For those who are waiting for a full reversal of church prohibitions, the dismissal of the Ogletree complaint is not enough.
Dorothee Benz of Methodists in New Directions, an advocacy group that has provided direct support to the retired pastor, commended McLee’s “very bold step” to find “a new way out of this problem,” and said the time for complacency is over….
“I’m heartened, but we’re not there,” said Lyn Ellis, co-coordinator of Affirmation, a long-time advocacy group. “Justice can’t be served if this can happen again.”
I look forward to what IRD’s Mark Tooley (a Methodist) has to say in his critique of this awful decision. While utterly pathetic, I regret to say that some such way of letting Ogletree and his fellow “progressive” clergy off the hook was entirely predictable. Of all the “mainstream” denominations, none is as large and as thoroughly representative of the broad middle span of the population as the UMC is. Therefore, it’s entirely to be expected that a “mainstream” church will inevitably follow the cultural mainstream wherever it may go, even if that means departing from the historic Christian mainstream.
That is the fundamental dilemma of our time as Christians. You simply can’t be in the cultural mainstream and the Christian mainstream at the same time. Everyone is forced to make a fateful and momentous choice as to which mainstream they will align themselves with, and then bear the consequences. It is a fork-in-the-road time similar to the times of crisis addressed by Moses (Deut. 30), Joshua (Josh. 24), and Elijah (1 Kings 18), when they challenged the people of Israel: Choose you this day whom you will serve!, etc.
Alas, the majority of the people will almost inevitably choose to go with the flow and take the course of least resistance. At least, an awful lot of people who think of themselves as Christians will betray Christ and the gospel that way, since they’ve been so poorly taught that they don’t even realize how utterly contradictory to biblical and classical Christian teaching is the “new morality” these days (which is actually the old immorality in a new disguise).
David Handy+
I have come to the conclusion that the mainline denominations are spiritually corrupt and under the control of the Enemy. Even if they pretend they still follow God’s Word, their actions betray them. Christians need to leave them. This is just one example of many.