#umc split

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jason DeRose at NPR:

The United Methodist Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S., has voted to repeal its ban on LGBTQ clergy as well as prohibitions on its' ministers from officiating at same-sex weddings. Delegates overwhelmingly approved the changes, 692 to 51, during the United Methodist Church's General Conference. The meeting is taking place this week in Charlotte, N.C. after the pandemic delayed the 2020 General Conference where these decisions has been slated to take place.

The tone of the Charlotte meeting has been decidedly upbeat, in sharp contrast with the last, highly contentious global meeting back in 2019, when heated floor debates left many feeling hurt. In fact, there was no floor debate over the clergy and marriages rules this time around. Rather, they were included on a consent agenda. However, in the years leading up to this General Conference, about one-quarter of United Methodist congregations in the U-S left the denomination. Those congregations tended to be among the most conservative in the church. Their departure made the decisions this year less fraught. Some of those departing congregations left to form the more conservative Global Methodist Church and others decided to become independent. The main reason many of those congregations left the denomination is that despite the church's official rules against LGBTQ clergy and same-sex weddings, some local geographic conferences chose to not enforce them.

At the United Methodist Church's General Conference today, the UMC voted overwhelmingly to lift its ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and denominational clergy officiating same-sex weddings.

This is made possible in party by the departure of more conservative churches to either the Global Methodist Church, independent of any denomination, or other Wesleyan denominations.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: United Methodist Church ends ban on LGBTQ+ clergy in historic vote

CNN: United Methodist Church lifts 40-year ban on LGBTQ clergy

[feastingonchrist]

been reading up on Methodist theology a little bit (well, what it says on the wiki page and the global Methodist catechism) and from what i have seen so far, they're pretty based and teach some things i have already believed/agreed with anyways lol. so i think it's funny that i ended up in the Methodist church, especially considering that when i watched one of RZ's brief explanation of the Methodist Church last year, i have wanted to check it out ever since then. so i did. i'm learning by experience & studying theology. so far, i love the Methodist Church!!! i don't/won't agree with everything though, and i think that's actually very healthy in any Christian denomination bc: sola scriptura.

[bambamramfan]

Discourse knows, there have been too many articles in the UMC publications about polyamory, and I apologize for adding to the bonfire of think pieces. At least this one linked above is less obnoxious than most of them.

(The most obnoxious one is referenced in this article, the Atlantic piece saying that polyamory is bourgeois identity politics distracting from material change.)

And what gets me is that for a bunch of supposed Marxists decrying how polyamory is just cultural superficiality irrelevant to the superstructure of material conditions.... none of them can bother to write a Marxist analysis of polyamory! It's just throwing different names at each other, no discussion of material incentives.

And it's so fucking easy to write one, isn't it. Here's our starting points:

Marriage (and the relationship models that lead to it) is an economic institution.

The change in modern polyamory fads is, like most fashion, coming from the upper-class.[1]

I think we can all agree on these basic premises, and they provide a great deal of grist for economic analysis.

For instance, the middle class in America is falling apart. Especially if you are a recent college graduate. It's easy to get an internship that might be on track to a very lucrative career, especially in a big city. It's a lot harder to start a stable middle-class job somewhere between the coasts. So you can't really start planning for baby until you're 30 and after 5 different careers you maybe have one that will last more than a year, and can put a down payment on a home at maybe 35. (Housing costs rising, especially in cities, has really exacerbated that.

Does this apply to everyone? No. Does it apply to more people that in the past? Big yeah. So, what does a young educated something do in their twenties and early thirties?

But the upper class - I suppose we are supposed to say upper middle class, but c'mon programmer earning $250k you're fooling no one - is booming. It's easier to enter it, especially if you're smart, than ever (note that increasing from 1% mobility to 10% mobility is a big change, even if on the absolute scale it's still unfair.)

Polyamory - or extramarital sex - has always been popular among the rich. Because marriage isn't really an economic necessity for them. If a couple splits, well there's enough money to go around for all the kids to live in nice houses. Mormon bigamy flourishes when a male breadwinner is so ultra-successful they can support for 5 wives, and geek group poly houses flourish when one systems engineer can pay for the whole house on their own too (maybe there's one kid everyone chips in babycare for in the house, but no one is even thinking about enough children in the group house for a fertility rate close to 1:1.)

So if you cut out the ladder from the middle-class-monogamy path, and widen the highway for upper-class-laissez-faire-culture, then cultural norms are gonna flow from the former to the latter.

The thing about relationship norms that makes the change really noticeable is their NETWORK EFFECTS. Being the only polyamorous person in a monogamous community is basically irrelevant, right? Who you gonna date? Similarly if you are in an entirely polyamorous community, my sympathies if you happen to be monogamous and so everyone you want to date has incompatible norms.

But once you start getting away from the edges, they S-curve up real fast because there's finally the option to try the minority relationship style, and for the agnostics who are okay poly or mono, they start seeing people they think are cute in the other camp, and hey, why not try it out.

So combine the collapse of the middle class, the proliferation of upper class hedonism, and network effects and a poly-explosion seems almost inevitable, doesn't it?

...

Of course, I haven't presented any hard evidence, this marginal change at most applies to less than double digits percentage of the populace, and this isn't even how the story feels from inside my head (as a poly converted person.)

