Mike Mather, a pastor who Dan Dick told me I should pay attention to if I wanted to see good things happening in Indiana, wrote recently of his frustration with so many of us Methobloggers.
I have done an unofficial count over the last two months of the 10 bloggers I read most often (who post fairly regularly) and I can tell you that the overwhelmingly the social issue that they write about – and that their readers most respond to – is sexuality. Now, I believe sexuality, is an important issue – but many, if not most, of these folks – are giving it time like the Bible talks about this issue more than any other. If you took out the references in the Bible to poverty – the Bible would look like swiss cheese. If you took out the references to sexuality – you would hardly notice and would cover large swaths of the Bible between references – in some cases 100′s of pages. It would be hard to cover 10 pages of the Bible without reference to the poor. Now all the references to sexuality wouldn’t distress me so much – but I just wonder – where in the hell do people find all that time to look into that and never write, or at least in any sort of close proportionate way, to the issues that are killing so many of our young people, to the ways in which so many of our sisters and brothers are living and dying – with people only seeing them as empty vessels who need to be fixed and not as beloved children of God with lots to offer.
For my part – and I don’t know if I’m on Mike’s top 10 – I see this from the blog author side. If I want to increase comments and traffic to my blog, all I have to do is write about homosexuality.
I’ve made an intentional effort to stay out of the sex debates recently so as not to have my blog taken over by it as we get closer to General Conference.
But I am still aware of the second half of Mike’s critique. As his rather convicting comment on my last post indicates, it not hard to bump into places where the gospel needs some nurturing. We just have to step outside the comfortable boxes we build for ourselves.
This may go for bloggers even more than normal humans.
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
This love we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand. There is humbleness of mind, gentleness, long-suffering, the whole image of God; and at the same time a peace that passeth all understanding, and joy unspeakable and full of glory.
A decision to stop majoring in the minors needs to come from the top. There are plenty of issues that it would be beneficial to hear helpful advice from our retired bishops. Instead, we get a letter about homosexuality based on a case of a lesbian clergyperson who outed herself and isn’t in a pulpit anyway.
So…on this Sunday when we are reminded of Jesus’ temptations…It’s not “the devil made me do it” – but “the retired bishops made me do it.” Hmmmm.
So, one group can say whatever they want and if you disagree then you are the bad ones????
You can’t complain about the discussions regarding homosexuality and the clergy when a group of retired bishops puts out a letter on the topic. It wouldn’t have mattered WHAT they said but the fact that they said anything was going to draw attention. Unfortunately for them, most of the attention has been negative.
Inside Methodist circles, I think this is partly an argument around the old liberal/conservative conversation. I recently was having to serve as the rid party in one of these and I realized that both parties were concerned from a spiritual standpoint…bit were defining holiness in separate ways. Te two sides can best be looked at as ethical holiness or moral holiness. For us Methodists, we need to fight this dualism and find ways to articulate this. Like you said…both are extremely destructive.
Wesley wrote often that all good works are done in the name of the devil until the heart is fully turned to God. When I was a college minister we had to stress the importance of our own life withGod (sanctification) while in themidstof ministry among others.
A few weeks ago I read a blog that also described the Bible looking like Swiss cheese if references to poverty were removed vs homosexuality. Homosexuality is a prevalent topic in United Methodism right now. Actually, I think it’s been a topic for almost as long as I’ve been living. I don’t have the answer. I’m just sad that this topic gets most of the attention about our denomination instead of all the great things we do connectionally.
Heather that blog you read was mine.
Wow. I truly don’t know what to say. I find myself truly stunned into (near) silence. Even a blog posting on the subject of poverty can’t get people talking about it. I guess that makes my point. Shoot.
Miachael – poverty just isn’t sexy . . .
Why sex and not poverty?
It’s simple. Sin is bad stuff that other people do, so, for most Methodists, homosexuality is a sin.
Bad stuff that we do is just done out of unfortunate necessity, and it isn’t really all that bad when you think about it, and there’s really nothing we can do to help anyway, so, for most Methodists, ignoring poverty is not really important. I mean, we’d help if we could, but we’ve got problems of our own, and “the poor will always be with you,” and isn’t that what the government is for anyway?
In the UMC, basic honesty should allow us to acknowledge that most of the conservative side are frustrated that the veracity of biblical teaching on homosexuality would even be up for discussion, and have encouraged moratoria on such debates, while the Reconciling/Soulforce side (and the wealthy secular foundations that fund both) won’t stop their outrageous tactics of always having to “make an issue of homosexuality.” With their tactics including such things as brazen violation of the covenant UM leaders agree to live by, harshly mean-spirited treatment of those who disagree with their agenda, merciless character assassination of those on the conservative side, smashing other people’s property, racist efforts to limit the power of African delegates, and demanding that in order to accommodate THEIR own personal issues with lack of sexual self-control every General Conference has to spend days on end debating the same old arguments and enduring their illegal temper-tantrums, trespassings, insults, intimidation, and false accusations so that there’s no time to address the unrelated problems and pains that OTHER people are feeling around the world, the UMC sexuality debates do NOT just concern the Bible verses on sexuality. Rather, these debates are directly relevant to the Bible verses that also address honesty, loving treatment of others (especially within the church), selfishness, self-control, respect for church and civil authority, racial egalitarianism, being careful with our speech, and the qualities that leaders in the church should have. If you take out all the verses on those topics, you’d also have a pretty “Swiss cheese” bible.
That being said, our church should extend compassion to gays and lesbians. But it’s worth considering that they ARE only 1% of the population, and much more of the people who are in (or should be in) our churches are suffering from poverty than from same-sex attractions.
why sex and not poverty?
discussing sex threatens no one. discussing poverty, on the other hand, threatens the entire edifice our society is built upon, and you threaten that at your peril…