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  • Cape Ann religious news, services

    Cape Ann religious news, services

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    Carillon concerts

    Carillonneurs Luann Pallazola, Cynthia Cafasso, and Thomas Dort will perform a Christmas in July concert, rain or shine, on Friday, July 26, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church, 142 Prospect St. in Gloucester. The concert of familiar traditional Christmas songs and carols will be recorded for a special CD to help raise money for the parish. Our Lady’s guild members will also offer snacks and drinks for sale.

    Installed in 1922, the carillon bells in Our Lady of Good Voyage Church were the first toned set in the United States.

    The annual summer carillon concert series continues on Fridays at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 9, 16, 23 and 30. More information is available by contacting Pallazola at lpallazola@gmail.com.

    Assisi trip

    The Assisi Project will be making a pilgrimage to Assisi, Carceri and LaVerna from Nov. 11-20 with Brother Patrick and the Rev. James Achadinha of Catholic Community of Gloucester & Rockport. Cost is $4,200 per person includes round-trip air travel, ground transportation, guest house accommodations with single rooms and private bathrooms and travel insurance. Travelers will visit several basilicas and sanctuaries, a hermitage, and Cathedral of San Rufino. Space is limited and reservations are open. More information is available by emailing Father Jim at frjim@assisiproject.com.

    Services

    First Baptist Church of Gloucester, 38 Gloucester Ave., hosts Sunday Services at 10 a.m. The sanctuary is open for worship, and been marked with arrows for entrance and exit, and some pews have been blocked to help observe proper COVID-19 protocols. Masks are required at all times, as well as practicing social distancing. The service is also available on Facebook Live for viewing as it is being conducted, or for viewing at a future time if desired. All are welcome.

    First Baptist Church of Rockport, 4 High St. in Rockport, worships on Sundays at 10 a.m. Worship takes place in the sanctuary and is live streamed via facebook. There is a robust Children’s Church program divided by respective ages that takes place during the service. The service includes traditional and contemporary worship music.

    For more information, visit FirstBaptistRockport.org or follow on Facebook and Instagram.

    First Congregational Church of Essex holds Sunday Worship service in person & live streaming on our Facebook page (www.facebook/firstcongregationalchurchofessex). Our regular worship service is held from September, after Labor Day to the end of May from 10:30—11:30 a.m., with children’s Sunday school at the same time. Adult Sunday school is at 9:30 am. Family communion for all is held on the first Sunday of every month throughout the year. Summer worship starts the beginning of June to the beginning of September (before Labor Day) from 9:30—10:30 a.m. Visit us at www.fccoe.org. All are welcome!

    First Congregational Church, UCC, of Rockport, 12 School St., is meeting in person and online on Sundays at 10 a.m. Links to online streaming can be found at www.oldsloop.org as well as weekly rebroadcasts of the Sunday service. Masks are now optional for in-person services and meetings in the buildings. See the church’s “calendar” of weekly activities and Zoom prayer meetings, storytelling, Bible study, book groups, coffee houses, choirs and poetry at the website, www.oldsloop.org, for times and locations. Questions? 978- 546-6638.

    First Parish Church Congregational Manchester, 10 Central St. in Manchester, is hosting in-person and online Sunday morning worship at 10 a.m. Details can be found at firstparishchurch.org. Virtual worship can be found at facebook.com/firstparishmanchesterma/live and YouTube (search First Parish Church Manchester by the Sea).

    Mondays: On first and third of month, “Still Speaking” group meets at 7:30 p.m. to discuss modern intellectuals’ thinking on issues of faith, morals and justice as they relate to our spiritual tradition. Last Monday of the month, the Book Group meets at 7 p.m. to discuss of a book of interest to people of various backgrounds.

    Wednesdays: Prayer & Meditation, 7 p.m. An opportunity to come together for quiet reflection, sharing of scripture and the offering of prayer intentions.

    Thursdays: Bible Study, 4 p.m., discusses upcoming weekly scripture. No preparation is needed.

    To join these programs on your computer, tablet, smart phone or phone, contact office.fpchurch@gmail.com or 978-526-7661 for details.

    Gloucester Assembly of God, 211 Washington St., hosts Sunday services at 10 a.m. Care is available for infants and children up to age 5. More information is available by contacting Pastor Jim Williams at jim.williams@gloucesterassembly.org or the church office at 978-283-1736.

    Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church, 10 Church St., holds Sunday services at 10 a.m. in-person in its historic sanctuary, as well as online. Please visit the church’s website, www.gloucesteruu.org, for the link to the livestream. Activities provided during the service for elementary school-aged children. The church is handicap accessible. All are welcome.

    North Shore Bible Church, 65 Eastern Ave. in Essex, hosts Sunday services at 10 a.m. The service is also live streamed at northshorebiblechurch.com. For more information call 978.768.3539 or email northshorebible@gmail.com.

    North Shore Friends (Quakers) are now meeting at 10 a.m. on Sundays at 74 Hart St. in Beverly Farms. More information is available by contacting Martin Ray at 978-283-4585.

    The Orthodox Congregational Church of Lanesville‘s Sunday 10 a.m. worship service takes place in person and online. Visit https://occlanesville.org/ for information or for the link to connect via Zoom or Facebook to participate.

    Pigeon Cove Chapel in Rockport‘s services are being celebrated in person and online at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. See its YouTube channel, Pigeon Cove Chapel. 978-546-2523.

