Archive: Confessing Movement Draws 900, Adopts Statement

By Bishop Cannon

“Tonight we come before the church to insist that the central dilemma facing the United Methodist Church is our forgetfulness of central Christian teachings. United Methodist Christians do not have our religion to seek. We are part of a doctrinal tradition that has said yes to some things and no to others,” keynote speaker Dr. Mark Horst told more than 900 United Methodists gathered at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Atlanta.

Horst, senior minister at Park Avenue United Methodist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota, winsomely repeated a call to doctrinal fidelity in a ballroom filled with persons from all jurisdictions of the UM Church who gathered in support of the Confessing Movement. The movement was born a year ago when 92 United Methodists came to Atlanta at the invitation of Bishop William R. Cannon (retired); the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky; and Dr. Thomas C. Oden, professor of theology at Drew Theological School, Madison, New Jersey. Participants attended out of concern for the church’s “abandonment of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture and asserted in the classic Christian tradition and historic ecumenical creeds.”

Echoing that concern, Horst said, “Tonight we gather to recall the United Methodist Church to remember and reclaim and reignite its doctrinal heritage.” He warned against allowing humility to cause United Methodists to become apologetic about their faith. “People think as soon as we start to talk about doctrine that we are arrogant, lacking in humility. But there is nothing more arrogant than the prevailing assumption that Christian faith is something I make up as I go along.”

Countering those who accuse the Confessing Movement of division, Horst charged, “The really deep division which has rocked the Church … is the division between those who want to throw out the classical faith of the church and those who do not.”

Bishop William W. Morris, (Alabama/West Florida), opened the conference by preaching on the theme “Jesus is Alive and Well.” Following the message, the Rev. Maxie Dunnam expressed his appreciation to Bishop Morris, telling participants, “We felt it was important to immerse ourselves in the gospel.”

Barbara Brokhoff, approved conference evangelist (Florida), also spoke and reminded the conference that United Methodism must retain its central focus upon Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, because “when we are away from our center, we sound like cackling witches.” She added, “Some things in the church are life and death issues. Jesus is one of those.”

Speaking on doctrinal confession and renewal, Dr. William J. Abraham, professor of evangelism and philosophy of religion at Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, gave a rationale for why United Methodism needs a Confessing Movement. “We need a Confessing Movement because the substance and content of the faith have been called into question in our culture, and more conspicuously within the church at large.” We expect such a challenge from our pluralistic society, Abraham observed. “It is another matter entirely, however, when the faith of the church expressed in our doctrinal standards is called into question by those who want to remake or re-imagine the faith in ways which repudiate the great classical doctrines of the Church universal.”

The UM Church also needs a Confessing Movement, said Abraham, “because as a church we have in reality been committed to a form of practical, doctrinal incoherence for a generation or more.” He went on to say the church has been suffering from an acute case of “doctrinal amnesia,” simply forgetting our doctrinal heritage, and from “doctrinal dyslexia,” a turning inside out and upside down the crucial material on doctrine in the Book of Discipline. “We have replaced commitment to the great doctrines of the church with a commitment to a speculative theory of religious knowledge,” said Abraham.

By the conclusion of the conference, “A Confessional Statement,” which had been studied and refined in small groups, was approved by participants. “The purpose of this Confessional Statement is to call The United Methodist Church—all laity and all clergy—to confess the person, work, and reign of Jesus Christ. This Statement confronts and repudiates teachings and practices in The United Methodist Church that currently challenge the truth of Jesus Christ—the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and the Lord of all.” The conference confessed, “in accordance with Holy Scripture and with the Holy Spirit’s help, that Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God,” “the one and only Savior of the world,” and “the one and only Lord of creation and history.”

In the concluding Confessional Charge, participants stated, “We will faithfully support United Methodist activities, groups, programs, and publications that further this confession, and we will vigorously challenge and hold accountable those that undermine this confession.”

The Confessing Movement invites all United Methodists to sign the Confessional Statement and also invites local churches to affirm the Statement by action of their Administrative Boards, Administrative Councils, or Charge Conferences.

Bishop Cannon, a member of the Confessing Movement Steering Committee, concluded the conference with a moving “Apologia” for Christianity in our day. Consistent with previous speakers’ calls for doctrinal renewal, Bishop Cannon said, with heart-felt conviction, “What we welcome in our denomination today under the title of pluralism and what we glorify as theological diversity were anathema to our forebears and were excluded from the thought and practice of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” He lamented the church’s move away from commending the Savior in Christian proclamation to merely engaging in interreligious conversation. “Indeed, in the New Testament, Christian proclamation is emphasized, not discussion and dialogue. The apostles were not interested in what people thought. Their sole concern was divine truth as revealed in Jesus Christ. When the Church loses this realization she ceases to be herself.”

The bishop continued that it is time for United Methodists to “heed St. Augustine’s warning against the juggling and misuse of Scripture to suit our own predisposition: ‘If you believe what you like in the Gospel and reject what you dislike, it is not the Gospel you believe but yourselves.’”

The beloved and respected elder statesman bishop concluded with a moving testimony that he was only seven years old when he accepted Jesus as his personal Savior. Soon after that he offered himself to preach. “I was not so much called to preach as I asked for the privilege of being a preacher. But Christ accepted my offer and made me one of his preachers. That was 72 years ago,” he said. With a sense of victorious witness, he closed with these words to attentive listeners, many whose eyes were glistening with tears, “And I can testify now with the Apostle Paul that I have never been disobedient to the heavenly vision.”

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