Countdown to church burning…
We need more stories like this TPM of good people pushing back against the hate. We need to normalize the good that, more often than not, are truly in the majority but, who for one reason or another, get very little public attention. I guess if it doesn’t bleed or call people out of name in some derogatory way, it doesn’t lead. Its a shame it has come to that. This church is a shining example of faith putting good works into action.
Agreed. The United Methodist Church is truly at a crossroads on this topic and may soon schism over it. Keep watching for more on it. Very brave of this church to do something this overt considering what’s going on within their denomination at present.
Having grown up in not very conservative Baptist Churches, the power over individual churches of a denominan just really seems to weird when it shows up like this. Especially in a denomination I think of as nut much different than Baptist.
"…the church still bans “practicing” gay clergy and same-sex marriage. The church also voted this year to maintain its belief that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
As I’ve said before: I’m not a practicing homosexual. I’m good enough at it to not need practice.
There are a very few, a tiny number actually, of “indepedent” Methodist churches , isolated to a few urban (more liberal) areas of the deep South, where a church like this can exist. This church in downtown B’ham is one such church. The Birmingham metro area is significantly more diverse and more liberal than the surrounding, less diverse, more white, suburban communities.
There are hundreds of Methodist churches in communities across Alabama that are every bit as conservative as the SBC church that sits right across the street. I attended (segregated) SBC churches in my formative years, and had many friends/classmates who went to UMC services, as did I if I was dating a girl who happened to be Methodist. The main difference between predominantly white, at large UMC and SBC churches in AL is that one “splashes” and the other “dunks”. Beyond that procedural affectation, there is not a dime’s worth of difference in their day to day conservative views of the larger social order.
While I applaud and support their inclusiveness, this church in downtown B’ham, along with its few fellow travelers of liberal churches, is purely an outlier among the larger landscape of Protestant churches across Alabama.
I went to the church’s web page and I noticed a pronounced lack of UMC branding and logos.
I did eventually find a page where they admitted to being UMC, but you wouldn’t have known it looking at rest of the pages. I had to dig for it a bit. I wonder how integrated they are. Churches in AL, in my distant experiences from the past, tended to be very segregated. Especially among mainline Protestant churches.
Great post. While there are 40 inclusive churches in Massachusetts or “reconciling” in UMC parlance, there are probably as many that are in practice quite open but not willing to state it publicly (I was a member of one of these churches in a very liberal town for many years) , and some where the tolerance is more of the don’t ask, don’t tell variety.
I’m as pro-LGBTQ as you can get, but ain’t nobody wanna watch Arthur
It might have something to do with you not being in the target demographic for the show…
Just spitballin’…
I love arther…watched it with my little niece and nephew…the best one was about the Sock Market…absolutely for smart adults.
I’d like to see a screening of the church goers reactions to this episode.
You can watch it yourself, and in a good quality version:
Do it. It’s quite charming, and I think it’s good to know what the Confederates are up in arms over this time. And it’s great in so many ways that little kids all over the country can see something like this.
“Everyday when you’re walking down the street
And everybody that you meet
Has an original point of view
And I say HEY! (HEY!)
What a wonderful kind of day.
If you can learn to work and play
And get along with each other”
source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/arthurlyrics.html
source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/arthurlyrics.html
Hey if it’s Arthur vs the majority of kid’s shows (lookin at you, disney channel) I’ll take Arthur every time.
They see the writing on the wall. Such nostalgia, that religion thing.