    St. John’s Episcopal Church, 48 Middle St., has in-person worship Sundays at 10 a.m., and streaming the service live on Facebook, and posting later to YouTube at stjohnsgloucester. Updates, links to services, and more information are available at www.stjohnsgloucester.org.

    St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1123 Washington St. in Gloucester, holds worship services every Sunday at 10 a.m., in-person and on Zoom. All ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, and faiths — including non-believers and persons curious about faith — are welcome. More information is available at www.stpaulcapeann.org or by calling 978-283-6550.

    Temple Ahavat Achim is meeting in-person and via Zoom. Instructions on how to join the temple’s Zervices may be found at on its homepage, https://www.taagloucester.org/, where details on High Holidays programming can also be found.

    Trinity Congregational Church UCC, 70 Middle St., Gloucester, invites all to its Sunday Services at 10:30 a.m. Guest musicians in a range of styles complement the weekly services. Zoom link available for those unable to attend. Please contact the church office, trinity@trinitycongregational.org for the link. Coffee hour following the service. All welcome. Connect with church via email, or online at www.trinitycongregational.org, where a full calendar can be found.

    Unitarian Universalist Society of Rockport, 4 Cleaves St., Rockport, has resumed in-person worship on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Services will also be available via Zoom. Check the website (www.uusr.org) for the Zoom ID and password or email us at rockportuu@rockportuu.org, if you cannot attend in person. Everyone is welcome.

    Visitation Parish, Churches of Sacred Heart & St. John the Baptist: The Rev. Paul Flammia celebrates Mass in Manchester at Sacred Heart Church, 62 School St., at 5 p.m. on Saturdays and at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays, and at 10 a.m. Sunday at St. John the Baptist, 52 Main St. in Essex. More information may found on the parish website at https://www.mecatholic.org.

    West Gloucester Trinitarian Congregational Church, 488 Essex Ave. in Gloucester, an open and affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ, is hosting in-person services Sundays at 10 a.m. with the Rev. Rona Tyndall. Children’s Message & Music offered, children worship with their families. The church offers youth groups for junior high and high school students as well as programs for younger children. Masks are optional in the Sanctuary but are suggested. Services are also streamed live on the church’s Facebook page. You do not need to be a subscriber to Facebook to view the worship service.

    Monthly Mission Bin Collection: Canned soup, coffee, tea and cocoa for The Open Door.

    Coffee Hour Conversations on Christian Basics; Baptism, Holy Communion, membership and the United Church of Christ, Sunday mornings in Fellowship Hall after worship.

    For pastoral needs, questions, or to reach the Rev. Rona Tyndall, please contact the church at 978-283-2817 or www.wgtccucc@gmail.net. The website is www.wgtccucc.org.

    Annisquam Village Church, 820 Washington St., is conducting worship Sundays at 10 a.m. in person and via Zoom. There is a new Children’s Church program during the service for children ages 3 to 12; it offers music, storytelling, arts, nature-based activities, movement and more, with trained adult leaders. As an independent, interdenominational church, members come from a variety of religious backgrounds and strive to follow Jesus Christ’s way of love and compassion, while being open to the wisdom found in the world’s great religious and spiritual traditions. A non-dogmatic spiritual community, the church encourages members to care for oneanother and the Earth, and to reach out in service to the community and the world. All are welcome. Parking is available along Leonard and Washington Streets. For more information and web links, please visit annisquamvillagechurch.org.

    Cape Ann Bible Church, 8 Thompson St., Gloucester, offers an in-person Sunday Service at 10:30 a.m. and continues to provide it live-streamed on facebook.com/capeannbiblechurch where past services and messages may be found. For more information go to capeannbiblechurch.org or call 978-281-3941.

    The Catholic Community of Gloucester & Rockport‘s churches are open for Masses without capacity limits and reservations.

    Saturday Vigil Masses are at 4 p.m. at St. Ann Church, 74 Pleasant St. in Gloucester, and 6 p.m. at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church, 142 Prospect St. in Gloucester.

    Sunday Masses will at 7 and 11:45 a.m. in Our Lady of Good Voyage Church, 8:15 a.m. in St. Ann Church, and 10 a.m. in Saint Joachim Church, 56 Broadway in Rockport. Sunday Mass will also be offered online at the churches’ YouTube channel, https://bit.ly/3oXvBnf.

    Daily Masses are celebrated at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m., Thursdays and Friday at 8 a.m., and on the first Saturday of the month at 8 a.m.

    The sacrament of confession is offered Wednesdays from 6:05 to 6:45 p.m. at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church and by appointment.

    The Rev. James Achadinha, pastor of the community, said all pastoral ministry and service organizations are meeting again. Pastoral assistance is always available by calling 978-281-4820 or office@ccgronline.com.

    Community Church of East Gloucester, 7 Chapel St., Gloucester. Opportunities to worship available on the church’s website at https://www.eastgloucester.org/news/holy-week-2024.

    Listings may be sent to: Religion Calendar, Gloucester Daily Times, 36 Whittemore St., Gloucester, MA 01930; or emailed to Andrea Holbrook at aholbrook@gloucestertimes.com, at least two weeks prior to the event.

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  • Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Asked To Vacate U.K. Home

    Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Asked To Vacate U.K. Home

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    Buckingham Palace has asked Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to vacate Frogmore Cottage, a 17th-century manor on the grounds of Windsor Castle that the couple intended to keep as their U.K. base when they gave up royal duties and moved to Southern California. What do you think?

    “I’m sure it’s not personal.”

    Allie Moreno, Treadmill Supervisor

    “Just when I thought they couldn’t get any more relatable.”

