Written about The Episcopal Church and the orthodox Anglican Bishops of Africa but it applies to The United Methodist Church as well.
Posted on 01/26/2021 12:50:15 PM PST by lightman
Hopefully, by now, you’ve all heard that our denomination is headed for a major division, and that the need for this is widely agreed upon by the leaders of all major factions.
Why is the United Methodist Church splitting?
You may have heard that our division is because of homosexuality. There is some truth to that, but that is really a misleading way to view things.
The reality is that our division has been a long time coming. The impending split is the result of an extensive history which dates back long before the present debates over sexual morality.
We have a history, going back about two centuries now, of breakdown in our discipline, and breakdown in our doctrine. And these two things really get to the heart of what this schism is all about.
By the way, if you hear any United Methodist claim they are absolutely against EVER splitting the church, that is NOT a serious idea. Unless the person saying it is in the process of becoming Roman Catholic. When you think about it, any Protestant, by definition, believes that there are some issues worth splitting the church over.
Breakdown in Discipline
Many of us have seen that famous picture of the hard-working, circuit-riding preacher of early Methodism. It dramatically highlights how when Methodism first began, we were a really high-commitment movement, that really demanded a lot of sacrifice and forsaking of worldly comforts for the sake of the Gospel.
What really set us apart was the degree to which we practiced sometimes rather demanding levels of church discipline, for not just our leaders and clergy but also our lay members. There are all kinds of examples of lay people facing temporary but serious consequences for sins ranging from getting drunk to wife beating.
But over the course of the 19th century, we saw a decline in really expecting too much of our laypeople, and then our ministers.
We saw some early moral decline in Methodism with the sins of slavery and racism, and NOT just in the South.
We had a strong early commitment against the great evil of American slavery. John Wesley spoke strongly against it, defended the equality of black people, and was a personal inspiration to the great British anti-slavery activist, William Wilberforce. The 1784 Christmas Conference that established American Methodism as our own denomination declared that one of the CENTRAL goals of this new church was to “extirpate the abomination of slavery.” Our early rules were clear that Methodists were forbidden from buying, selling, or owning slaves.
But this strong, principled Christian stand conflicted with the culture. If we insisted too much on this moral stand there were fears that we would offend people. That we would drive people away. That we would especially offend some upper-class people and lose a lot of money for our ministries. Any of this sound familiar?
So we started compromising on our rules against slave-owning. We started looking the other way for Methodists involved in this sin. This sin became increasingly accepted in some regions of our denomination. Then in 1844 we had a newly elected bishop openly involved in this inherently sinful lifestyle. That finally sparked a total crisis that split our denomination apart for several decades.
Later in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century you had the Holiness Movement in America. This was largely a movement of believers who took some aspects of John Wesley’s teachings about Christians avoiding all sin and really ran with it. And over time, Methodists involved in the holiness movement were increasingly marginalized within much of our denomination, or much of which would become our denomination. And eventually some of these holiness Methodist pastors became exiles in new denominations, like the Church of the Nazarene. And when they left, our denomination lost a lot of positive influences for disciplined, holy Christian living.
Breakdown in Doctrine
So our decline in discipline has a long history. What about our decline in doctrine?
By 1913, Evangelist and veteran General Conference delegate Leander Munhall of Philadelphia was sounding the alarm about how the Methodist Episcopal Church was infected by liberal theologies, Methodists were becoming more worldly, and powerful elites in our denominational bureaucracy were especially pushing Methodism away from our own biblical doctrines on core issues like the authority of Scripture and original sin. At that time, the relatively new theological movement of modernism was widely attacking these and other core Christian teachings, particularly supernatural parts of Christianity.
Now Munhall could be a bit strident, un-nuanced, and frustratingly vague. But in reading Munhall’s 1913 book, Breakers! Methodism Adrift, it’s really striking to see the similarities between his complaints and those of many traditionalist United Methodists today.
