Site
Contents
 |
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
Area United Methodist
Foundation
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodists together |
January 2006 |
Church places high value on the nurturing community in Social Principles
The Social Principles of The United Methodist Church are a prayerful and thoughtful effort on the part of our church's General Conference to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in United Methodist traditions. However, they are not church law. The Social Principles are a call to all members of the United Methodist Church to a prayerful, studied dialogue of faith and practice. In this issue of Together, the Nurturing Community is featured.
Here is the second installment of Social Principles dealing with the Nurturing Community.
The Nurturing Community
The community provides the potential for nurturing human beings into the fullness of their humanity. We believe we have a responsibility to innovate, sponsor, and evaluate new forms of community that will encourage development of the fullest potential in individuals.
The Family
We believe the family to be the basic human community through which persons are nurtured and sustained in mutual love, responsibility, respect, and fidelity. We affirm the importance of both fathers and mothers for all children.
Other Christian Communities
We further recognize the movement to find new patterns of Christian nurturing communities such as Koinonia Farms, certain monastic and other religious orders, and some types of corporate church life.
Marriage
We affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant that is expressed in love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity between a man and a woman.
Divorce
God's plan is for lifelong, faithful marriage. The church must be on the forefront of premarital and postmarital counseling in order to create and preserve strong marriages. However, when a married couple is estranged beyond reconciliation, even after thoughtful consideration and counsel, divorce is a regrettable alternative in the midst of brokenness.
Single Persons
We affirm the integrity of single persons, and we reject all social practices that discriminate or social attitudes that are prejudicial against persons because they are single
Human Sexuality
We recognize that sexuality is God's good gift to all persons. We believe persons may be fully human only when that gift is acknowledged and affirmed by themselves, the church, and society. We call all persons to the disciplined, responsible fulfillment of themselves, others, and society in the stewardship of this gift. We also recognize our limited understanding of this complex gift and encourage the medical, theological, and social science disciplines to combine in a determined effort to understand human sexuality more completely.
Family Violence and Abuse
We recognize that family violence and abuse in all its forms is detrimental to the covenant of the human community. We encourage the Church to provide a safe environment, counsel, and support for the victim.
Sexual Harassment
We believe human sexuality is God's good gift. One abuse of this good gift is sexual harassment. Sexual harassment must be understood as an exploitation of a power relationship rather than as an exclusively sexual issue.
Abortion
The beginning of life and the ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence. Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother, for whom devastating damage may result from an unacceptable pregnancy. In continuity with past Christian teaching, we recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures. We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control, and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection.
Ministry to Those Who Have Experienced an Abortion
We urge local pastors to become informed about the symptoms and behaviors associated with post-abortion stress. We further encourage local churches to make available contact information for counseling agencies that offer programs to address post-abortion stress for all seeking help.
Adoption
Children are a gift from God to be welcomed and received. We recognize that some circumstances of birth make the rearing of a child difficult. We affirm and support the birth parent(s) whose choice it is to allow the child to be adopted. We recognize the agony, strength, and courage of the birth parent(s) who choose(s) in hope, love, and prayer to offer the child for adoption.
Faithful Care for Dying Persons
Care for dying persons is part of our stewardship of the divine gift of life when cure is no longer possible. We encourage the use of medical technologies to provide palliative care at the end of life when life-sustaining treatments no longer support the goals of life, and when they have reached their limits. There is no moral or religious obligation to use these when they impose undue burdens or only extend the process of dying. Dying persons and their families are free to discontinue treatments when they cease to be of benefit to the patient.
Suicide
We believe that suicide is not the way a human life should end. Often suicide is the result of untreated depression, or untreated pain and suffering. The church has an obligation to see that all persons have access to needed pastoral and medical care and therapy in those circumstances that lead to loss of self-worth, suicidal despair, and/or the desire to seek physician-assisted suicide.
In future Together articles, the remaining four sections of The Social Principles will be highlighted. The General Board of Church and Society has published the current The Social Principles in booklet form. To order log on to www.umc-gbcs.org and click on "Online Store" at the bottom of the home page or call 202-488-5600. The 64-page booklet sells for $1.25 plus shipping and handling.
Last updated on 25 Apr 2008