Bandits No More

The question of “amicable separation” was broached at General Conference this past spring, though not in a substantive manner. Good News, a renewal movement within the church, has produced a research document laying out what they see as the major options facing the church.

The 2004 General Conference of The United Methodist Church in its closing hours overwhelmingly approved a resolution proclaiming unity in Christ. In so doing it professed a desire for dialogue and finding means by which the diverse theological perspectives of The United Methodist Church could continue to exist together. In theory, this is a laudable and worthwhile goal that all who call themselves United Methodist should be willing to commit themselves to. However, the resolution failed to address the reality of the position we find ourselves in as a church.

My impression of this unity declaration when I first heard of it was that it was wishful thinking. If we only deny a problem long enough, maybe it will go away.

Unity is definitely a good thing. Jesus said, “”My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21 This prayer of Jesus has been the foundation of the Ecumenical Movement for at least a century. Do we now have this kind of unity – are we ONE, just as the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father? Is the world seeing something in us and our relationships with each other that attracts them to Jesus? The world certainly sees that we have the word “United” in our name, but the reality backing it up seems purely institutional.

The UMC has pursued unity during its entire existence:

The reality is that for more than 30 years our denomination has tried to find that common ground. The reality is that, in that time, instead of growing closer theologically, we have grown farther apart.

Why is this? At least two factors. First, United Methodism mirrors the broader American Culture. As a fairly normal cross-section of America, it is not surprising to find the same polarization in the church that we find in the culture. Second, the process of dialogue itself has heightened the articulacy of conflicting positions. If we ignored the situation and just went about our business in the local church (following the advice of some), we wouldn’t know how far apart we really are on some issues.

A third factor may be the rise in the number of pastors who do not attend United Methodist seminaries. As a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary, I find that Methodist doctrine seemed to play a more central role in my education than in that of some peers who attended UM seminaries. What we lacked, however, were the close ties to the denominational leadership and bureaucracy that those seminaries have. As the mass of pastors who see a conflict between the official doctrine of the church and the actual practices of the church reaches criticality, those pastors likely become more articulate and stubborn in their positions. Similarly, those who are taught a revisionist version of doctrine in seminary find an increasing gap between what they see as “real, biblical Christianity” and the traditional expressions of that faith.

We must face up to the reality that the holders of the diverse theological perspectives are firm in their beliefs, and that we as a “united” church lack common agreement on the foundation of our Christian doctrine. We are house divided. Over the past 30 years, too much time, energy, and resources have been spent on holding the United Methodist Church together in the face of our theological schizophrenia. One can only imagine what could have been done to minister to the least, the last, and the lost of the world with those resources.

Yes, people in the UMC firmly hold widely divergent beliefs. I have no trouble attributing sincerity to them all. I have no trouble admitting that each group thinks what they are saying and doing is for the good of the church and truly “of God.” The problem is that what we say and what we do has consequences, not only for ourselves and our churches, but for each other. We find ourselves working at cross purposes. We find ourselves having to undo or redo the work of others. After 30 years, yes, this does get tiring. Yes, it does sap our energy and resources that we could be spending reaching outsiders. But I have a couple of questions.

First, in historical terms, 30 years really isn’t very long. It’s certainly not long enough to adjudicate between traditions. It is, however, long enough to recognize that in the “liberal” and “evangelical” branches of the church we do indeed have different and rival traditions, pursuing different trajectories.

Second, if everything turned around tomorrow and we suddenly had the unity General Conference “celebrated,” would we know how to live in it? I’m not sure I would. If you train someone to be adversarial and defensive for years, how can they suddenly change their ways?

This is more than an intramural ecclesiastical squabble. It raises first order questions of whether United Methodism has a future as an effective tool for making disciples throughout the world and, if there is such a future, how United Methodists are to move beyond our current mode of quadrennial conflict, a high level of distrust, and widely held cynicism. The conflict, distrust, and cynicism marking our denominational life today are not simply emotional reactions, but grow from longstanding experiences within an ineffective and unfocused institution.

I don’t understand those who say they are the “Great Methodist Middle,” who say they feel caught in the crossfire between the two warring factions. What is their understanding of the nature of doctrine and its role in the church? Are things like the resurrection of Jesus, the Incarnation, biblical sexual morality merely adiaphora – indifferent items – to be held lightly as we live and let live? Sure there are some petty squabbles in the church, rooted in personality differences and power struggles. But most of what I see is based in real substantive disagreement.

