United Methodist Social Justice Stands

The United Methodist Church has a long history of concern for social justice. This history has its roots in John Wesley's admonition to reform the continent and to spread scriptural holiness across the land. The following statements are adapted from the Social Principles as found in the 2000 Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church.

The Natural World

All creation is the Lord's, and we are responsible for the ways we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be both valued and conserved.

The Nurturing Community

All persons are important because they have been created by God. We believe that the family is the basic human community, but the family encompasses a wide range of options.

Marriage and Divorce - We affirm the sanctity of marriage, and we reject social norms that assume different standards for women than for men in marriage. We recognize that a married couple is sometimes estranged beyond reconciliation and that divorce is a regrettable alternative. Divorce does not preclude a new marriage.

While the following section on Human Sexuality is an official position of the United Methodist Church, please be aware that Saint Mark United Methodist Church DOES NOT consider homosexuality to be "incompatible with Christian teaching". This issue continues to be debated by the larger church. Saint Mark is a part of this conversation.

Human Sexuality - We recognize that sexuality is God's good gift to all persons. We call all persons to the disciplined, responsible fulfillment of themselves, others, and society in the stewardship of this gift. Sexual relations are only clearly affirmed in the marriage bond. United Methodist clergy are not permitted to conduct covenant services for persons of the same gender.

We deplore all forms of the commercialization and exploitation of sex. We call for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation or use of children by adults. We also reject any form of sexual harassment. Unwanted sexual attention is wrong.

Homosexual persons, no less than heterosexual persons, are individuals of sacred worth. Although we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching, we affirm that God's grace is available to all. We commit our-selves to be in ministry for and with all persons.

Abortion - 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. But we do not affirm abortion as a means of birth control or gender selection.

Adoption - We recognize that some circumstances of birth make the rearing of a child difficult. We affirm and support the birth parent(s) who choose to allow their child to be adopted. We affirm the receiving parent(s) desiring an adopted child.

Death with Dignity - We applaud medical science for efforts to prevent disease and illnesses. At the same time, we recognize the agonizing personal and moral decisions faced by the dying, their physicians, their families, and their friends. We assert the right of every person to die in dignity, with loving personal care, and without efforts to prolong terminal illnesses merely because the technology is available to do so.

The Social Community

We support the basic rights of all persons regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disabilities, or sexual orientation to equal access to housing, education, employment, medical care, legal redress for grievances, and physical protection.

Population - People have a duty to consider the impact on the total world community of their decision regarding childbearing and should have access to information and appropriate means to limit their fertility, including voluntary sterilization.

Alcohol and Other Drugs - We affirm our longstanding support of abstinence from alcohol as a faithful witness to God's liberating and redeeming love for persons. We support abstinence from the use of any illegal drugs.

Tobacco - We recommend abstinence from the use of tobacco.

Medical Experimentation - Medical science should use human beings as research subjects only after obtaining full, rational, and uncoerced consent.

Genetic Technology - We call for effective guidelines and public accountability to safeguard against any action that might lead to abuse of genetic technology, including political or military ends. A United Methodist task force on genetic experimentation has opposed the cloning of human beings.

Media Violence and Christian Values - We disdain current media preoccupation with dehumanizing portrayals, sensationalized through mass media entertainment and news.

Organ Transplantation - We believe that organ transplantation and organ donation are acts of charity, agape love, and self-sacrifice.

The Economic Community

We claim all economic systems to be under the judgment of God no less than other facets of the created order.

Property - We believe that private ownership of property is a trusteeship under God. Christian faith denies to any person or group the exclusive and arbitrary control of any other part of the created universe.

Collective Bargaining - We support the right of public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing.

Work and Leisure - Every person has the right to a job at a living wage. Where the private sector cannot or does not provide jobs, it is the responsibility of government to provide for the creation of such jobs.

Consumption - Consumers should exercise their economic power to encourage the manufacture of goods that are necessary and beneficial to humanity while avoiding the desecration of the environment in either production or consumption.

Poverty - We do not hold poor people morally responsible for their economic state. To begin to alleviate poverty, we support such policies as adequate income maintenance, quality education, decent housing, job training, meaningful employment opportunities, adequate medical and hospital care, and humanization and radical revisions of welfare programs.

Gambling - Gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life, and destructive of good government. Christians should abstain from gambling and should minister to those victimized by the practice.

The Political Community

While our allegiance to God takes precedence over our allegiance to any state, we acknowledge the vital function of government as a principal vehicle for the ordering of society.

Basic Freedoms - We hold governments responsible for protecting the rights of people to free and fair elections and to the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, communications media, and petitions for redress of grievances without fear of reprisal; to the right to privacy; and to the guarantee of the rights to adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, and health care. We oppose capital punishment and urge its elimination from all criminal codes.

Political Responsibility - The state should not attempt to control the church, nor should the church seek to dominate the state.

Education - The state should not use its authority to promote particular religious beliefs (including atheism), nor should it require prayer or worship in the public schools, but it should leave students free to practice their own religious convictions.

Civil Obedience and Civil Disobedience - We recognize the right of individuals to dissent when acting under the constraint of conscience and, after having exhausted all legal recourse, to resist or disobey laws that they deem to be unjust or that are discriminately enforced. We do not encourage or condone, under any circumstances, any form of violent protest or action against anyone involved in the abortion dilemma.

Criminal Justice - We support measures designed to remove the social conditions that lead to crime. We urge the creation of a new system of restorative justice that provides for the care and restoration of victims, offenders, criminal justice officials, and the community as a whole.

Military Service - We urge the establishment of the rule of law in international affairs as a means of eliminating war, violence, and coercion. We reject national policies of enforced military service. We support those who conscientiously oppose all war, or any particular war, and who therefore refuse to serve in the armed forces. We also support people who conscientiously choose to serve in the armed forces or to accept alternative service.

The World Community

God's world is one world. We commit ourselves to the achievement of a world community that is a fellowship of persons who honestly love one another.

Nations and Cultures - We recognize that no nation or culture is absolutely just and right in its treatment of its own people, nor is any nation totally without regard for the welfare of its citizens.

War and Peace - We believe that war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ. We reject war as an instrument of national foreign policy and insist that the first moral duty of all nations is to resolve by peaceful means every dispute that arises between or among them. We condemn the production, possession, and use of nuclear weapons. We endorse general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Justice and Law - We endorse the United Nations and its related bodies and the International Court of Justice as the best instruments now in existence to achieve a world of justice and law. We urge the United Nations to take a more aggressive role in the development of international arbitration of disputes and actual conflicts among nations by developing binding third-party arbitration.