March (Web-only) 2004

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Mobs pay no attention to the law. They're sure they know better than the law, and so they become an emotional law unto themselves, acting as they want to act, not as the law says they must act.

A deceptively docile mob mugged United Methodist Church law last week in Bothell, Washington, near Seattle. The mob was passing as a United Methodist jury in the Rev. Karen Dammann case, but it definitely was a mob nevertheless, dispensing mob justice. It broke into Methodist jurisprudence, spoke utter inanities, freed a properly charged defendant, and trampled on the rule of law, leaving a host of victims in its wake.

So a mainline denomination's court fudged on its clearly written polity. Okay. You call that news? Wouldn't it be news if a mainline denomination actually followed its written doctrine and polity these days?

You got me there, but this instance just has to be one of the most egregious denominational examples of the breakdown of law and reason. It could hardly be more clear-cut and dramatic, more ridiculous and disgusting.

And before those from other denominations get too smug, watch out! This kind of mob justice may be coming soon to a church near you. It's a sorry sign of our deconstructed times.

The primary victim Mobs leave victims, and this mob is no exception. The primary victim of this mob action is the rule of law: the sense that order, legislation, integrity, proper authority, or even meaning still holds. Thirteen clergy jurors could look at the passage in the Methodist Discipline that reads "Since the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church" ...