What I’m Reading 04/19/2008

Enter the Rainbow: UMC Divisiveness: An Annoying Buzz – Annotated

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• Great words to lead into GC2008 with…thanks Andy. – post by umjeremy

• I read last week (don’t remember where) that there is room in the church for disagreement, but not division. I think that is an important distinction to make.
• It starts with one person deciding not to buy into the divisiveness myth, and grows outward from there. It starts with one delegation saying, “Not this year,” and setting a hopeful tone that will trickle over into the delegations sitting around them. It starts with one delegate relinquishing their fear and asking another delegate with whom they know they disagree about something to have a cup of coffee and talk about their favorite hobbies or sports or something.

Commonplace Holiness: Sexuality Issues  – Annotated

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• A well-written post that discusses some of the issues with the incompatibility clause. – post by umjeremy

• We could agree that since we all have to exist on this same planet and in this same society together whatever we can do to foster mutual respect and consideration is all to the good. Insults, misrepresentations, generalizations, etc. will not help in this effort. Neither do efforts to silence or oppress people because someone doesn’t happen to like their ideas or “lifestyle choices” or religion or whatever. Neither do efforts to misrepresent the things people are saying just to score some sort of rhetorical point.
• We could agree to a common commitment to respond to individuals as individuals rather than simply as members of a particular group. So if I know a person is a “Christian” or a “Moslem” or a “homosexual” or an “atheist” this may or may not tell me what they think about various issues. I need to communicate with them as an individual and not simply as a member of a particular “species.” Generalizations about people-groups (even when fairly accurate) tend to foment division rather than heal them.