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THIS ONLINE DISCUSSION IS PROVIDED BY THE STUDY COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE – SCOD. In the life of the church there are three levels of authoritative documents. Within the Free Methodist Church we define the three levels in this way: First Level is the BOOK OF DISCIPLINE: Official documents approved by the delegates at the General Conference. Second Level is the STUDY COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE: Guidance provided to the church by those assigned the task. These are not personal opinions, but are vetted by scholars who have various expertise. Though not binding on the church, they are meant to be helpful scholarly works. Third Level is this FREE METHODIST CONVERSATIONS. This online discussion is where various individuals express their own opinions about a variety of issues. These are not authoritative, nor are they necessarily meant as guidance, but God may use them to do so. There are SCOD documents on this site and the members of the SCOD will be participants. We are inviting the entire church to join the discussion. Our intention is not to limit discussion but to elevate it by assuring that God’s love and respect is always expressed. We will therefore post those comments which further our mutual understanding and assure that every person is being treated with dignity even when disagreement is being voiced. Specifically: 1. The SCOD encourages respectful, intelligent and impassioned discussion and debate. 2. The SCOD encourages a Wesleyan method of looking at the topic from a Scriptural perspective as well as that of Reason, Tradition and Experience. We recognize the Revelation of God in Scripture is our primary source of truth, with Reason, Tradition and Experience serving as supportive resources. 3. Any personal attack will keep the entire comment from being posted. This includes not only attacking others within this SCOD conversation but anyone within the larger secular or Christian world. 4. Any libelous, defamatory, profane, vulgar, threatening, harassing abusive, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable comments will not be posted. 5. Any invasion of another’s privacy or any post that emulates or pretends to be someone else will not be posted. 6. This online conversation is not to be used to solicit or advertise personal blogs. 12. The SCOD, in our sole discretion, retains the right to remove individual posts or to revoke the access privileges of anyone who we believe has violated any of these standards. For more informal conversations with Free Methodists: LIGHT AND LIFE CONVERSATIONS – Facebook page LIGHT AND LIFE MAGAZINE – Facebook page – Online Issues FM RADIO – Facebook page or iTune episodes If there are any questions contact our moderator, Dr. Denny Wayman: dwayman@fmcsb.org.

Browse posts tag by immigration

DIGNITY AND WORTH OF PERSONS

May 12, 2019 By dwayman

At the Spring meeting of the Board of Administration of the FMCUSA, the Book of Discipline article ¶3221 was modified due to the work of three scholars of the FMC:  Dr. Ed Song, Dr. Helen Rhee and Pastor Kate Wallace-Nunneley.  Writing three separate resolutions to expand the article on the Worth of Persons, the SCOD took their work and combined them with the present article and changed the name to the DIGNITY and Worth of Persons.

This is our new article for the 2019 Book of Discipline:

¶3221           Dignity and Worth of Persons

We are committed to the dignity and worth of all humans regardless of gender, race, color, or any other distinctions (Acts 10:34-35) and will respect them as persons made in the image of God (Genesis1:26-27) and redeemed by Christ’s death and resurrection.

The  Old  Testament  law  commands  such  respect  (Deuteronomy 5:11-21). Jesus summarized this law as love for God and neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40). He ministered to all without distinction and His death on the cross was for all (John 3:16; Romans 5:8).

We are therefore pledged to active concern whenever human beings are demeaned, abused, depersonalized, enslaved or subjected to demonic forces in the world, whether by individuals or institutions (Galatians 3:28; Mark 2:27; 1 Timothy 1:8-10). We are committed to give meaning and significance to every person by God’s help. Remembering our tendency to be prejudicial,

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REAL MEN SHIELD THE DEFENSELESS AND PROTECT FAMILIES by Mark Adams

June 29, 2018 By dwayman

We often hear our culture remind men to protect their own family.  Here Mark Adams, Superintendent of the Sierra Pacific Conference of the Free Methodist Church, reminds us that Christians protect and care for all families, not only his own.  Written for Father’s Day it speaks to men, however the message is for all Christians, men and women.

Supt. Mark Adams

June, 2018

Today is Father’s Day.  I am so proud of all four of my sons.  They are Lars, Jake, Alex and Felix.  Each are young men with sharp minds, quick wits, compassionate hearts and willing to sacrifice much to benefit others.  Three are fathers themselves, and really great dads at that!  I could not be a happier dad.  So, sons, remember – real men shield the defenseless and protect families.