    Anand Laghari, Pyrotechnics Enthusiast

    “Damn, I was hoping me and my various housekeepers, valets, cooks, and chauffeur could crash with them for a while.”

    Darryl Federspiel, Unemployed

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  • Louisiana churches leave Methodist denomination amid schism

    Louisiana churches leave Methodist denomination amid schism

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    NEW ORLEANS, La. — The United Methodist Church, a mainstay of the American religious landscape, has cut ties with 58 churches in its Louisiana conference amid a nationwide schism within the Protestant denomination.

    The disaffiliations, approved in a virtual conference session Saturday, were the latest in a series of decisions that many Louisiana churches have made in recent weeks to leave the national congregation. Internal tensions over sexuality and theology have roiled the church.

    The congregation’s delegates voted 487-35 in favor of the departures. The disaffiliations required support from two-thirds of the delegates.

    Six churches leaving the conference are from the New Orleans area. Another seven churches are from the Baton Rouge area. St. Timothy, which at 6,000 members is one of the largest Methodist congregations in Louisiana, voted to pursue disaffiliation on Nov. 1, The Advocate reported.

    The United Methodist Church is the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. to begin fracturing amid debates over sexuality and theology. The flashpoints are the denomination’s bans on same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy — though many see these as symptoms of deeper differences in views on justice, theology and scriptural authority.

    The denomination has repeatedly upheld these bans at legislative General Conferences, but some U.S. churches and clergy have defied them. This spring, the Church’s conservative wing launched a new Global Methodist Church, where they are determined to maintain and enforce such bans.

    A proposal to amicably divide the denomination and its assets, unveiled in early 2020, has lost its once-broad support after years of pandemic-related delays to the legislative General Conference, whose vote was needed to ratify it. Now the breakup and the negotiations are happening piecemeal — one regional conference at a time.

    In annual regional gatherings across the U.S. earlier this year, United Methodists approved requests of about 300 congregations to quit the denomination, according to United Methodist News Service. Special meetings in the second half of the year are expected to vote on as many as 1,000 more, according to the conservative advocacy group Wesleyan Covenant Association.

    Those departing are still a fraction of the estimated 30,000 congregations in the United States alone, with nearly 13,000 more abroad, according to recent UMC statistics.

    The Louisiana disaffiliations will take effect after Dec. 31, church officials said. The Louisiana conference will also see a new bishop in the new year, Delores Williamston. She is the conference’s first Black female bishop.

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  • LGBTQ-friendly votes signal progressive shift for Methodists

    LGBTQ-friendly votes signal progressive shift for Methodists

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    The United Methodist Church moved toward becoming more progressive and LGBTQ-affirming during U.S. regional meetings this month that included the election of its second openly gay bishop. Conservatives say the developments will only accelerate their exit from one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations.

    Each of the UMC’s five U.S. jurisdictions — meeting separately in early November — approved similarly worded measures aspiring to a future of church where “LGBTQIA+ people will be protected, affirmed, and empowered.”

    They also passed non-binding measures asking anyone to withdraw from leadership roles if they’re planning to leave the denomination soon — a category that almost entirely includes conservatives moving toward the exits.

    The denomination still officially bans same-sex marriage and the ordination of any “self-avowed, practicing homosexual,” and only a legislative gathering called the General Conference can change that.

    But this month’s votes show growing momentum — at least in the American half of the global church — to defy these policies and seek to reverse them at the next legislative gathering in 2024.

    Supporters and opponents of these measures drew from the same metaphor to say their church is either becoming more or less of a “big tent,” as the United Methodists have long been described as a theologically diverse, mainstream denomination.

    “It demonstrates that the big tent has collapsed,” said the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association, which has been helping churches that want to leave the denomination.

    “For years, bishops have told traditionalists that there is room for everyone in the United Methodist Church,” he said. “Not one single traditionalist bishop was elected. Moreover, we now have the most progressive or liberal council of bishops in the history of Methodism, period.”

    But Jan Lawrence, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, which works toward inclusion of Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities, applauded the regional jurisdictions. She cited their LGBTQ-affirming votes and their expansion of the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of bishops.

    Jurisdictions elected the church’s first Native American and Filipino American bishops, with other landmark votes within specific regions, according to United Methodist News Service.

    “It is a big tent church,” Lawrence said. “One of the concerns that some folks expressed is that we don’t have leadership in the church that reflects the diversity of the church. So this episcopal election doesn’t fix that, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

    Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth, elected in the Western Jurisdiction meeting, agreed. He is the first openly gay African-American man to be elected bishop. The vote comes six years after the Western Jurisdiction elected the denomination’s first openly lesbian bishop, Karen Oliveto of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area.

    The LGBTQ-affirming resolutions point “to the alignment of the denomination more with the mainstream of our country,” Bridgeforth said. “It can also help us begin to center our conversations where we have unity of purpose, rather than centering on divisions.”

    Bridgeforth will lead churches in the Greater Northwest Area, which includes churches in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and small parts of Montana and Canada. He said he has always worked across ideological lines in his administrative duties and would continue to do so.

    “I have used our differences as an opportunity for us to come together,” he said. “It creates more space for a different kind of conversation than, ‘That’s different, that’s bad, we can’t be together.’” If some churches under his jurisdiction do choose to leave the United Methodist Church, Bridgeforth said he would help them make that transition.

    “I would not want anybody to be where they don’t want to be,” he said.

    Progressive groups have said the church should be open to appointing bishops and other clergy, regardless of sexual orientation, who show they have the gifts for ministry and a commitment to serve the church.

