The Methodists are trying a new way to maintain a central managing body while allowing more modularity. Instead of a universal orthodoxy, regions will be allowed to set their own standards for SOME hot-button stuff like homosexuality and women pastors. In any system, living or mechanical or social, modularity is crucial.
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The plan decentralizes the role of the U.S., which gave birth to churches in Europe, the Philippines and Africa. Each of its nine regions across four continents will now have the ability to set its own qualifications for ordaining clergy and lay leaders, write original hymnals and rituals, compose their own rites for marriage and establish judicial courts.
Among the things that cannot be amended from one region to another are the church’s constitution, its doctrinal standards or its positions on social issues such as human rights, economic justice or care for creation.
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First, the change is too late. The non-Gaian part of the church formally separated a few years ago and created a new Global Methodist Church. I doubt that this partial fix will bring the non-Gaians back.
Second, the last sentence potentially spoils the change. “Care for creation” means Gaia before God. Methodists in Africa or Dixie don’t share NYC’s crazed worship of Gaia. “Human rights” is a tyrannical term that could undo the supposed modularity. Africa has the worshipers but NYC has the money, so NYC will win every time.
Polistra's Mill 