With the vote on the new health care bill tonight, we decided that a discussion of the United Methodist Church's stand on health care would be an interesting topic for today.
The UMC Social Principles says that Methodists should try to pursue a healthy lifestyle for themselves and others, oppose all barriers to peoples' health, and recognized the government's involvement (there is a line in the Social Principles that mentions the government's role).
To be perfectly honest, most people in our classroom didn't want to debate or get involved with the health care debate. It was fairly obvious, however, that there were a lot of different opinions about health care reform. Some people are against the bill because they believe it will socialize health care and put too much control in the government's hands. Others believe that it is in the best interests of all to provide health care to everyone. Based on the Social Principles, Methodists should generally agree with the latter so that we may better do God's work by helping as many as possible to live a full and healthy life. Nevertheless, the debate for health care continues.
We ended the health care debate rather quickly and started to discuss how our Sunday School teacher was coming along with his Shelter 2.0 project. Our teacher has been doing well and has cut down the cost for the 10x16 model by over half. He has also started to work on other models of similar design, including larger buildings. We still hope to be able to send some of these models to places like Haiti where there is still a great need for help.
We decided to return to the health care debate. Almost immediately, there was a great deal of debate over public and private hospitals. Trying to turn away from the new bill, we tried to discuss the Social Principle's stand again. Although our teacher tried to disagree, we teens agreed that our generation is very lazy, and providing health care to everyone will cost a fortune. People are going to be working less, and those who do work probably won't make enough to live comfortably. Providing health care to these people will cost way too much on everyone with taxes, and the laziest of them probably don't even deserve health care. However, as good Christians, we must support everyone and try to provide needed services and supplies to everyone, even the laziest of us. The sad truth of life is that we need money, and lots of it.
We turned to Matthew 25:31-46 to talk about how we are called to help those who need it. Everyone on this earth is our brother and sister whether we like it or not, and it is not for us to decide who is or isn't deserving of our help. It is our obligation of Christians to provide health care for everyone.
One of us asked, however, if it was the government's responsibility to provide health care. Some of us, including our teachers, thought that it was the government's responsibility since we work through the government to achieve our goals. Others, of course, disagreed.
We really didn't find a real consensus except for our Christian duty. We also cut our discussion short for youth ministry reasons, so our apologies for the short blog this week.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Robo-sapiens
This week's contraversial topic is genetic technology and engineering. Our society has been fascinated by the possiblilites of cloning and the use of genetics to promote a healthier population. The United Methodist Church has its own stand on genetic engineering.
We are returning the the United Methodist Social Principles to make our stand on genetics. According to the Social Principles, the Methodist Church is for genetic engineering in health interests, providing that all changes are for a single generation only. The Methodist Chruch is against cloning, long term gene pool changes, and interfering with the genetics of an unborn child.
Most of the people in our classroom realize the dangers of genetic engineering, and we talked about a few movies and stories that provided examples of genetics gone wrong. We all agreed that cloning was against God's will, seeing as God creates us all as he wants us originally. This logic was also used to argue against the genetic engineering of children in the womb.
A couple of real-life examples of genetic engineering problems that we came up with were with agriculture and in some aisan countries. In some developed countries, like India, where genetic engineering has become available for use on unborn children, many people are misusing the engineering to have male children. Obviously, an imbalance of gender in population will cause tons of long-term problems. In agriculture, some plants have been so genetically altered that it is almost impossible to kill them.
Continuing on technology, we skipped forwards in the Social Principles to discuss the Internet. The Methodist Church is fascinated by the great availability of communication due to the Internet, and believes that the Internet will be a great tool that can be used to promote change in the world. The Methodist Church also affirms its stance of caution while using the Internet, especially with children, because of the widespread immature, innappropriate, and illegal materials that have become more readily available because of the Internet. We here at Franktown are following the Social Principles by trying to make the Internet safer and more balanced so that good is not overpowered by evil online; in other words, we want to extend Christian values through all forms of communication. Everyone here was in unanimous agreement with the Social Principles on this point.
We continued to talk about technology for a while, and we discussed tracking chips in humans and animals, then turned our attention to individuality and how everyone is unique. We had a few humorous examples, such as Monty Python, then turned to the seriousness of the problem. The biggest debate we had came in how people should be chosen for positions. On the one side, we had people who thought that people, due to their uniqueness, should be looked at separately and chosen based on their individual qualifications. On the other side, we had people who argued that God treats sinners and saints the same, and that we should allow everyone equal opportunity.
