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RENEW Women’s Network
To question is not to attack
The Great Commission
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DEPARTMENTS
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Church women’s forum brings differences to surface
Confessing Movement issues statement on unity
Church must change world through witness, bishop says
Culture in View
One man’s fall
When rockers knock on heaven’s door
Twelve leaders in United Methodist women’s ministry gathered on the campus of Wesley Theological Seminary September 21 in Washington, D.C. to talk to one another, find common ground, and discuss issues they don’t see eye to eye on.
Six were from the United Methodist Women’s Division, part of the Board of Global Ministries and the parent organization of United Methodist Women. Six others were from the Renew Network, the women’s program arm of Good News, a renewal movement that seeks to strengthen evangelicals in the church.
Renew has been openly critical of the Women’s Division, from publishing a white paper in 2001 titled, “Our Basis for Concern,” to placing a press release on its website September 21 titled, “Push an Agenda or Lift up Christ? Which is the Top Priority for Christians?” The network claims the Women’s Division is out of step with its membership and that it promotes a partisan political agenda rather than sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The forum, transmitted on a web cast by the Board of Global Ministries, was held in the Oxnam Memorial Chapel. It resembled a debate, with six women sitting on either side of a central podium, a fact that both sides quickly noted and disagreed on in their opening comments. The forum was initiated by Renew.
Jan Love, chief executive of the Women’s Division since 2004, said in her opening statement that the Women’s Division was not satisfied with the format because it was not conducive to “Christian conversation.” The Women’s Division agreed to the format because Renew required it, she said.
Love added that she hoped the day would serve as a model for the church of people coming together and listening to one another.
Faye Short, president of the Renew Network since its founding in 1989, said in her opening comments just minutes later that she considered the forum to be “Christian conversation, despite the format.”
Before the meeting, both sides had submitted questions, prepared answers, and chosen speakers. A question was answered in a five-minute response, followed by three minutes for a rebuttal, and a two-minute closing response.
Each side asked four questions, covering such topics as the authority of Scripture, appropriate social engagement in the world, what tenets of faith are “essential,” questions of accountability, the role of women in the church, and how people view the person of Jesus Christ.
‘Family business’
“We’re here to address some family business,” Love said in her opening statement. “When we leave here today, we’ll still disagree, but I hope that we’ll find areas in common between Women’s Division and Renew.”
Short’s opening statement noted that Renew had members in every state except Hawaii and that it was formed with a two-pronged focus: renewal and accountability.
“We hope that this forum will engender different perspectives on social issues between the Women’s Division and evangelical women,” she said. “We are not strangers. We are grassroots United Methodist women.”
In its first question, the Women’s Division asked Renew if “conscientious Christians working to further the mission of Christ can have legitimate differences about matters of biblical interpretation.”
Short said yes, there can be legitimate differences of interpretation, “but the basic truths of the Scriptures are settled.” The gospel, she said, should never be reduced to just one of social holiness. “Social holiness flows out of a deep relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said.
Joyce Sohl, former chief executive of Women’s Division, agreed, but quickly noted that the gospel of Jesus Christ “is preached not only by word but by deed.” In her life of faith, Sohl said, her eyes had been opened to new realities. “Jesus challenged people of his day to think differently, to engage and act,” she said.
Using labels
The next question, asked by the Renew Network, dealt with the authority of Scripture in “matters of faith and practice,” and asked “what tenants of the faith (were) essential in a cultural climate where some identify ‘conservative,’ ‘evangelical,’ and ‘fundamentalist’” as the same thing.
Love, in her response, said she considered herself evangelical and added that members of United Methodist Women span the spectrum of theologies. “There is room for everyone” in UMW, she said.
Love also noted that she does not consider Good News, Renew or another organization, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, to be religious extremists. Instead, she said, these groups are self-identified as “conservative” and “orthodox.” She wondered aloud if these labels carried with them negative connotations of placing restrictions on a woman’s possible leadership role.
Renew’s response was offered by Janice Shaw Crouse, a senior fellow at the Concerned Women for America in Washington. She said labels are an issue. “In my experience,” she added, “so many people from the left are talking the talk but not living it.”
Crouse said it was distressing for her to pin specific definitions of fundamentalism or conservatism on groups or people. “When people equate conservatives with fundamentalists or extremists, it shows an appalling lack of understanding,” she said.