Is our present system the one we need to maintain? Again our answer must be a resounding NO! The irreconcilable differences that exist between evangelical/orthodox Christians and revisionist Christians within United Methodism has led to ideological oppression by United Methodist leaders who expect denominational loyalty while undermining our covenant of doctrine and polity. This problem is systemic and not limited to a handful of bishops and board or agency officials.

Wesley’s original Model Deed was a way to control the preaching at the local Methodist stations. The assumption was that the Methodists would be ok at the top (after all, Wesley himself was in firm control in those days) and that problems, if they came, would come from below. Wesley had some experience with preachers “going bad,” so this wan’t an idle fear. The UMC has maintained the tradition of the Model Deed with the current Trust Clause vesting ownership of all church property in the Annual Conference and not in the local church. What we have come to see in the days since Wesley, however, is that departure form Methodist doctrine is not merely a local concern, but is a concern about the leadership of the church even on the highest levels. Whereas the leadership of the church – since Wesley himself – has seen the Model Deed /Trust Clause operating in a one way direction (local churches must be faithful), local churches have seen it as a two way relationship of accountability. Not only are they responsible to uphold Methodist doctrine, but of the leadership above them has departed from that doctrine, then a breach has occurred just as much as if the local church had departed. Having spent some time in the Western Jurisdiction, I’ve seen this in play. The hierarchy of the church, however, rejects such a possibility a priori.

The document goes on to lay out the four options they see. These are adapted from Lyle Schaller’s new book, The Ice Cube is Melting.

A. Continue Current Renewal Strategies (Patching the Old Wineskin)

This option sees the tide of “battle” turning in our favor. It believes that if we continue steadfast in pushing for renewal, we will continue to make incremental progress in improving the spiritual and institutional climate of the denomination. It is just a matter of getting the right people elected as delegates and members of agency boards to bring about the cultural changes in the church that will foster spiritual vitality and growth.

This option is a type of Forced Departure, which is based on the model of church discipline, wherein the majority party within the church would essentially expel the minority party in order to create unity. The expulsion can be done either indirectly or directly. It would be done indirectly through making the environment of the church so hostile to the minority party that they choose either to leave or to agree to amicable separation. It would be done directly by requiring some type of “loyalty oath” or other enforcement mechanism that would require individuals and congregations to choose to leave if they could not live with the current majority policy.

This option starts off sounding positive – “Let’s keep doing what we’ve been doing.” After all, no change is usually the easiest position. But notice how it works out in light of our real and substantive differences – it becomes “Forced departure.”

B Work for a Heterogeneous Denomination

This option believes that we will never get the United Methodist Church as a whole to agree to our vision of a renewed church. Rather than continuing to fight against the revisionists for control of the denomination, we would seek to decentralize control in the denomination and make a safe and healthy place for evangelicals to do ministry within the United Methodist Church.

I think this might go over better with the “unity first” crowd, but I’m not sure anyone else would like it in the long run. The hierarchy won’t like it because it will entail huge power shifts and decentralization. Those who are theologically polarized won’t like it, because they will see the American public (wrongly) perceiving them as the same as their opponents. But maybe I’m too cynical.

C Refashion United Methodism as a High-Expectation Covenant Community

This approach would also allow us to retain the name and heritage of United Methodism, while creating within it a new church that would emphasize high expectations, high commitment, doctrinal certainty, and covenant accountability. This approach would be to jump immediately to the end state of what we hope our incremental changes under Option A would bring about. At the same time, there would need to be a renewal of the restated covenant for every member, pastor, and congregation. Those churches and individuals who could not affirm the renewed covenant would have to leave the denomination, and provision would need to be made for retaining property, pensions, and the like.

After at least a century of little or no doctrinal discipline, this would surely be a shocking move. I’m not sure we are close to havig a theory of doctrine that would accommodate this model. We can handle the “I’m right, you’re wrong” model, We can handle the “Doctrine divides, service unites” (relativistic) model. Doctrinal clarity and accountability – with love and compassion – I’m not sure we’d know what to do with it. Even more, I’m not sure that we have a solid enough consensus in any group within the church to form a clear majority.

D. Work for a Structural Separation of Methodism

This option believes that it will be impossible to renew the current United Methodist denomination. A new start for all the various factions within Methodism would allow for greater creativity, smaller and (hopefully) more effective denominations, and homogeneous denominations that are outward-focused, rather than quarrelling as factions within a larger whole….

There appear to be two options for bringing about a structural separation within United Methodism: amicable separation and voluntary departure.

