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God loves fags

Despite its many flaws, there is a reason WWP hews to the United Methodist Church.

Here's just one more reason:

[And yes, the title of this post is Google bait. We're not that naive.]

The 10 car-mandments

Gotta love that Catholic church: They now have 10 commandments for driving!

We Methodists don’t have a pope, but if we did, it’s not so hard to imagine what her "Ten Commandments for Driving While Methodist" might look like.

The Ten Commandments for Methodist Drivers

1. Thou shalt not kill. [So far, so good.]

2. Thou shalt not make a turn to the left. [The Oregon-Idaho Conference notwithstanding.]

3. Thou shalt not unnecessarily honk the horn, unless it plays “O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing!”

4. Honor thy mother and thy father, for they hath attendeth the same driving school as John Wesley.

5. Thou shalt not covet the Lay Leader’s Prius.

6. Thou shalt drive in the middle of the road.

7. Thou shalt not use the name of the Lord in vain whilst commuting to committee meetings or UMW potlucks.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness in traffic court or the annual pledge drive.

9. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, even if it means skipping Starbuck’s on the way to church.

And most importantly,

10. Thou shalt not park in the senior pastor’s parking space.

And the people say, "Amen!"

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow

If you live in the British Commonwealth or have any inkling of Anglo history at all, you know that yesterday, March 25, was just not any other day: As any 10-year-old in the U.K. can tell you, yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade inside the British Empire, an historical turning point that might rightly be described as “the beginning of the end” of slavery. [The struggle to eliminate slavery in the Empire altogether, alas, continued for another 26 years -- and even longer, more than three decades more, in fact, here at home.]

Of course, there were ceremonies and pomp galore today to mark the occasion on the other side of the pond. [They are English, after all.] But with the pageantry, there was also an abundance of apology and contrition [see photo above], qualities, it is worth noting, that struggle mightily still to find their way into the conversation of American slavery. Perhaps by the time the United States is 200 years into her post-slave history, she too will recognize the error of her ways. Sooner would not be too soon, we think.

A lifelong Methodist, WWP is well acquainted with the players of history who forever altered Britain’s errorful ways and put into motion the acts that ended the commonwealth’s slave trade and, later, outright slave ownership itself. The major credit rightly goes to William Wilberforce, the politician and evangelical Anglican who over many years, decades even, prevailed upon Parliament to outlaw the evil of slavery. [Wilberforce is the subject of a current motion picture, which opened just this week in the U.K.; it's been playing stateside for the past two weeks or so, and it is very much worth seeing.] It is worth noting that Wilberforce’s friend and compatriot, another evangelical within the Anglican tradition, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, similarly and as vociferously denounced the practice of slavery, declaring it an “execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature.” Wesley saved his harshest words, though, for the slavery employed in the former colonies, adjudging it “the vilest that ever saw the sun.”

Choice words. But as good as Wesley and Wilberforce and their reasoning and rhetoric were, the triumph of the abolitionist movement actually belongs to another man, their contemporary, John Newton, the former slave trader whose life-altering change of heart not only reconnoitered history and indelibly imprinted itself upon the heart of freedom, but also provided the essential and eternal anthem of freedom and grace that forever changed hymnody.

Perhaps you know it.

[Much more about John Newton, here, and a wonderful new hymn for the occasion, here. Read the original words of the hymn, and the source of this post's headline, here.]

The problem with gay marriage

See the rest of the delightful series of adverts here.

Amen, and pass the plate

Finally, someone puts into print WWP's thoughts, exactly: Leviticus has nothing to say to Christians about homosexuality, the New Testament has been hijacked, and Jesus Christ has the last word on the subject.

Read it here.

Talk is cheap

You might recall the political kerfufle of a few years ago when the president put forth his "faith-based initiative," a bold government foray to interject government money and ideals into local churches and religious institutions, with the hope that the entitled entities would more efficiently do the work [or as critics said, do the bidding of] the government agencies once created by FDR but now emasculated by Bush II. At the time, hues and cries erupted about the unnecessary intersection of government and religion. [WWP might have even been among them.]

Well, lo and behold: Look who's getting the lion's share of the government dole.

Despite instances of grants going to political and ideological supporters of President Bush, the survey found that, overall, liberal-leaning churches were more likely to apply for and receive the grants, even though they tend to view the program more skeptically than their conservative counterparts do.

From the Associated Press:

"The thing is that the churches that are most likely to actually do social outreach or social ministry are liberal churches, they are not conservative churches," said David A. Bositis, a senior research associate at the center who conducted the study.

"Those churches may have significant reservations about the program. But if the money is there, they are going to take it. They are the ones who have the capacity and the infrastructure to get grants and administer them."

Surprise? Perhaps. But in the end, though, it's little or no surprise who's actually "walking the walk."

[Which is still something that will never be widely reported in the so-called "liberal" [not] news media.]

Compare, and contrast

John Wesley himself might have even struggled with today's headlines:

First this:

"He was very generous. He did not get excited about things like putting a new steeple on the church. But when it came to things that helped the poor and disposessed get a better chance in life, he cared about that. ... I had talked to him last week, and he said that he understood he was probably going to prison. Though there was an appeals process, he was not naïve. But he held no ill will toward the jurors, or really anyone else. He just felt they had made a mistake."

[Ken Lay's United Methodist pastor, at Ground Enron .]

Then this:

Hoping to save a piece of hometown history, Willie Nelson has bought the Methodist church where he honed his musical skills as a boy.

Nelson, 73, celebrated the church's preservation at a Sunday service that brought together longtime parishioners, friends and family including his sister for prayers and gospel music.

"Sister Bobbie and I have been going to this church since we were born," Nelson said. "Now, you're all members of the Abbott Methodist Church, and you will be, forever and ever."

[The Willie Nelson UMC.]

Both this week, both Texas, both Methodist.

Gotta admire them southern Wesleyans. They're diverse, eh?

Quote of the day

"It's part of a long conversation. Those who wanted an up-or-down vote on gays in the episcopacy didn't get any clarity, and they're not happy. Liberals aren't happy. And gays? Well, we're being treated like bargaining chips in the game of Anglican politics."

More here.

Bill and the Bible

Chuck Currie has the goods on the esteemed religious figure William Sloane Coffin, who died Wednesday at age 81. There are many things to admire about the Rev. Coffin, but among the qualities we admire most, and the act we will always be most indebted to, will be the clarity he brought to the discussion of homosexuality and the Bible.

It was only a little more than a year ago from now, while defending a network-rejected television advertisement for his home church, the United Church of Christ, that Coffin, preparing for his own death from impending congestive heart failure, laid out in less than 100 words the fallacy of those who would follow Jerry [Falwell, the faker] rather than Jesus [the real deal]:

Homosexuality was not a big issue for Biblical writers. All told, there are only seven verses in 66 books that refer to it. Nowhere in the four gospels is it ever mentioned. Not everything Biblical is Christ-like, and verses involving more hate than love have no place whatsoever in the human heart. For Christians, the problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with the scriptural passages that condemn it, but how to reconcile the rejection and abuse of homosexuals with the love of Christ... [Emphasis added.]

That's classic Coffin. His wise ways and words will be sorely missed.

Holy, whatever

Think you have the neighbors from hell?

Well, try these so-called followers of the Son of Man,  in Mason, Ohio, who have mistaken kilowatts for koinonia. Even He, the most famous son of any carpenter from Nazareth, might be tempted to say: What the blazing heck is that?

Can it be that the rescue from death dark's door actually occurs amidst a blaze of dismal discount tree-lights from Walmart?

Send me up, Jesu!