Archive: Declaration Signed

An ad hoc group of United Methodists has issued a call to the denomination’s highest governing body for actions ranging from renewed emphasis on evangelism and affirmation of the church’s stance against ordaining homosexuals, to reducing costs and size of church bureaucracy.

The “Memphis Declaration” is addressed to nearly 1,000 delegates to the church’s 1992 General Conference.

Championing traditional forms of address for the deity, more power to local churches, and the denomination’s current anti-gay ordination law, signers of the three-page declaration specifically asked General Conference to:

• mandate using “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” when referring to the Trinity, and reject “replacement of Biblical language and images … which alter the apostolic faith”;
• reject recommendations from the church-wide committee that has studied homosexuality for the past three years and “oppose further study,” and “reaffirm Christian sexual morality” by reaffirming church law opposing ordination of gay men and lesbians;
• reduce the “number, size, staff and costs” of church-wide agencies, specifically abolishing the program-coordinating agency, the General Council on Ministries, located in Dayton, Ohio;
• create a Board of Evangelism “so that reaching the world for Christ will again be central to the purpose and mission of the church”;
• approve a study committee’s recommendation that the world mission arm, the Board of Global Ministries, be moved from New York “to enhance the mission and ministry of the church”;
• affirm baptism as “a means of God’s grace” but declare as essential for salvation and full church membership the “personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.”

Host of the gathering was the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, pastor of the 4,000-member Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He and several others present signed a similar “Houston Declaration,” sent to the 1988 General Conference in St. Louis.

“We feel the Houston Declaration affected the General Conference significantly four years ago, in terms of the actions taken,” Dunnam said. “Since equally crucial issues are facing us now, we felt we needed to meet and do it again.”

“The liberal side of the church is very organized and very militant, and those of us who are maybe more traditionalist need to make our case known,” said UM evangelist Ed Robb.

The group represents an increasingly vocal segment of United Methodist conservative traditionalists concerned with falling church membership and enthusiasm, and a perceived betrayal of the tenets of Methodist-style Christianity. Many blame the church’s problems on a liberal hierarchy they claim is out of touch with the grass roots.

The Rev. George Anderson, pastor of Mount Oak United Methodist church in Bowie, Maryland, opposes softening the current language on homosexuality. “We believe that the whole tradition of the faith, based on the Bible says, affirms homosexuals as persons of sacred worth but the practice of homosexuality as sin,” he said.

Among signers of the declaration were retired United Methodist Bishops Ole Borgen, Wilmore Kentucky., William Cannon of Atlanta, and active Bishop Richard Wilke, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Several pastors of large churches also signed the declaration. Among them were the Rev. John Ed Mathison, Frazer Memorial Church in Montgomery, Alabama, which has more than 5,000 members, and the Rev. William Hinson, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Houston, the denomination’s largest congregation with more than 13,000 members.

United Methodist News Service. Portions of this story were reported by Cathy Farmer, editor of the Memphis conference edition of the United Methodist Reporter.