[Oe List ...] U Methodists and Bush Library

[George Holcombe]

Further research revealed this article.  It appears the General  
Conference only referred it to the Jurisdictional Conference.  Since  
the Bishops of the SC Jurisdiction have given their approval to the  
library and the SMU Board has voted for it; it will be an uphill  
battle to reverse it, but hope springs eternal......

If you know any reps going to the SC Jurisdiction, you should contact  
them with your appeal to vote down the library.  It helps if you're a  
United Methodist, but if you're a friend or relative that might even  
carry more weight.

Posted May 1, 2008 2:00 PM

by Mark Silva and updated

Hope springs eternal among opponents of the proposed George W. Bush  
Presidential Libary at Southern Methodist University, with the general  
conference of the Methodist Church this week voting overwhelmingly to  
refer a petition for the library's rejection to the South Central  
jurisdiction of the church which owns the university property.

"I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing,  
selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential  
library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University,'' a  
petitioner from South Carolina wrote. "We should support separation of  
church and state, and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or  
property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement  
of that president by the United Methodist Church.

"Texas is a big state,'' petitioner Diane Smock of Greenville, S.C.,  
wrote. "Surely there are other venues.''

The conference's committee on Ministry and Higher Education voted 51-5  
to refer it to the full conference, and the conference voted yesterday  
by 844-20 to refer it to the jurisdiction that controls the Dallas- 
based university. That jurisdiction plans a meeting in July.

"They're going to be forced to allow a vote here,'' says the Rev.  
Andrew Weaver, a Methodist, research psychologist and anti-war  
activist who is among the opponents of the library. "There will be a  
real vote here.''

It's not so much the library, as the research institute attached to  
it, that opponents are protesting. They warn that the think tank, to  
be dedicated to the study of the policies of the 43rd president, will  
besmirch the reputation of an independent university.

The university's leaders are welcoming the library, and the Bush  
library foundation has formally selected SMU for the facility and  
already hired an architect.


Scott J. Jones, bishop for the Kansas Area of the United Methodist  
Church and immediate past president of the South Central Jurisdiction  
College of Bishops, suggests that library opponents should not read  
too much into the general conference's decision to refer the petition  
to the South Central jurisdiction.

"The General Conference of the United Methodist Church did receive a  
petition asking it to block SMU's decision to lease land for the  
George W. Bush Presidential Library and Center,'' he reports. "Its  
decision was only to refer it to the South Central Jurisdictional  
Conference. In no way did it reject the decision already made by the  
South Central Jurisdiction's Mission Council.

"The action was merely procedural because the General Conference said  
the decision belonged at the Jurisdictional level. The overwhelming  
nature of the vote was due to the fact that it, along with 11 other  
petitions, was on a consent calendar of things approved overwhelmingly  
in committees that recommended referrals.''

George Holcombe
Asbury United Methodist Church
1605 38 1/2 St.
Austin, TX 78722
Home: 512/252-2756
Church: 512/477-8122
Mobile 512/294-5952
geowanda at earthlink.net





George Holcombe
14900 Yellowleaf Tr.
Austin, TX 78728
Home: 512/252-2756
Mobile 512/294-5952
geowanda at earthlink.net


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