Here’s what Brother Munhall lamented about our denomination back then:
“the great spiritual dearth throughout Methodism” (12)
“anti-biblical and unmethodistic teaching” heavily promoted in seminaries, by leading denominational officials, and our own publishing house (13; Cf. 67-72, 84)
“the Christian pulpit has become silent about human depravity and the judgment to come” (44-5)
Overall, “Our congregations are growing smaller, and many of the outsiders are having less and less respect for us” (201)
Bishops appoint liberal pastors to “many of the big wealthy churches” while many other pastors “of acknowledged ability, who are loyal to the Bible and the doctrines and usages of Methodism, never get such churches, but are usually sent to second, third and even fourth rate appointments” (199)
As my friend, Riley Case put it in his Evangelical and Methodist book, “By 1920, [theological] modernism basically controlled Methodism, at least institutional Methodism, in both the north and the south. The colleges, the seminaries, the pastors’ schools, the Courses of Study, the Church press, the Sunday school material, the Church agencies, and finally even the Council of Bishops were, or would soon be, in the hands of modernists” (81).
Such trends continued for decades.
Fast-forward to 1966: Rev. Charles Keysor of Illinois published an op-ed that sparked the Good News movement. He wrote about a group within our Methodist churches who had little to no representation in our denominational bureaucracy. He said: “I speak of those Methodists who are variously called ‘evangelicals’ or ‘conservatives’ or ‘fundamentalists.’ A more accurate description is ‘orthodox,’ for these brethren hold a traditional understanding of the Christian faith.”
Keysor outlined five defining beliefs of this group, which were really five of the most prominent doctrines that the modernists had been attacking since the early 20th century:
The inspiration and authority of Scripture
That Jesus really was miraculously born of a Virgin
“that somehow Christ on the cross paid the price of transgression which a righteous and holy God properly requires”
That Jesus actually, physically rose from the dead
And that whatever the details of the End Times may turn out to be, Jesus really will physically return to Earth again
None of this should be remarkable for a Methodist to believe. It’s all right there in the Methodist Articles of Religion, which officially remains the central doctrine of the United Methodist Church, now along with the EUB Confession of Faith.
But what’s really striking was Keysor’s title: “Methodism’s silent minority.” Keysor explicitly described folk who believed in these most basic, biblical, Methodist doctrines as being a marginalized “minority” within what’s now our denomination.
This is quite a shift from how in 1913, Munhall had declared that the majority of our members and ministers were loyal to biblical, Methodist doctrine. Over 50 years of modernist dominance had taken a toll.
Then later Good News was joined by several other renewal groups.
Today’s Controversies
Meanwhile, the doctrinal division continued.
In the early 2000s, we had an active bishop of our denomination, Joseph Sprague of Chicago, publicly deny such core Christian doctrines as the accuracy of the Gospel of John, as well as the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was abusing the office of bishop to teach that people should NOT believe in some of the most core Christian doctrines. There was a formal complaint filed against him. But basically what happened in 2003 is that he was let off with a slap on the wrist.
Then some of you may have heard of this activist minister out West named Karen Oliveto. In 2016, the Western Jurisdiction, which is basically the Western third of the USA, elected her bishop, knowing that her being an openly partnered lesbian was in open defiance of our longstanding church law saying that clergy cannot be “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.” That’s the main thing she is known for.
But there are deeper doctrinal concerns. In 2005, I was in the room where she was speaking at a major national gathering of liberal United Methodists. Among other things, she urged addressing both “the benefits and flaws” of Scripture. What do you mean “flaws” of Scripture? Well, she made clear that one flaw she saw in the Bible was the “theology of election and chosen-ness” she rightly recognized is taught in the Bible. It got really bizarre when Oliveto started teaching about the account in Acts 16 of Paul casting a demon out of a slave girl. According to Oliveto, getting to be free of the demon did nothing to make the girl’s life better and “probably made it worse.”
So now we have a top leader of our denomination who is on record as teaching about the flaws of Scripture and the benefits of demon possession!
About a year after she was elected bishop, she used the office of bishop in Denver to publicly teach that we should not “create an idol out of” Jesus Christ. How can you possibly create an idol out of someone who already IS God? Well, according to Oliveto, Jesus actually had such sins as “his bigotries and prejudices” and that as an adult, he needed to experience “conversion.”
