Assessing whether a Christian denomination’s formal
discipline is being used for religious or politically-ideological purposes is
fraught with difficulty. Certain governmental policies, such as genocide,
clearly violate Christian teaching, such that government officials charged with
implementing such policies could legitimately be sanctioned on religious grounds without it being
thought that a political or partisan difference
is the actual basis of protest. As the harm to others in a given policy
lessens, the specter of ideological opposition as the actual motivator
increases as a possibility. In 2018, 640 United Methodists filed a complaint to
their church charging U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions with having violated
the Church’s Book of Discipline, its code of laws and social principles, on
account of the alleged “child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination, and ‘dissemination
of doctrines contrary’ to those of the United Methodist Church.”[1]
Sessions had been tasked with implementing the U.S. immigration policy of
separating children from their parents at the border. At the time of the
complaint, over 2,000 children of illegal aliens were being held by the U.S.
Government as their parents were being prosecuted.
1. Daniel Burke, “More
than 600 Members of Jeff Sessions’ Church Just Charged Him with Violating
Church Rules,” CNN.com (accessed June 19, 2018)
The full essay is at "Methodist Complaint on Immigration."
