In religion news, for example, one gets a slight slant if one is reading the religion news network's material and one gets a slight slant the other way if the story has originated on the Christian Post, for example. I'm not criticizing as much as I am simply pointing out the way news is written in some outlets. I don't even need to go deeply into the difference between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox networks, no do I?
I point this out to make sure one understands the following story as best one can. Here, in a brief nutshell, is the story as told by a Good News (conservative) reporter
Dr. Carole Hulslander was recently relieved of her duties as pastor at Still Waters United Methodist Church in suburban Atlanta. Hulslander, who happens to be a licensed local pastor (the same DNA as is your blogger) whose appointment to the church began in her living room 16 years ago when she started a Bible study there. She was informed, according to the story, that she was losing her congregation and appointment in a meeting on March 17 with North Georgia conference representatives.
The letter she received dismissing her said the action was taken because "she did not order the life of the local church according to the 2012 Book of Discipline and because she had failed to properly report and handle an allegation of Child Abuse within her congregation/school." Still Waters UMC has a school that is associated with it.
Sharon O'Conner, principal of the school, said in the story that neither law enforcement officers nor representatives from "child protective services ever visited or even contacted the school regarding the allegation." O'Connor confirmed that District Superintendent Dana Eberhart never followed up on the allegation with officials at the school, the church or with the parents of the child reportedly involved.
Oh but that were all the story. No. No. There's more. Since Hulslander was removed, the council at the church has very, very (see how I put two verys to make it even more emphatic) vigorously and publicly contested the charges against her -- which is the way that sentence is written in the story that appeared in the Christian Post.
But there's more. Much, much more. This was found in something called the Red State. I don't even have to guess which side this story's writer comes down on. Out of the blue, er, red, comes a different allegation. Writer Erick Erickson tells us that the removal of appointment came about after Hulslander, which he designates as Dr. Hulslander, signed a "Unity and Integrity (capitalized for some reason) statement calling on the UMC to 'maintain its standards of Biblical integrity with regard to marriage. It was then, Erickson writes, that the 'culture war arrived at the door of Still Waters (now plural) United Methodist Church. It's congregation, whether they like it or not, is being made to care.' The punctuation and grammar is the way it appeared in print, wrong as it might be.
Erickson goes on to write: "Two weeks before Easter, the District Superintendent showed up with a new pastor. When the Chair of the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee refused to allow a service that Sunday morning, because the District had violated the church's Book of Church Discipline, the congregation retreated to their fellowship hall to sing and pray. The new pastor came in and began berating one of the members of the congregation. The new pastor demanded keys be handed over. When others intervened to calm the situation, the new pastor told the congregation to 'f### off.' The lion that would separate the sheep from their shepherd now paces around the walls of this church."
That appeared in print somewhere on the planet. Really.
I won't even go into the absurd metaphor of lions pacing on walls.
I tried to find another version of this story, from the "other" side and could not. There's nothing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that I could find. There's nothing on the Religion News Network, and that seems to me to be significant because this story should have legs.
A pastor is removed from the church she planted because, according to the writer in one publication, she didn't follow through with a child abuse allegation or, according to another writer in another publication, she was vocal about her beliefs on same-sex marriage.
These things are significant because in a world of social media when something is printed today it becomes fact whether it is or not. If Hulslander was removed from her position as pastor of this thriving church and the person who follows her curses the PPR committee chair in public because they are not allowed to take the keys to the church, that would certainly seem to me to be a story even in mainstream media. Maybe especially in a mainstream publication.
I don't know all the particulars, obviously, but wow, and er, uh, wow.
Let's focus on the most important thing, friends. If indeed DR. Husbander signed a statement on either side of the same-sex marriage debate attached to the United Methodist Church today and was ditched because of it, which honestly I find unbelievable, then there are even bigger problems facing our denomination than I thought. And I think there are huge problems anyway.
I read this story just a day after reading Church of the Resurrection pastor Adam Hamilton's proposal for General Conference, which opens almost exactly a year from this reading. Hamilton proposes essentially that each church be allowed to vote its convictions about the issue. Hamilton says: "I continue to believe that the best way forward is to allow United Methodist pastors to determine who they will and will not marry, while allowing local churches to determine their own wedding policies as it relates to the usage of their building. This is currently how things are done for heterosexual marriages. Pastors meet with couples and determine whether they will or will not officiate, and local churches develop wedding policies for the use of their buildings. Under this scenario the current language of the Discipline regarding homosexuality and same-sex weddings would become the “historic position” of the United Methodist Church and the default policy of each local church regarding same-sex marriage. The Discipline would allow local churches to adopt a more permissive policy towards same-sex marriage. Only churches that felt compelled to change the default position would take a vote. Conservative churches would continue as they are. Moderates might spend several years in conversation before deciding whether to make a change to the default position. Progressives would vote right away to adopt a different policy. Likewise, while a pastor would be bound by the local church’s policies for weddings within the walls of the church, each pastor would determine who they would and would not marry outside of the walls of their local church.
"I believe we can trust local churches to make this decision. Some have suggested that allowing local churches to make this decision will be the end of connectionalism and will signal that we have adopted a congregational polity. But it is not our position on homosexuality that makes us a connectional church; rather, it is our shared ministry, our shared doctrinal standards, our appointive process, our episcopacy, and our trust clause that are the hallmarks of our connectionalism."
Let's sum these things...One story says a pastor has been relieved of her duties for simply signing a petition. One story says a large-church pastor proposes a vote by local churches determine their own wedding policies. These things are not mutually exclusive, are they? Can we at least see the issue isn't going away, isn't being solved, isn't even being written about without a less than neutral viewpoint. Everyone has their own view. Everyone has their own voice. And everyone is using it. The only difficulty I can see is if there comes a time when someone on either side isn't allowed to use that voice. At that point, we become something other than America. If either side of the issue forces that to happen, we've lost far more than an argument.
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