    Conservatives, however, say the church needs to abide by its own rules.

    “I am sure Bishop Bridgeforth is a person of sacred worth, but he does not meet the qualifications to hold the office of elder, much less bishop, and should not have been elected,” Therrell said.

    At least 300 U.S. congregations have left the denomination this year, according to United Methodist News Service. Hundreds more are in the process of leaving, and Therrell predicted that number would be in the low thousands by the end of 2023. Overseas conferences in Bulgaria and Slovakia have ended their affiliation with the denomination, and churches in Africa are considering it, he said.

    Many are bound for the newly formed conservative denomination, the Global Methodist Church.

    The UMC is a worldwide denomination. American membership has declined to about 6.5 million, from a peak of 11 million in the 1960s. Overseas membership soared to match or exceed that of the U.S., fueled mostly by growth and mergers in Africa. Overseas delegates have historically allied with American conservatives to uphold the church’s stances on sexuality.

    Support for a compromise measure that would have amicably split the denomination, negotiated in 2020, fell apart after that year’s legislative General Conference was postponed three times due to the pandemic. The next General Conference is now scheduled to begin in April 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    A vote by a 2019 General Conference was the latest of several in recent decades that reinforced the church’s ban on gay clergy and marriage. But that vote also prompted many local conferences to elect more liberal and centrist delegates, whose influence was felt in this month’s regional votes.

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Walker, Warnock offer clashing religious messages in Georgia

    Walker, Warnock offer clashing religious messages in Georgia

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    ATLANTA — One candidate in Georgia’s Senate contest warns that “spiritual warfare” has entangled America and offers himself to voters as a “warrior for God.” But it isn’t the ordained Baptist minister who leads the church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

    It’s Republican Herschel Walker, the sports icon who openly questions the religious practices of Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who calls himself “a pastor in the Senate” and declares voting the civil equivalent of prayer.

    Both men feature faith as part of their public identities in a state where religion has always been a dominant cultural influence. But they do it in distinct ways, jousting in moral terms on matters from abortion, race and criminal justice to each other’s personal lives and behavior.

    Their approaches offer a striking contrast between political opponents who were raised in the Black church in the Deep South in the wake of the civil rights movement.

    “It’s two completely different visions of the world and what our biggest problems actually are,” said the Rev. Ray Waters, a white evangelical pastor in metro Atlanta who backs Warnock in Tuesday’s election.

    How religious voters align could help decide what polls suggest is a narrow race that will help settle which party controls the Senate the next two years. According to Pew Research, about 2 out of 3 adults in Georgia consider themselves “highly religious.”

    Warnock, 53, preaches a kind of social justice Christianity that echoes King, the slain civil rights leader who also led Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

    The senator embraces the Black church’s roots in chattel slavery and Jim Crow segregation. From the pulpit, he acknowledges institutional racism and calls for collective government action that addresses inequities and other social ills. He often notes his arrests as a citizen protester advocating for health insurance expansion in the same Capitol where he now works as a senator.

    “I stand up for health care because it’s a human right,” Warnock said. “Dr. King said that of all the injustices, health care inequality is the most shocking and the most inhumane.”

    Walker talks, too, of society’s shortcomings, but the 60-year-old points to the expansion of LGBTQ rights, renewed focus on racism and “weak” politicians, who, he says, “don’t love this country.” He has called for a national ban on abortions but has faced accusations from two former girlfriends who said he pressured them into terminating pregnancies and paid for their procedures. He has said the claims are lies.

    It’s a culturally conservative pitch tied to individual morals rather than collective responsibility and effectively holds that the United States is a Christian country. That aligns Walker with the mostly white evangelical movement that has shaped the modern Republican Party.

    Those approaches, varied in substance and style, are traced through the two rivals’ biographies.

    Warnock, the son of Pentecostal ministers, pursued a similar educational path as King. Both attended Morehouse College, a historically Black campus in Atlanta. Warnock followed that with Union Theological Seminary in New York, a center of progressive Christian theology. Now with more than a decade in one of the nation’s most famous pulpits, he sometimes quotes Scripture at length and peppers his arguments with Latin references.

    “I believe a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire … and that democracy is the political enactment of the spiritual idea that each of us was created, as the scriptures tell us, in the ‘Imago Dei’ — the image of God,” Warnock told a group of Jewish supporters last month.

    At the same event, during observances of the Jewish New Year, Warnock noted a passage often used as part of Rosh Hashanah fasting. “Is this the fast that the Lord is looking for,” he said, “that you would loose the chains of injustice and you would set the oppressed free, that you would feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger.” Offering the citation — Isaiah 58:6 — he called it “a favorite of mine.”

    Walker also is a Pentecostal pastor’s son and now attends nondenominational Bible churches. A star high school athlete in rural Georgia, his football prowess took him in 1980 to the University of Georgia, a secular public campus that was then overwhelmingly white. Walker never graduated, though he claims otherwise.

    He talks often of Jesus, typically as a figure of “redemption” rather than a guide for public policy.

    “Let me acknowledge my Lord and savior Jesus Christ, because it’s said if you don’t acknowledge him, he won’t acknowledge you,” Walker said at his lone debate with Warnock. “When I come knocking, I want him to let me in.”

    Many Walker events open with prayers, some led by other Black conservative evangelicals. Yet Walker’s scriptural and theological references are scattershot, usually nonspecific allusions as part of broadsides against Warnock and “wokeness.”

