This is “Bishop” Oliveto, holding up a “We are All Muslims” sign. Okaaay.
UMC LESBIAN "PASTOR" ACCUSES JESUS OF BIGOTRY
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
A United Methodist church impastor, Karen
Oliveto, is a practicing lesbian. She is also accusing Jesus – that is,
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity – of having been a bigot.
Currently, the United Methodist church is in a 75-week period
dedicated to praying about whether or not the denomination should fully
embrace sodomy (link).
If the fact Karen Oliveto is a pastor doesn’t indicate the UMC already
has embraced sodomy as a valid lifestyle choice, probably nothing will.
Oliveto has not only embraced a sexual sin which indicates her unsaved
depravity, but accuses Jesus of sin.Oliveto is the UMC ‘bishop’ currently presiding over the “Big Sky Region” of the UMC, which includes the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, and parts of Idaho.
On a Facebook post of the Yellowstone Conference of the United Methodist Church, Oliveto said the following:
Praying for the clergy and laity of the Mountain Sky Area as we prepare to come together for worship.
I love the Gospel text of this week’s lectionary–Matthew 15:21-28. You know the story:
A Canaanite woman came down from the
hills and pleaded with Jesus to heal her sick daughter. Jesus ignored
her. The disciples get involved, “Jesus, can’t you do something? She’s
driving us crazy.” Jesus tells them no.
Then the woman came back to Jesus, went
to her knees, and begged. “Master, help me.” He said, “It’s not right to
take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.” She was
quick: “You’re right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the
master’s table.” Jesus gave in and the woman’s daughter is healed.
Jesus, Jesus, what is up with you? Where
is the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, the one who said, “Let the children
come to me”? What happened to Jesus, the one who said, “Consider the
lilies”. Where did his compassion and love go?
But as I ponder the story, as I look at
the verbal jousting between Jesus and this female who is considered less
than human because of her gender and ethnicity, I can’t help but note
how Jesus comes around.
Too many folks want to box Jesus in,
carve him in stone, create an idol out of him. But this story cracks the
pedestal we’ve put him on. The wonderful counselor, mighty God,
everlasting one, prince of peace, was as human as you and me. Like you
and me, he didn’t have his life figured out. He was still growing,
maturing, putting the pieces together about who he was and what he was
supposed to do. We might think of him as the Rock of Ages, but he was
more like a hunk of clay, forming and reforming himself in relation to
God.
As one person put it: “Jesus wasn’t a
know-it-all, he was also learning God’s will like any human being and
finally he changed his mind…if Jesus didn’t have to know it all
innately, but rather could grow into new and deeper understanding
through an openness to God’s people [even those he formerly discounted],
maybe if Jesus could change his mind then maybe so can we!
As he encountered this one who was a
stranger, he comes to a fuller sense of the people he is to be in
relationship with. He is meant to be a boundary crosser, and in the
crossing over, reveals bigotry and oppression for what they are: human constructs that keep all of us from being whole. He learns that no one, no one, including the outsider, the foreigner, the hated, the misunderstood, the feared, no one is outside of the heart of God and the care of God.
crossing over, reveals bigotry and oppression for what they are: human constructs that keep all of us from being whole. He learns that no one, no one, including the outsider, the foreigner, the hated, the misunderstood, the feared, no one is outside of the heart of God and the care of God.
In his conversion, by changing his mind
and acting outside of tradition, by treating the woman as a person and
responding to her needs, Jesus is willing to stand against culture and
social norms and risk his status and power. It is this action of giving
up that Jesus gains the most: because of his willingness to be in
relationship with one so different, Jesus finds greater intimacy with
God. The two go hand in hand.
This is the heart of the story. This is
what offers us hope. If Jesus can change, if he can give up his
bigotries and prejudices, if he can realize that he had made his life
too small, and if, in this realization, he grew closer to others and
closer to God, than so can we.
Blessings,
Bishop Karen
The list of heresies committed in this Facebook post may be too
numerous to mention. It denies the omniscience of God. It promotes
Docetism. It denies the immutability of God. It asserts what amounts to
Open Theism. And beyond that, the point of the lesbian impastor’s post
to excuse sodomites of their sin and instead, impugn the Son of God with
the sin of bigotry.
