THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 19, 1994 TAG: 9407190004
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
I read with sadness staff writer Mark O'Keefe's ``Methodists hear reporter who attended female God conference'' (June 22) about the 212th Session of the Virginia Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church - the lone article on the June 19-22 meeting at Scope, representing 349,000 United Methodists in Virginia, 64,000 of whom reside in Hampton Roads.
My dismay resulted from the content of the story. While Mr. O'Keefe reported the content correctly, a meeting held in November 1993 is hardly current news! The ``Re-Imagining'' Conference, attended by 46 women of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, in no way officially speaks for 9 million United Methodist people across the United States. That conference was not an issue at the sessions at Scope. The theological position of The United Methodist Church is abundantly clear as to where it stands on issues raised by that conference.
I am disillusioned that Mr. O'Keefe found nothing else significant in the sessions. Though he consulted with conference officials, it was not important that 18 tons of baby blankets and sewing, school, health and layette kits were donated to Church World Service for the unfortunate of the world. It was not newsworthy that 9-year-old Sam Harris told the 2,400 delegates, ``When I was not even a week old, you gave my mother a clean blanket in which to wrap me, a layette kit to care for me, a school kit for my older sister, a health kit to heal my father's wounds and a sewing kit to mend our family's clothes.''
In no place did Mr. O'Keefe report that an offering of $67,000 was received to help the people of war-torn Liberia to aid in rebuilding that country devastated by a civil war. It seemed of no consequence that one local church presented a check for $35,000 to the Society of St. Andrew to continue the fight against hunger.
There was no mention that Darlene Amon, an active member at Monumental UMC in Portsmouth, was elected lay leader and will lead United Methodist laity across the state of Virginia. Nowhere did I read a line concerning ``Vision For Ministry 2000,'' the comprehensive vision and mission of The United Methodist Church in Virginia as it plunges forward into the 21st century.
By the way, it may be news to Mr. O'Keefe that the ``Methodists'' have been United Methodists since a merger in 1968.
PAUL C. BAILEY
Virginia Beach, June 28, 1994 by CNB