Consequently, I must say something about the current American implementation of a policy to tear apart families as an immigration deterrent.  I am disheartened as a Christian father that the policy is being defended by national spokespersons (Jeff Sessions and Sarah Sanders) through biblical texts.  On a personal identity level (I have identified as an “evangelical Christian”) I am dismayed that over the past few years it seems that evangelical Christianity as a whole is becoming enmeshed with a political agenda that places nationalistic views ahead global Christian concerns, even promoting initiatives that seem to dehumanize others.

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THE BIBLICAL STORY IS A MIGRATION STORY

June 28, 2018 By

Scripture is inspired for all people in all places in all times calling us to a higher response than this world even knows.  Here Rev. Julia Matallana-Freedman, who in 2018 received her Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity and was ordained Elder in the Free Methodist Church in Southern California, provides a thoughtful guidance to which each of us are called by God to respond as the church – the called-out-ones.

Rev. Matallana-Freedman

June 2018

So much about our faith as North American Christians is discursive. Ultimately the words we use and the interpretive choices we make matter because our actions unfurl alongside our discursive choices. The Christian ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas, frames it this way:

“The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We Serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.” (Resident Aliens, 39).

We know there are many FM leaders across the nation already actively involved in refugee ministries and initiatives. This post embodies our striving for the centering of this ongoing work and to lift up the stories of FM Churches on the borderlands and in the trenches of this ongoing moral corruption. This reflection is searching for the increase of unlikely voices coupled with divine creativity to do God’s work faithfully.

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WELCOMING THE STRANGER: Faith Communities and Immigration by Alexia Salvatierra

January 7, 2018 By dwayman

In a recent article, Alexia Salvatierra, who is an adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary and an immigration activist, wrote a thorough history of the Biblical and American experience with immigration, the sanctuary movement, and current realities.  It is a great resource, but also a call to participate in the care of those who are being harmed.  Comparing the modern sanctuary movement with the “Cities of Refuge” and the “Underground Railroad” the call focuses on the center of Free Methodist biblical commitment and our own history of abolitionist action.

In part she writes:

“In the thirty-fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible, the writer lays out a remedy for a social and legal problem. In ancient Israel, the penalty for murder was death, “a life for a life.” Family members of the slain person normally carry out the sentence.  However, the writers of Numbers recognized that it would not be fair for accidental killers to receive the same punishment as those who kill intentionally. Raging family members could not be expected to stop midstream and investigate; the community is instructed to create cities of refuge where the accused can be kept safe until they can receive a fair hearing. The cities of refuge are the solution for people who committed a crime and received an unfair penalty.

This ancient remedy is the root of the sanctuary church tradition. Since the fourth century in England, churches have offered protection and shelter to those accused of a crime but who would be likely to be punished unfairly if left unprotected.

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THE FREE METHODIST POSITION ON IMMIGRATION by Bishop David Roller and Bruce Cromwell

December 21, 2016 By dwayman

en español

SCOD 2013
Bishop David Roller and Bruce Cromwell

At the heart of the arguments surrounding immigration matters is a fundamental tension between our desire to care for all persons and our respect for the rights of the state to establish laws, including economic policy. Both are legitimate impulses but their position, vis-à-vis each other, is subject to God’s principles extracted from the Scriptural narrative. If, as we will suggest below, the desire to care for persons is a different and higher category than the state’s right to restrict immigration, then we monitor laws of the state that create friction with the mandate to care for persons (see “A,” “B,” & “E” from 2011 Book of Discipline ¶ 3221) and we advocate to change the behaviors and laws in question (“C” and “D” from the same paragraph).

Immigration laws are based on citizenship (only non-citizens are subject to a particular state’s immigration laws), which is a concept of the state based, in turn, on birth realities. The two opposing birth realities for granting citizenship are “Jus Soli” (right of the soil or birthright citizenship) and “Jus Sanguinis” (right of blood). In the former, citizenship is based on place-of- birth and in the latter it’s based on parent’s citizenship. Jus Sanguinis was Roman law but has gradually lost favor to Jus Soli, especially in the New World.

Both of these rationales, one’s place of birth and parent’s citizenship,

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