Browse posts tag by Bruce N. G. Cromwell

EQUALITY FOR WOMEN IN THE HOME

May 17, 2019 By dwayman

One of our Five Freedoms as Free Methodists, is the “Freedom of women and men to be treated respectfully and use their gifts equally in the church, in the home and in the world.”  This profound reversal of the results of sin’s consequence in Genesis 3, is  Salvation in action.  Throughout the world women have not been and still are often not treated respectfully and rather than empowering women to use their gifts given to them by God men have defined their place by their gender.  The Free Methodist church respectfully empowers all persons to be the person Jesus redeemed them to be!

However, there has been a struggle in recent years with a theology that affirms the respect for women but sees God as having limited their place because they are women.  This theology is called complementarian and is based on a hierarchical theology that retains the rule of men over women, but does so in a loving manner.  The result of this is many gifted women have not been able to take their place of leadership that utilizes their God-given gifts and calling.

To bring complete saving grace into the lives of women, the Free Methodist Church empowers women to serve in every place for which they are gifted.  This is called egalitarian. Though this is still a struggle within the broader Christian world it is no longer so for our churches and denomination.

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CHURCH HISTORIC

December 20, 2016 By dwayman

By Dr. Bruce N. G. Cromwell

What Does the Tradition Component of the Quadrilateral Have to Say Regarding the LGBT Debate?

Free Methodist Study Commission on Doctrine, 2014

Even a cursory examination of Church history finds numerous statements from mothers and fathers of the faith regarding sexuality, including what contemporary discourse has identified as LGBT sexual orientation.1 When it comes to sexual activity beyond the bonds of marriage between one man and one woman, the Church speaks with one voice: such practice is not consistent with God’s will for human sexuality, procreation, and fulfillment in marriage.

Though the focus of such teaching has varied, from a perversion of roles (males playing the part of females), to the corruption of youth (pedophilia), to the inability to procreate (homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life), to the abuse of power (including clergy who engage in sexual liberties), the Church has been univocal. All sexual conduct outside of God’s perfect plan is “ordered toward an instrinsic moral evil.”2

However, in recent years the Church has also been clear and consistent in a call to mercy and compassion. On October 1, 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church published its second document on the subject. Signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II, it was called a “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.” Within it,