The Yalta of United Methodism, 19 July.
Which is Churchill?
Which is Roosevelt?
Which is Stalin?
Posted on 07/31/2019 9:35:35 AM PDT by lightman
Recently I participated in a gathering hosted by three United Methodist bishops for dialogue among conservatives, liberals and self-identified centrists. Our topic was the impending division of the United Methodist Church. The day-long conversation was off record, but you can read the United Methodist News Service report, which includes my quote:
Tooley said he has opposed division and for 30 years has worked for a “vision of denominational revival.”
“I now admit division is inevitable,” he said. “It will happen of itself, chaotically. Or it will happen through negotiation and some leadership. The latter seems preferable.”
After the meeting, which was in Chicago July 19, a clergyman tweeted: “United Methodism held it’s own Yalta Conference in Chicago this week. I just hope we don’t get too bogged down in attempting to label the various attendants Chamberlain, Roosevelt, or Stalin. #umc”
Initially I laughed out loud in response to this wonderful absurdity. (Of course Churchill, not Chamberlain, attended Yalta.) But this tweet maybe was more insightful than I initially realized. United Methodism will tragically divide, as Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain after WWII. This division results from tragic necessity and shouldn’t be celebrated. But God is sovereign and His Gospel will prevail even in adversity.
In the UMNS story, a “centrist” participant who favors liberalizing United Methodism faults evangelicals for dividing the church, insisting “progressives, centrists, and central conferences want to stay together.” But liberal dissenters as a minority have loudly proclaimed their refusal to live under the continuously reaffirmed official teachings of the church, ensuring schism between themselves and the traditionalist global majority.
Five of seven conferences in the liberal Western Jurisdiction voted this Spring to consider separation from United Methodism. Several other liberal conferences elsewhere approved similar moves. The schism has begun, led by the liberal side of the church. When heterodoxy displaces orthodoxy, schism usually results.
We should pray that United Methodism’s institutional schism between liberals and traditionalists is negotiated relatively amicably, with a fair division of assets, maximum laity participation, and minimal disruption to most local churches. But even in a best case scenario there will be acrimony in thousands of congregations.
The new liberal denomination will follow the path of decline universally true for liberal Protestant denominations around the world. But the new conservative church should not assume growth in the USA just because it is formally orthodox. Orthodoxy is a requirement for sustainable church growth and vitality but it’s no guarantee. There are plenty of declining and dying orthodox denominations and congregations.
To help avoid their fate, we who are orthodox must ponder how we failed, despite the opportunities God allowed us, to revitalize all of United Methodism and avoid division. Could we have worked and prayed harder for renewal? Could we have loved our adversaries more? Did we sincerely seek transformation for them and for ourselves?
We who are orthodox can’t just blame liberals for United Methodism’s division. This schism is a divine judgment on us all. We all have failed in His sight. Yet God has preserved us and preserved Methodism, however fractured, despite ourselves. He graciously has good plans for the future of His church and for us.
Let’s pray that the new liberal Methodist church, and that all liberal denominations, will, in God’s own time, under a new generation of leadership, rediscover the glories of Christian orthodoxy, inseparably in doctrine and ethics.
And let’s pray that the new traditional Methodist denomination will learn from the past, cleave to orthodoxy and the universal church, while rejoicing in the chief task of evangelizing new disciples for the Kingdom.
Methodism must endure our own Yalta of tragic but unavoidable division. We have brought it on ourselves. Yalta of 1945 divided Europe for 45 years but occupation and dictatorship eventually collapsed. Methodist division will also not be permanent. Sound doctrine based on the Eternal Word will prevail in the end to the benefit of all. We should strive to be faithful until that day.
The Yalta of United Methodism, 19 July.
Which is Churchill?
Which is Roosevelt?
Which is Stalin?
If they split, it will be easy to divide the property. All Bibles and American flags go to the Christian half. The yoga mats and rainbow flags go to the freak show.
‘We who are orthodox can’t just blame Liberals for United Methodism’s division’
‘Liberal dissenters as a minority have loudly proclaimed their refusal to live under the continuously reaffirmed teachings of the Church’
So, We the Orthodox, who want to actually follow the teachings of the Church, are the ones failing?? I left my California Methodist Church after 9/11, when we were preached to that the cause of the TERRORIST attack was ‘World Hunger’ and told, from the pulpit, ‘we must redistribute the wealth so that everyone has enough’. It is the Left who politicized the Church. It is the Left who is to blame.
