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Church welcomes the “scum of the earth”
They’re not really the “scum of the earth,” but attendees of a church by that name in Denver don’t mind being called its members. With their tattoos, body piercings, and alternative hairstyles, they are finding acceptance in a setting that’s meant to make outcasts feel welcome so they can hear the gospel.

Scum of the Earth began two and a half years ago as a Bible study led by the Christian band Five Iron Frenzy. The church’s name is based on 1 Corinthians 4:11-13: “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.”

A visit to a Sunday night service finds about 200-plus people stuffed into a coffeehouse. Instead of pews, there’s a handful of couches and a large floor space for mingling. Before the service, attendees are invited to a cooking class that’s followed by a full buffet for anyone who wants to come.

Everything from grilled-cheese sandwiches to eggplant parmesan and fettuccini alfredo is served free of charge. After the message, the church becomes a kind of house-party hang out.

Anyone is welcome, says Pastor Mike Sares. During the last year the congregation of skaters and punks has grown to include a significant number of disenchanted suburban youth. “We’re the church for the left-out and the right-brained,” Sares said.

In the Spring, a trial run of small groups was organized. Special interests, rather than a particular book of the Bible, was the emphasis.

“We had a girls’ skateboarding small group, people who want to learn Spanish small group, and a propaganda small group [for graphic artists]. They had to do three things: meet together for prayer and study, do a service for the poor, and have fun together. We’re going to start them up again.”

—By Margaret Feinberg. Reprinted with permission from Charisma and Christian Life (Nov. 27, 2002) www.charismamag.com.

Oden on the Trust Clause
A new study on United Methodism’s Trust Clause, written by Dr. Thomas C. Oden, is being circulated to leaders across the church. Who owns the title to United Methodist Church property? Oden’s answer is, “Those who follow the United Methodist doctrine and discipline.” The 30-page study is entitled The Trust Clause Governing Use of Property In the United Methodist Church: Faithfulness to the Connection According to Established Doctrinal Standards.

“We are not inquiring into the criteria for judging what can be licitly preached in United Methodist churches,” writes Oden. “This is a long settled question. Rather we are inquiring into what happens when a duly-appointed judicatory official (bishop, district superintendent, pastor or conference) teaches or acts contrary to established church law.”

Oden asks, “If local church boards and pastors who are faithful to doctrinal and disciplinary standards are thwarted by those who teach contrary to United Methodist disciplinary standards, where is the remedy to be found?” He concludes that those who support faithfully the doctrine and discipline of the UM Church have legitimate recourse to the courts—that being the model title deed. (The document is available here on our site.)

Proudly standing for life
Patricia Heaton is the Emmy award-winning actress who plays Debra in the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and the mother of four boys—ages 9, 7, 5, and 3.

Not long ago, Ms. Heaton was a guest on The O’Reilly Factor and was quizzed her about her pro-life views.

“Well, you know, I’m a chairman of Feminists for Life, and so I think that, because of that, we have an interesting stand that most people haven’t heard before, which is being pro-life can be a feminist issue.

“The early feminists were pro-life. And really abortion is a huge disservice to women, and it

hasn’t been presented that way. There’s a sort of an in for me because of that take on it.”

O’Reilly asked her about the reality of losing work in Hollywood because of her views. She responded, “Yes, I’ve thought about it. On a personal level, as a Christian, it will not be Barbra Streisand I’m standing in front of when I have to make an accounting of my life.”

When Heaton won her first Emmy award, she stunned the audience by thanking her mother for “letting me out because life is really amazing.”

She takes her role with Feminists for Life very

seriously. “I felt it was important to be a part of solutions for women who would like to keep the baby, but they have a boyfriend, husband or

parents telling them they are going to cut them out of their lives, so they have nobody else to turn to,” she said in an interview on “E.” She added, “It comes down to supporting people and stepping out and affirming that life is good.”

Young, smart, and passionately orthodox
After several years as a beat reporter and editorial writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Colleen Carroll was awarded a Phillips Journalism Fellowship, which allowed her to spend a year going around the country talking to Christians who are young, bright, professionally successful - and quite passionately orthodox in their religious and moral convictions. The results of Carroll’s research are now available in The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola University Press).

The “new faithful” come from different ethnic, religious, educational and family backgrounds. Some grew up in devout Catholic or Protestant families and drifted away, only to return to the faith with fervor. Others skated along on the surface of the consumer society until the hollowness of the world depicted in Abercrombie & Fitch ads created an ache that purchasing-power couldn’t heal. Still others pursued fast-track academic and professional careers, and then found that success was empty without something more, something deeper.

But whatever the path they took, the “young orthodox” have one trait in common: They find Christian orthodoxy an exhilarating, exciting adventure. Unlike their parents’ generation (i.e., mine), which grew up at a time when the smart thing to do was to put down tradition, reverence, doctrine and a demanding morality, the new generation of “new faithful” aren’t interested in how little they can believe and how little they have to do to stay “inside” the church. They’re interested in exploring the fullness of Christian truth and making it their own.

Gen X “new faithful” are passionately pro-life; indeed, as Carroll points out, one of the striking (and virtually unreported) phenomena of American politics today is that the pro-abortion forces are getting older and grayer while the pro-life world is displaying a much younger face.

Colleen Carroll’s book is replete with wonderful human stories of spiritual struggle followed by conversion. Those stories also pose a challenge to secularists, and to those determined to deconstruct Christianity into high-church Unitarianism: The clock is ticking, and the world isn’t working out the way you thought it would.

The great human adventure remains the adventure of orthodoxy. It beats the flat, arid world of secularism. It beats the frantic world of shop-’til-you-drop hyper-consumption. It beats the brave new world of a remanufactured humanity.

—By George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.



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