Word: methodist
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...million-member United Methodist Church is a denomination in which smoking and drinking still carry the faint air of impropriety. Conservatism remains a powerful force in other ways: homosexuality has been openly condemned by the church as "incompatible with Christian teaching," and liberation theology is regarded by some Methodist clergy as the dogma of radical leftists. Conservative members tend to blame their leaders' increasing liberalism for a serious decline in the church. Since 1968 membership has fallen by 1.5 million, Sunday-school enrollment is down by 3 million, and American Methodists sent abroad to spread the word as missionaries...
...York City, has an annual income of $74 million, which is spent on ministering to both spiritual and material needs in the U.S. and in 45 foreign countries, particularly those of the Third World. But some of those who have provided major financial support for the board, wealthy Methodist congregations in cities such as Dallas, Orlando and Tulsa, have been angered by what many regard as the agency's left-wing theology and politics. Next week a rival mission board, the Mission Society for United Methodists, will open for business in Atlanta with $150,000 donated by large churches...
...past ten years, conservatives in the church have been attacking the mission board in the pages of Good News, an independent Methodist magazine. Last year, for example, the publication claimed that the board's headquarters staff was larger than the number of missionaries out in the field and that the head office consumed an unreasonable share of the agency's budget. The board replies that a large New York staff is necessary because of the scope of the agency's U.S. program. Good News also complains that the board is replacing old-fashioned evangelism with a political...
...some time Wilson has been urging the White House to extend diplomatic recognition. Reagan was receptive to the idea when John Paul II raised the possibility during the President's visit to the Vatican in 1982. Earlier this year, Indiana's Senator Richard Lugar, a Methodist, and the late Representative Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin, a Catholic, initiated legislation to remove an 1867 ban on funding a diplomatic mission to the Holy See. Vatican Secretary of State Agostino Cardinal Casaroli nailed things down at the White House last month...
RESIGNED. A. James Armstrong, 59, respected and influential liberal Protestant clergyman; from the presidency of the National Council of Churches and his position as bishop of Indiana's United Methodist Church; in Indianapolis. Armstrong said that job pressures had caused him to fail "my loved ones" and "the Gospel." Despite rumors of strain in his marriage, his wife later issued a statement, saying, "Jim and I are not separated. We have never been separated. We will never be separated...