Category: Uncategorized
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End-of-Life Ethics in the proposed new Social Principles
In 2023, I completed a master’s thesis titled, “Is This How Human Life Should End?: A Methodist Examination of Physician-Assisted Suicide.” Through this year-long research project, completed through the Th.M. program at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, I considered the history and growing popularity of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in the United States and…
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Creation: An Introduction
Since the original Social Principles in 1972, the first section to follow the Preamble has always been “The Natural World.” If the church is to consider social principles, it only makes sense to begin with creation—the primary resource humans must protect and care for in order to survive. The Revised Social Principles maintain this primary…
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Foundational Principles of the UMRSP
The Social Principles have always included a preamble, outlining foundational theological principles upon which the rest of the SP are constructed. This Preamble has remained mostly unchanged since 1972. The proposed revised Social Principles (RSP) nearly double the Preamble’s length, both adding content and further clarifying existing content. The Preamble to the RSP lays out…
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History of the Social Principles
In 2022, the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church turned 50 years old. Yet for most of that time, they have been primarily known (if they are known at all) as the battleground of ideological disagreements among the people called Methodists. While most laity and clergy in the United Methodist Church know the Social…
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Let’s Do Social Ethics!
What’s this site all about? Project Overview Last year I was talking with a Catholic ethicist who wanted to know more about social teaching in the United Methodist Church. As I gave him the background of the Social Principles and shared that our denomination would be considering a substantial revision in 2024, he asked me…
Faith working by love 