SUNDAY, JUNE 3rd

Our topics for discussion this Sunday will include:

Court ruling spurs competing interpretations

May 29, 2018 | UMNS

The Judicial Council has opened the way for the special General Conference to receive petitions from more than the Council of Bishops. The question remains: What sort of legislation can be submitted?
The denomination’s top court, in Decision 1360, ruled that any United Methodist organization or individual can submit petitions “as long as the business proposed to be transacted in such petition is in harmony with the purpose stated in the call.”
Determining what qualifies as in harmony, the Judicial Council says, is the job of General Conference itself, “through its committees, officers and presiders” and its “rules and procedures.” Business deemed not in harmony will not be allowed unless approved by a two-thirds vote of General Conference.
So the crucial matter of the parameters for legislation is still to be decided.
“Obviously that’s going to be the point of contention,” said the Rev. Keith Boyette, who was among those arguing the case before the Judicial Council. “General Conference is going to have to figure out how it does that.”
Boyette is president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, an unofficial traditionalist advocacy group.
Jan Lawrence, executive director of the unofficial progressive advocacy group Reconciling Ministries Network, said the Judicial Council ruling likely adds confusion. “What we know is that we have a limited time and that there is a lot of anxiety across the church,” she said.
United Methodists have differing projections of what the ruling will likely mean in practice when the denomination’s top lawmaking body meets Feb. 23-26, 2019, in St. Louis.
Some see the ruling as inviting a wide array of proposals related to church teachings on homosexuality. Still others see it as requiring that petitions hew close to the bishops’ recommendation.

Racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and hate speech

Prompted by the Rosanne Barr tweet .


(From the NY Times)
First, the comedian and star of the revived “Roseanne” leveled a dehumanizing insult at Valerie Jarrett, calling the African-American former adviser to Barack Obama the offspring of “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes.” Then she tried to pass off the slur, by way of halfhearted apology, as a “joke” — as if, somehow, a racist joke were any better than a racist statement.
Here’s the sad thing. Ms. Barr’s tweet, while shocking, was not unbelievable. What was truly surprising was that a commercial TV network took action against a valuable star, quickly and definitively, and in plain words.


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