Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tblake@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu (Tom Blake) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Methodists and Masons Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 91 06:17:31 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: SUNY Binghamton Lines: 57 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , cliff@buster.stafford.tx.us (Cliff Tomplait) writes: |>catfood@ncoast.org (Mark W. Schumann) writes: |>>I was visiting a Methodist family this weekend and something came |>>up about Masons. Cliff said that the United Methodist governing |>>body recently made a statement to the effect that secret societies |>>such as the Masons are incompatible with the idea of a Christian |>>community. |>>Can anyone confirm, deny, or qualify this report? |>[I should have thought of this myself. When you talk about "the |>United Methodist governing body", you've got to be talking about the |>Quadrennial Conference, which as you point out hasn't met recently. |>So it couldn't be that. The bishops, various staff groups, and |>various Annual Conferences do from time to time make statements on |>social issues. In theory it could be one of those. On the other |>hand, most objections to the Masons come from fairly conservative |>Christians. It's not the sort of thing you'd expect from the United |>Methodists. I'd suggest that unless somebody has more evidence, we |>should regard the report as probably erroneous. --clh] Hi folks, your resident United Methodist here. I've been out of town for most of the week, (at our Annual Conference), I haven't heard of such a report. I can tell you that a number of my relatives are both United Methodists and Masons. "General Conference" meets every four years as OFM (AKA clh) suggests and it will next meet in 1992 (part of our business at Annual Conference this year was the election of delegates to go to General Conference). "General Conference" is the sole body that can set "The Discipline" of the UMC. (Our "Discipline" is the book of rules governing procedures in the church, I.E. who can be ordained, what is the responsibility of the trustees of the local church etc.) The Discipline might be an appropriate place to insert a statment saying for instance that the local shriners shouldn't be allowed to meet in the church building. Just about anybody can petition General Conference to change "The Discipline". At "Annual Conference" we considered a number of these petitions, most we rejected, some we approved of. These petitions however can all be sent straight to "General Conference". So, a number of bodies might have issued such a statement. My best guess would be a sub-committee, or commission, or board of the General Council On Ministries. (Maybe "Church and Society", this division of GCOM tends to be a focus of social reform.) I'll try to find out if this thing is for real or not. Tom Blake SUNY-Binghamton [Tom is tactfully not pointing out explicitly that I used the term Quadrennial Conference when I should have said General Conference. --clh]