But it was. At least. An attempt. To do. Materialistic analysis!

Why are all published Marxists so bad at this.

--

[1] Polyamory, or extreme family/relationship/household flexibility has always flourished in the underclass. But the NYT isn't going around interviewing trailer parks in Appalachia to ask them about their exciting new lifestyle.

[labgrownmeat]

UMC is trending on twitter because the church finalized striking down the ban on gay clergy and revised their teachings on homosexuality. feeling some emotions about it. i was raised in a UMC church. unfortunately i was raised in one of the ones that split from the UMC over this because they're so homophobic they decided to divide the church instead. it was a miserable miserable experience. im glad queer kids being raised in the /other/ UMC are getting a better shake of things, but my own childhood has made me so bitter towards them that i can't help but wish they would just tear the whole thing down.

[libraryofcirclaria]

The John Waysworth Scandal

Remikra, 1264 to 1308

Canticula, 1267 to 1287

Deep-Trade: Definition

Deep-trade is the spellfire practice of assigning special tradestones to represent certain shares of certain assets of value for a particular business. Licensed spellcrafters can "explode" deep-trade stones in order to produce currency or items of value equal to the value the said stones represent. However, since this is an end-use and there are far more tradestones than licensed spellcrafters available to engage them in a timely fashion, it is a more economic practice for a stoneholder to purchase a tradestone at a particular value, then sell it whenever it increases in value, in order to make a profit.

Retun and Prove: Established Relations

In 1285, a trade arrangement signed between the Lykian and Retunian Republics split the Galapolgis Island of Vantacula between the two nations and allowed private businesses to establish themselves here. Legally, all of Vantacula was under Lykian jurisdiction, but the Lykians had decided through the trade deal to lease the Western half of the Isle to the Retunians. Thus, Retunian businesses, primarily deep-trade firms, were allowed to open alongside similar Lykian businesses. Furthermore, a mutual agreement in the trade deal exempted deep-trade transactions between Lykian and Retunian businesses from tariffs or taxation. There was no deep-trade arrangement yet between the two nations, politically speaking, although there was the potential for such an arrangement to materialize in the future, sparking excitement among investors across both nations. In the meantime, deep-trade transactions were facilitated as John Waysworth, a prominent representative of the Bucksworth Financial Institute, headquartered in Hasphitat, established a branch office in Vantacula.

In November 1285, the National Bank for the Lykian Trust, or NBLT, extended an invitation to John Waysworth to establish a Provan chapter for the Bucksworth Institute Tradestone Commission in a high-value office space in the city of Prove proper.

John Waysworth in Prove

John Waysworth accepted the invitation and established the Provan chapter in January 1286. Before long, he began selling valuable deep-trade stones to Lykian banks and businesses, and using the proceeds from this to purchase Lykian deep-trade stones to sell to Retunian tradestone markets. Net proceeds from all of this paid into lucrative dividends, particularly for Waysworth as well as Bucksworth shareholders back in Remikra.

On November 10, 1286, John Waysworth's office in Prove was sacked by Lykian officials, who conducted a thorough search of the premise and arrested John Waysworth, himself. Waysworth was charged with fraud and espionage, and faced a possible death sentence. Retunian Prime Minister Arthur Cummings had just returned from a Summit in Vantacula with Lykian President Restara Unjoy when he was informed of this. Immediately, Prime Minister Cummings sent his best known lawyers to defend John Waysworth in the Lykian court proceedings, an approach that succeeded in convincing the Lykian Justice System to reduce Waysworth's sentence to deportation. On November 14, John Waysworth was taken to a holding cell at a border crossing between the Lykian Republic and the nation of Umcings, where he would wait until a Retunian air reconnaissance unit came to pick him up.

John Waysworth was not informed on when the reconnaissance unit would come. So he decided to escape custody and flee into the surrounding countryside. The issue here was that the border crossing was located in the highlands of the Chokian Mountains, where the climate was cold, snowy, and harsh. Furthermore, the landscape was filled with dangerous wildlife animals such as bears, wolves, and predatory wysps. Supposedly, John Waysworth escaped a close encounter with a bear on the first night, and a close encounter with a wysp on the second night. Finally though, on November 16, an air rescue reinforcement team launched by Cummings upon news of Waysworth's escape assisted the original reconnaissance unit, and spotted John Waysworth. They rescued him and flew him back to Remikra.

The Lykian War

Lykian President Restara Unjoy condemned the so-called Waysworth Scandal, holding the Retunian government responsible. As it turned out, Lykian authorities received a tip that John Waysworth had been selling stagmarcated tradestones, or tradestones worth almost no value being sold to unknowing clients for a falsely high value, hence the reason for the sacking of John Waysworth's office in Prove on November 10. And when they searched the premise, Lykian officials had spellcrafters "explode" three of John Waysworth's tradestones, which turned out to be duds.

How did the Lykian authorities find out about John Waysworth's scandal in the first place? During the Summit between Prime Minister Cummings and President Unjoy, which took place on November 6, Prime Minister Cummings sent a letter to President Unjoy asking for her and her family to join in on the Scandal. The issue with this approach was that the NBLT, the primary bank victimized by the Waysworth Scandal, was the very institute in which the Unjoy family had deep stakes. The Retunian public in years to come would condemn Prime Minister Cummings not only for taking part in the Waysworth Scandal, but also for his daft judgement behind writing the letter to President Unjoy. Needless to say, the Retunian Prime Minister's decision at the Summit made absolutely no strategic sense.

