Another story of Christians acting badly on Easter

[no_hypocrisy]

My early post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=601774&mesg_id=601774

Newest entry:
Setting is an Easter service at a Methodist church in an expensive surburban northern New Jersey town. Congregation affluent. Subject of Easter sermon was courage. The courage to speak up and out when injustice is being perpetuated. The courage to speak up against injustice when it means personal sacrifice for doing so. To pay the ultimate price if necessary. (More Good Friday than Easter, I realize). Very strong message in strong language, inspiring.

Inspiring but to one particular congregant who took the minister (a woman) to task at the post-service receiving line. The congregant is an affluent business executive. He tore the minister a new one in front of the rest of the church. In a loud, angry voice, he criticized her choice of topic, calling it wholly inappropriate, offensive, he was going to "report her", etc. He kept going until she broke into tears. Obviously, her sermon didn't get to him or to the rest of the congregation who stood by and did nothing to come to her aid. Their minister. Talk about feeling like Jesus when you least expect it. The minister's husband took charge and called the man into account, and that's the last I heard about the situation.

I'm a freethinking, atheist humanist but c'mon!! Of all days to give it a rest, it's Easter (and Christmas).

I think the rumors I've heard are true now. I heard that the Methodists are against Bush and his policies across the board, and there is a movement to install "plants" as new members of congregations in order to split them into factions and to displace ministers who are against the Bush Administration with "new" loyal versions (just like the DOJ and the federal prosecutors). And the congregations don't expect it, and end up being patsies in this plan.

[cassiepriam]

1. If I were the minister I would have told him to bite me. Then I would have called the police to haul

him out of my church.

Guess that is why I am not a minister. :(

PS this congregation does not deserve this minister.
Maybe she would like to come to my church and give a sermon.
We would love her.

[MikeNearMcChord]

4. My pastor would've told the wingnut, go ahead

and report him. Frankly if the nut has such a problem, with the message I am sure some fascist megachurch can accommodate him. He is not chained to church, walk.

[cassiepriam]

6. Yep, No one makes him go to this church. He sounds pretty crazy.

Wonder why the message set him off? Interesting. She must have hit a button.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Clergy are supposted to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and

she obviously succeeding in afflicting this FAUX-Christian man.

[cassiepriam]

16. LOL then she did her job quite well! :)

Moved him right out of his comfort zone big time.

[earthlover]

2. Blessed are the meek...

I believe Jesus told us to work for justice and against injustice. The congregant who took the minister to task could very well have done the same if Jesus was there. I suppose the affluent executive would also be offended if he heard Jesus saying that it would be easier to thread a camel into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Or how you treat the least of ye, you treat Jesus. Stuff like that might put that business executive over the edge, even more than he obviously was. Why do these stuffed shirts even bother going to church anyhow if they feel the need to act like asses?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I was raised in the Methodist church

and know a bit about the structure of the denomination, having served on Official Boards and being the Lay Leader in a couple of different churches. The Methodist Church is structured so that the ministers are assigned to a church--the congregants have no input into who they get as a minister; it is decided by the district bishop. So the businessman may have been talking about "reporting" the minister to the Bishop--frankly, I can't imagine any good Methodist bishop taking the matter seriously, as John Wesley, founder of the denomination, spoke up against injustice and personally sacrificed for those who were weak and powerless.

Actually, the Methodist church clergy tend to be more liberal than many of the congregations--in the South, at least. I know the local Methodist Church allowed our peace group a place to meet to educate the people about not going to war. The minister had no problem with this, as the bishops and head of different groups within the church had come out against the war, but some of the local congregation were livid--at the time there was a lot of pro-war sentiment. The minister knew he had the backing of the bishops, and only worried that attendance would be down.

As I recall, a person who wishes to go to seminary and be ordained must still be accepted into the regional bishopric--so I'm not sure how the liberal ministers are being replaced, if they are. Could be happening--I left the church about 20 years ago, and am not up on internal politics any more.

[NormanYorkstein]

5. The GOP does send paid operatives to churches

I have heard the story firsthand from someone who witnessed it back in the 1980s.

[cassiepriam]

8. The paid trolls are every where you go.

Yes I know the GOP pays people to be disruptive in a number of settings.
Disgusting.

[DemBones DemBones]

7. The guy's not a Christian. Going to church does not make you

a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a car.

People should have intervened but don't assume that those who didn't intervene agreed with the asshole. They may have been too shocked at first and then may have felt he was too dangerous to confront and it was safer to let him rant then to provoke him into actual violence against the minister and/or others. I can imagine myself feeling that way -- you don't go to church expecting someone to go off like this man did. If they did agree with him, they're not Christians, either, only kidding themselves.

I hope the minister presses charges and.or sues him for slander, verbal assault, disturbing the peace (in church! on Easter!) whatever. (Is being an utter asshole a legal offense?)

Hurrah for the minister's husband coming to her defense. Wish he had gotten there sooner and nipped it in the bud, but how often does a man have to protect his wife in a church? The loudmouth probably would not dare fight a man but might have hit the minister if not confronted by a man who seemed capable of beating the shit out of him. Bullies are usually like that.

Don't judge all Methodists by this incident. There are good people and bad people in any group, free-thinking humanists included, as you no doubt know from experience.

