[Brock Landers]

I don't know what's worse:
allowing women to speak in church
allowing lezbos to become bishops
or even having bishops in the first place

This is so wrong on so many levels. It would appear that the Methodists are every bit as lost as the Episcopalians.

NEW YORK – Karen Oliveto clutched a friend's hand, closed her eyes and wept when she learned last year she had been elected a bishop of the United Methodist Church. Oliveto, who is married to another woman, had become the denomination's first openly gay bishop.


Within minutes, a formal complaint was filed challenging her election as contrary to the church ban on clergy who are "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" — a petition that the highest Methodist judicial authorities agreed to consider. On Tuesday, the court will take up the closely watched case, the latest flashpoint over LGBT rights in a denomination splintering over the Bible and homosexuality.


"It highlights very greatly that we are two different churches and that the real difference is whether or not we're going to live by the covenant that we each have agreed to," said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, who leads Good News, a caucus of evangelical Methodists that has lobbied to uphold current teaching. Said Oliveto, "I'm in deep prayer, reminding myself of what God has called me to do."


Oliveto, who is based in the Denver area, will attend the hearing in Newark, New Jersey, accompanied by fellow bishops from the church's Western Jurisdiction, her wife, mother and childhood pastor. LGBT clergy and their supporters plan to pray outside and wear T-shirts listing the first names only of gay clergy who would risk losing their ministerial credentials by coming out.


The goal is to underscore the human cost of church policy, said the Rev. Lea Matthews of the LGBT advocacy group Methodists in New Directions. Prayer vigils are planned in the Methodist Mountain Sky Area region, which Oliveto leads, while others will join a prayer vigil online.


The court, or Judicial Council, is expected to issue a ruling a few days later.


The 12.8 million-member church, the third-largest in the U.S., was already in turmoil over same-sex relationships when Oliveto was elected. Methodists approved language in 1972 calling same-gender relationships "incompatible with Christian teaching." The top church policy-making body, or General Conference, has upheld that policy ever since, even as LGBT rights gained acceptance and other mainline Protestants, including the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), approved same-sex marriage. In recent years, the Methodists have seen their greatest growth overseas, especially in Africa, among more theologically conservative people, who have been standing with U.S. evangelical Methodists against recognizing same-gender relationships.


Deeply frustrated, Methodist LGBT advocates have stepped up pressure for new policies, holding same-sex weddings in defiance of church prohibitions and coming out as gay and lesbian from the pulpit. Conservatives responded by intensifying demands for church discipline over such actions. In one high-profile case, the Rev. Frank Schaefer was tried by a church court and defrocked for presiding at the wedding of his son to another man. Schaefer was later reinstated as a minister on an appeal of the ruling.


These divisions erupted dramatically last year at a meeting of the General Conference, which was rife with talk of a possible schism. At one point, LGBT advocates on the perimeter of a session lay on the floor with rainbow-colored duct tape over their mouths. In a narrow 428-405 vote, the conference delayed consideration of LGBT-related proposals and instead created a panel, called the Commission on a Way Forward, to review all church policy on human sexuality, aiming to find a way to keep the church together.
Renfroe said he was more focused on the outcome of the commission's work than the Oliveto hearing, although he said her election has made it harder to persuade conservative congregations to stay with the denomination while the commission conducts its review. Two large Mississippi congregations recently voted to move toward a split from the church.


In making a ruling, the high court will consider technical aspects of church law, contained in the Methodist Book of Discipline, said William Lawrence, a professor at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University and a former member of the Judicial Council. Potential outcomes range from a technical decision on procedure alone that keeps Oliveto in place to a decision that would void her election, Lawrence said. "There is an extraordinary range," Lawrence said.


Ahead of the hearing, Oliveto released a video message to her church region in which she expressed some anxiety. "I find myself holding my breath in this time of uncertainty," she said. But she said she felt assured that "God is working God's purpose out."
"I love being your bishop," she said, then asked Methodists to pray.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/04/24...-election.html

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Originally Posted by Brock Landers

I don't know what's worse:
allowing women to speak in church
allowing lezbos to become bishops
or even having bishops in the first place

What's wrong with having bishops?

1 Timothy 3:1-2 KJV 1 This [is] a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

Of course, neither a lesbian "bishop" nor a celibate Catholic "bishop" is the husband of one wife, but generally, the office of a bishop is Biblical.

[Brock Landers]

I guess I've always associated bishops with the Orthodox Churches, Papists, and some of the wannabe Papist Protestant denominations.

If Landover Baptist has no need for bishops, then nobody does.

[WilliamJenningsBryan]

Originally Posted by Brock Landers

I guess I've always associated bishops with the Orthodox Churches, Papists, and some of the wannabe Papist Protestant denominations.

If Landover Baptist has no need for bishops, then nobody does.

As Pastor Peters points out, the title is in the Bible (KJV1611), but there is nothing in the Bible that even suggests a hierarchy of clerical offices or apostolic succession - these are all inventions of the corrupt cathylicks trying to justify their "pope".

There are some black Baptist churches that occasionally use the title, but it is not meant to be a "promotion", or suggest a higher pay grade. It's not clear why this is done, but there is usually someone that wants to he HNWIC (head nigra whats in charge).

[Alvin Moss]

Smug Methodists like to think of themselves as Baptists who can read. I find that sentiment to be arrogant and false and I find Methodists in general to be rude and condescending. These are uppity people who apparently believe they can violate God's commands and still call themselves Christian. They are no better than Episcopalians.

[Johny Joe Hold]

Originally Posted by Alvin Moss

Smug Methodists like to think of themselves as Baptists who can read. I find that sentiment to be arrogant and false and I find Methodists in general to be rude and condescending.

Methodist want to be "high church" Catholics with Bishops and "low church" Baptists who live by the Bible. As with any salad bar Christians they come up empty on all counts. My guess is they are going to follow Satan and confirm this deep sinner as a "Bishop".

[MitzaLizalor]

I Peter 2 . KJV . look up
22 [Jesus] did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:
24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

The difference is that a Bishop provides sound teaching, as a shepherd should. Methodists do something different. How many heresies is this "bishop" promoting? But to the Methodist establishment, as indicated in the last line, there's no heresy here!

http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/12/25/can-a-christian-deny-the-virgin-birth-4/

Bishop Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church offers further evidence of modern heresy. In an address he presented on June 25, 2002 at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, this bishop denied the faith wholesale. Sprague, who serves as Presiding Bishop of the United Methodist Church in northern Illinois, has been called “the most vocally prominent active liberal bishop in Protestantism today.” Sprague is proud of this designation and takes it as a compliment: “I really make no apology for that. I don’t consider myself a liberal. I consider myself a radical.” Sprague lives up to his self-designation.

In his Illiff address, Bishop Sprague claimed that the “myth” of the virgin birth “was not intended as historical fact, but was employed by Matthew and Luke in different ways to appoint poetically the truth about Jesus as experienced in the emerging church.” Sprague defined a theological myth as “not false presentation but a valid and quite persuasive literary device employed to point to ultimate truth that can only be insinuated symbolically and never depicted exhaustively.” Jesus, Sprague insists, was born to human parents and did not possess “trans-human, supernatural powers.”

Thus, Sprague dismisses the miracles, the exclusivity of Christ, and the bodily resurrection as well as the virgin birth. His Christology is explicitly heretical: “Jesus was not born the Christ, rather by the confluence of grace with faith, he became the Christ, God’s beloved in whom God was well pleased.”

Bishop Sprague was charged with heresy but has twice been cleared of the charge