Amicable Separation

The option of amicable separation is based on both sides agreeing that a separation needs to take place. This option can be precipitated by one or the other side, but to go forward, it needs the agreement of both sides in the debate. The proposal worked on at General Conference calling for some type of commission or task group to create a plan of separation is the likely form this option would take. The appeal of this option could be broadened by creating the possibility of more than two options for new denominations. Lyle Schaller outlines five different denominations that could emerge (p. 206):

1) A new Methodist denomination closely resembling today’s UMC, without the Restrictive Rules and with a reworked annual conference and general agency structure.

2) A new Methodist denomination retaining current UM doctrine, but with a new polity, organizational structure, and system of accountability.

3) A new Protestant denomination with its own distinctive doctrinal statement and an episcopal system of governance.

4) A new Wesleyan denomination with a new self-defined polity and doctrine.

5) A new Christian religious body with a self-defined polity and doctrine.

The labels “Wesleyan,” “Protestant,” and “Christian” relate to how closely the new denomination’s doctrine and polity resembles historic Methodism. Central Conferences would have the choice of becoming autonomous Methodist churches or affiliating with one of the new denominations. Under amicable separation, the United Methodist Church would cease to exist, and every individual and congregation would be forced to make a conscious choice of which new denomination to become part of (or to become independent).

This option has the advantage of bringing an amicable spirit to the process of structural separation, since both sides agree to its necessity. It poses the least potential for disruption, since minimal energy is spent fighting the separation and most of the energy is devoted to constructing the two new entities.

The drawback to this option is its requirement that both sides agree, in order for it to be effective. One side can hold the other hostage by refusing to agree, either to the need for separation or to some particular elements in the plan of separation. It would also require a high level of agreement by General Conference delegates, who tend to be institutional preservers and unlikely to easily come to such agreement.

Voluntary Departure

The voluntary departure of an organized group from the church is an option that is within the realm of possibility. It is the most frequent model of structural separation in the history of Methodism, including the formation of such denominations as the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Wesleyan, and Free Methodist, among a number of others.

The advantage of this option is that it does not require creating a high level of hostility within the denomination in order to succeed. It can be implemented by a highly committed group within the church, with minimal need for agreement by the General Conference. Thus, this option is most under the control of the group initiating it, where they are not at the mercy of other groups.

The disadvantages of this option are that it may require some congregations to leave their property behind (although one hopes a large enough critical mass of those departing could work around this problem). It also leaves the United Methodist denomination somewhat intact, with the accumulation of resources to potentially continue for decades on a progressively revisionist track. It will also require great investment of time and energy to create a new denominational structure, with the potential for further division among the departing group over the shape of that structure.

This is a variant of the position that generated so much heat at General Conference. The key recognition is that there is already a divorce between our theory and practice, and that at least one cause of this is a confusion as to whether our official doctrine is also to be considered operational (I take the distinction from George Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine). As it stands, the way we do doctrine doesn’t seem to fit with the way we do polity, and because there is a strong push to treat our official doctrine as non-operational, polity becomes the driving force in United Methodism. Given that we are Methodists, this might make sense, but I think being method driven as opposed to mission/purpose driven is fatal in the long run.

This document draws no conclusions about what steps the United Methodist Church (or Good News) ought to pursue. Some ineffetice strategies (withholding apportionments, sleective withdrawal) are mentioned. The most effective mentioned is networking with like-minded people.
We’ll see what happens.

From an article in Sunday’s Birmingham News by Greg Garrison

New United Methodist Bishop William Willimon has often needled his denomination for being boring and irrelevant and having a bulky bureaucracy.

Now, as the new spiritual leader of the United Methodist Conference of North Alabama, the former Duke University Chapel dean has become part of the bureaucracy. It’s an opportunity Willimon relishes.

“I’ve been kind of a critic of our church,” said Willimon, as he settled into his office at Methodist headquarters on the campus of Birmingham-Southern College on Thursday. “I want to see what we can do.”

I’ve read much of what Willimon has written over the past several years and find it difficult to imagine him fitting well into the UM bureaucracy. The whole system is set up to domesticate leadership. Bishops seem to be required to serve on so many boards, agencies and committees (that’s what real leadership is about, right?) that it leaves them little breathing room to do much out of the ordinary. Willimon’s advantage may be that having served as Duke University chaplain for so many years, he has been out of the system and away form most of the domesticating pressures.

The 8-million-member United Methodist Church, the second-largest U.S. Protestant denomination after Southern Baptists, has struggled with membership loss the past three decades. The North Alabama Conference has 157,862 members, down from 178,118 members at the start of 1984, an average loss of about a thousand a year.