    On transgender rights, Walker has said: “I can’t believe we’re discussing what is a woman. That’s written in the Bible. … We got to not let them fool us with all those lies.”

    At a “Women for Herschel” event in August, Walker suggested Warnock is anti-American, and he alluded to the biblical story of the Hebrew God expelling dissident angels from heaven. “It’s time for us to kick those people who don’t like America, kick ‘em out of office,” he said, concluding to his largely white audience: “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re racist.”

    On abortion, he said directly to Warnock on the debate stage: “Instead of aborting those babies, why are you not baptizing those babies?”

    It’s a compelling argument for voters such as Wylene Hayes, a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher in Cumming. “You can just tell Herschel is a man of strong faith, and just humble,” she said. “I don’t have anything against Sen. Warnock, but I do question how he can be a pastor and support abortion.”

    Warnock counters that he supports abortion access because “even God gives us a choice,” while Walker’s position would grant “to politicians more power than God has.”

    Waters said Walker’s collective argument is targeted squarely at white suburban Christians like those he led for decades before moving closer to the Atlanta city center, where he saw more problems to fix and people to help. “It seems to me the central issues in wokeness are … compassionate habits that are a lot of what Jesus said to do,” Waters said.

    Warnock largely sidesteps Walker’s attacks. He has recently begun framing Walker as “not fit” for the Senate because of Walker’s “lies” about his business record and allegations of violence against his ex-wife. The closest Warnock comes to questioning Walker’s faith is to say redemption requires that a person “confess … and be honest about the problem.”

    “I will let him speak for himself,” Warnock said. “I am engaged in the work I’ve been doing my whole life.”

    The Rev. Charles Goodman, an Augusta pastor and friend of Warnock, said it’s not new for outspoken Black pastors, especially those with a more liberal theology, to be tarred as dangerous and anti-American.

    “They called Dr. King a ‘communist,’ and now it’s ‘radical’ and ‘socialist,’” Goodman said. “Dr. Warnock loves this country. There will always be tensions between our aspirational views of the country versus our struggle trying to get to that place. He’s a very hopeful minister, and he’s always going to speak truth to power and live in that tension.”

    ———

    Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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  • United Methodists are breaking up in a slow-motion schism

    United Methodists are breaking up in a slow-motion schism

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    United Methodists have for generations been a mainstay of the American religious landscape — one of the most geographically widespread of the major Protestant denominations, their steeples visible on urban streets, in county seats and along country roads, their ethos marked by a firm yet quiet faith, simple worship and earnest social service.

    But the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members this century amid debates over sexuality and theology.

    In annual regional gatherings across the U.S. earlier this year, United Methodists approved requests of about 300 congregations to quit the denomination, according to United Methodist News Service. Special meetings in the second half of the year are expected to vote on as many as 1,000 more, according to the conservative advocacy group Wesleyan Covenant Association.

    Scores of churches in Georgia, and hundreds in Texas, are considering disaffiliation. Some aren’t waiting for permission to leave: More than 100 congregations in Florida and North Carolina have filed or threatened lawsuits to break out.

    Those departing are still a fraction of the estimated 30,000 congregations in the United States alone, with nearly 13,000 more abroad, according to recent UMC statistics.

    But large United Methodist congregations are moving to the exits, including some of the largest in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

    The flashpoints are the denomination’s bans on same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy — though many see these as symptoms for deeper differences in views on justice, theology and scriptural authority. The denomination has repeatedly upheld these bans at legislative General Conferences, but some U.S. churches and clergy have defied them.

    This spring, conservatives launched a new Global Methodist Church, where they are determined both to maintain and to enforce such bans.

    A proposal to amicably divide the denomination and its assets, unveiled in early 2020, has lost its once-broad support after years of pandemic-related delays to the legislative General Conference, whose vote was needed to ratify it.

    Now the breakup and the negotiations are happening piecemeal — one regional conference at a time.

    New York Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the Council of Bishops, issued a statement in August denouncing “a constant barrage of negative rhetoric that is filled with falsehood and inaccuracies” by breakaway groups. In particular, he disputed allegations that the church is changing core doctrines.

    But he said the denomination seeks to find a balance between encouraging churches to stay yet enabling them to go.

    “It’s a both/and,” Bickerton said in an interview. “We want people to know straight up front that we don’t want them to leave. We need traditionalists, we need centrists, we need progressives willing to engage in a healthy debate to discern what God’s will is.”

    But more departures are expected next year.

    In just the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference, about 300 of its 800 churches have begun inquiring about the process of leaving by the end of 2023, according to the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Not all may follow through, but some see it as inevitable.

    “We feel like to stay the same in our mission and theology, we need to change denominations,” said the Rev. Steve Cordle, lead pastor of Crossroads Church. Based in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, it’s one of the largest congregations in the conference. It’s considering going independent or joining the Global Methodist Church.

    A few miles away in Bethel Park, another Pittsburgh suburb, Christ United Methodist Church remains committed to the denomination.

    The Rev. Chris Morgan said his church has a “big tent” of liberals and conservatives with most congregants “leaning in toward the center.” The church recently hosted an educational series on hot topics including the schism, guns, abortion and COVID-19.

    “Instead of becoming like society, we’re trying to become an example of what it looks like to disagree and still treat people with respect and care and love,” Morgan said.

    He was far from the only one to see a parallel between the Methodist debates and broader societal polarization.

    “We live in a world of division. Just look at our political front,” said Bishop David Graves, who oversees the South Georgia and Alabama-West Florida conferences. Both conferences have dozens of congregations moving to the exits, though the large majority are staying so far.