Regardless, President Unjoy, on December 24, 1286, issued executive orders freezing all trade relations with the Retunian Republic and revoking the lease in Vantacula. Subsequently, she ordered Retunian authorities to evacuate all Retunian civilians and businesses off the Isle. However, Retunian authorities refused such orders and called on Prime Minister Cummings, who more than obliged to send in Retunian Marine and Army forces to defend the Retunian settlers from local pro-Lykian partisans consisting mostly of Vantaculan natives. While doing this, Prime Minister Cummings news of the hostility from Lykian leadership be withheld from the Retunian public, as well as informed the Retunian Department of Defense of a "possible local partisan terrorist threat."

In short, Cummings aimed to preserve the newly-gained status quo by defying orders from the Lykian government while trying to prevent the Retunian public from becoming aware of possible Lykian hostility.

Between January 2 and January 23, 1287, Retunian and partisan forces engaged in numerous skirmishes. On January 24, the Lykian Navy arrived, engaging with Retunian forces in a heavy battle across the Isle, another development that Prime Minister Cummings prevented from being disclosed to the Retunian public. Between February 4 and 5, Cummings sent the Retunian Navy, which succeeded in driving all Lykian forces off of Vantacula. Cummings then summoned the Lykians to an "emergency counsel" in order to negotiate peace and territorial concessions, an invitation to which the Lykians responded with cold silence.

On February 6, 1287, President Unjoy ordered high-flying Lykian aircraft to drop Red Desert bombs upon South Masonia, Hasphitat, and the Basin District of Retun proper. Each of those targeted cities was devastated by the attack as the entire Retunian population went into panic. President Unjoy gave a second order for Prime Minister Cummings to surrender all of Vantacula.

Prime Minister Cummings refused to comply to this. Between February 7 and 16, 1287, the Lykian Navy renewed its assault upon Vantacula and attempted to take it by force. The Retunians held their ground; and on February 15, Prime Minister Cummings ordered an airstrike on the Lykian base in Gyrosak responsible for the Vantacula initiative.

On February 16, 1287, President Unjoy responded with Red Desert bomb attacks on Egdir and Retun. Later that evening, in the wake of these events, particularly with the city of Retun proper being struck by two Red Desert bomb attacks, Prime Minister Cummings signed a mutual cease-fire with the Lykian Republic. On February 17, the island-nation of Rakara, allied to the Lykian Republic, facilitated the signing of a Treaty by the Retunians to surrender not just Vantacula, but most of the Galapolgis Isles to the Lykian Republic. The consolation here was that the Retunian Republic was allowed to keep the five Westernmost Isles.

Thus, the war was over.

Fallout

Retunian businesses lost many of their trade posts. Roughly seventy-five percent of the Retunian trade network around the Circlarian Ocean would eventually be recovered; although the apex of Retunian trade achieved in the early-to-mid-1280s would never be achieved again.

The Retunian population would lose trust not only in Prime Minister Cummings and his Administration, but also the Retunian establishment as a whole. The public was outraged at the John Waysworth Scandal and the gag orders given by Cummings to hide from the public the truth about the Lykian War. A group of Representatives in Retunian Council filed a motion to have Prime Minister Cummings impeached.

In the midst of all this, however, emerged a significant question: Why did Prime Minister Cummings explicitly tell President Unjoy about the John Waysworth Scandal? Speculation arose from this, because in 1285, Cummings and Waysworth had become involved in a conflict of interest over a revised tax code. During that brief exchange of civil hostility, Waysworth vowed to have his firm reduce funding to Prime Minister Cummings' prospective 1290 re-election campaign. This led to speculation over whether or not Cummings' reveal of John Waysworth to President Unjoy was, in fact, a form of retaliation. However, there was no hard evidence to back up this theory.

A major revelation came in the year 1359 with the discovery of a letter to Arthur Cummings from his mother, who lived until the year 1302. It was dated March 10, 1286, months before the Summit in Vantacula. And that letter contained advice from his mother for Cummings to invite President Unjoy to partake in the "lucrative business arrangement" involving John Waysworth.

Scholars initially rejected the so-called "ridiculous and completely ludicrous notion that an elected public official would act on the whimsical advice of a personal family member in this way." However, there are quite a few factors now known about Arthur Cummings. First was that he was known to take advice from his mother without question, even in matters where his mother, though undoubtedly well-intentioned, was not well-versed. Also, Cummings was raised in a very affluent socioeconomic environment; and though he was good at the practice of business, particularly in banking, he did not ace his college courses in history and political science. All of these factors in combination led Arthur Cummings to become extremely, and even dangerously, complacent when it came to making serious decisions like those in a public office.

The impeachment motion against Arthur Cummings in 1287 never made it past a vote in the Retunian House of Representatives. Cummings would encounter another impeachment motion against him in 1295, but that failed as well. However, Cummings would lose the 1296 election against the Progressive candidate, John "Red" Waltmann.