“Sometimes we get distracted by the nonessentials and don’t keep focused on the essentials theologically,” Willimon said. “We need to ask what the church does that no one else does. Methodists are big on doing, serving, organizing. The downside of that is we have a tendency to get into lots of things that are not the basic mission of the church. We’ve lost touch with a couple of generations.” ….

Churches need to realize they’re supposed to be about more than providing social services, he said.

“I think we mainline liberal Protestant types have done a huge disservice in de-supernaturalizing the faith,” Willimon said. “I think it’s about miracles. It’s about the supernatural.”

According to the United Methodist Book of Discipline, the church’s mission is to “make disciples of Jesus Christ.” Willimon’s assesment that our apparent failure to do that over the past generation is a theological failure is refreshing. It has been much more common since the days of Bishop Richard Wilke’s And Are We Yet Alive to see the root of UM decline in programmatic failure. As we pay attention to our theology, we’ll be able to answer the WHY questions that ought to drive the HOW questions addressed by program.

My latest wild idea is to have a Spanish language group with our upcoming 40 Days of Purpose Campaign. We have a large number of Spanish speaking people in the area, and a few churches have started among them, but so far the Methodists aren’t. There is one Methodist church in a near-by town, but it is small and appears to not be growing.

So how do you start a Spanish bible study? Obviously it would be helpful to have someone who speaks Spanish. That’s where we’re lacking.

I took conversational Spanish last spring, but I don’t feel up to joining in – let alone leading – the kind of conversations common to bible studies & small groups. But I’m willing to try if that’s the only way forward.

So right now I’m doing what I always do in the face of this kind of wild idea – PRAY!

Such a dirty word. We hate doing. It grates on me whenever I have to do it.

I’m a United Methodist pastor. Back when I was in college I spent a year fasting and praying over the issue of whether to stay in the United Methodist Church. I’d been exposed to quite a bit of separatist literature, so in light of the contrast between my evangelical understanding of the faith and a general non-evangelical approach evidenced in mainstream United Methodism I felt the dilemma intensely.

So I prayed.

The word that came to me – though I’m not sure I can explain how it came, was, “Stay until they kick you out.” Staying in has meant that I have had to practice submission. I submit to a system that is not only sometimes misguided, but sometimes actively involved in what I think is wrong.

This submission conflicts with the notion that the bets guidance for living your life is “To thine own self be true.” Authenticity is important to me. I enjoy my own idiosyncrasies – just ask my children sometime. But I am not the center of the universe. I am not infallible. I am neither God nor a god. So I submit.

First, as a follower, of Jesus, I submit to his Lordship. This Lordship is exercised in the flow of history, most importantly in his life, death, and resurrection, but in a continuing sense through his people. The Lordship conflicts not only with my own feeble claims to Lordship, but with all other claimants as well: even the United Methodist Church. So if the United Methodist Church gets to the point where it adopts the position of some of its theologians and bishops and turns from its doctrinal stance in the mainstream of the Christian tradition, my submission to Jesus will require my non-submission to the UMC.

But, in the meantime, here I am submitting to the instituted authorities of the UMC. I rarely feel these authorities bearing down on me. I feel no restrictions from anywhere on what I can teach and preach.

But where does submission stand elsewhere in the church? In the past several years, those who favor the “full inclusion” of self-avowed practicing homosexuals in the church have often practiced non-submission. Is this because they are evil and out to destroy the church? Some have sugggested so, but I seriously doubt that is their motivation. Do they think this issue strikes at the heart of the gospel and what the church is about? Listening to what they have to say, it sure seems that way.

But I’m curious how the freedom to choose one’s own sexual identity came to be so integral to the gospel. It sure looks like the motto of “To thine own self be true” has become the heart of their message.

This urge toward self-consistency (that’s what I take the motto to be seeking) misses the point of human sinfulness. I’m a sinner. Deep inside, I’m broken. As a follower of Jesus, as one who wants to be like Him, I cannot take my own inclinations, drives and orientations as guides for my life or as models to follow. Sure, its the easiest way. Of course there are times when I feel like I have no choice. But through the Holy Spirit I do. I submit my profoundly non-Godlike nature (with its inclinations, drives and orientations) to God’s authority so he can remake me, transforming me into the image of Jesus.

Boy, it’s hard to let go sometimes. Submission is tough. But I’m convinced it’s good for me – and for those around me.

