As a former United Methodist and now a recent convert to the American Baptist Church, I am finding much to appreciate in the ABC. (Even beyond the beautiful simplicity of the acronym.)<\/p>\n\n\n
If you’re not familiar with the ABC system, you should know that it maintains a rather loose connection between churches. Individual congregations have a high degree of autonomy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
There are regional pastors who can provide guidance and resources, but unlike District Superintendents and Bishops in the United Methodist Church, these individuals have no authority over local issues.<\/p>\n\n\n
After hearing many stories of authority being abused in the UMC, I find it refreshing to have district and regional leadership which is designed merely to serve the local churches.<\/p>\n\n\n
All of this autonomy makes it very puzzling to me when an ABC congregation decides to disaffiliate with the larger denomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Recently a nearby church began making noise about leaving the ABC over the denomination not taking a firm enough stand on LGBT issues. They have now formally parted ways with the ABC and their pastor sent out a letter explaining the reasoning.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
As a former UM, I understand the dangerous divisions this particular issue fosters, but I have not yet personally encountered a fellow ABC pastor who affirms homosexuality nor have I seen even the slightest hint of an unorthodox stance at any ABC event or in any ABC publications.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
According to this pastor, though, there are American Baptist churches which “have hired unrepentant gay, lesbian, or trans people to be their pastors” and the denomination as a whole has not squashed a “Welcoming and Affirming” movement active in certain congregations and regions.<\/p>\n\n\n
Even so, I’m not sure what sort of purity test this pastor would like to see in place. Or if homosexuality would be the only subject on the test.<\/p>\n\n\n
And are there other issues besides this one that should be screened out? Personally, I am still waiting for the day when the American church comes down hard on the sin of materialism.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a former United Methodist and now a recent convert to the American Baptist Church, I am finding much to appreciate in the ABC. (Even beyond the beautiful simplicity of the acronym.) If you’re not familiar with the ABC system, you should know that it maintains a rather loose connection between churches. Individual congregations have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5981,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5980\/revisions\/5981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}