Tag Archives: Defiance

United Methodists lose one-fifth of US churches in defiance of LGBTQ bans

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Important Takeaways:

  • As of June 2023, more than 6,000 United Methodist congregations — a fifth of the U.S. total — have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination
  • The departures began with a trickle in 2019 — when the church created a four-year window of opportunity for U.S. congregations to depart over LGBTQ-related issues — and cascaded to its highest level this year.
  • Church law forbids the marriage or ordination of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” but many conservatives have chosen to leave amid a growing defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches and conferences.
  • Some 6,182 congregations have received approval to disaffiliate since 2019, according to an unofficial tally by United Methodist News Service, which has been tracking votes by annual conferences. That figure is 4,172 for this year alone, it reported.
  • With these departures, progressives are expected to propose changing church law at the next General Conference in 2024 to allow for same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people.
  • “We’re pivoting away from what we were into what our next expression is going to be.” Budgets will be smaller, but “this is our opportunity to refashion the church for relevance in the 21st century and really focus on evangelism.”

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More Honduran migrants seek to join U.S.-bound group in Guatemala

Honduran migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., are pictured on a truck during a new leg of their travel in Zacapa, Guatemala October 17, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Edgard Garrido

CHIQUIMULA, Guatemala (Reuters) – More Honduran migrants tried to join a caravan of several thousand trekking through Guatemala on Wednesday, defying calls by authorities not to make the journey after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut off regional aid in reprisal.

The caravan has been growing steadily since it left the violent Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Saturday. The migrants hope to reach Mexico and then cross its northern border with the United States, to seek refuge from endemic violence and poverty in Central America.

Several thousand people are now part of the caravan, according to a Reuters witness traveling with the group in Guatemala, where men women and children on foot and riding in trucks filled a road on their long journey to Mexico.

Later on Wednesday, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said his government rejects constraints placed on foreign aid.

“No help can be conditioned and no help can be demanded,” Morales told reporters following an event in the Guatemalan capital.

He said he had spoken with his Honduran counterpart, President Juan Orlando Hernandez, about ensuring that those migrants who want to return home can do so safely, and cited reports indicating that “many people” from the migrant caravan are returning to Honduras.

U.S. President Donald Trump decried “horrendous weak and outdated immigration laws,” in a series of Twitter messages starting on Tuesday. He threatened to cut off aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if they fail to prevent undocumented immigrants from heading to the United States.

“Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country,” Trump said on Twitter on Wednesday.

The Honduran government has urged citizens not to join the caravan, calling it politically motivated. On Wednesday morning near the Guatemalan border, authorities could be seen stopping Hondurans still hoping to join, with police in riot gear at one checkpoint halting buses carrying at least a hundred people.

Honduran migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., go up for a truck during a new leg of their travel in Zacapa, Guatemala October 17, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Honduran migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., go up for a truck during a new leg of their travel in Zacapa, Guatemala October 17, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

The men, women and children carried on toward the border on foot, Reuters photographs showed, with some later fording a jungle river near the frontier after unconfirmed reports that Guatemalan authorities had stopped letting Hondurans enter the country.

Guatemalan authorities did not provide an estimate of the size of the caravan, which aims to pass through Guatemala City before heading to Mexico.

Adult citizens of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua need only present national identity cards to cross each others’ borders. That regional immigration agreement does not apply when they reach Mexico.

Mexico said anyone who enters the country with a Mexican visa can move freely, while those without proper documents would be subject to review and could be deported.

“This measure responds not only to compliance with national legislation, but particularly to the interest of the Mexican Government to avoid that such people become victims of human trafficking networks,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

(Reporting by Edgard Garrido, Jorge Cabrera and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Tom Brown and David Gregorio)

Iran successfully tested new ballistic missile: state media

Iran successfully tested new ballistic missile: state media

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran has successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) which it displayed at a military parade on Friday, state media reported on Saturday.

The test-firing of the Khorramshahr missile, which Iran said could carry several warheads, is likely to raise concerns in Washington.

State broadcaster IRIB carried footage of the missile test without giving its time and location, including video from an on-board camera which it said showed the detachment of the cone that carries multiple warheads.

“You are seeing images of the successful test of the Khorramshahr ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km, the latest missile of our country,” state television said.

“This is the third Iranian missile with a range of 2,000 km,” it added.

The Khorramshahr missile was first displayed at a military parade on Friday, where President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would strengthen its missile capabilities without seeking any country’s permission.

At the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said Iran was building its missile capability and accused it of exporting violence to Yemen, Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

He also criticized the 2015 pact that the United States and other world powers struck with Iran under which Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.

The United States has imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran, saying Tehran’s ballistic missile tests violated a U.N. resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal and called on Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Iran denies its missile development breaches the resolution, saying the missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Edmund Blair)