Letters to the editor

UM preachers should talk about wide range of sins
I sure agree with what Lon A. Speer said in his June 23 letter (“Why don’t our preachers talk about sin anymore?”) He seems to think that poor Methodist preaching accounts for the decline in membership.
We sure need the mercy and pardon he mentions, not only from God but from each other. Perhaps it is presumptuous of me, but I’d like to suggest some of the sins we need to touch on.
Our careless and irresponsible treatment of the earth’s environmental resources would be one. I think we sure ought to preach about human propensity toward violence, not only in foreign wars but even in the home.
How we as a church treat gay people as second-class members should be in there somewhere. We should get political and talk about how our senators could approve of giving themselves a raise, while denying an increase in the minimum wage.
Jesus was against divorce. We should expound about that and honor family values. And deadbeat dads.
These just for starters.
Dan Adams
San Antonio

When will Witness share bishops’ antiwar statement?
When is the Witness going to acknowledge the ongoing tragedy of United Methodist leaders cutting and running from their own commitment to object with boldness when governing powers offer solutions of war that conflict with the gospel message of self-emptying love and at least print the bishops’ latest statement of conscience about the war in Iraq?
To see the complete statement, one would have to go to counterpunch. com and essays by the Rev. William E. Alberts, a hospital chaplain who writes about racism, war, politics and religion.
It’s strange that a secular, unabashedly left-leaning online magazine is the only place to hear from a dissident United Methodist minister.
If there had been an Internet when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, no doubt it would have been the same.
A prophet is without honor in his own country.
Ellen Berky
San Antonio

Editor’s Note: The Witness reported on “A Call to Repentance and Peace with Justice,” which criticized U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, Nov. 25. The full statement, issued Nov. 11 and signed by 96 bishops, is available at www.umc.org. You can search for the statement title on the Web site.