John Waysworth, meanwhile, announced an early retirement in December 1286 and moved to the Mid-Westerlies, where he would remain until his death in 1310.

[acerobbiereyes]

UMC & Tiktok split deleted this sound on this masterpiece, but through Tumblr upload it survives.

EVERYONE SHUT UP THIS IS THE BEST TIKTOK

[thetruthisfarout]

is anyone else sad about the methodist split? as an LGBT christian i really struggle knowing a lot of my very loving and wonderful friends are leaving the UMC for the new “conservative” global methodist church

[gaykarstaagforever]

If the United Methodist Church Conference is "dead" because the leadership admitted that gay people deserve human rights and a ton of congregations will split from them because that is "wrong", that means a big proportion of its affiliated congregations are merely social clubs for idiot bigots who were only using a random and hateful definition of God in the first place to justify not paying taxes on their Klan clubhouses.

"BUT THE BIBLE SAYS -- !"

Absolutely shut the fuck up. No it doesn't. Even the mistranslated, arbitrarily cobbled-together, Protestant-revised version of that book doesn't say gay people are subhuman. Even with all those disqualifing qualifiers, no it fucking does not. You are a liar, or a dipshit who hasn't read it.

I have. Like 12 different versions of it. Even when it says "gay stuff is sin," that absolutely doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. All have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God. Jesus died for you and fags alike. That is the POINT. There is no "slightly-less sinful" supremacy. That isn't in any of the books of that book. That's THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE RELIGION.

You are stupid trash and bad at fundamental Christianity, even by your own recent, irrational, dogmatic standards.

And all of this is fantasy nonsense in the first place! It isn't even real! You made up fantasy on top of fantasy, and even THEN don't do it right!

You worthless fools can't even follow your own bullshit rules correctly. It's...it's amazing.

You are failing at the made up thing you made up, based on a made up thing.

I hope the UMC dies. The last thing bigots - who live in a delusional fantasy universe they are bad at - need, is cover, for actively hating actual real people.

[plethoraworldatlas]

The United Methodist Church’s General Conference will meet in Charlotte, North Carolina from April 23 to May 4, 2024. Originally scheduled for 2020 and delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this meeting of the church’s legislative body comes at a critical time for the United States’ second-largest Protestant denomination.

In 2022, conservative Methodists announced a break with the UMC, forming the Global Methodist Church. These leaders believed that the UMC had become too liberal, drifting away from orthodoxy. The issue at the heart of the split, however, revolves around the UMC’s long-standing battle over LGBTQ+ rights.

This denominational split draws comparisons to one in 1844, when Methodists divided over slavery. As a scholar of American religious history and Methodist studies, I see parallels but also great differences between the current schism and the one in 1844.

Both schisms center on predominant social issues of their eras. The current schism, however, comes at a time when United Methodists, like other American churches, must navigate a changing religious landscape — one where church membership is declining, especially among younger Americans.

[tototavros]

shame about the whole theism thing in christianity, other than that, it’s one of those things that sometimes feels tempting 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Laura Bullard at Vox:

Last week, hundreds of United Methodist Church (UMC) delegates from around the world sat down to vote on whether or not to reverse a longstanding ban on the ordination of LGBTQ clergy. The decision would also determine whether or not to strike a rule that prohibited clergy from presiding over “homosexual unions.” The room was uncharacteristically hushed as delegates logged their votes. They’d gathered to participate in a quadrennial General Conference, where an elected group of clergy and laypeople review and edit the rules and social stances of the church on a variety of subjects. When the results were announced, the room erupted in loud sobs and cheering. With this vote — and several others — over 50 years of church law, doctrine, and social stances aimed at restricting the full inclusion of LGBTQ methodists were reversed. In a dramatic deviation from the staid (remarkably congressional) proceedings, the Methodists began to sing. Church historian Ashley Boggan told Today, Explained’s Noel King that the UMC’s schism should matter to Methodists and non-Methodists alike. “If you look at Methodist history within the United States, it’s a great lens for looking at American history,” she said.

How did we get here?

For the last five years, the United Methodist Church has been fighting over its stance on LGBTQ members. In a one-off special session in 2019, the UMC had voted to tighten its prohibitions on LGBTQ members — a decision that nearly half of all UMC congregations across the country went on to publicly reject in the following years. So, in 2022, a splinter denomination was born: the Global Methodist Church. Traditionalist congregations had seen the writing on the wall: Change was coming, and they didn’t want to be part of it. Conservative churches began leaving the denomination in droves, and by the time the General Conference convened this year, a quarter of US congregations had jumped ship. It was this newly slimmed-down UMC that voted to reverse the church’s anti-LGBTQ positions earlier this month.

This Vox article on the United Methodist Church’s recent split over LGBTQ+ issues represents the microcosm of America.

[feastingonchrist]

Progressive "Christianity" is nothing but Marxism, weaponizing empathy and love, while not even understanding what true love is (ONLY found through the Gospel),watering down the gospel and only preaching half of it, making God into your own image, denying biblical truth and authority along with God's authority, denying Jesus' identity while not being grounded in the one and only identity only found in Jesus Christ - but finding their identity in the world/sin, straight up blaspheming God in some circumstances, not taking sin seriously and even encouraging it (otherwise you're a bigoted, homophobic, transphobe, etc.) and only using scripture when it's convenient to furthering the political agenda which is constantly being updated because it's not rooted in truth; only lies, bullying and manipulation. They have traded THE ONE TRUE GOD for the god of politics, social justice and god of self. I could probably say more but this wasn't scripted and it has been on my mind for a little while today after seeing that straight up joke of a bishop "preaching" in that church while the Trump and Vance families were in attendance.

