[Oe List ...] more Methodist news

[W. J.]

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Bishop Talbert has just been charged in the Western Jurisdiction. His is the highest profile case yet, and that geographic slice of 'United' Methodism is the least likely locus to focus the hocus pocus power of 'Good News' vindictiveness on a retired bishop who dared to cross episcopal turf lines in Alabama to enact the 'Biblical obedience' he calls for. All of which may yield not so good news for 'Good News', but very good news for the rest of us, helping to redefine the Disciplinary limits of a 'just resolution' for at least some noncompliant clergy.
On the other hand, in the wake of the outrage over the defrocking of Frank Schaefer, Bishop Peggy Johnson is definitely sitting on the episcopal hot seat in eastern Pennsylvania as she waits for complaints about each of at least three dozen clergy who co-officiated at a Philadelphia gay wedding in November. At roughly a hundred thousand Methodist bucks per respondent (the estimated cost of the Schaefer trial), this mass ecclesiastical disobedience could cost her annual conference somewhere north of 3.5 million dollars to rid itself of its most outstanding prophetic clergy.
Even as she utterly failed to exercise unifying leadership (and looked the other way with her one good eye), Bishop Johnson appeared blind to the implications of the ecclesiastical firestorm she has allowed the 'Good News' contingent to ignite with their Pyrrhic victory in her annual conference. Yet even those guys can do the math and conclude that 'United' Methodism can't afford many more of their self-destructive sham trial shenanigans. Bishop Johnson could request a long leave of absence to ponder these things before she is transferred to another episcopal area in 2016. Or she could seek the counsel of Bishop McLee.
As Samson said to Delilah before he leaned against the Temple pillar, "I'm feeling a little stronger today. What could possibly go wrong?"

Marshall
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