who, like thy holy bishop Wulfstan, will give courage to those who are oppressed and held in bondage; and bring us all, we pray, into the true freedom of thy kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

#OTD 19 January: feast of St Wulstan, bishop of Worcester. pic.twitter.com/oYCvFQJ1SB

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) January 19, 2023

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Good morning Cape Cod National Seashore! Thursday morning views and sunrise from the Nauset Lighthouse beach. #capecod #sunrise #eastham pic.twitter.com/uPIrOAwAoM

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) January 19, 2023

I am the Lord, and there is no other,
    besides me there is no God;
    I gird you, though you do not know me,

that men may know, from the rising of the sun
    and from the west, that there is none besides me;
    I am the Lord, and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness,
    I make weal and create woe,
    I am the Lord, who do all these things.
 
“Shower, O heavens, from above,
    and let the skies rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth,
    and let it cause righteousness to spring up also;
    I the Lord have created it.

–Isaiah 45:5-8

Bore da gyfeillion…cwbwl wedi rhewi’n gorn bore ‘ma,y penglinie yn teimlo’i ond mae’n bert iawn
Good morning everyone…it’s like a scene from frozen this morning, cold on the knees but it is beautiful🧡🤍❄️courtesy @AledHall #peoplewithpassion #welshpassion pic.twitter.com/GO8cA1lGEa

— It's Your Wales (@ItsYourWales) January 19, 2023