wfn.org | United Methodist Church considers gambling a 'menace to society'

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 24, 1998	Contact: Thomas S. McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.         {498}

NOTE:  This story may be used as a sidebar to UMNS #497.

By United Methodist News Service 

Gambling, according to the United Methodist Church's Social Principles,
is a "menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social,
economic, and spiritual life, and destructive to good government."

The Social Principles, contained in the church's Book of Discipline, are
a "prayerful and thoughtful effort on the part of the General Conference
to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound
biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in the
United Methodist traditions." The General Conference, the top
legislative body of the denomination, meets every four years and is the
only entity that can make official policy for the church.

"As an act of faith and concern, Christians should abstain from gambling
and should strive to minister to those victimized by the practice,"
according to the statement in the Social Principles. "Where gambling has
become addictive, the church will encourage such individuals to receive
therapeutic assistance so that the individual's energies may be
redirected into positive and constructive ends. The church should
promote standards and personal lifestyles that would make unnecessary
and undesirable the resort to commercial gambling - including public
lotteries - as a recreation, as an escape, or as a means of producing
public revenue or funds for support of charities or government."

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United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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