(1) 111 United Methodist Church clergy come out as gay ahead of general conference (Christianity Today)
A Christian conservative organization wrote to 100,000 pastors Tuesday urging them to support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump for president, the latest exchange in a series of salvos among faith leaders divided over Trump’s candidacy.
David Lane, the leader of the American Renewal organization, wrote an email to pastors arguing that Trump is the obvious choice given the alternative.
“The choice facing America is not the lesser of two evils, but who will inflict the least damage to freedom and liberty,” Lane said in the message:
Between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, this is an easy choice. What and how will Mr. Trump do? I don’t have a clue. But with Hillary we do know, the progressives that she will stack on the Supreme Court alone will set-back America for a century. … Codifying transgender bathrooms rights will only be the beginning of nine unelected and unaccountable justices imposing a godless agenda, tearing America apart brick-by-brick.
Lane sends such messages occasionally on behalf of American Renewal, which encourages Christian conservatives nationwide to become politically active. His firm support of Trump, however, contrasts with the positions of some other Christian leaders and activists in recent weeks.
(3) As U.S. Attitudes Change, Some Evangelicals Dig In; Others Adapt
“Conservative Christians in America are undergoing a huge shift in the way we see ourselves in the world,” Mohler says. “We are on the losing side of a massive change that’s not going to be reversed, in all likelihood, in our lifetimes.” In his view, Christians must adapt to the changed cultural circumstance by finding a way “to live faithfully in a world in which we’re going to be a moral exception.” (It is this goal, Mohler says, that explains the passage of “religious liberty” laws to protect people who want to express their opposition to same-sex marriage or “transgenderism.”)
(4) Counseling group cancels conference to target Tennessee law (AP)
By canceling its conference in Tennessee next year, the American Counseling Association wants to put other states on notice that new LGBT laws can carry consequences, the group’s leader said.
The cancellation announced Tuesday, had been hinted at after the Tennessee General Assembly passed a new law letting therapists decline to see patients based on religious values and personal principles. It’s aimed at preventing similar measures elsewhere.
“Our message to other states is don’t introduce bills that are essentially legalizing discrimination,” said Richard Yep, the organization’s CEO. “It is discriminating against those who are least able to fight back.”
(5) Gay man settles with Catholic school that pulled job offer (AP)
A Boston man who had a job offer from an all-girls Catholic high school rescinded after administrators learned that he was in a same-sex marriage has settled a lawsuit with the school.
…Fontbonne Academy officials pulled their offer of a food service position to Barrett in 2013 after he listed his husband as an emergency contact.
Ben Klein, Barrett’s attorney, says the settlement means that the December Superior Court ruling against the school will stand, establishing a legal precedent that employers have no religious justification for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
(6) Bonhoeffer’s Answer to Political Turmoil: Preach!: The German theologian’s words about fear ring remarkably true today. (Christianity Today)
Christians are not exempt from storms in life: in fact, fear targets believers more than anyone else.
[Bonhoeffer wrote]: “When Christ is in the boat, a storm always comes up. The world tries with all its evil powers to get hold of him, to destroy him along with his disciples; it hates him and rises up against him. Christians surely know this. No one has to go through so much anxiety and fear as do Christians.”
This is why, Bonhoeffer insists, we so desperately need the church. The church is where we hear the voice of Christ calling to us, saying, “I am in your boat!” Without it, we’d listen to other voices: voices telling us there is no hope, no way out. Voices telling us to channel our fears for wretched ends. Voices telling us to rest our hope in men, revolutions, or in ourselves.
“But look here, right in the middle of this fearful world is a place that is meant for all time, which has a peculiar task that the world doesn’t understand. It keeps calling over and over but always anew, in the same tone, the same thing: Fear is overcome; don’t be afraid. In the world you are frightened. But be comforted; I have conquered the world! Christ is in the boat! And this place, where this kind of talk is heard and should be heard, is the pulpit of the church. From this pulpit the living Christ himself wants to speak, so that wherever he reaches somebody, that person will feel the fear sinking away, will feel Christ overcoming his or her fear.”
The church is a lighthouse in our storm of fears, guiding us away from the rocks with a beaming light pointed at Christ.When we’re overwhelmed with fear, our tendency is to isolate ourselves. But according to Bonhoeffer, “the call of the church” directs us to “suffer and make our way through together with Christ, looking always to him who is with us in the boat.”
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