Both sides no doubt guided by the Holy Spirit.
Atheist Leftists have been infiltrating the Churches for decades.
The United Methodist Church formally and explicitly, several General Confernces back, rejected the notion that we are to “make disciples of Christ for the salvation of souls” and replaced it, in writing, in the Book of Discipline, with words that we are to “make disciples of Christ for to change the world.”
This is an explicit rejection of Christianity and implied declaration of the reality that the UMC’s God is Progressive ideology.
Why would any lover of Christ stay in this institution of Progressive evil, other than to hold onto hope that the denomination will not fall to the ground before one starts drawing from his pastoral retirment plan?
It will be a good thing that the roof crashes in on the UMC denomination. The Christian church of Wesley and Asbury can continue on via other means. And should.
I don't think it's fair to blame one side or the other for the split. Then underlying issue is so contentious does anyone think that had the liberals prevailed at the UMC congress then the conservative minority wouldn't be splitting off as a result?
He asks what caused the split?
I’ll tell him.
The best way to keep weeds out of your lawn is to eradicate them when they first show up. If you let them grow and flower then you will face an almost impossible task of separating them from the good grass.
The split was caused by lax church discipline. When the pro-homosexual heretics first opened their mouths they should have been defrocked and expelled.
The church allowed anti-biblical, anti-Christian heresy to be taught from the pulpit. Now they are reaping the harvest of the seeds they let grow.
The mistake is letting non-believers into positions of leadership. And not having the guts to fire them where you find them.
Atheists know how to use God-talk and happy-talk to sell what they are selling, and people who aren't well-grounded in scripture and well grounded in the Holy Spirit, will fall for it. And others will roll over for it in the name of unity. But unity with non-believers is a false god. You treat non-believers with compassion as you teach and evangelize, but you don't put them in leadership even if they have doctoral degrees in theology.
An atheist who graduated from seminary is the worst kind, and the hardest nut to crack. They can probably talk circles around you, so you just have to fire them.
Our local Methodist church has a sign on the main road flanked by two “rainbow” banners.
I see that one of my pastors, Rob Renfroe, is in the group photo. He’s been a conservative stalwart. I hope he remains so!
I still belong to a Methodist church but I’m becoming increasingly uneasy. We recently had a pastor who was a Korean immigrant and a graduate of the traditionalist Fuller Theological Seminary. His theology was grounded in the Bible and he preached that both the Old and New Testaments point to Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Redeemer. But he has been replaced by a liberal who, among other things, sees Jesus as sort of a social justice warrior who was neither born to a virgin nor born in Bethlehem.
If I can find a house of worship that isn’t Calvinist, Roman Catholic or Mormon and which features traditional music instead of that reprehensible, unlistenable “praise” music that has become almost ubiquitous, I might change churches.
Slight correction, mbarker12474: the 2008 General Conference added a phrase to the current United Methodist Church’s mission statement. The complete mission statement now reads,”The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches and extension ministries of the Church provide the most significant arenas through which disciple-making occurs.” (Book of Discipline, paragraph 120)
The various factions within the denomination interpret and implement that differently, but that’s what it says.
As for the “Yalta” analogy: there are three main factions within the current UMC theological split - traditionalists, progressives, and centrists. Rather than substituting three individuals for Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, I think the reference refers to the 3 opposing parties/positions.
(I’m a UM who has attended every General Conference since 2000, never as a voting delegate.)
"First of all, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. And indeed, there must be differences among you to show which of you are approved." - I Cor. 11:18-19
Let the heretics have their own "church," as they have with the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, and the Baptists, so that the work of God can go forward without Satan's sabotage.
Methodists divide over gay clergy while totally ignoring the Great Moral Issue of our time: Abortion.
That is Chickenshit.
I think you will find that the traditional faction is anti abortion as well.
Last month, I visited Grace Community Church in Sun Valley. Their music is traditional and includes a 100-member choir, a children's choir with 50 members and an orchestra. The pastor, John MacArthur is a distant relative of General Douglas MacArthur. Where I disagree with him is in theology--he's a Calvinist and I'm a Wesleyan.
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