“For us as people of faith, we really see this effort [for reform of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons] as a profoundly moral effort, that we would deny any person access to community, access to restorative justice, to, what I would say as a Methodist minister, access to redemption and a belief in God’s ability give us all a second and third and 23rd chance.”
– Rev Laura Markle Downton, director of the U.S. Prisons Policy and Program at the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, quoted in an article by Catholic News Service.
"Frankly, the conservative rationale that opposing the 'sinful' lifestyles of LGBT persons makes the church countercultural just rings hollow. These arguments don’t make the United Methodist Church more biblical, more Christian, or more Methodist. They just drive away LGBT Christians whose leadership and talents could be used to make our church stronger in its witness."
"Whoever believes themselves just and judges others and scorns them is corrupt and a hypocrite. Arrogance compromises every good action, empties prayer, distances from God and others. If the prayer of the arrogant doesn't reach the heart of God, the humility of the miserable opens it wide."
"Right now, I see a tremendous evangelistic crisis in the way the left half of our country has been utterly alienated by sleazy culture war from ever considering the gospel. They’re alienated not because they’re hedonists who love to sin and hate God’s truth, but because their consciences are legitimately reviled by Christian hypocrisy and self-righteousness."
– The Rev. Morgan Guyton, A Response to Billy Abraham Regarding United Methodism’s Orthodox Rebirth