I recently had the opportunity to view the legislation from General Conference 2008 regarding the rejection of creastionism and intelligent design. This to me is one of the most outragious things I've seen the church do in my 20 year history as a United Methodist.
The idea of creationism and intelligent design is not an attempt by conservative Christians to engage in a "mindless argument with science" as the legislation indicates. It is to uphold one of the most important realities of our faith. Am I a six day creationist...no. Am I an intelligent design follower intersted in fossile records...no. I am someone who fully believes that God created the earth and human beings and that He has a plan and purpose for our lives.
When people come to church, they are trying to answer two existential questions for their lives: 1. Why Am I here? 2. What is the purpose of my life. To suggest that our creation was an accident of chemical reactions is to say that God was not active during my creation. So when we try to answer the question for others, the church must now say that we have no purpose other than self-actualization, because the hand of God was not behind the forces of earthly or human creation.
We have been created by God for a purpose. We are to love God and worship him with our lives. God has a plan for me to fulfill a mission and a ministry. What I do in my life is no accident, it is the plan He has for my life. I am nothing apart from my call to fulfill my plan and to live in a way that glorifies God. I fear that we no longer believe in a supernatural God who can control science and nature for his own purposes. Or is God's supernatural power, shown throughout Scripture, just metaphor and example? If God is going to transform the world, we must believe He has the power to do it! Otherwise...what's the point. The church becomes just another social action group promoting justice and peace. Where are we headed?
The second thing I wanted to mention is that I recently read on Clayton Harriger's blog "Musings Of A Maverick" on our blogroll, that he was asked to put a disclaimer on his site about offensive content about abortion. Furthermore, he was asked to also put on his site that his views on abortion are not the views of The United Methodist Church. He says that he received these instructions from a member of our cabinet.
Everyone knows that blogs are nothing more than people saying what they think or feel in a forum where others can dialogue with them. To attempt to influence the content or control subject matter of our blogs is a violation of our First Ammendment right to freedom of expression. As far as I can see, Mr. Harriger is representing no one other than himself. If people do not like the content of his personal blog, they should stop clicking on it. The attempt to stifle dissent when it comes to issues of faith and conscience is scary. We should be able to speak our mind without fear of reprisals and retribution.
The purpose of Up Words is to try to be a positive Christian blog. But it is hard to ignore such fundamental principles when they are under attack from the progressive establishment of the church. I didn't hear any desire to stop those who defend the rights of Palestinians and blame Israel from publishing their views in our conference newsletter. Free speech is free speech...it shouldn't matter whether one is progressive or conservative. I may not completely agree with Mr. Harriger, but I will defend his right to share his beliefs with vigor and zeal.
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