After the debate, we read the story of the prodigal son, which was the basis for the church sermon this Sunday (Luke 15: 11-32). In the story, a son requests his share of the inheritance early, then runs away with the money to a far-off land. While away, the son squanders his wealth and ends up working in a pig pen. Famished and degraded, the son decided to go back and beg for a place in his father's house again. The son went back, but before he could plead for a job as a servant, his father ran up, hugged the son, and called for a party to be held for the return of his son.
The relation between the prodigal son and our debate over equality was to prove God's position on the subject. The son was by all accounts a sinner and probably didn't deserve his father's praise, but the father blessed him anyways. In this way, God doesn't really care what you do [as long as you repent], and in this way we should also provide opportunities without being overly-anyltical of people.
Following on repentance and God's forgiveness, we read about the passage of Jesus' death on the cross (Luke 23: 26-43). In the story, there are two other men on crosses on either side of Jesus. One man criticizes Jesus, but the other believes in Jesus and rebukes the other man. The believer then repented to Jesus, and Jesus forgave him by saying "I tell you the truth; today, you will be with me in paradise." The man was a criminal, and one who was sentenced to death at that, but Jesus still forgave him because he believed. Likewise, we need do nothing but honestly believe and repent of our sins, and we can be granted salvation under Christ; Jesus does not hold back for anyone.
We are returning the the United Methodist Social Principles to make our stand on genetics. According to the Social Principles, the Methodist Church is for genetic engineering in health interests, providing that all changes are for a single generation only. The Methodist Chruch is against cloning, long term gene pool changes, and interfering with the genetics of an unborn child.
Most of the people in our classroom realize the dangers of genetic engineering, and we talked about a few movies and stories that provided examples of genetics gone wrong. We all agreed that cloning was against God's will, seeing as God creates us all as he wants us originally. This logic was also used to argue against the genetic engineering of children in the womb.
A couple of real-life examples of genetic engineering problems that we came up with were with agriculture and in some aisan countries. In some developed countries, like India, where genetic engineering has become available for use on unborn children, many people are misusing the engineering to have male children. Obviously, an imbalance of gender in population will cause tons of long-term problems. In agriculture, some plants have been so genetically altered that it is almost impossible to kill them.
Continuing on technology, we skipped forwards in the Social Principles to discuss the Internet. The Methodist Church is fascinated by the great availability of communication due to the Internet, and believes that the Internet will be a great tool that can be used to promote change in the world. The Methodist Church also affirms its stance of caution while using the Internet, especially with children, because of the widespread immature, innappropriate, and illegal materials that have become more readily available because of the Internet. We here at Franktown are following the Social Principles by trying to make the Internet safer and more balanced so that good is not overpowered by evil online; in other words, we want to extend Christian values through all forms of communication. Everyone here was in unanimous agreement with the Social Principles on this point.
We continued to talk about technology for a while, and we discussed tracking chips in humans and animals, then turned our attention to individuality and how everyone is unique. We had a few humorous examples, such as Monty Python, then turned to the seriousness of the problem. The biggest debate we had came in how people should be chosen for positions. On the one side, we had people who thought that people, due to their uniqueness, should be looked at separately and chosen based on their individual qualifications. On the other side, we had people who argued that God treats sinners and saints the same, and that we should allow everyone equal opportunity.
After the debate, we read the story of the prodigal son, which was the basis for the church sermon this Sunday (Luke 15: 11-32). In the story, a son requests his share of the inheritance early, then runs away with the money to a far-off land. While away, the son squanders his wealth and ends up working in a pig pen. Famished and degraded, the son decided to go back and beg for a place in his father's house again. The son went back, but before he could plead for a job as a servant, his father ran up, hugged the son, and called for a party to be held for the return of his son.
The relation between the prodigal son and our debate over equality was to prove God's position on the subject. The son was by all accounts a sinner and probably didn't deserve his father's praise, but the father blessed him anyways. In this way, God doesn't really care what you do [as long as you repent], and in this way we should also provide opportunities without being overly-anyltical of people.
