Words from Winkler

A prayer that in their deliberations, delegates will keep in mind they need to answer the question: 'What should the church of Jesus Christ do?'

Membership loss in the U.S., restructuring, finances and the meeting of United Methodism’s highest policy-making body itself are among eclectic ponderings on the state of the denomination.

Too many guns are in the hands of too many people, threatening everyone’s safety. That’s why The United Methodist Church endorses ‘vigorous efforts to curb and eliminate gun violence.’

Remind us again of Thy grace, of Thine abiding purpose, of Thy will working in us and those we love.

Letters to Faith in Action about contraception and religious freedom fall into 4 categories, frequently expressing opinions that either ignore the common good or the facts themselves.

Virginia, home to the worst-shooting massacre in U.S. history, just passed a bill that undoubtedly will cause more deaths, injuries and trauma through handguns.

As talk escalates about bombing Iran, it makes you wonder what lunacy can be driving the two nations toward war.

In the brouhaha over the Obama administration’s contraception policies, why is it that the liberty of those who are denied basic health-care services is not at issue?

The General Board of Church & Society is again issuing a call to a bold, provocative Lenten practice that highlights The United Methodist Church’s commitment and strong witness against alcohol abuse.

When the Church Bell Rang Racist recounts the sad history of how the white church in Alabama responded or, mostly failed to respond to the civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

An historic Western Jurisdiction Conference reached across the continent to elect the denomination’s first black, woman bishop.

Rarely has the denomination’s ‘official’ leaders supported those who stepped out in faith on behalf of civil rights, justice and peace.

The United Methodist Social Principles call us to hold government accountable for its actions, which can be frustrating when new administrations from the ‘other party’ embrace the same failed policies despite promises to do otherwise.

The U.S. withdrew its last troops from Iraq this week, leaving behind the detritus of an enormous, tragic disaster, but few seem to have learned anything from a calamity of such magnitude.

Isaiah’s words to Israel sound distressingly appropriate as we look at our current condition in the United States of America, yet it seems we increasingly seem to disregard the Bible's strictures. 

People inexplicably argument against government helping the least in society, as if God intends for us to act differently as individuals than we should act collectively.

An entreaty for the commitment to give back to God some of our wealth, time and talent, so that the world for which our Lord died can hear the truth, find the reality of Christ’s grace and return the lost to shelter, the least to their rightful place and the last to the front of the line.

As people around the world protest corporate greed, it is interesting that The United Methodist Church is to consider a resolution to become more corporate-like in its governance.

Not a single American Christian denomination has learned any fundamental lessons from the catastrophe in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor forsworn war as a result of it.

Just like Jesus, protesters are occupying the temple of the moneychangers; if a nation's leaders won’t address an intractable problem, the people will.