There are multiple reasons why, according to our denomination’s own official rules and standards, Oliveto should be removed from being a bishop. But the denominational leaders who have that responsibility have made clear that they are unwilling to do so, because they support her.
Fundamentally, our breakdown of doctrine has led to a breakdown of discipline. And this has now reached the breaking point.
The older model of liberal clergy, bishops, and leaders who kept their word by following the rules even when they personally disagreed with them is being increasingly replaced by a more militant, rule-breaking sort of liberalism.
This is not sustainable.
We could keep fighting at the next General Conference, and the next, and the next, with lots of costly complaints and church trials and bad press in between, until one side finally wins. But by that point there may not be much of a denomination left to win.
Written about The Episcopal Church and the orthodox Anglican Bishops of Africa but it applies to The United Methodist Church as well.
Did he not want to stick around for the split?
Which direction did he go? The more conservative or the progressive route, if you don’t mind saying.
I keep reading about this pending split, of the UMC, but it never seems to be happening.
Is their a timeframe, or deadline?
Thank you so much for posting this. The issue is particularly poignant in my case.
As a teacher of an adult Sunday School class in a rural UMC church with only about 40 members, I watched over the years as a parade of pastors came through the door, many of whom were clearly apostate in terms of adherence to scripture.
Finally, last year the church had had enough. The lady pastor said “I believe in a loving God...there is no Hell!” Yikes!
The peasants grabbed their pitchforks, changed the locks on the church and locked the UMC out. Moved to a machine shop for services. There is a wonderful, loving and liberated spirit in the worship.
We are in the concluding phase of moving back into our church as a fully independent body of believers. The UMC is a godless, heretical bureaucracy. But then, so is Washington DC. The attorney Dan Dalton in Michigan is doing some great work for those abandoning that sinking ship.
“Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross!”
Thank You Again for Posting!
I would have been sorely tempted to respond, “Lady, an angel supposedly came to Joseph Smith and told him that you need to be married to a faithful Mormon man to get to heaven, and not only that, but you should be happy to share him with his other wives. Why should I believe your angel and not his angel?”
When I was just a little, tiny fella back in the early 1950s, my dad worked for the railroad and would be gone from home for weeks at a time. We were literally poor as paupers until he got back home with his pay. No credit cards back then, no phone. We had an old beat up 1940s-type Plymouth car that we couldn’t even drive because we had no money for gas.
Every once in awhile, someone would leave a bag of groceries on our doorstep. One day, I saw the man who was doing it, and it was the Methodist pastor of the small church down the road from us. I recognized him from going to that little church.
My mother was Pentecostal to the core; head to toe, but sometimes, we’d all get dressed and go to that little church I think she took us there because we could walk to it since we couldn’t afford to drive anywhere else, and something was better than nothing? Who knows. I never did ask her. That church was always packed on Sunday mornings. I can remember as a little fella sitting there listening to those messages. That preacher was full of hell fire and brimstone back then. I can remember him shaking that Bible at the congregation while preaching Christ and Him crucified.
A few years ago, I had the chance to revisit the old place and that Methodist church is still there...only now, it’s much newer and way nicer. We went that next Sunday. It was full of homosexual couples, and to say the least, we felt somewhat out of place. When the lady pastor presented the message, there was absolutely NO scripture at all....just a feel-good message out of some secular magazine article.
Now, I’m definitely no saint, and the Lord has a lot of work to do with old boy, but I sat there thinking how far they’ve gone compared to the early 50’s.
Never went back...and probably never will.
I grew up in a small, old-fashioned United Methodist church in southern Illinois and will always be grateful for that. But knowing some of the clergy in that area, nearly 40 years ago, I can see where a lot of the trouble came from. They were not the source of bringing the world into the church because they were pretty much traditional believers. But they were nice people willing to compromise with the world to keep the peace. I think a concern for preserving their careers also played a role with some. The first compromises seemed small, but actually amounted to the camel’s nose getting into the tent. Eventually, the whole camel was in.
I have long since moved on. The only times I have been in a UMC in this century were for my parents’ funerals. Knowing what the UMC was and could have been, I am sorry to see this happen.
