wfn.org | Call to Church for Justice, Rights

[umethnews-request@ecunet.org]

"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (2875 notes).

Note 2875 by SUSAN PEEK on April 18, 1996 at 20:44 Eastern (4168 characters).

SEARCH:  witness, prayer, social justice, human rights

011 {2875}                                          April 18, 1996

General Conference

Special service of witness and prayer
lifts many voices seeking prophetic justice

     DENVER (UMNS) -- A special service of witness and prayer
called United Methodists to look backward and move forward in the
areas of justice and human rights here today.

     In a service of more than 90 minutes, the Rev. F. Belton
Joyner of Raleigh, N.C., observed the service grew out of a
controversy that followed the passage in Colorado of Amendment 2.

     He said some United Methodists saw the amendment as an effort
to deny basic human rights to homosexuals and other United
Methodists saw it as an extension of the church's policy that
homosexual practice is "incompatible with Christian teaching." The
idea of special service was put forth at a time when some members
of the denomination wanted to move the planned General Conference
out of the state.

     The amendment is in the court system, and United Methodists
were urged by Belton to "enjoy the God who comes into history and
won't let go."

     Many other voices carried the messages, including a
meditation, five witnesses, Scripture, prayer and music.

     In the meditation, the Rev. William J. Abraham, an Irish
Methodist and professor of Wesley studies at United Methodist-
related Perkins Theological Seminary, noted that Methodism's
history on social justice and civil rights is a mixed one.

     "We have wobbled and wavered," he said. "No doubt we will
wobble and waver again."

     Abraham, whose first church was located across the street
from a terrorist hangout, said he learned there "how important it
is to make uncompromising disciples."

     Church members will not have a deep impact on the world if
they restrict their faith to the private sphere nor will they
change the world by proclamations and demonstrations, he said.
Instead, disciples should be taught the faith, so that in
obedience to God in Jesus Christ, they will gladly "be spent in
the service of justice and peace in the world."

     Andrei Kim, a witness from Moscow, Russia, told of the danger
to denominations other than the Russian Orthodox from that church
and from some politicians who would take advantage of the present
uncertainties there.

     A second witness, Dorothy Yeoman of Elgin, Ill., spoke of her
commitment as a United Methodist woman to a prison ministry with
women and to the elimination of capital punishment.

     Randy Miller of San Francisco, the third witness, said that
he had faced discrimination as an African-American and as a gay
man, but that he is a child of God. Too often, he commented, the
church has been silent when it should have spoken for justice.
"Now is the moment to heal our church," he urged, by casting down
walls and being one.

     The Rev. Minerva Carcano, Albuquerque, N.M., the fourth
witness, said of the church, "Our racism, our sexism and our
homophobia are symptoms to our acquiescence to a darkness within." 
She challenged United Methodists to be "true defenders of human
and civil rights."

     Francisco de Castro Maria, the fifth witness, a student from
Angola, spoke of the 400 years of oppression his country
experienced at the hands of a colonial power and its present "lack
of development caused by external forces." He asked the conference
to pray for Angola, a country with one of the greatest refugee
problems in world.

     Retired Bishop Rueben Job led the gathering in prayers.
Others who participated in the service included the Rev. William
Quick, vice chair of the Commission on the General Conference;
Mary Silva, a delegate from San Antonio, Texas; and the Rev. S. T.
Kimbrough and Cynthia Wilson-Felder, co-directors of music for the
General Conference.

     Almost 1,000 delegates from around the world have gathered
April 16-26 in Denver for the General Conference, a legislative
assembly held every four years by the denomination.

                              #  #  #
                                                 -- Joretta Purdue
 -0- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 To make suggestions or give your comments, send a note to 
 umns@ecunet.org or Susan_Peek@ecunet.org

 To unsubscribe, send the single word "unsubscribe" (no quotes)
 in a mail message to umethnews-request@ecunet.org

-----------------------------------------------------------------------