Leadership & Discernment

I was looking at an paper I did on Leadership & Discernment in the Community of Christ. It was published in the Theology Colloquy collection for that year. I'm posting it on the web on Google Docs. You can go to it by selecting the hyperlink above.

St. Louis Post Columnist Revises Statement About Community of Christ

Kevin Horrigan posts a comment on the article stating:

Dr. Pasley and I are advised that we may be clinging to an outdated notion of
the Community of Christ in Independence. The former Reorganized Church of
Later Day Saints is, in fact, the second-largest Mormon affiliated church as
the column states. But its policies and doctrines are quite different from
those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered in
Salt Lake City.

He wrote directly to me saying:

Apparently the RLDS church has changed more than its name since I worked in
Kansas City years ago. We have posted a comment noting the change in emphasis
and approach. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and best of luck in
your work.

So he gets points for revising the record (though not in the main body), plus he answered he email. That is very nice.

Is the Community of Christ a breeding ground for right-wing, hate groups?

According to a St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist, we are. See: http://tinyurl.com/og5efp.

I wrote an email to Dr. Jeffrey L. Pasley in response:

Dr. Pasley, you were quoted in Kevin Horrigan's column in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (which I accessed online) as saying:

[A] "number of conservative religious groups have their headquarters and
powerful establishments here: the Assemblies of God (in Springfield); the
Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (in Kirkwood); the second-largest Mormon group
(the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Latter Day Saints in
Independence), in recent pro-life times, I would have to count the Archdiocese
of St. Louis.

As an elder in the Community of Christ and having worked for the church full-time for over 11 years in the past, I have to question labeling the church as a conservative religious group with ties to right-wing activities.

Part of my work with the Community of Christ including chairing the Interfaith Peace & Justice Group, Missouri Impact (http://www.moimpact.org/). As chair of Impact, we worked very hard to oppose the legalization the carrying of concealed weapons in Missouri. The Community of Christ leadership was very much in support of that activity. There were those who have broken away from the Community of Christ (a broad group that can be called RLDS Fundamentalist that had supporters of Concealed Weapons, but there was no organized support of the pro-gun position in the Community. Nor are there any organized pro-life groups in the church. Actually, the work I was involved with was often labeled as left-wing activities (lobbying for hunger relief, opposing Missouri Medicaid cuts, putting limits on payday loans, Third World debt relief and I could go on.)

Our Temple is dedicated to the pursuit of peace and if you look at the program for our upcoming Peace Colloquy (www.cofchrist.org/peacecolloquy) you will see the theme is "Justice for Women, Dignity for All." An international award will be presented to to Halima Bashir a doctor and activist for women and children in Darfur. Are these the activities of a right-wing organization?

Of course, I don't know the context of your statement and perhaps you are aware of these activities, but from Kevin Horrigan's column, it seems the church was not fairly represented.

I look forward to hearing your response.

(slight edit to say that I was opposing concealed weapons).