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

[W. J.]

This portends a very sad outcome which will forever tarnish the name of a great university. It appears that the powers that be want to cut out a jurisdictional conference vote by making this a done deal before July.
   
  Those of us who can't believe the utter and incomprehensible stupidity of current UMC leadership would be laughing our a**es off if it weren't so tragic. At least they didn't try to put the Nixon library at Duke (where he went to law school). 
   
  You would think the Republicans would consider maybe putting their worthy leader's library in Florida, which gave him the White House. Maybe in Palm Beach County, which gave us the infamous 'butterfly ballots' in 1980. Remember that, Fred Buss?  ....Fred?
   
  Marshall Jones

George Holcombe <geowanda at earthlink.net> wrote:
  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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