Hundreds of churches in Texas have voted to leave the United Methodist Church denomination (UMC) for “deviating from scripture on abortion, homosexuality, and other issues,” Life News reported on Monday.
Representatives of the Northwest Texas Annual Conference of United Methodist Churches voted on Saturday to allow 145 churches to disaffiliate from the UMC during a special session in Lubbock, Texas. The report notes that the conference represents 200 congregations, and about 75 percent are leaving, meaning “the conference likely will dissolve next year.”
Another 294 churches also voted to leave the UMC during the Central Texas Annual Conference in Houston on Saturday. In total, 546 Texas Methodist churches — 45 percent — are choosing to leave the UMC this year. Methodist churches in Arkansas and Indiana have also voted to leave the UMC this year. Many of the departing churches will likely join the Global Methodist Church, which is reportedly more conservative than UMC, the report states.
The mass exit comes after “years of infighting” stemming from the UMC’s unbiblical acceptance of same-sex marriage, abortion, and other issues, according to the report.
“Pro-life pastors and members of the UMC have grown increasingly concerned with the denomination position on abortion and other issues. Until 2016, the UMC even was affiliated with the pro-abortion group Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and some of its pastors continue to support pro-abortion causes,” the report states.
“Last year, the United Methodist Women, an organization within the denomination, issued a statement criticizing the Texas heartbeat law, which has saved thousands of unborn babies from abortion. The group vowed to “pray” for abortions to become legal again in Texas,” the report continues.
Life News notes that the UMC “does not condemn the killing of unborn babies as a sin” and instead labels abortion as a “complex” issue. In stark contrast, the Global Methodist Church states:
The sacredness of all life compels us to resist the practice of abortion except in the cases of tragic conflicts of life against life when the wellbeing of the mother and the child are at stake. We do not accept abortion as a means of birth control or gender selection, and we call upon all Christians as disciples of the Lord of Life to prayerfully consider how we can support those women facing unintended pregnancies without adequate care, counsel, or resources (Exodus 22:23-23, Psalm 139:13-16, James 1:27).
Hundreds of other churches are also reportedly planning to leave the UMC in the coming months to join the Global Methodist Church, once they receive approval from church leaders. Source
I freely admit that this surprised me – but it made me very hopeful.
District attorneys across the United States who received financial backing from billionaire George Soros are forging a new criminal justice initiative that seeks to treat criminal illegal aliens differently than Americans when prosecuting them for crimes.
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, as Breitbart News reported, has issued a policy that requires county prosecutors to weigh so-called “immigration consequences” for illegal aliens accused of crimes to ensure that they are not put on the radar of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and, thus, arrested for deportation.
The Gascón policy states
All charging determinations shall be undertaken with the goal of avoiding or mitigating the adverse immigration consequences of a decision when known, possible pr permitting. Under these circumstances and when, consistent with public safety alternatives to filing charges exist, those alternatives shall be pursued. [Emphasis added]
The prosecutorial lenience policy for illegal aliens is hardly new.
Instead, the initiative to treat illegal aliens differently than their American citizen counterparts in the criminal justice system has become a fixture of district attorneys who were backed by Soros in their campaigns.
As Breitbart News reported last year, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — who raked in $1.7 million from Soros-linked groups — has imposed a similar policy that seeks discretion for illegal aliens charged with crimes to help them evade deportation by ICE agents.
Other district attorneys funded by Soros, including Cook County’s Kimberly Foxx and Contra Costa’s Diana Becton, have implemented nearly identical policies.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, financially backed by a Soros-linked group, imposed a prosecutorial lenience policy for illegal aliens on day one after taking office, writing in a letter to staff:
The Office will seek dispositions that avoid immigration consequences for all misdemeanors, and all felonies for which non-carceral outcomes are the presumptive outcome. The procedures for seeking a disposition that carries immigration consequences in any such case are the same as the procedures for seeking a carceral disposition for cases in which non-incarceration is the presumption. [Emphasis added]
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who was financially backed by a Soros-linked group in 2020, announced so-called prosecutorial “reforms” in October to seek to charge illegal aliens with crimes that will not necessarily get them deported from the U.S. SOURCE
Soros is a menace to the entire world. If you would like to read various articles I have written about this man, go to the search box on this WP and just type in his name. Don’t miss his interview in which he speaks about being proud of helping the Nazis confiscate the wealth of the Jewish people before he aided in ushering them onto the death trains.