    Graves said he wants to help enable churches to leave if they want to but has spent long hours urging them to consider all the factors and be sure it is God’s will.

    “It’s very taxing,” he said. “Those are intense meetings.”

    Conservatives say denominational leaders are making it difficult for those who want to leave to do so, however.

    Currently churches may leave after paying two years’ worth of “apportionments” — essentially denominational dues — plus their share of unfunded pension liabilities. Conferences may also impose additional requirements, and some are asking for a percentage of the property value of church buildings.

    “In many cases, (the requirements) are onerous, they are punitive,” said the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative advocacy group that is working to help churches jump to the Global Methodist Church.

    Bishop Karen Oliveto of the UMC’s Mountain Sky region — who in 2016 became the UMC’s first openly lesbian bishop — said via email it is “extremely wounding to LGBTQ persons that our very personhood is being used as a wedge to disrupt unity in the church.” She expressed hope that UMC churches “will be safe places for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

    Conservatives have lamented that UMC has failed to enforce its Book of Discipline on standards for ordination and marriage.

    Oliveto said, however, that sometimes “the Holy Spirit runs ahead of us and gives us a glimpse of the future to which we are called. This is certainly the case across the denomination, where LGBTQ persons have been examined at every step of the ordination process and found to possess the gifts and graces for ordained ministry.”

    United Methodists are part of a global movement that traces their origins to the 18th-century English revivalist John Wesley, who emphasized personal piety, evangelism and social service.

    American membership has declined to about 6.5 million, from a peak of 11 million in the 1960s. Overseas membership soared to match or exceed that of the U.S., fueled mostly by growth and mergers in Africa.

    It’s too early to say if there will be widespread departures from international churches. African churches, for instance, often combine conservative stances on sexual issues with progressive views on the economy and colonialism’s legacy.

    Several African bishops issued a statement denouncing conservative advocacy groups, including one called the Africa Initiative, for collaborating to “destroy our United Methodist Church.”

    The Africa Initiative replied that it respected the bishops but would continue its efforts “to see biblical Christianity taught, lived and sustained.”

    Neal Christie of the Love Your Neighbor Coalition, a partnership of progressive and ethnically based Methodist advocacy groups, said the “notion that outside the United States there’s one monolithic voice is a caricature.”

    The coalition is promoting a more decentralized church where regions could make their own decisions on issues such as LGBTQ inclusion based on their cultural contexts.

    “We believe this is a big tent church, that the church is big enough for all,” he said.

    But after decades of controversy, some are done.

    “The traditionalists decided this is like a toxic relationship now, and we’re just harming each other,” said the Rev. Laura Saffell, chairperson of the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. “The best we can do is bless and send” each other their separate ways.

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Hurricane Ian shakes SW Florida’s faith but can’t destroy it

    Hurricane Ian shakes SW Florida’s faith but can’t destroy it

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    FORT MYERS, Fla. — In darkness and despair, there were flickers of light and hope, even for Jane Compton who lost her home and possessions to Hurricane Ian’s wrath. As the storm approached last week, she and her husband found sanctuary at their Baptist church, huddling with fellow parishioners through wind, rain and worry.

    They prayed for the gusts to subside and for God to keep them from harm as the hurricane made landfall last Wednesday. Floodwaters swept under the pews, driving the congregation to the pulpit and further testing their faith. The intensifying storm ripped the church’s steeple away, leaving a large gap in the roof. The parishioners shuddered.

    “Good Lord, please protect us,” Compton prayed, with her husband, Del, at her side.

    She compared the deluge to the biblical story Noah’s Ark, saying they had no idea when the water would stop rising. When it did, there were hallelujahs.

    With the storm now passed and its devastation abounding, churches across hard-hit Southwest Florida are providing a steadying force in the lives of those plunged into chaos and grief. Heartache, frustration and uncertainty now swirl in sanctuaries amid sermons about perseverance and holding on to one’s faith.

    “We believe this was a blessing in disguise,” said the Rev. Robert Kasten, the Comptons’ pastor at Southwest Baptist Church, a congregation of several hundred in one of the most devastated neighborhoods of Fort Myers.

    Also being tested are many of the nearly quarter million Catholics in the Diocese of Venice, which encompasses 10 counties from just south of Tampa Bay to the Everglades that bore the brunt of the hurricane. Bishop Frank Dewane has been visiting as many of the diocese’s five dozen parishes and 15 schools as possible.

    “A lot of people just wanted to talk about, ‘Why is there this much suffering?’” Dewane said of parishioners he met as he celebrated weekend Mass in a church in an inundated North Port neighborhood and in the parish hall of a storm-damaged Sarasota church. “We have to go on; we’re a people of hope.”

    Priests walked a fine line between holding Mass to provide comfort and not endangering older parishioners in areas with widespread lack of running water and electricity and flooded roadways. Dewane said one rescued man had kept asking about his wife, not realizing she had drowned in the storm.

    Around Kasten’s church, nearby mobile home parks where many of his parishioners lived became submerged. About a fourth of his congregation suffered major damage to their dwellings, with many like the Comptons losing nearly everything. The church’s sanctuary has become temporary quarters for nearly a dozen of the newly homeless.

    Most were handling things well, until the realities of tragedy hit.

    “When they saw pictures, they just burst into tears,” Kasten said.

    “Just the shock of knowing and seeing what you knew happened, it overwhelmed them. But they are just praising the Lord how he protected us, kept us safe,” he said.

