Originally Posted by deacon blues
I used to sign it with the same perspective. I always felt disengenuious about it but justified it in my mind by telling myself, "No one obeys the manual to the letter of the law." I would still feel miserable signing it and mailing it in.
Then a few years ago, we started getting grief from a local pastor and his son in law over the fact that our music minister's wife had been seen wearing jeans in public. Our MM and his wife were invited by the district to do the music at the annual holiday youth convention. This pastor or his son in law played politics and "ratted" on our MM wife for her jean wearing. The district deemed that our MM would be "too divisive" to use for the youth convention and withdrew their invitation.
This was after a summer youth camp where our guy was doing music and a controversy concerning his wife's hair being cut. An "anonymous tipster" called the youth president and told him about it. 5 minutes before service the youth president tells my guy he can't do the music.
Okay. I understand the rules. And if they were applied consistently and fairly I could agree to disagree with the rules but feel like at least they are equitable about their application. But this sint the case.
I knew for a fact that this son-in-law routinely goes to organized and professional sporting events. I know this pastor goes to professional sporting events. I know they watch TV, I know they purchase and watch DVD sets of TV shows that I won't watch because of content. They have a family night where they get together with their adult children and spouses and watch these shows, and they're giddy about it. They just LOVE their shows.
But come campmeeting time, who's choir is singing on the platform? Who's sitting on the platform receiving the offering? Who is helping to run the youth camps and is camp director? You guessed it. When my District Supt met me for lunch one day, he asked me why we weren't as involved as we used to be. I told him the stories. He admitted that the manual was applied inconsistently.
The real problem is that the guys with the big churches, or the right connections, friends, family, the guys who command a lot of money and send in large sums to support the ministries of the organization get a pass on all the ways they violate the manual. Blue collar preachers with smaller congregations, or people without the names, or the political influence are held to a higher standard.
There are preachers who are very high office holders that go to the sporting events, watch every kind of DVD movie out there, TV shows, some own televisions or watch it on the internet, they break as many rules as anyone. But they are safe because of the system they are a part of protects them from scrutiny. As long as the women's standards (holy magic hair, dresses, make up, jewels) and any other outward appearance standards are maintained (beards, shorts, etc---keeping up appearances), you can get a pass on these other things.
I signed my last AS in 2009. As I drove away from the post office I asked God to forgive me for my dishonesty. I vowed to Him I would never sign another one.
I remember Bro Kilgore standing up at a GC, it might have been in Columbus when there was a resolution to remove the AS. He made the statement that the AS made too many liars out of too many people and requested we vote to remove the AS from our fellowship. It wasn't enough to convince the constituency to remove it. Unfortunate.
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