Hello there! Theo here, CDH's administrative assistant here on Circuit Rider's Range. My boss, CDH (alias the circuit rider), has corresponded with United Methodist bishops over the years. He claims it has always proved to be an experience that is never dull, and at times most unpredictable when it comes to responses or lack thereof. He also admits that there have been times that responses from UMC bishops are comparable to getting a letter from a politician in Washington DC or Harrisburg PA of which he has quite a collection, including some from the president and vice president.

The one you will read below has been sent in response to what is described as a "pastoral letter" from the four bishops to whom the response was sent. They express concern over the educational environment of our children as they go through the schooling experience. Pennsylvania United Methodist pastors are clearly expected to read the letter to their congregations. You will see that CDH maintains that the concern for children should extend far beyond just those children who spend a few months each year in a school setting.

Monday, January 31, 2005

To: UMC Bishops Thomas Bickerton, Marcus Matthews, Jane Ellen Middleton, Susan M. Morrison

Dear Friends:

I am writing in response to your letter sent to all United Methodist pastors in Pennsylvania. The pastors are expected to read these letters to their congregations.

You raise the issue of deep concern for children in the PA educational system and the conditions, some of which are most deplorable, to which the children are exposed in their schooling experiences. It is commendable that you seek to draw attention to such conditions in which children can be seriously harmed.

This certainly could be considered a further localized extension of the ongoing Bishops' Initiative on behalf of the well being of children all over the world.

Now then -- time for a question -- why is it that in all these years, as proclamation after proclamation coming from the bishops of the United Methodist Church concerning the health and well being of children, there has never been a word of alarm sounded over the destruction of unborn children at the rate of over 100,000 per month in the USA? The grand total at this point in time since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 is now over 44.7 million victims!

I am aware of the "official" position of the UMC on abortion and its wording, which is about as vain an attempt to straddle the fence as one will ever see penned in words anywhere. But in the end it comes down to the fact that any woman can get an abortion with UMC approval -- all she has to do is say that the pregnancy will bring about extreme stress and hardship due to __________ -- just fill in the blank with any word related to physical, emotional, psychological, environmental, relational, or financial circumstances! And so, after "counseling," she goes right ahead through the UMC green light and has her unborn child destroyed.

I remember years ago when the 3 PA UM bishops sent us a pastoral letter which we pastors were clearly told to read to our congregations. It was a detailed account of the urgent need to oppose the death penalty in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and have the practice terminated as quickly as possible.

I immediately responded to each bishop personally by saying I would be most willing to read their letter on the condition that I received one from them equally strong and forceful in opposing abortion on demand. I received no response from one bishop. From another a short paragraph in terse words which translated simply into a question -- "Who are you to question us?" The third eventually responded with a longer letter and conceded that abortion is a serious issue, but that I was making a bit too much of it in the way I was addressing the subject.

I grant the fact of personally making a big issue of our national policy of mutilating and murdering unborn children while a number of churches and their leaders raise little or no objection, the UMC included. A lot of my "crusading" is done through my web site, Circuit Rider's Range, at www.crrange.com

It is interesting that we UM's lament our membership losses but never honestly face up to the fact that of the 44.7 million unborn victims who have been intentionally destroyed, at least some of that number would have lived and served in the UMC if they had been permitted to have been born! Neither you nor I have sufficient knowledge as to what difference these persons would have made and would be making now, if they had not been brutally mutilated and murdered before birth.

In my experience in "waging war" on behalf of the unborn I have received some very angry email responses after the authors of those emails have viewed areas of my web site which deal with the United States' version of "holocaust." A number of these have come from United Methodists, including a very irate letter from a member of the Board of Ordained Ministry of the Western Pennsylvania Conference where I am an ordained elder.

The common thread in these email messages is the expression of outrage leveled against me due to my posting of pictures of those who have been victims of the unique USA version of "holocaust!" By the way, Nazi Germany's toll of murdered victims was somewhere in the vicinity of 14 million. So I am raked over the coals because I have posted pictures of mutilated and murdered victims of abortion.

Do you, as I, not find it quite strange that I become the target of angry and vicious attack because of the posted pictures, but these same people show absolutely no anger or distress toward those responsible for the violence and the murders in the first place?

Well, much more could be said, including the "Safe Sanctuaries" program and why we draw the line at entrance to the womb, refusing to stress the need to insure that the womb is always a safe sanctuary which will not be violently invaded and the person dwelling peacefully in that serene environment will not be destroyed.

But that is for another time and maybe Joy Thornburg Melton, the female clergy/lawyer, will respond the second time around on the issue! She made no response the first time when I communicated with her about expanding the borders and definition of "safe sanctuaries" for all children, born and unborn! Will her eyes be opened a bit wider when she visits W PA Conference in the near future, or will the vision still be more than a bit myopic in the "safe sanctuary" arena?

The most serious issue of all in this matter is our refusal to seriously consider the magnitude of God's future response to our mass destruction of millions of unborn children whom He identified and for whom He had a wonderful purpose before this world was created! We all would do well to review all the implications of the Biblical expression of the "shedding of innocent blood."

Just something to think and pray about while we still have a little bit of time left to do so!

Still contending at www.crrange.com

Clayton D. Harriger,
Elder in full connection, W PA Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church

cc: UM Council of Bishops, c/o Bishop Peter Weaver; Attorney Joy Thornburg Melton
Copy to be posted at Circuit Rider's Range web site, www.crrange.com

[End of Letter to 4 UMC Bishops]

The above letter to the bishops included the graphic poster as pictured -- the other graphics appearing were not in the original letter. To see more on why the issue of dealing with our unborn children is a crisis unlike any we have ever experienced as a nation, see the items listed below. These appear in most of the areas where the issue of destroying unborn children at will is the subject discussed.

Unborn Babies Brutally Mutilated and Murdered since Roe vs. Wade January 1973

Watch this for 60 to 90 seconds
and see what happens!

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? even cry out to You, "Violence!" And You will not save. Why do You show me iniquity, and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; there is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
Habakkuk 1:2-2 (NKJV)