One size for all?
The issue of only allowing United Methodist Women units to be the “official” women’s ministry at a local church also surfaced in the forum. The Renew Network has sought, through petitions at General Conference—the church’s highest legislative body—to allow “supplemental” women’s ministry in the church.
“A one-size fits all women’s ministry is no longer sufficient for women’s ministry today,” said Elizabeth Kittle of Renew, a United Methodist from Augusta, Georgia. “Our petitions were clear. Will Women’s Division release us? We ask for this at this forum.”
Sohl agreed that “one size doesn’t fit all” in her response for the Women’s Division. She encouraged people to look at the broad spectrum of local UMW units and see the diversity there. “We applaud and affirm that diversity,” she said. “We were organized by and for women, and we believe God is still calling the women of the United Methodist Church to become a part of a mission organization.”
The Women’s Division’s social witness and agenda came in for its share of comments. The Renew Network asked, “What processes are followed to ensure that the political and social actions represent the values and belief of a broad spectrum of United Methodist Women?”
“Jesus was not afraid to confront the principalities and the powers of his day,” replied Genie Bank of Lexington, Michigan, a Women’s Division president from 2000 to 2004. “And neither are we.”
Bank noted the ample variety of books read in the UMW’s reading program, the classes offered at its Schools of Christian Mission, the organization’s feeding and clothing ministries, and how the Women’s Division has partnered over the years with numerous groups on basic human and civil rights. “The world is a better place because of United Methodist Women today,” she said.
Kittle, in the Renew Network reply, said she has observed partisan political advocacy from the Women’s Division, and that has “grieved our hearts so often.” She noted that money from Women’s Division is given to “radical organizations whose purposes many women don’t agree with. Women would be shocked and outraged to learn” of this.
Katy Kiser, from Carrollton, Texas, also spoke about the partisanship around social concerns at the Women’s Division. “We would see more biblical views (coming out of Women’s Division) if more evangelicals were present,” she said.
Unpacking the forum
After the forum, both Short and Love expressed feelings of satisfaction and disappointment.
“I feel good about the forum,” said Short in an interview. “We both aired some concerns, and we both did that well. I was disappointed with the numerous comments about the character of the Renew Network and that we only attack Women’s Division. We are United Methodist women, concerned about this organization. We haven’t resolved our differences yet.”
And future steps or forums would have to wait, she said, until Renew could “unpack what took place here. We’ll look at our options and see if further conversation is possible” in the future.
“I feel joyful, hopeful,” Love said after the forum. “This was a demonstration that we are one body in Jesus Christ. We can speak to each other and try to listen to each other in love. This could be a model for the church—can we disagree in love?”
Love also said future steps would have to wait, and she asked: “Will we be able to recognize ourselves in how Good News, Renew, and the IRD portray this?”
Erik Alsgaard is managing editor of the UMConnection newspaper and director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington Conference.
The Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church has issued a proclamation welcoming “serious attention to the denomination’s unity and the basis of that unity.”
The proclamation was approved September 24 by the more than 300 participants at the Confessing Movement’s national conference held in Cincinnati. According to the two-page document, “Unity in Christ, That the World May Believe,” the proclamation came as a reaction to discussion at the 2004 General Conference—which adopted a unity resolution—and the appointment of the Unity Task Force by the Council of Bishops.
The document was introduced by the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, chancellor of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and vice president of the Confessing Movement, on behalf of the group’s board of directors.
The document rests on three convictions held by the movement:
Doctrine is central to the document, according to Dunnam. “We don’t want this to be a strident doctrine,” he told the conference.
The proclamation is “not an action plan but a platform for action,” he said. The Confessing Movement board members are preparing a letter to the Council of Bishops asking for the integrity of the United Methodist episcopal leaders, he said. A commentary will be written that might suggest actions to be taken, he said.
The document states, “Genuine unity in the church is not secured by religious sentiment, sincere piety, dead orthodoxy, tight property clauses or appeals to institutional authority and loyalty.” It defines genuine unity “as a precious gift of the Holy Spirit...rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ, witnessed to in Holy Scripture, summarized in ecumenical creeds, celebrated in worship and sacraments, demonstrated in common mission, articulated in our teaching, lived out in love, and contended for by the faithful.”
The document proclaims that unity requires official doctrine, careful teaching of the apostolic faith by the leaders of the church, and the maintaining of the denomination’s Book of Discipline as a covenant of trust.