These are the wolves in sheep's clothing we have been warned about in scripture. It grieves me that these people have invaded and taken over the Church so rapidly and have caused many denominations to split. Look at what they have done to the United Methodist Church... it has split apart because of this. I'm in a Methodist church that used to be UMC until the church split int the GMC because people are fed up with the nonsense. They have also invaded the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal and Anglican churches, too. They take over our long standing, historical churches that are full of beauty, richness and tradition and make faithful Christ followers want to leave, while force feeding a bunch of political ideology into the ears of the attendants. They still find some sort of value in liturgy and tradition, though, but i do not think they are doing it in any sense of reverence toward God. It seems as though they are only doing it because it looks "nice" and "religious". I mean for goodness sakes, they take COMMUNION in these services... that is a serious offense to Christ. They have no business leading our churches or a new and vulnerable congregation of people who seem to be wanting to come to Christ who are led astray from Him right in the same buildings that we are to be learning about Him and gathering together to worship Him. This is why i say they weaponize empathy and love in the name of tolerance because they bully and manipulate people into bowing down to their god of politics and keep the law of social justice and political correctness and are putting so much confidence in themselves to change the world, which is nothing but idolatry and self glorification. If you go against their beliefs you are a heretical blasphemer who will be sentenced to being canceled and possibly even doxxed. That is not pleasing to God, only their flesh. They are their own gods and they think they can control people and have the authority to tell others what to do and punish them when they don't comply. So whatever they say, think, feel and do is perfectly okay in their eyes and that is why they are so offended when people are pro-life because it challenges their excess needs for control and pleasure. These people are like the blind leading the blind and their souls are headed towards destruction. It really just makes me sick and angry and i really do grieve for these people. They do not take any of this stuff seriously. We have a lot of praying to do for these people and for our Churches. This needs to stop.

So: at what point do we stop calling progressive "Christianity"; "Christianity" and their services "church"? Because at this point it really is just a social and political club. Go find your OWN buildings and leave ours alone. Notice how none of their behavior is bearing any good fruit or Christ-like behavior and attitudes? It's because it's NOT OF GOD. They may read from the Bible and praise His name in service, but it is all empty and meaningless. I really am so fed up over all of it. I pray we can take our churches back and get back to upholding and defending biblical truths and traditions. You cannot rewrite Christianity or change who God is or what the gospel is in the same way that politics keep evolving and expanding because God doesn't change and neither does the truth of His word. Stop calling progressive "Christianity" TRUE CHRISTIANITY because it's NOT AND NEVER WILL BE. Leftist ideology and Christianity will never mix so stop trying to make it happen.

[reverendchrismullis-blog]

(Pastor Chris Mullis) Here's a lesson based on the civil war between ancient Israel and Judah about dealing with conflict and how critical it is to walking closely with Jesus and remain faithful when conflict forces you to leave a relationship. Don't let your division among people drive a wedge between you and God. Draw closer to God through Christ and remain faithful and you will be blessed.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

hello :)

First off I’d like to apologize because I only recently discovered your blog at a time of great need, and have been reblogging so many posts lol so sorry if that’s annoying.

I’m in my early twenties, it’s almost my birthday, and I was born into a family with two affirming Catholic parents and three affirming siblings of various beliefs. I’ve pretty much always been comfortable with the fact that I am not heterosexual, and tend to have some beliefs that are not reallllllly accepted by mainstream American Christianity. Because of this, your blog has been incredibly comforting, informative, and thought provoking, so I thank you for that.

I was wondering if you had any resources for how different denominations thought of nature and wild spaces. I know there’s a lot of garden imagery within the Bible, such as in the Song of Songs, but I was always taught in my religious teaching that wild spaces, such as mountains and forests, were like realms of the devil or something. One verse that was pretty common in my local church is something about filling the deserts and leveling mountains to make a path for God (sorry if I’m remembering that incorrectly). Because I’ve only been to Catholic Churches, I was wondering if other groups and denominations had different views on nature rather than untamed = bad and taming the environment = good.

Thank you and have a nice day

Hey there, anon! Not annoying at all to reblog posts, that's what they're here for ^-^

My Catholic self is so happy to hear that your Catholic family is affirming of who you are!

I'm sadder to hear that you were taught much less affirming things about the created world. You are so right to have noticed that the Bible is chock-full of praise for creation! The twisting of Christianity to say otherwise has a long history with an intentional agenda of justifying settler colonialism and environmental devastation.

___

I wish I had more time to look through specific denominations' points of view for you, but if I wait till I do have time I'll probably never get around to answering this, alas! I can provide this much, at least:

One term that some use when describing their support of environmental justice is "Creation Care" (or "earth care"), so that's a good key phrase to use when researching.

For example, here's the Episcopal Church's page on creation care; and the UMC's, and a Catholic site; and a PCUSA site; and the UCC's...