I’m in the midst of a sermon series, “What’s the Difference?” in which I examine the differences between Christianity and other religions and movements. As a follower of Jesus, my core conviction is that Jesus is indeed the Way, the Truth and the Life. But when I consider the way American Christians tend to handle the question of truth in religion, I see two mistakes frequently made. First, many assume that all religions are true. One is true for me, another is true for you, yet a third may be true for John Doe. Such a mindless relativism seems self-reuting to me. Second, others assume that if their religion is true, then all others are evil and must be destroyed. So many think these are the only two options – either absolute relativism or Bosnia-like “cleansing.” Since we KNOW that “cleansing is bad, relativism looks like the obvious choice.

As Christians, the Bible gives us another option. In the teaching of both Jesus and Paul we see both a concern for truth AND a concern for love. In Jesus we see God incarnate come to live among us – the embodiment of truth. At the same time we see that because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, Christians came to see very clearly that “God is love.” How do we make sense of this in light of our current dichotomy between truth and love?

If we dig just a little below the surface of the current debate, we can see that there is a silent partner in the background: Power. We have tht truth, so we need to enforce it on everyone else. We are loving and tolerant, so we need to make sure everyone else is too, on the pain of punsihment.

Yet when we look at Jesus we see him forcing neither truth nor love on people. When the powerful son of God, the embodiment of truth ran into a challenge to his status he didn’t take thr way of power. Instead he submitted to the cross, a horrible death. That same Jesus taught his followers to take u their crosses and follow him. Paul, an early follower of Jesus, taught over and over again that we were to follow Jesus in his suffering. Peter, another early follower, took the voluntary suffering of Christians for granted. He fully expected this voluntary suffering to raise questions in the minds of outside observers. These questions in turn, would allow Christians the opportunity to speak of Jesus (1 Peter 3:15 – in context).

This week I’ll be doing a quick overview of what Eastern religions are about. The bulk of my study has been in other fields, so I don’t feel entirely up to the task. Yet I feel too many in our churches have been buried in sentimental preaching for too many generations. Yes, God loves us. Yes, we need to be nice to each other. But Jesus’ command is also for us to love God with all our MIND. So we need to work through some hard questions.

Other than general ignorance, I have two other problems in preaching this series. First, I’m not enitrely sure there is such a thing as “religion.” Oh sure, there are such things as Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, etc. I’m not doubting that. I’m just suspicious that these can adequately be described as species of a genus religion. One book that discusses this from a historical point of view is Peter Harrison’s ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment. My second problem is the huge diversity within those phenomena to which we give a single label. The Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia, whether as expounded by Al Qaeda or as practiced in the Kingdom is a very different take on Islam than is what we find in Turkish Muslim M. Fethulah Gulen. Yes, there is some underlying theoretical unity, and the practice of the Five Pillars of Islam would be essentially the same, but the relation with the outside world and general attitude toward life look very different.

So how does one convey this complexity in the course of a sermon of less than 30 minutes – while holding the attention of people ranging in age from 5 to 92? My only choices seem to be to skip the matter altogether or to settle for superficiality. Since I think Christians need to deal with these subjects, I’m settling for superficiality – in both my preparation and my presentation. The best way to come to the subject would be to study all the primary documents in each “religion,” converse with a wide spectrum of adherents to each, and to engage with the secondary literature on the intersection of each with Christian thought throughout the ages. But that would take years. So even as I take the route of superficiality, I emphasize to my peope that I am doing exactly that, enouraging them to take up areas of interest for their own further study.

This week as I consider Eastern Religions, some of the resources I share with my people include:

Lausanne Occasional Papers on Evangelism: http://www.gospelcom.net/lcwe/LOP/index.htm – articles on Hinduism, Buddhism, and many other groups.

Articles on working with Buddhists: http://www.intervarsity.org/ism/articles.php?category=34

Winfried Corduan, Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions.

A site that has much information on other religions can be found at http://www.christiananswers.net/evangelism/beliefs/home.html

Vinoth Ramachandra, Faiths in Conflict? Christian Integrity in a Multicultural World

The Dalai Lama’s Website: http://www.dalailama.com/html/spiritual_leader.html

A Christian theologian who spent time with the Dalai Lama: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/008/15.64.html

The World Religions Index: a site on World Religions from a Christian point of view: http://wri.leaderu.com/

The only coat of arms I’ve ever seen for my family name shows a man with a sword in one hand and head in the other. They were robbers and bandits in the Balkans several centuries ago. But we are bandits no more. Where once we (I speak of my biological forebears) were bloodthirsty, now our family lives in the service of Jesus, who suffered and died for us. We’ve come a long way.