By Emily McFarlan Miller, Religion News Service.
The United Methodist Church General Conference convenes once every four years to make policy decisions and set the direction for the denomination.
Beginning Tuesday (May 10), 864 delegates, half of them clergy, will converge on the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Ore., for 10 days for the General Conference. More than 40 percent of those delegates will come from outside the U.S.
They’ll consider 1,043 proposals listed in the conference’s legislation tracking system.
Here are six of the most talked-about issues:
1. LGBT inclusion
The United Methodist News Service tallied up more than 100 petitions alone on sexuality.
Related article: Methodist General Conference to Discuss LGBT Issues — Again
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What I don’t understand is why the Methodists and the PCUSA all have this divestment bug about Israel and no other country. Why not divest from Saudi Arabia, where Bibles are illegal? Or the whole Middle East, where women are treated like chattel – or worse, where honor killings are not condoned but ignored in large part? Or countries where a dictator is in charge and people are starving? Why always just big bad Israel?
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mt. 6.21)
As I’m sure you’ve no doubt surmised, the answer is because of the skewed priorities of the so-called “Mainline” denominations, like the UMC and the PC(USA).
The United Methodist taking a page out of the pcusa playbook, this has been a complete disaster for us, what makes the UMC think it’s going to go any different for them?