    Barbara Wasko, a retiree who is now sleeping on a lounge chair in the sanctuary, said she has faith the community will rebuild.

    “We will get by,” she said. “We will make it.”

    Hurricane Ian’s fury — 150 mph (241 kph) winds and deluges of water — killed dozens of people and stranded countless in what for many communities has been their worst calamity in generations.

    Rhonda Mitchell, who lives near the Baptist church, said all she had left was her faith in God.

    “We don’t know what He is going to do,” she said, her belongings splayed to dry outside her mobile home as an empty U-Haul truck waited to be loaded.

    “I just lost my whole life,” she said, beginning to sob. “I’m still here but I just lost everything I own. … I’m just trying to figure things out.”

    At badly damaged Catholic churches and schools, reconstruction work is already underway. But Dewane said his priority is to “meet people where they are” and ensure the Catholic community can help overall relief efforts.

    That ranges from finding shelter for teachers whose homes were leveled even as many schools are re-opening this week to helping counsel elderly neighbors. The diocese is working with Catholic Charities to set up distribution centers for donations as well as supplies provided by FEMA.

    But many successful efforts are grassroots. When a group of nuns in small Wauchula, an inland town, lost power, they decided to just empty out their freezers of meat and other perishables, and invite the entire neighborhood for a barbeque. The fire blazing, hundreds of people lined up and started adding what they had in their own rapidly warming fridges.

    “We’re doing as well as we can,” Dewane said. “I think we can only be the Lord’s instruments.”

    The Rev. Charles Cannon, pastor at St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church, sermonized about the temporariness of the community’s losses. While much was lost, he said, not all is gone.

    “People think they have lost everything, but you haven’t lost everything if you haven’t lost yourself and the people you love,” Cannon said after Sunday services that were held outside amid the fallen boughs of once-majestic oaks.

    Cannon pointed out that the debris that left church grounds looking like an ugly, unearthly place can be cleaned.

    “Most of the work has been to get the people feeling safe again,” he said, “Almost everybody has been without power. All of them without water. Trying hard to get them feeling comfortable again.”

    Down the street, about 50 parishioners at the Assembly of God Bethlehem Ministry gathered to share in their hardships. They recounted how they had no electricity, no drinkable running water and, in many cases, were left with damaged homes.

    “But God has kept them safe,” said Victoria Araujo, a parishioner and occasional Sunday school teacher.

    “Some people lost a lot of things … We need to pray for the people who lost more than us,” said the Rev. Ailton da Silva, whose congregants are mostly immigrant families from Brazil.

    The storm has truly tested his community’s resiliency, he said, adding that “I think people will think about faith, family and God.”

    Five years ago, Hurricane Irma swept through the region, causing extensive damage to his church. Repairs were still ongoing when Ian hit. The church fared much better this time.

    In the end, “it’s just a building,” da Silva said. “The church is us.”

    ———

    Dell’Orto reported from Minneapolis.

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

    ———

    For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes

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  • Amid crises, rural roots anchor Southern Baptists’ president

    Amid crises, rural roots anchor Southern Baptists’ president

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    FARMERSVILLE, Texas — A sweating Bart Barber trekked across a pasture in search of Bully Graham, the would-be patriarch of the rural pastor’s fledgling cattle herd.

    With the temperature in the mid-90s, the 52-year-old Texan found the bull — whose nickname reflects his owner’s affection for the late Rev. Billy Graham — and 11 heifers cooling under a canopy of trees.

    “Hey, baby girl,” Barber said as he patted a favorite cow he dubbed Lottie Moon after the namesake of his denomination’s international missions offering.

    For nearly a quarter-century, Barber enjoyed relative obscurity as a minister in this town 50 miles northeast of Dallas. That changed in June as delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim, California, chose Barber to lead the nation’s largest Protestant denomination at a time of major crisis.

    The previous month a scathing, 288-page investigative report hit the denomination’s 13.7 million members. It laid out the findings of an independent probe detailing how Southern Baptist leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations.

    In August, SBC leaders revealed that the Department of Justice was investigating several of its major entities, giving few details but indicating that the inquiry concerned the sex abuse allegations.

    Barber’s background as a trusted, small-town preacher — not to mention his folksy sense of humor — helps explain why fellow Baptists picked him.

    “In this moment where I think there’s a lot of widespread distrust of these big institutions, I think a lot of people find it refreshing that the one leading us is an everyday pastor,” said Daniel Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

    A staunch theological conservative, Barber touts biblical inerrancy, opposes women serving as pastors and supports abortion bans. In running for SBC president, he expressed a desire to be a peacemaker and a unifier.

    The SBC faces multiple challenges. Rank-and-file Baptists have demonstrated a strong commitment to implementing sex abuse reforms, but the final outcome remains unclear. The denomination also has a problem with falling membership, which has slid 16% from its 2006 peak.

    Nathan Finn, a church historian and provost of North Greenville University in South Carolina, agreed that Barber’s small-town appeal is a big part of why Baptists turned to him.

    “Though he is a well-educated church historian and an expert on SBC history and polity, Bart is not an elitist,” Finn said via email. “He gives the impression that he would rather be working on his farm than hobnobbing with denominational leaders.”

    After recently appointing an abuse task force that will make recommendations at next year’s annual meeting in New Orleans, Barber said identifying solutions to the problem is his top priority.

    Barber grew up in a Southern Baptist family in Lake City, Arkansas. Baptized just before his sixth birthday, he felt God calling him to ministry at age 11 and preached his first sermon at 15.

