Episcopal Bishop in Maine: It is our moral
obligation to take in refugees. by
Ann Corcoran, 6/29/17
But, is it the obligation of the US
taxpayer to pay the Episcopal Church millions annually for THEIR Christian
charity? Of course that is one of the major moral questions that has driven this blog for ten
years!
Bankrupt. http://www.virtueonline.org/episcopal-dioceses-face-downsizing-closing-parishes-more-departures
You can read the Bishop’s opinion
piece at the Bangor Daily News: With the
news that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a limited version of the
president’s travel ban to go into effect, we should recall our moral obligation
to assist refugees seeking a chance to rebuild their lives and create a better
future for their families. As the world searches for solutions to the largest
refugee crisis in global history — more than 22 million people worldwide of
whom fewer than 1 percent will ever be resettled in another country — we in
Maine must do our part. It is easy to be charitable
with someone else’s money!
I searched the Bangor Daily News piece for any mention of the fact
(published in their own publication) that the church is receiving 99.5% of
its funds for refugee resettlement from the taxpayer. Episcopal Migration Ministries (the
church’s refugee resettlement wing) is not even a separate legal entity, so our
money goes directly to the church! Therefore we, or Mainers, don’t need
any lectures about moral duties! Christian charity should be privately
given, not extorted from every taxpaying American!
The first and foremost Congressional reform needed with our process of
resettling refugees in the US is to bar the phony charitable non-profit
middlemen from receiving federal dollars for their ‘charitable’ work. I have a huge archive on Maine and
its problems with refugees and asylum seekers, click here.
Nine federal contractors that
monopolize refugee resettlement in the US:
Methodist Bishops, Meet Brian
Cornell, 6/28/17, AFA
Desire
without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his
way (Proverbs 19:2).
Where I’m from when
someone says, “Boy, he sure stepped in it” what is meant is that someone made a
decision without thinking through the consequences. And those
consequences ended up being disastrous.
When I was a kid the
best fishing ponds were always on the property of a farmer or rancher with
fairly decent sized herds of cows or horses. The catfish and bass in
those ponds were pretty big because there were no paths or roads to them
(meaning they weren’t fished much). We would crawl through the barbed
wire and make a beeline for some good fishing. But if you got too excited
thinking prematurely about the lunker you were going to catch, you stood a good
chance of “stepping into it.”
One of those large piles
of manure deposited haphazardly by a large bovine or equine mammal. If
you “stepped into it” your fishing trip was tainted for the rest of the day
because those piles were so large and deep it didn’t just get on the bottom of
your shoe. It got in your
shoe and went through your
socks. And depending on the digestive health of the cow or horse…the
stench could be overpowering.
The episcopal leaders
(bishops) of the United Methodist Church have “stepped into it.” For over
four decades they have hemmed and hawed about ordaining practicing homosexuals
as clergy.
Every time a quadrennial
General Conference would meet to determine language in the denomination’s rules
and standards document (The Book of
Discipline) homosexuals and their supporters would march into the
business meeting demanding their supposed right to be ordained as clergy.
And almost always a contingent of bishops would stand up to demonstrate their
support for changing The Book of
Discipline. But it never worked.
Every time the actual
vote was taken it affirmed the language that “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with
Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be
certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in the
United Methodist Church.”
So last year somehow or
another a married lesbian who had been allowed to become a clergy-person despite
the denominational prohibition against homosexual clergy was elevated to the
office of bishop and consecrated by other bishops. The message seems to
be, “the delegates of the General Conference never would follow our lead so
we’ll just get this done without them.” There’s no point in going into a
long spiel about how the bishops interjected themselves into the legislative
process for the first time in the denomination’s history and promised “A Way
Forward” and a special called General Conference in 2019. The reality is
that the episcopal leadership of the UMC looked over the fence at how culture
is embracing homosexuality and went racing blindly ahead looking for glory in
the pond (cesspool). And now the evidence is accumulating that they
stepped squarely in a big pile on their way.
Bishops, I’d like for
you to meet Brian Cornell. Have you heard that name recently? You
should have. He’s the genius in charge of the Target Corporation.
He decided that all the world needed to know that Target wanted to fish in that
same pond of sexual deviancy that culture has been extolling. So, in
April of last year his company decided to tell everyone that they were now
welcoming men into women’s restrooms and fitting areas. It didn’t matter
if he sported a full beard and hair exploding out of his tank top, all a man
had to do if anyone asked why he was in the ladies room was say that he felt
like a lady. That would be good enough for Target.
A short week later more
than one million families had signed onto AFA’s boycott of Target. A year
later that number has swelled to 1.5 million. Target has lost billions of dollars in both sales and stock with no sign of
recovering.
Click here, here,
and here to
see other stories on what has happened to Target since
their infamous bathroom/fitting room policy was announced to the world.
Two times the president
of AFA (Tim Wildmon) has personally gone to Target headquarters and asked the
powers that be to rescind its dangerous policy. Both times he was
rebuffed. And the CEO, Brian Cornell, acts like he doesn’t know what hit
the company he’s in charge of. Because he presided over this disaster he
has taken a huge cut in salary even though he distanced himself from the bathroom policy decision when it didn’t pan out as expected.
It scarcely matters. When you are in charge, you are held responsible and
accountable. Try as he might, he can’t get the stink off.
Bishops, the exodus from
the United Methodist Church is reaching biblical proportions now. One of
the conferences that the lesbian bishop presides over has revealed that it faces an unprecedented financial crisis since her election and assignment.
Sound familiar? We keep getting assurances in emails from the episcopacy
that everything is going to work out and be just fine. I guess you’ve
gotten used to the smell because you have clearly stepped in it. Two of
the largest United Methodist churches in my conference just pulled out.
One of them was one of the largest United Methodist churches in America! Were
it not for the infamous “Trust Clause” many more who cannot afford to purchase
their own churches that their families and neighbors built with their own money
would have left by now.
In Matthew
15:14 Jesus said, “And
if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” I always thought
that at a minimum, the task of a bishop was to lead the people away from the
muck and the mire…the pit. But you’ve all led us right into it.
You’re no different from Brian Cornell.
You hopped on board the
sexual immorality train because you were sure that all signs were pointing to
broad and sweeping acceptance. Boy, were you wrong. You’ve run the
United Methodist Church into the pit. Target shoppers have found other
places to shop because of leadership decisions and United Methodists are
finding other places to live out their faith because of similar bad decisions
by the leadership.
I’ve got news for the
holier-than-thou episcopal leadership of the United Methodist Church.
The only “way
forward” for this once great missional denomination is if the lot of them
(bishops) take their shoes off, wash their feet off, and acknowledge they made
a huge mistake. It’s called repentance.
Toward the end of his
life John Wesley famously wrote, I
am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist
either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a
dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly
will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and
discipline with which they first set out (Thoughts Upon Methodism, 1786).
Spiritual leaders are
supposed to guide the faithful in transforming culture and the world
unashamedly embracing their doctrine and discipline. Instead, the leaders
of Methodism have themselves been transformed by the world and are destroying
the UMC much like Brian Cornell has single-handedly ruined the Target brand.
God help us.
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