Following on repentance and God's forgiveness, we read about the passage of Jesus' death on the cross (Luke 23: 26-43). In the story, there are two other men on crosses on either side of Jesus. One man criticizes Jesus, but the other believes in Jesus and rebukes the other man. The believer then repented to Jesus, and Jesus forgave him by saying "I tell you the truth; today, you will be with me in paradise." The man was a criminal, and one who was sentenced to death at that, but Jesus still forgave him because he believed. Likewise, we need do nothing but honestly believe and repent of our sins, and we can be granted salvation under Christ; Jesus does not hold back for anyone.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Tradition!
We started off the week discussing a passage from an article about Jesus Freak (see http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/2283/healed_of_the_sin_of_religion%3A_at_church_with_sara_miles/?page=entire)
In the article, they discussed how a typical church is made more for comfort than change. One question that is pulled up is when the difference between tradition and nastalgia is made in a "church home." The writer of Jesus Freak comments that a church designed for comfort over mission work and change is a church of idolaters, or people who simply cannot or don't want to exit their comfort zone.
Our group, which was small today, moved to discuss how a church should be set up. Should church be set up to benefit its members? Most people want some comfort, but we knew that the article was right in that church needs to be a tool of change. People are not naturally faithful, for the most part, and if we want to get closer to God, then we have to change our ways and do whatever it takes to get closer in our faith.
Next, a small debate brought us into the topic of balance between us and God. As teenagers, we are pressured into doing good things, getting good grades, preparing ourselves for college, etcetera, etcetera. How do we balance our lives between all that we are supposed to do for our lives on Earth and what we are supposed to do for our lives with God? Our group came to say that what we do with our lives and our careers should reflect our faith and lives with God. One of our group members gave an example of how physics can be seen as a study of how God works on Earth; God created everything, so everything we do to study the universe should be a study of God.
Somewhat relating back to our discussion of church and comfort, our group began to discuss how everything can go wrong. Things that were developed with good interests could easily go wrong for secular interests. Fast food, for example, may have originally been made for cheap, good food, but it has now turned into a profit seeking, fatty foods industry. Could church turn bad just as easily? As we say in every post, it is our duty as Christians to keep the church a tool for great change and advancement in the world.
Our final point of discussion relates to hypocrisy. Almost every church preaches for change and says that Christians need to help the world, but most don't follow through. We cannot simply say that what we are doing is wrong but keep doing it. Relating back to last week, we cannot judge without expecting our own judgement. We have to get out of our bubbles and change. In our closing prayer for this week, one of our group made a humorous but true statement. Lord, forgive us for being idiots because we truly are.
In the article, they discussed how a typical church is made more for comfort than change. One question that is pulled up is when the difference between tradition and nastalgia is made in a "church home." The writer of Jesus Freak comments that a church designed for comfort over mission work and change is a church of idolaters, or people who simply cannot or don't want to exit their comfort zone.
Our group, which was small today, moved to discuss how a church should be set up. Should church be set up to benefit its members? Most people want some comfort, but we knew that the article was right in that church needs to be a tool of change. People are not naturally faithful, for the most part, and if we want to get closer to God, then we have to change our ways and do whatever it takes to get closer in our faith.
Next, a small debate brought us into the topic of balance between us and God. As teenagers, we are pressured into doing good things, getting good grades, preparing ourselves for college, etcetera, etcetera. How do we balance our lives between all that we are supposed to do for our lives on Earth and what we are supposed to do for our lives with God? Our group came to say that what we do with our lives and our careers should reflect our faith and lives with God. One of our group members gave an example of how physics can be seen as a study of how God works on Earth; God created everything, so everything we do to study the universe should be a study of God.
Somewhat relating back to our discussion of church and comfort, our group began to discuss how everything can go wrong. Things that were developed with good interests could easily go wrong for secular interests. Fast food, for example, may have originally been made for cheap, good food, but it has now turned into a profit seeking, fatty foods industry. Could church turn bad just as easily? As we say in every post, it is our duty as Christians to keep the church a tool for great change and advancement in the world.
Our final point of discussion relates to hypocrisy. Almost every church preaches for change and says that Christians need to help the world, but most don't follow through. We cannot simply say that what we are doing is wrong but keep doing it. Relating back to last week, we cannot judge without expecting our own judgement. We have to get out of our bubbles and change. In our closing prayer for this week, one of our group made a humorous but true statement. Lord, forgive us for being idiots because we truly are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