Education is the gateway to opportunity. It’s the medicine that cures most ails, and it is the means by which we equip our next generations with the tools they need to confront the challenges of the future. The schools we construct and the names of the individuals we honor on our school buildings stand as a good barometer for the sort of people we want our young people to emulate.
That’s why we are so perturbed that in mid-November, the Detroit School Board voted to change the name of the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine despite an administrative recommendation and student poll to keep the name as is.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, who recommended keeping the name, said that “history should always be recognized and that there’s an opportunity to make up for the mistakes of the past.”
We, former staff for Dr. Carson at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, write to set the record straight and celebrate the incredible accomplishments of the good doctor, with the hope that more focus is shined on students and less on perceived political slights.
Dr. Ben Carson was born into poverty in Detroit and raised by a single mother. He grew up attending Detroit public school, and his mother worked multiple jobs to provide for him and his brother, Curtis.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, left, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio shake hands after a ceremonial signing of an agreement about New York City’s public housing system, the nation’s largest, in New York, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Although things were tough, his mother instilled in him and his brother the values of hard work, perseverance and faith. She taught them that through education, anything was possible in America.
Thanks to these values that his mother worked so hard to instill, Dr. Carson earned a full scholarship to Yale and began his undergraduate education there. After his time at Yale, he went to the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and then on to Johns Hopkins University for their neurosurgery program.
After residency, Dr. Carson returned to Johns Hopkins and served as the director of pediatric neurosurgery and led a 70-surgeon team to conduct the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the back of the head. This famed procedure thrust him into the national spotlight as one of the highest-profile surgeons in the world, particularly due to his specialty in pediatric neurosurgery.
After retiring from medicine, Dr. Carson launched a bid for the Republican nomination for president and served as the 17th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Today, he continues his work as the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute, a nonprofit aimed at restoring the “four cornerstones” of American greatness: faith, liberty, community and life.
Dr. Carson is the epitome of the American dream. Only in our country could a poor boy from the inner city grow up to be a world-renowned neurosurgeon, presidential candidate, and Cabinet secretary. He personifies the very promise of America. Through hard work, opportunity and faith in something above self, just like Dr. Carson we can achieve anything we set our minds to.
But Dr. Carson’s accomplishments are not just professional; we have had the blessing to see his leadership firsthand, and we can attest that his inner virtues match his outward successes.
Dr. Carson first and foremost greets everyone — friend and foe alike — with the sort of warmth and kindness that can only come from a genuine disposition of the heart. Dr. Carson operates on the belief that if we just put aside all the noise and sit down with each other, we will soon find that what we share in common far outweighs our differences.
Dr. Carson is always good-natured, and any meeting with him is sure to have a few of his light-hearted jokes and quips. He can quote Shakespeare and the Bible alike, and be it Hamlet or Proverbs, you can bet there’s a timeless lesson buried in the wisdom he shares.
The reason that we adorn our buildings with the names of heroes is to continually remind us of their examples. Their life stories provide us a roadmap to follow, and these lessons are meant to inspire us to live up to their example.
The reason that we adorn our buildings with the names of heroes is to continually remind us of their examples. Their life stories provide us a roadmap to follow, and these lessons are meant to inspire us to live up to their example.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, left, greets Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, M.D., right, before the start of the 22nd Anniversary Remembrance Ceremony of the Oklahoma City bombing in Oklahoma City, Wednesday, April 19, 2017. Carson is speaking at the ceremony. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) (The Associated Press)
In today’s culture plagued by anger, violence and division, Dr. Carson is exactly the sort of man we should highlight for our children. In an age where honor and virtue are increasingly scorned, he stands as an example for our future generations to look up to.
Dr. Carson is the epitome of the American dream. Only in our country could a poor boy from the inner city grow up to be a world-renowned neurosurgeon, presidential candidate, and Cabinet secretary. He personifies the very promise of America. Through hard work, opportunity and faith in something above self, just like Dr. Carson we can achieve anything we set our minds to. SOURCE
Just as blacks are expected to be Liberals, and card-carrying Democrats, so are the Jewish people. I grew up in an uber-liberal Jewish home, and after I was redeemed by our Lord Jesus in 1983, I could not reconcile many of the beliefs of the Democratic Party with what I was reading in the Word of God.
I became a staunch Conservative and my extended family considered me ‘meshugge’ (Yiddish for Crazy) and I was ostracized by many (to this day). Here is one of the Scriptures I memorized as a young Christian:
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:18-20)