However, I'm not sure that views on the natural world always split neatly on denominational lines anyway. Moving beyond the denominational, I'll loosely describe some of the viewpoints in Christianity around Creation:

Thanks to Paul incorporating a lot of Greco-Roman ideology into his letters that made it into the Bible, and thanks to Christianity getting entangled in Roman Empire shit in like the 400s CE, some Christianity uplifts a strong dualism between the spiritual and the material. When you pit the spiritual and material against each other in this way, it tends to be bad news for the natural world.

The belief expressed throughout the rest of the Bible — so the Hebrew Bible + much of the Gospels — doesn't construct this binary between the spiritual and the physical. The created world is declared good by God in Genesis 1, and Creation is praised throughout the Psalms and other scripture. The place of human beings in the created world is explored in various parts of the Bible, with various conclusions being drawn — are we in charge? What's it mean to be in charge? Is the whole planet ours to do with as we please, or are are we meant to care for it?

A major example of Christians deciding that the planet is ours to do with as we will comes in the form of the settlers who colonized the Americas. Research manifest destiny for lots of info on the consequences of these views. The Americas, and this whole planet, are suffering greatly because of this way of interpreting the Bible. Thankfully, there are other ways.

The Catholic Church itself actually has a healthier way of understanding Creation in theory, even if the institution doesn't always make choices that practice what they preach. Here's a bit of what the Roman Catholic Catechism says about the natural world:

339 Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection. For each one of the works of the "six days" it is said: "And God saw that it was good." "By the very nature of creation, material being is endowed with its own stability, truth and excellence, its own order and laws." Each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God's infinite wisdom and goodness. Man must therefore respect the particular goodness of every creature, to avoid any disordered use of things which would be in contempt of the Creator and would bring disastrous consequences for human beings and their environment.

340 God wills the interdependence of creatures. The sun and the moon, the cedar and the little flower, the eagle and the sparrow: the spectacle of their countless diversities and inequalities tells us that no creature is self-sufficient. Creatures exist only in dependence on each other, to complete each other, in the service of each other.

341 The beauty of the universe: The order and harmony of the created world results from the diversity of beings and from the relationships which exist among them. Man discovers them progressively as the laws of nature. They call forth the admiration of scholars. The beauty of creation reflects the infinite beauty of the Creator and ought to inspire the respect and submission of man's intellect and will.

There's a lot more — check out the Catechism's section on "the visible world" (you have to scroll to it) on this webpage.

_____

Ultimately, in the search for interpretations of Christianity that uplift the goodness of Creation, and our role not as masters but as stewards of it, I highly recommend digging into the works of Indigenous Christians. As white Christianity colludes with empire and wreaks having on the land, Indigenous Christians speak up for the goodness of God's creation.

A fabulous starting point is Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God by Kaitlin B. Curtice. It's a short memoir, very readable and powerful.

Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys by Richard Twiss is a little denser, but extremely informative. You can also find interviews and the like with Twiss online, if reading is less your thing.

My own Christian faith has also been deeply enriched by non-Christian Indigenous authors — especially Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose book Braiding Sweetgrass changed my life. I was so inspired by her description of human beings not as the masters of creation but as the "little siblings of Creation" that I wrote this poem about it.

Many Black and Latine theologians have also been integral to me in shaping my understanding of Creation and humanity's place in it. Another memoir I highly recommend is This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley, which talks about a variety of things, including a bit on the natural world. Take this passage, for example.

Finally, there are some gorgeous writings on Creation from Medieval Christians like Francis of Assisi and Hildegard von Bingen.

One last couple of book recs for a look at the holiness of creation: Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World and Sister Macrina Wiederkehr's A Tree Full of Angels.

___

I hope this helps somewhat! If you haven't already, you might enjoy wandering through my #Creation tag too.

[actualmermaid]

One of the reasons I don’t get too upset when people send me edgy bullshit about Christianity is because I totally understand how easy it is to get confused and end up with the wrong impression about “Christianity in general.”

Here is a partial list of the churches I saw JUST while driving my wife to and from a doctor’s appointment this morning:

ELCA Lutheran church

a couple of LCMS Lutheran churches

an Episcopal church

LDS Institute building

"International House of Prayer”

Literally 5 different megachurches with names like “LIFEGATE” or “CORAM DEO” or “CITY LIGHTS”

an assortment of smaller “Christian churches” with names like “Kingdom” or “Praise”

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

5 or 6 “Saint So-and-so” Catholic churches

I know the differences between all of these churches, because I’m a pedantic nerd, but I 100% completely totally understand why someone would see all of these and think “eh, they’re all basically the same, I guess.”

This goes TRIPLE if you were raised in a church that branded itself as “the only real church” or “just basic Christianity” and regularly preached homophobia/misogyny/antisemitism/weird endtimes stuff/just shitty theology, or that perpetuated some kind of abuse against you, or whatever. You would not feel any need to learn the differences between your crappy church and any of the cool liberal churches on that list. (There’s a few.)

And if you were not raised in any church, but had unpleasant run-ins with Catholic/Evangelical/whatever fanatics, you would ALSO not feel the need to research the differences between them and the nice “community church” that shares a campus with a synagogue and a mosque.

