Posted on 03/01/2022 10:39:43 AM PST by lightman
The United Methodist Church is going to split. No one knows the exact contours of the split, but everyone seems confident that it is coming. There is a gulf between traditionalists and progressives in the UMC regarding same-sex marriage, and that gulf is widening: several Methodist bishops have performed same-sex weddings, defying official UMC teaching; and Karen Oliveto was elected as the first Methodist bishop in a same-sex relationship. At the root of these divisions is the fact that the UMC has always been made up of believers with distinctly different theological trajectories. The UMC was formed as an experiment in “big tent” theological pluralism, eventually guided by the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” formulated by Methodist scholar Albert Outler: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Over the years, much of the Wesleyan tradition that guided the early Methodists has been lost; the future of United Methodism depends upon recovering Wesleyan catholicity.
The division in the UMC over sexuality was the immediate occasion for the recent Next Methodism Summit. Last month, over sixty Wesleyan scholars met in Alexandria, Virginia, to discuss how to recover the Wesleyan tradition and shape the Methodist future. Under the direction of Ryan Danker and the John Wesley Institute, the attendees crafted a theological statement entitled “The Faith Once Delivered: A Wesleyan Witness.”
The statement “The Faith Once Delivered” upholds Wesleyan distinctives. It focuses on the image of God and how holiness is essential to its restoration. For John Wesley, to be holy means to have the mind of Christ, as expressed in and through the plan of God found in Scripture. It is “scriptural” holiness. Through this holiness the Christian can rightly order his loves; rightly ordered affections require the right order found in the natural law and in God’s story, expressed in the person and work of Christ and set forth in the Scriptures. Sanctification and growth in the Christian life is about ordering all interior movements toward God and neighbor by integrating God's moral law into the conscience. Genuine freedom is freedom ordered toward the truth about God and creation.
There can be no separation between scriptural holiness and love in the Christian life. Over time, however, holiness and love have begun to separate in United Methodism, which helps explain the increasing divisions over same-sex marriage; in the UMC, love has increasingly come to mean merely openness and acceptance, rather than rightly ordered affections shaped and guided by God's moral order. In the UMC, the Wesleyan framework for thinking about love and holiness eventually buckled under the weight of the new morality of situational ethics, a form of utilitarian consequentialism.
Joseph Fletcher, the father of situational ethics, argued that justice is love distributed and that love justifies the means. According to this theory, love never sets forth laws, but examines each situation and asks what is the most loving consequence. This approach to ethics entered the UMC through the Methodist ethicist Walter G. Muelder. It hovers behind recent Methodist slogans such as “open hearts, open minds, open doors.” Its long shadow looms over the UMC Council of Bishops’ recent statement on how the UMC can remain unified. The statement declares that love is the paramount attribute of the church, but disregards the holiness so crucial to early Methodism.
The liturgical declaration of the trisagion (“holy, holy, holy”) points toward holiness as the sum total of divine perfection, the fullness of God’s own life in which nothing is lacking. When Jesus proclaims “Be perfect for your Father in heaven is perfect,” he refers to the perfect order and beauty that defines God’s holiness. Expressed in both the natural law and the written law of Scripture, the divine moral law defines the parameters of holiness. Poured out by the Spirit, love moves toward holiness through the power of grace at work in the Christian life.
In the Scriptures, to ascribe glory to the Lord is to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Ps. 29:2) without which no one will see God (Heb. 12:14). By faith one first peers into the portals of glory, and love realizes the holiness that makes such a journey into glory possible. The pursuit of this “love divine, all loves excelling” transforms the believer from glory to glory.
The UMC was formed as an ecumenical experiment in pluralism, but its foundational documents anchored unity in the Wesleyan tradition. Unfortunately, as this Wesleyan catholicity decayed—particularly the notion of holiness—the UMC has become more divided. As discussed at the conference, the way forward for Methodism is to return to the early Wesleyan fusion of holiness and love and recover Wesleyan catholicity. As UMC Bishop Scott Jones noted in the final session of the conference, Methodism will thrive to the extent that it is faithful to its original calling. The hope of those who attended the conference is that “The Faith Once Delivered” (which will be published at the end of March) will guide the next stage of Methodism in recovering that calling.
What I wonder is this: if only a few churches in each annual conference leave the psUMC to join the GMC, an annual conference will be able to absorb those costs. What if 100 or more churches leave? That is a lot of property and overhead for an annual conference to absorb. At some point, each psUMC Annual Conference will have more property than they can support. Will the local churches then be able to "buy themselves back" for pennies on the dollar, or less? Only time will tell.
They should leave in bulk and take prospective donations with them. There are more church buildings than congregations but they may just sell the buildings for the real-estate.
I’m sorry for you guys. But please fight. Don’t let the leftists completely take over. There is always hope
The official split is dependent on the 2020 general conference meeting. Those elected delegates were sure to have voted to split. However, the bishops have twice now used covid to prevent that meeting taking place. In 2021 it was a valid reason with many delegates being overseas and travel being tightly restricted.
However, I believe the powers running the denominational hierarchy saw in that a subterfuge to prevent the loss of buildings and cash, for I believe that to be their motive. So, they declared 2021 unable to meet due to covid. They're preparing to do it again for 2022.
Realizing the plot, the conservative caucuses have enabled vaccines, visas, passports for all overseas delegates. Not expecting that, the principalities declared the conservative caucuses to be colonialist supremacists.
The vote to hold the conference will shortly take place.
I imagine it will be blocked, but I pray it won't be. The powers will probably plead covid, and maybe even world war.
Correction 2d paragraph
Should read “in 2020 was a valid reason”
“The UMC merger ruined a strongly conservative church.”
Precisely: a poor plan poorly executed. My family (the Swedish side) was ME for generations here in Texas and in the Old Country. My dad was confirmed ME and then went to another church because his church still conducted all services in old Swedish and had no youth program.
Oh, my word. Shocking. Our once-great country that supplies a new generation is down the tubes with this once-great Christian denomination.
As predicted, the denomination has again postponed the annual conference that likely would have split the denomination. It is scheduled now for 2024, the normal general conference schedule, so those delegates that likely would have voted to split the denomination will likely be replaced with a new slate more amenable to the compromised leadership.
Recognizing the bad faith involved in this wile of the hierarchy, the major conservative groups have decided to go ahead with the new denomination, The Global Methodist Church, which will launch on 1 May.
Global Methodist Church Sets Official Launch Date - Making Disciples of Jesus | The Global Methodist Church
https://globalmethodist.org/global-methodist-church-sets-official-launch-date/
Thanks for the link, xzins! The website is good, and thankfully includes all the founding history and Wesley’s principles. There have been so many departures from them!
I wish the new group well. The opening letter is distressingly full of churchy language that is overwrought and sometimes divisive, in my opinion. Who announces their humility, and does so in the first sentence? I hope for a soul-cleansing of the pretentiousness and elitism that has infected many in the clergy class (you personally not included), and not just in the UMC—the ECUSA’s and ELCA’s humble-bragging and liturgical dramatics drive me nuts as well!
One thing I love in my present church is a frequent recitation of various statements from our Small Catechism, often accompanied by some commentary from the pulpit. I think it would benefit true Methodist church to focus on the simple principles and inculcate them often.
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