The document also cites “practices that contribute to disunity,” including neglect of Scripture, disobedience to the church’s Doctrinal Standards, claims of new sources of revelation that set aside the authority of Scripture and the tested morality of the church, and “capitulation to lifestyles that are inconsistent with Christian discipleship.”
The proclamation says dissent is inevitable. “Principled dissent is to be tested in Christian conferencing by its congruence with Scripture and the church’s Doctrinal Standards.”
The document affirms the Confessing Movement’s mission to reform and to renew the United Methodist Church by advocating doctrinal unity in Christ and the church’s mission of making disciples. The document closes by stating that the movement prays for all United Methodists to “join in this holy work of recovering our unity in Christ.”
Several participants at the conference said the section on dissent needed strengthening, but Dunnam said those drafting the final statement “did not want to send any kind of a warning or threat to the church.”
One participant appreciated “the sweet spirit” and said it was important to keep that. Another said, “We need a goal-line stance. I’m tired of being on the defensive. I’m not afraid to talk about ‘amicable separation’”—that is, allowing the breakup of church membership and property because of theological differences.
Dunnam reminded the group of its vision of unity. “We are not divided from the church,” he said. “We are living the book....We will deal with the ‘what ifs’ when the ‘what ifs’ come along....We will bear that cross.”
After the proclamation was confirmed, the Rev. Robert Renfroe, a Confessing Movement board member and associate minister at The Woodlands United Methodist Church near Houston, addressed the conference. “We need to listen as first steps toward unity. Listen to others; listen to God,” he said.
“Homosexuality is not the issue,” he said, referring to a topic that has been a focal point of theological debate in the church. “There are deeper problems.” He outlined those as the nature of moral truth, authority of Scripture, revelatory words of Scripture, and the uniqueness of Christ as supreme Lord and Savior of the world.
“These are the issues that divide the United Methodist Church. They must be addressed,” Renfroe said.
Dan Gangler is director of communication of the United Methodist Church’s Indiana Area.
To have an impact on the world, the church of the future must have a confident witness, and its people must be “atonement bearers,” according to retired United Methodist Bishop George Bashore.
“Atonement is not an isolated creedal statement,” Bashore said, “but rather it speaks primarily of life-changing power through costly love. God takes the initiative through Christ with us, and so we take the mind of God in our relationship with a hurting world.”
Bashore spoke to participants in a workshop at the Confessing Movement’s annual conference held in Cincinnati on September 22-24.
The bishop retired in 2000. Today he is bishop-in-residence at Mount Lebanon United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, where he teaches a Wednesday morning Bible study. Through the class, “I find myself thrust into pastoral care,” Bashore said.
A 50-year member of the congregation asked him, “Will you teach me how to pray? All this time I’ve prayed, but not really.” A young widow whose husband died during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks asked, “How can I discern what the will of God is? This thing has torn my life completely apart.” Another Bible student wanted to know more about eternal life, when the possibility of her receiving a kidney transplant became less likely.
“A broken heart is always synonymous with a yearning heart,” Bashore said, “a deep-seated yearning to meet this God. And know something about the vitality of this God, and every one of our churches ought to be able to share the stories of faith so that they can know how to meet this God and experience this God.
“Propositional truths are important,” he said. He told those gathered to “contend for the apostolic faith within the United Methodist Church,” adding that the propositional truths “need to become experiential truths in the lives of our people in our congregations. When that happens, the church is going to have an unbelievable future.”
Children and youth need to be trained theologically, Bashore added. They need to not only learn the propositions of theology, but experience the power of the cross in their lives.
Some older people, like the longtime church member who asked to be taught to pray, might need elementary help on how to pray, how to read the Bible, how to share one’s faith. But more than anything else, people young and old need a sense of the grace of God, and integral to that grace is always a cross.
“We are more than persons of hopefulness and wishful thinking,” he said. "The one who wept over the sons and daughters of Jerusalem had a passionate longing for the righting of souls in relationship to God, so much so that he went to the cross to accomplish it.”
The bishop named six ways in which the church can have an impact through its witness.
The church can have an impact on the world “only if we have a confident witness,” he said. “We must be atonement bearers.”
Tom Slack is director of communications of the United Methodist Church’s West Ohio Annual Conference.
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