Furthermore, EVEN IF you were raised as a typical secular vaguely-Christian American and feel neither a need for a church nor a burning hatred for church, you probably don’t know the VERY SIGNIFICANT differences between PCA and PCUSA; between ELCA, LCMS, and WELS; between UMC and UCC and CoC (which one?); between the Mormons and JWs; or between the SSPX and the Jesuits (they’re both Catholic, right?)

So, I get it. This is complicated. The US in particular has SO MANY different kinds of churches, because all our colonists and immigrants and refugees brought their own churches with them and remixed them and split apart and formed new denominations, and a bunch of them got enmeshed with the government at different levels, and now here we are.

If you don’t know the difference between different kinds of Christians and Christian churches, it’s like a game of Russian roulette.

[libraryofcirclaria]

The John Waysworth Scandal

Library of Circlaria

Blog Posts

Remikra, 1264 to 1308

Canticula, 1267 to 1287

Deep-Trade: Definition

Deep-trade is the spellfire practice of assigning special tradestones to represent certain shares of certain assets of value for a particular business. Licensed spellcrafters can "explode" deep-trade stones in order to produce currency or items of value equal to the value the said stones represent. However, since this is an end-use and there are far more tradestones than licensed spellcrafters available to engage them in a timely fashion, it is a more economic practice for a stoneholder to purchase a tradestone at a particular value, then sell it whenever it increases in value, in order to make a profit.

Retun and Prove: Established Relations

In 1285, a trade arrangement signed between the Lykian and Retunian Republics split the Galapolgis Island of Vantacula between the two nations and allowed private businesses to establish themselves here. Legally, all of Vantacula was under Lykian jurisdiction, but the Lykians had decided through the trade deal to lease the Western half of the Isle to the Retunians. Thus, Retunian businesses, primarily deep-trade firms, were allowed to open alongside similar Lykian businesses. Furthermore, a mutual agreement in the trade deal exempted deep-trade transactions between Lykian and Retunian businesses from tariffs or taxation. There was no deep-trade arrangement yet between the two nations, politically speaking, although there was the potential for such an arrangement to materialize in the future, sparking excitement among investors across both nations. In the meantime, deep-trade transactions were facilitated as John Waysworth, a prominent representative of the Bucksworth Financial Institute, headquartered in Hasphitat, established a branch office in Vantacula.

In November 1285, the National Bank for the Lykian Trust, or NBLT, extended an invitation to John Waysworth to establish a Provan chapter for the Bucksworth Institute Tradestone Commission in a high-value office space in the city of Prove proper.

John Waysworth in Prove

John Waysworth accepted the invitation and established the Provan chapter in January 1286. Before long, he began selling valuable deep-trade stones to Lykian banks and businesses, and using the proceeds from this to purchase Lykian deep-trade stones to sell to Retunian tradestone markets. Net proceeds from all of this paid into lucrative dividends, particularly for Waysworth as well as Bucksworth shareholders back in Remikra.

On November 10, 1286, John Waysworth's office in Prove was sacked by Lykian officials, who conducted a thorough search of the premise and arrested John Waysworth, himself. Waysworth was charged with fraud and espionage, and faced a possible death sentence. Retunian Prime Minister Arthur Cummings had just returned from a Summit in Vantacula with Lykian President Restara Unjoy when he was informed of this. Immediately, Prime Minister Cummings sent his best known lawyers to defend John Waysworth in the Lykian court proceedings, an approach that succeeded in convincing the Lykian Justice System to reduce Waysworth's sentence to deportation. On November 14, John Waysworth was taken to a holding cell at a border crossing between the Lykian Republic and the nation of Umcings, where he would wait until a Retunian air reconnaissance unit came to pick him up.

John Waysworth was not informed on when the reconnaissance unit would come. So he decided to escape custody and flee into the surrounding countryside. The issue here was that the border crossing was located in the highlands of the Chokian Mountains, where the climate was cold, snowy, and harsh. Furthermore, the landscape was filled with dangerous wildlife animals such as bears, wolves, and predatory wysps. Supposedly, John Waysworth escaped a close encounter with a bear on the first night, and a close encounter with a wysp on the second night. Finally though, on November 16, an air rescue reinforcement team launched by Cummings upon news of Waysworth's escape assisted the original reconnaissance unit, and spotted John Waysworth. They rescued him and flew him back to Remikra.

The Lykian War

Lykian President Restara Unjoy condemned the so-called Waysworth Scandal, holding the Retunian government responsible. As it turned out, Lykian authorities received a tip that John Waysworth had been selling stagmarcated tradestones, or tradestones worth almost no value being sold to unknowing clients for a falsely high value, hence the reason for the sacking of John Waysworth's office in Prove on November 10. And when they searched the premise, Lykian officials had spellcrafters "explode" three of John Waysworth's tradestones, which turned out to be duds.

How did the Lykian authorities find out about John Waysworth's scandal in the first place? During the Summit between Prime Minister Cummings and President Unjoy, which took place on November 6, Prime Minister Cummings sent a letter to President Unjoy asking for her and her family to join in on the Scandal. The issue with this approach was that the NBLT, the primary bank victimized by the Waysworth Scandal, was the very institute in which the Unjoy family had deep stakes. The Retunian public in years to come would condemn Prime Minister Cummings not only for taking part in the Waysworth Scandal, but also for his daft judgement behind writing the letter to President Unjoy. Needless to say, the Retunian Prime Minister's decision at the Summit made absolutely no strategic sense.