    His late father, Jim, ran the home office for an Arkansas congressman, a Democrat named Bill Alexander. His stay-at-home mother, Carolyn, now 77, taught him to read by the time he entered kindergarten.

    Often his dad would bring politicians by the house, he recalled, and his mom would make chicken pot pie or smothered steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.

    “Here we were in very small-town Arkansas — not a lot of money, not a lot of fame or anything like that — and a gubernatorial candidate would stop by the house,” Barber said.

    He attended Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he met his future wife, Tracy, in a campus ministry. They have two children: Jim, 19, and Sarah, 16.

    He also earned a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in church history from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He pastored in Mill Creek, Oklahoma, and Royse City, Texas, before moving to Farmersville in 1999.

    “He has the heart of a pastor. He is someone who really cares about folks,” Tracy Barber said of her husband of 30 years. “The people in our church are our family.”

    Steve Speir, 74, is a 42-year member of First Baptist Church of Farmersville, which averages Sunday attendance of about 320. His wife, Linda, plays the church organ.

    Barber is “very organized,” Speir said. “He won’t keep anything hidden. Our entire church has full disclosure on all financial matters.”

    Another longtime member, Donna Armstrong, 75, said: “We never doubt whether he’s biblically based or loves the Lord.”

    On a recent Sunday, Barber got up at 4:30 a.m., attended a deacons meeting at 7 and preached at 8:30 and 11. After a nap, he drove to Dallas and flew to Nashville, Tennessee, for meetings at the Southern Baptist Convention headquarters.

    “It is stressful. It is time-consuming. I do enjoy it,” Barber said of his new job.

    Back home later in the week, he rose before the sun on Saturday to help his daughter load a 1,000-pound heifer named Iris into a cattle trailer. They drove a half-hour to a livestock show.

    There, Barber greeted special-needs children who came to see the animals, used clippers to help Sarah shave Iris and periodically shoveled manure into a garbage can.

    He also enjoyed a friendly chat with rancher Joni Brewer about her miniature Hereford cows. Brewer attends a Southern Baptist church, but she had no clue about Barber’s role with the SBC.

    “I live out in the country,” she said, “so you don’t always see all of those things.”

    But James Callagher, who knows Barber through 4-H Club activities, described his friend as perfect for the job.

    “The thing that sticks out to me is just authenticity,” said Callagher, who is Catholic. “He lives his faith, and as Christians we have a lot of common ground.”

    In addition to such in-person contacts, Barber maintains an active Twitter presence. Just in the last week, he posted pictures of his cows, debated biblical qualifications for church leaders and shared SBC plans for Hurricane Ian relief.

    Barber and his family live in a church-owned parsonage, but last year they bought 107 acres of land where they’re raising their Santa Gertrudis beef cattle.

    In a recent sermon, Barber joked that a boyhood job chopping cotton and hoeing soybeans was what inspired him to go into ministry. Asked on the drive back from the livestock show if he’s now enjoying life as a farm owner, Barber smiled.

    “Not only that, but I’m surviving everything else because of how I’m enjoying it,” he said. “It’s a great source of tranquility for me.”

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Promoting Interfaith Understanding at the Scientology European Human Rights Office

    Promoting Interfaith Understanding at the Scientology European Human Rights Office

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    The Church of Scientology European Public Affairs and Human Rights Office in Brussels hosts programs to bridge the divide between religions and promote understanding

    Press Release
    –


    updated: May 18, 2017


    Brussels, Belgium, May 16, 2017 (Newswire.com)
    –
     Celebrating diversity in the seat of the European Union, the Church of Scientology European Public Affairs and Human Rights Office promotes understanding through interfaith activities.

    2017 is a very significant year for Western religion as it marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation — Martin Luther’s October 31, 1517, posting of the 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. To promote a better understanding of this event and the history and impact of Protestantism, the Office organized an interfaith workshop by a pastor of the Protestant Liberal Church May 4, hosted by the Brussels branch of the Churches of Scientology for Europe.

    A few days later, the Church held an interfaith service for 41 master’s students from a Flemish university. The service was conducted by Rev. Marc Bromberg, who coordinates the Office’s interfaith and scholastic activities.

    Rev. Bromberg spoke of a basic Scientology belief — that we are all immortal spiritual beings whose experience transcends a single lifetime. He read the essay “Personal Integrity” by L. Ron Hubbard that begins, “What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. And when you lose that, you have lost everything.” He stressed that nothing in Scientology is true for you unless you have observed it yourself.

    He also spoke of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program, created by Mr. Hubbard, whose members are charged with helping to instill “conscience and kindness and love and freedom from travail by instilling … trust, decency, honesty and tolerance” and restoring “purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.”

    He ended with the Creed of the Church of Scientology, which asserts the values of respect for the beliefs of others:

    We of the Church believe

    That all men of whatever race, color or creed were created with equal rights.

    That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance.”

    …

    That Man is basically good.

    That he is seeking to Survive.

    That his survival depends upon himself and upon his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the Universe.

    The service was followed by brunch, a question-and-answer period and a tour of the Church.

    The Church of Scientology European Public Affairs and Human Rights Office is located at the Brussels branch of the Churches of Scientology for Europe at Boulevard de Waterloo 103 in Brussels, which was opened in January 2010. An Ideal Scientology Organization, the Church is configured to provide the full services of the Scientology religion to its parishioners, while also serving the community with social betterment and outreach programs.

    Source: ScientologyNews.org

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