{"id":6395,"date":"2004-12-12T14:03:56","date_gmt":"2004-12-12T19:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2004\/12\/12\/our-lady-of-guadalupe-in-a-methodist-church\/"},"modified":"2004-12-12T14:03:56","modified_gmt":"2004-12-12T19:03:56","slug":"our-lady-of-guadalupe-in-a-methodist-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2004\/12\/our-lady-of-guadalupe-in-a-methodist-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of Guadalupe in a Methodist Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

When some members of Amor de Dios United Methodist Church in Little Village elected to move a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe into the sanctuary last year, the icon spawned an exodus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Turned off by the introduction of a Roman Catholic tradition to a Protestant congregation, most of the church’s 15 founding parishioners drifted away. To them, venerating the Virgin Mary and reciting the rosary did not belong in a Methodist church.<\/p>\n

Pastors of other Hispanic Methodist congregations objected too. They said praying to the Virgin equaled idolatry.<\/p>\n

And Roman Catholics in the neighborhood worried that the church might be selling itself as something it was not.<\/p>\n

Still, Rev. Jose Landaverde allowed the statue to stay. He says he sees no harm in embracing a tradition–the Virgin is an unofficial national symbol of Mexico–that might bring people closer to God.<\/p>\n

"It’s coming from the people, which is the real presence of the Holy Spirit," said Landaverde, 31, a student pastor from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. "You cannot bring theological debates to the people when they need spiritual assistance."<\/p>\n

Since his arrival in June 2003, the congregation has swelled to 150 members and about 100 regular Sunday visitors.<\/p>\n

This month, parishioners celebrated their first novena in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe by parading the 2-foot-high statue around the neighborhood, singing songs and reciting the rosary. About two dozen parishioners weathered the chill each night to deliver the statue to a different living room, where it was surrounded by garland, twinkling lights, roses and poinsettias.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, parishioners will commence the traditional Feast Day for the Virgin of Guadalupe and, through prayers, mariachi music, drama and dancing, pay homage.<\/p>\n

"The Virgin understands our suffering and she accompanies us everywhere we go," said church member Oscar Hernandez, who grew up Roman Catholic in El Salvador but now considers himself a Methodist. "We don’t want to take away the faith that this community has, but we want to nourish it." [Source<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When some members of Amor de Dios United Methodist Church in Little Village elected to move a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe into the sanctuary last year, the icon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}