You fought hard. How are things for you?
LOL!
Where did he go?
I was raised Methodist, but let the church many years ago. Well, to be fair, I felt they left me. I talked to many pastors about the changes that I saw and was left sadder and sadder.
It is not just the Methodists that undergoing schism at this time. Sadly, we live in a world that believe in getting along and going along that everybody must arrive at the same place regardless and that religion itself is a problem and should be shunned by thinking people.
For all these reasons and more, this falling away is yet one more indicator that we are living in the end times and Our Lord will be returning soon.
Jesus established one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic church. The Church is one (not many) in unity with the Trinity and professes one Lord, one faith, and one Baptism and forms one Body under the leadership of the Holy Father, successor to Peter the Apostle.
Man has followed false teachers and rejected some of God’s revealed truths. Accordingly, many are not following the teachings of Jesus Christ but their own man-made opinions.
Few will enter Heaven unless they repent and change their ways. There is one God and His Truth does not have thousands of different versions. We all need to seek God’s truth and follow Christ not the ways of the world.
Jesus told us the way is hard and the gate narrow. Mat 7:13
I too was baptized Methodist and grew up worshipping in a United Methodist church located in rural SC. This church could trace it’s founding back to the early 1800’s. From it’s founding, a majority of families would contribute to a fund especially set aside to take care of the church and the parsonage. I mention this because in the early 80’s when Magnum PI was popular, the preacher decided he wanted a Ferrari just like Magnum drove. He pointed out there was more than enough money in our church’s fund to provide one for him. The church members and the Bishop’s office in Columbia had issues with this. They thought (and I agree) a preacher did not need to be driving around in an expensive Italian sports car. So they reached a compromise and bought him a Puegot instead. He drove that car around town and in a within six months the treasurer of our church found our fund- that had been set up in the 1800’s and had had contributions religiously made to it every month for over a 150 years was nearly empty. The preacher had started embezzling the money right after he was denied his Ferrari. A lot of people, my family included, lost faith in that church. I don’t think they have fully recovered the damage a man of the cloth caused.
Actually, Christ left us a Church (cf. Pentecost, 33 AD). And by Divine inspiration, the Church gave us the Bible, among many other things as well!!!!
We have a Methodist Church in the area . . .that after the pastor decided he couldn’t go along with their doctrine and left the church. . . 12 people followed him. Within a year they now have 99 faithful attendees.
I’m speaking of the Orthodox Church.
Read your Bible, about what happened at Pentecost, what the Apostles did, and the Epistles that some of them wrote. No matter what denomination you belong to, you received everyone you need for salvation through the original Church. And there’s no glory involved—we are all sinners saved by the Blood of Christ!!!!
A rural church had a sweet spirit (which I experienced first hand on a visit), celebrated 100 years, and decided they no longer wanted to be a part of the Methodist agenda. The congregants built the church and then a few years ago remodeled it. Well, because of their stand they were given notice to evacuate, the doors locked, and whoever was in charge at a higher level in the Methodist hierarchy told the church he would rather see the building turn into a coon hunter’s barn than another church. I was told Methodists don’t own their building even if it is paid in full and built by church members. At least it was the case with this church. The members chose to go to other Bible believing churches in the area. It was so sad.
So true. It’s the word of God. We are sinful but we cannot say sin is good. We must try to blot out sin and if a church embraces sin then we must leave it. It has no matter what name or affiliation that church has.
They are ok. I retired, but then got asked to fill in at a church that had left the United methodist church. So, we are attending and preaching there for now while they search for a new full time pastor.
It’s refreshing not hearing about what the umc is up to when I attend a methodist church on Sunday morning. :>)
I think the umc meets in late summer to vote on splitting. I expect 3 or more offshoots to come out of that. A smart church will leave, but the process I’ve read makes it easy to do nothing and stay, but requires determined focus, voting, and planning to leave.
“Unless the person saying it is in the process of becoming Roman Catholic. When you think about it, any Protestant, by definition, believes that there are some issues worth splitting the church over.”
https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/unity
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