Regardless, President Unjoy, on December 24, 1286, issued executive orders freezing all trade relations with the Retunian Republic and revoking the lease in Vantacula. Subsequently, she ordered Retunian authorities to evacuate all Retunian civilians and businesses off the Isle. However, Retunian authorities refused such orders and called on Prime Minister Cummings, who more than obliged to send in Retunian Marine and Army forces to defend the Retunian settlers from local pro-Lykian partisans consisting mostly of Vantaculan natives. While doing this, Prime Minister Cummings news of the hostility from Lykian leadership be withheld from the Retunian public, as well as informed the Retunian Department of Defense of a "possible local partisan terrorist threat."

In short, Cummings aimed to preserve the newly-gained status quo by defying orders from the Lykian government while trying to prevent the Retunian public from becoming aware of possible Lykian hostility.

Between January 2 and January 23, 1287, Retunian and partisan forces engaged in numerous skirmishes. On January 24, the Lykian Navy arrived, engaging with Retunian forces in a heavy battle across the Isle, another development that Prime Minister Cummings prevented from being disclosed to the Retunian public. Between February 4 and 5, Cummings sent the Retunian Navy, which succeeded in driving all Lykian forces off of Vantacula. Cummings then summoned the Lykians to an "emergency counsel" in order to negotiate peace and territorial concessions, an invitation to which the Lykians responded with cold silence.

On February 6, 1287, President Unjoy ordered high-flying Lykian aircraft to drop Red Desert bombs upon South Masonia, Hasphitat, and the Basin District of Retun proper. Each of those targeted cities was devastated by the attack as the entire Retunian population went into panic. President Unjoy gave a second order for Prime Minister Cummings to surrender all of Vantacula.

Prime Minister Cummings refused to comply to this. Between February 7 and 16, 1287, the Lykian Navy renewed its assault upon Vantacula and attempted to take it by force. The Retunians held their ground; and on February 15, Prime Minister Cummings ordered an airstrike on the Lykian base in Gyrosak responsible for the Vantacula initiative.

On February 16, 1287, President Unjoy responded with Red Desert bomb attacks on Egdir and Retun. Later that evening, in the wake of these events, particularly with the city of Retun proper being struck by two Red Desert bomb attacks, Prime Minister Cummings signed a mutual cease-fire with the Lykian Republic. On February 17, the island-nation of Rakara, allied to the Lykian Republic, facilitated the signing of a Treaty by the Retunians to surrender not just Vantacula, but most of the Galapolgis Isles to the Lykian Republic. The consolation here was that the Retunian Republic was allowed to keep the five Westernmost Isles.

Thus, the war was over.

Fallout

Retunian businesses lost many of their trade posts. Roughly seventy-five percent of the Retunian trade network around the Circlarian Ocean would eventually be recovered; although the apex of Retunian trade achieved in the early-to-mid-1280s would never be achieved again.

The Retunian population would lose trust not only in Prime Minister Cummings and his Administration, but also the Retunian establishment as a whole. The public was outraged at the John Waysworth Scandal and the gag orders given by Cummings to hide from the public the truth about the Lykian War. A group of Representatives in Retunian Council filed a motion to have Prime Minister Cummings impeached.

In the midst of all this, however, emerged a significant question: Why did Prime Minister Cummings explicitly tell President Unjoy about the John Waysworth Scandal? Speculation arose from this, because in 1285, Cummings and Waysworth had become involved in a conflict of interest over a revised tax code. During that brief exchange of civil hostility, Waysworth vowed to have his firm reduce funding to Prime Minister Cummings' prospective 1290 re-election campaign. This led to speculation over whether or not Cummings' reveal of John Waysworth to President Unjoy was, in fact, a form of retaliation. However, there was no hard evidence to back up this theory.

A major revelation came in the year 1359 with the discovery of a letter to Arthur Cummings from his mother, who lived until the year 1302. It was dated March 10, 1286, months before the Summit in Vantacula. And that letter contained advice from his mother for Cummings to invite President Unjoy to partake in the "lucrative business arrangement" involving John Waysworth.

Scholars initially rejected the so-called "ridiculous and completely ludicrous notion that an elected public official would act on the whimsical advice of a personal family member in this way." However, there are quite a few factors now known about Arthur Cummings. First was that he was known to take advice from his mother without question, even in matters where his mother, though undoubtedly well-intentioned, was not well-versed. Also, Cummings was raised in a very affluent socioeconomic environment; and though he was good at the practice of business, particularly in banking, he did not ace his college courses in history and political science. All of these factors in combination led Arthur Cummings to become extremely, and even dangerously, complacent when it came to making serious decisions like those in a public office.

The impeachment motion against Arthur Cummings in 1287 never made it past a vote in the Retunian House of Representatives. Cummings would encounter another impeachment motion against him in 1295, but that failed as well. However, Cummings would lose the 1296 election against the Progressive candidate, John "Red" Waltmann.

John Waysworth, meanwhile, announced an early retirement in December 1286 and moved to the Mid-Westerlies, where he would remain until his death in 1310.