https://religionnews.com/2019/02/26/bishop-will-willimon-on-why-no-plan-can-unite-united-methodists/
«We spent time yesterday [at #gc2019] openly discussing, “Now, how much do we have to pay to have to leave? Is a third of a property assessment OK?” It was just weird hearing us talk that way. That’s not the way we’ve talked previously. If you talk that way, it means the debate is almost moot.»
Here, Read This 
Or maybe it is because he admitted praying that God would smite those against his position. Classy…
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Lost me there. Link?
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You can read about it and find the link to the article at https://reformedtruths.com/2019/03/08/answering-will-willimon/
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Ah. Right. https://www.christiancentury.org/blog-post/guest-post/methodist-mess-st-louis
I had actually read that, but I’d forgotten the “smite” part (or, to put it another way, I didn’t particularly notice it). I think what he’s saying there is that God chose to grant neither the prayers for fruitful compromise nor those (by Willimon, anyway) which were spoken out of pain and anger.
I think you are misinterpreting a lot of what Willimon wrote. God hears all prayers, and I’m not so sure there is an improper prayer. In a large fraction of the Psalms, the psalmist asks that God “smite” his enemies. Are you going to direct your sarcastic “classy” toward the psalmist?
I don’t think Willimon would feel particularly proud of prayers he utters in anger, and he would probably be glad that God didn’t grant that particular prayer.
Furthermore, I think he knows that and I think he expects the reader to know it, too.
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But I think I spent too much text spelling that out. You get it or you don’t, I guess. Hyperbole.
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If that were true, why did he publish it? No, he is unfit to be a Bishop in the UMC. His pain and anger comes from his position that sin should be accepted in the church. It is self-inflicted. The bishops are out of touch with reality and Scripture.
I don’t believe I misinterpreted anything because I have read a lot of what he has written post-conference. It is the same vitriol over and over again.
And no, God does not hear all prayers. It says that in Scripture.
The psalmist was directing it against enemies, yes. It was not the same context. And we are not supposed to be Willimon’s enemies. He, and the other bishops, supposedly want unity, but that is obviously not the case. They want compromise on Scripture and if we can’t they want us out.
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I’ll let your comment speak for itself, but one small clarification: I didn’t say God /grants/ all prayers; just that God /hears/ (and listens to) all prayers.
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Right, I understood what you said and meant, but Scripture says otherwise. It specifically says God does not hear/listen to all prayers.
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