Another Glimpse Behind the Curtain

I just received an email from Good News  that is a reply to Dr. Rebekah Miles' excellent article that you can find here. Dr. Miles is fully capable of defending her work from Good News. I want to point out only one item. But it is an item that really matters.

Good News' reply states that Miles critique of the Traditional Plan begins at the wrong point in history. They say that Miles acts as if the Traditional Plan came out of nowhere and that the most important moment in the story really happened with a series of progressive actions in 2011.

Good News as an organization tells an intentionally selective, misleading history.

The story really begins in 2004 with this document. Note that the original document has been removed from the web. This link is to a mirror. Good News has never argued against the authenticity of the document and I have a hard copy myself from a completely independent source.

I hope you read the whole document. If you don't, then just read this excerpt that explains the strategy Good News and its allies have been working on implementing.

"This option is a type of Forced Departure, which is based on the model of church discipline, wherein the majority party within the church would essentially expel the minority party in order to create unity. The expulsion can be done either indirectly or directly. It would be done indirectly through making the environment of the church so hostile to the minority party that they choose either to leave or to agree to amicable separation. It would be done directly by requiring some type of "loyalty oath" or other enforcement mechanism that would require individuals and congregations to choose to leave if they could not live with the current majority policy."

Forced Departure

Expel

hostile

loyalty oath

These are not words that opponents of tradiationalists are using in a derogatory fashion. These are words that the right wing fringe is using to describe their own tactics. Good News and its allies are attributing a kind of rigidity and hostility to progressives and centrists that they perfected themselves more than ten years ago. 

To my theologically traditional friends, and you are many, I share this: 

I agree with you on so many things. Those who know the breadth of my own personal theology will recognize me truly as a centrist. To dismiss another false claim, I can sign off on our doctrinal statements in the Book of Discipline without "crossing my fingers." I can even sign off on every statement on the WCA's "what we believe page" - with the exception of the one they care most about.

You have concern about a progressive slippery slope leading to a denomination that you would not feel welcome in. I get that. I don't think that is what will happen, but I understand that concern. But it is a hypothetical concern. We are actively watching a fundamentalist slippery slope that most of you don't believe in either. That slide is actually happening right now. The document proves it is a planned slide.

Don't let yourself be used by a hidden agenda that is not true to who you are.