There may indeed be moles within Methodist churches, which is a distressing idea. We KNOW there have been government infiltrators in Quaker meetings, in case they might be planning terrorist acts. (Not to agent Mike, Quakers are pacifists, believe in nonviolent action only.)

[Bluebear]

11. "The guy's not a Christian" does seem a little bit of a cop-out

Every time a Christian behaves in less than ideal ways we are treated to "oh they are not REAL Christians." I can only take them at their word. They may not be the best representatives of the religion, but how can you say they are not Christian?

[DemBones DemBones]

14. I can say he was not behaving as a Christian. He may or may not

believe he is a Christian, believe he follows the teachings of Jesus. Maybe he even does at times. We don't know about that.

But at THIS time, he was not acting the way a Christian should act, or any decent person, for that matter.

[BlooInBloo]

9. We'd never get anything done if we spent our time talking about "christians acting badly"...

... It can just be assumed, methinks, and reported when they do something *good* on a large scale.

[tsuki]

12. talk2action.org has articles on the Big Scary's attempt to subvert

and take over other denominations. At stake is billions of dollars of assets that can be transfered to a Big Scary.

This is the section describing the IRD's attack against the Methodist Church.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/2/21/123844/326

I came across the "Shadow War" while researching the Big Scary that moved into our county. After reading the articles, I saw small assembly churches fold up and disappear into the Big Scary. I have directed a lot a people to the site. It helps.

The Minister in question needs to report this incident to her Bishop, and possibly take classes on how to confront and expell disrupters or what happened to the Southern Baptists will happen to the Methodists.

[jazzjunkysue]

13. I watched a lay trustee try to divide a congregation against a preacher.

She almost accomplished it, too, but I intervened and the board figured it out and threw her out. The preacher stayed, thank goodness, because he was wonderful.

There's a book out called something like "Rabbi Killers" that talks about lay leadership trying to usurp the power of religious leaders to marshall the support of the congregation. It's nothing new, but if the RNC is doing it for political reasons, then its easy for me to believe. I saw just as much with my own eyes.

Luckily, the congregation came together and had to admit that they weren't really involved enough and let this woman punish him for months, before they realized how bad it was and threw her out.

There are egos out there who will be willing to do the RNC's bidding, for sure.

[kineneb]

15. wow, if he tried that at our UM church

he would have been taken aside and given a tart lecture on manners by some of the UMW ladies. Then when they were done, the men would have started in.
Lesson #1: Never mess with the church ladies.

Then they might tie him to a chair and force feed him casseroles.
:evilgrin:

I just had Easter breakfast and lunch at the church. Methodists believe in feeding the body as well as the soul. They even treat their Buddhist keyboard player (me) nicely.

[rasputin1952]

17. In this case, the preacher chose a subject she believed was

appropriate for Easter, and I can agree w/the subject and the preacher.

As for the individual, that is one individual in an odd situation. I have no idea what this guy hoped to accomplish, but I'm certain he embarassed himself to the point where he will not be liked in the congregation, and he goes against some of he core values of Christianity anyway.

Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread...:)

[crikkett]

18. imagine what he does to his wife and children

i see a need for intervention in his life.

[no_hypocrisy]

19. Interesting you should say that.

When he was done with the minister, he saw his 17-year old daughter joking with a friend. He screamed at her until she too was reduced to tears, again in front of the congregation.

[FormerDem06]

20. The Methodist Church is at a Crossroads, and I think it's going to get ugly...

The congregations average age is mid-50s. All of the new ministers coming out of places like Duke University Divinity are in their mid 20s and VERY liberal.

There is going to be a culture clash between the older crowd and the new clergy soon.

We spent out Easter with my whole family at the Lake Junaluska Assembly in North Carolina, it's the meeting place for the Southeaster Jurisdiction of the UMC. At the sunrise service on Sunday we were the only folks with kids there. Everyone else was 40 or older to be honest.

I've been in sermons where a minister has gone off about how war is evil and never ordained by God, and I've watched WWII and Korean war veterans leave crying because they believe in their heart that confronting the Germans and the Chinese (and N. Koreans) was somehow part of God's plan.

Our home Methodist Church in Raleigh had about five kids in each Sunday School, and no children's ministry to speak of.

We have since joined a non-Southern Baptist Convention Baptist Church where there are tons of people our age (and at our stage in life) and there are two or three full classes of kids in each age group in Sunday School. But we still visit the church of our youth a lot and spend time with our Methodist friends.

The coming years are going to be interesting to watch to say the least.

[FormerDem06]

21. Did she call out Bush, or our government specifically?

Did she call out business folks that were in the line of work he was in? What was the provocation in the Sermon? I'm trying to figure out why the guy would even be upset.

I think the sermon would have been quite good and targeted well for the day in my opinion. But from the OP I don't see any reason for him to be upset.

[no_hypocrisy]

23. You're exactly right. There was no rationale for him

attacking the subject of the sermon, the minister personally, or the public humiliation. He wasn't singled out, business was never mentioned, injustice was kept in the general sense of protecting the persecuted and the ignored.

[noonwitch]

22. The UMC's liberal/conservative battles predate the Bush administration

And there are always long-term members who are more conservative than the denomination is nationally who will give a liberal minister a hard time. I grew up in the UCC in the 70s, we were going through the same thing at that time.