united methodist church – Memphis Flyer

On the front page of last Wednesday’s Commercial Appeal, there was a fascinating story by reporter Katherine Burgess about a cow sanctuary in nearby Arlington. The farm is run by a Hindu nonprofit organization and now has almost 200 Gyr cattle, or as they are sometimes called, sacred cows.

Hindus from all over, even India, have made pilgrimages to the farm for worship. Burgess quoted Purushotham Tandu, the spiritual advisor at the organization: “The cow has many healing capacities. When you go close to the cow, it will vibrate on certain frequencies. We have certain frequencies. So whatever unwanted emotions, it will take and will replace with good emotions and cosmic energy.” Okay.

When it comes to religion, I’ve been a devout agnostic for decades. I am from Missouri, after all. This is not to say that I haven’t experienced certain inexplicable feelings at times, emotions that seem somehow spiritual, connected to something beyond the pale of this physical world. These occasional mysteries remind me to keep my options open, even though a formal “faith” eludes me.

Atheists and true believers have a lot in common, actually. You have to have faith to be an atheist. There’s no proof that God doesn’t exist, so atheism is just another faith-based belief system. Conversely, those who proclaim there is a god, are standing only on their faith to make that assertion. (The preceding is brought to you by every late-night dorm discussion I had in college.)

Now, when it comes to feeling the spiritual power of a Gyr cow, well, yes, I’m certainly agnostic. But who knows? Might be worth a trip to the ’burbs to find out. They’re pretty impressive-looking beasts. Who knows what harmonic frequencies they may have tapped into?

Oddly, there was another religion story (also by Burgess) on the front page of that Wednesday paper. This one was about Christ Church Memphis, a large local Protestant congregation that had just voted by a 90 percent to 10 percent margin to leave the United Methodist Church. I was raised in the Methodist Church, so I was curious why this denomination had decided to sever ties with the mother ship.

Sigh.

It seems the Christ Church Memphis folks don’t approve of the current LGBTQ-acceptance policies of the United Methodist Church, which is letting LGBTQ Methodists (gasp!) get married to one another. And they’re even allowing some of them to become members of the clergy. The horror! What would Jesus do?

Ninety percent of Christ Church members seem to think Jesus hated queers and wouldn’t let them become members of his church. And, to be fair, they ought to know, right? I mean, “Christ” is right there in the church’s name, so these people are obviously true followers of Jesus’ teachings.

Except for maybe they’re not.

Here are a couple of Jesus’ thoughts they may have overlooked: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Also this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

So, the good folks at Christ Church have obviously made a couple addendums to those teachings, like, “Nuh-uh. Jesus wasn’t talking about them gays when he said those things. And even if he didn’t condemn them, we do! And this is our church, dammit!”

Jesus.

As a certified agnostic, let me toss out some free advice on religion, okay? If your church judges people of a certain creed, gender, or sexual identity as inherently evil, you need a new church. If your preacher preaches chastity and fools around with the congregation’s teenagers, you need a new church. If your preacher drives a new Mercedes and lives in a gated mansion, you need a new church. If your preacher condemns abortion as murder and then endorses Herschel Walker for senator, you need a new church. If your preacher is a MAGA Trumper, run! You really need a new church, and maybe a little remedial study of the true tenets of Christianity.

Here’s the bottom line, straight from Jesus: “Do unto others [all others!] as you would have them do unto you.” It’s the closest thing to a sacred cow you’ll find in the Bible. Take it in. Breathe it. Feel its frequency.

Frank Schaefer

The appeal of the Rev. Frank Schaefer, the former pastor of Zion United Methodist Church of Iona in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who was defrocked last year after performing his son’s same-sex wedding, was heard this morning in Memphis by the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church (UMC). Schaefer is asking the UMC’s high court to allow him to keep his ordination.

Schaefer officiated the wedding of his gay son last December, resulting in a 30-day paid suspension from ministerial duties. After the 30 days, Schaefer told the church that he could not promise to uphold the church’s ban on same-sex unions. But a UMC appeals panel reversed the church’s decision last June. In today’s hearing, the church asked the Judicial Council to throw out the appeal decision and revert back to the church’s original defocking of Schaefer.

“I have no regrets. I did what I did based on my heart and my conscience. The church doctrine put my son in harm’s way,” said Schaefer after the hearing.

Three of Schaefer’s four children are gay, and he said he didn’t realize the harm the church’s doctrine on LGBT issues was doing until one of his sons, the one whose wedding he officiated, came out to him. He said that son suffered from depression because church teachings made him feel as though he were sinful for being who he was. Schaefer said he now believes the church is wrong when it comes to issues of LGBT equality. He said he his hopeful the church will come around on these issues.

“We are created in the image of God. We have the same rights as everyone else. Stop putting us in a special category,” Schaefer said.

The UMC Judicial Council is expected to rule in several days.