The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ”˜What are you doing for others?’”
To commemorate what would have been King’s 82nd birthday, United Methodist congregations across the connection are “taking a day on, not a day off” to reach out to their neighbors in activities ranging from washing the feet of underprivileged children and giving them new pairs of shoes to writing words of encouragement to U.S. military personnel.
The Western North Carolina Annual (regional) Conference, for example, encourages United Methodists to participate in local celebrations, especially hands-on outreach activities that reflect the spirit of the civil rights leader.
I don’t know if you intended this article to be a somewhat sad commentary on what the UMC has become?
While being in service to others is a driving force for those who have been overwhelmed by God’s love for them and his choosing to bestow upon them his gifts of the Holy Spirit and eternal life, the UMC, particularly its U.S. version, and many other main line denominations have twisted this into a modern witches brew of Arminianism and Semipelagianism. Most UMC clergy I know who have been ordained in the last 20 years or so, and particularly the female ones, subscribe to something more akin to universalism and are rather quick to point out that a “loving” God would never send someone to Hell. For them social justice is a higher calling than biblical truth.
From this perspective, as well as its U.S. roots in the Socialist and Communist movements, the UMC has ended up putting “good works” above all else, to the point where its bishops and official church pronouncements routinely call for laws to force all citizens to conform to their vision of heaven on earth. Check out http://www.umc.org and see if you can tell it’s that different from a standard political web site.
It may seem like a very fine line, but this trend leads to all kinds of strange behavior and a de-emphasizing of ones relationship with God. I well remember working at my UMC, housing a group of homeless people there for a week during the winter. I purchased 50 bibles to give to the people staying with us, only to be told that it was about showing “radical hospitality” to the homeless, not acting like some Gospel soup kitchen where they had to sing hymns for their supper. All I wanted to do was give them a Holy Bible as a gift, tell them we were glad to have them with us, and ask if there was anything they would like me to pray for with them.