by Steve | Nov 16, 1994 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Is the UM Church a Confessional Denomination?
By Kenneth Cain Kinghorn
During the 1960s, a cult of self expression mushroomed within both secular society and America’s oldline denominations. Certain people within the churches substituted individual autonomy for established theological norms and traditional ethical guidelines. Heterodox theologies and controversial sexual mores seemed more important than searching the Scriptures and seeking God. Theologians inveighed against the alleged “lockstep theology” of their denominations’ confessions of faith and demanded that their churches recognize and celebrate doctrinal diversity. In response to the clamor for “new directions in theology” and an “inclusive church,” United Methodism’s 1972 General Conference added to the Discipline a new doctrinal statement, “Our Theological Task.”
This document made the unprecedented declaration that United Methodism’s established standards of doctrine “are not to be construed literally and juridically” and declared that “theological pluralism should be recognized as a principle.” For the first time, the 1972 Discipline encouraged the denomination’s membership to engage in “serious interfaith encounters and explorations between Christianity and other living religions of the world—including modern secular religions of humanism, communism, and utopian democracy” (¶70, pp. 75, 69, 81).
During the quadrennium 1972-76 United Methodists debated whether or not theological and doctrinal pluralism had either guidelines or limits. For instance, a student pastor in Ohio complained to his district superintendent that his seminary professor denied Christ’s virgin birth, atonement, resurrection, and ascension. The denominational official shrugged his shoulders and said, “We are not a confessional church, and you can’t criticize others for their religious beliefs.” UM membership roles seriously declined, and some observers contended that, in part, the decline was due to the church’s failure to preach and teach its established doctrines. The adoption of pluralism had spawned ambiguity and confusion.
The 1976 General Conference acknowledged the theological uncertainty and fragmentation in the church: “Some would wish traditional doctrinal statements and standards recovered and enforced; some would demand that they be repealed … [or] superseded.” Out of a fear of “partisanship and schism,” the conference reaffirmed that despite the problems generated by pluralism, it was a United Methodist “principle” (the 1976 Discipline, ¶69, p. 72).
The quadrennium 1976-80 brought further theological debate regarding the church’s doctrinal standards. Denominational membership continued to decline. Dean Thomas Ogletree observed, “[The church] appears uncertain and apologetic about whether there are any clear standards of doctrine to which we are all answerable when we speak to and for the church. … [Pluralism] has tended to legitimate theological ‘indifferentism,’ the attitude that just about any sincerely held belief is acceptable among United Methodists.”[1]
The 1980 General Conference slightly softened the church’s position on pluralism. On recommendation of the Committee on Doctrine, the delegates changed the statement, “Theological pluralism should be recognized as a principle,” to, “We recognize the presence of theological pluralism.” This toning down of pluralism signaled a wish to prevent theological anarchy.
The 1984 General Conference once again addressed the confusion surrounding pluralism. Delegates adopted the recommendation of the Committee on Doctrine to add to “Our Theological Task” a bold face insertion: “[W]e recognize under the guidance of our doctrinal standards and guidelines (¶ 67 and 68) the presence of theological pluralism.” Furthermore, the 1984 General Conference approved a recommendation of the Committee on Discipleship that “the Council of Bishops appoint a committee on the theological task … to prepare a new statement that will reflect the needs of the church and report to the 1988 General Conference.”
Accordingly, the Council of Bishops appointed a committee of lay and clergy persons, instructing this body to present a revised theological statement to the 1988 General Conference. The committee, under the chairmanship of Bishop Earl Hunt, substantially moderated the 1972 statement on pluralism, and prior to the 1988 General Conference, circulated a new version of “Our Theological Task.” Emphasizing the primacy of Scripture, the revised statement sought to clarify confusion about the so-called quadrilateral.[2] On May 5, 1988, the General Conference approved the revised “Our Theological Task” by a vote of 826 to 52. Furthermore, the revised Discipline section, “Our Doctrinal History,” reminded the church that “The Constitution of the United Methodist Church … protects both the Articles of Religion and the Confession of Faith as doctrinal standards that shall not be revoked, altered, or changed” (¶ 68, p. 60).
Many believed that General Conference’s clear reaffirmation of the primacy of Scripture and the binding nature of the church’s formal doctrinal standards had clarified sixteen years of ambiguity and confusion. However, those who favored broad doctrinal pluralism continued to insist that United Methodism is “a non-confessional church.” Perhaps the best way to begin a discussion of a “confessional church” is to define the term. Historically, the term has been used to signify at least three meanings.
First, “confessing church” sometimes refers to the German Evangelical Christians who, between 1933 and 1945, opposed the syncretistic German Faith Movement and the Nazi-sponsored Faith Movement of German Christians.[3] German evangelical Christians believed that these two movements compromised the Gospel by merging it either with non-Christian philosophies or with Nazi political aims. The Confessing Church organized in 1934 and was led by Hans Lilje and Martin Niemöller. It included such supporters as Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The German government persecuted the Confessing Church by incarcerating its pastors and forcing its young people into Nazi youth organizations.
Second, the term “confessing church” may also refer to those post-Reformation church bodies that define themselves primarily by their doctrinal confessions. Those groups contended that their theological formulations were absolute and final. They enforced their doctrinal standards by ecclesiastical authority and frequently contended about exact words and phrases. One historian recorded, “Even worship became a vehicle of hatred rather than a means of grace. … Vulpine ears were quick to hear whether [the pastor] reversed the Lord’s Prayer and said (like the Calvinists) Vater unser instead of unser Vater [our Father].”[4] In 1592, some German Lutherans actually sang the polemical hymn:
“Guard Thou Thy saints with Thy Word, O Lord,
And Smite the Calvinists with Thy sword!”
Even today, this type of rigid confessionalism continues in some circles. Certain religious groups elevate the words and phrases of their doctrinal formulations to a level of supreme importance and remain emphatically unwilling to fellowship with all who do not agree verbatim. In the past, such implacable dogmatism led to excommunications and religious wars. In our time, extreme doctrinal inflexibility hinders Christian ecumenism and feeds schism. In this sense, United Methodism is not “confessional”—except in some pockets where inflexible political correctness insists on certain exact phrases and strictly prohibits the use of others.
Third, the term “confessing church” can also refer to those denominations which hold to confessions of faith that set forth the fundamental articles of belief they regard as necessary for salvation and the well-being of the church. Almost all denominations have formal doctrinal standards which are contained in articles of religion, confessions of faith, or creeds. In this sense, most Christian denominations are confessing churches.
There are, of course, a few denominations which have no doctrinal standards, and these religious bodies are not confessing churches. They minimize or deny the value of creeds and doctrinal standards and focus instead on “the inner light,” reason, or social mores. These groups define themselves less by what they believe than by their social or political agenda. Such religious bodies include the Unitarian Universalist Association, certain Societies of Friends (Quakers), and some Congregational bodies. For instance, the United Church of Christ (formed in 1957) regards its 1959 “Statement of Faith” only as a testimony to the beliefs that the formulators held at the time the document was written. UCC members and congregations are neither bound by that “Statement of Faith” nor required to believe it.
Also, certain spiritual renewal groups contend that “doctrine divides.” They focus mostly on worship, while stressing feelings and “impressions from the Lord.” When subjectivism dominates a group, and people ignore doctrinal foundations for belief and practice, unscriptural teachings (often supported by proof texts) easily crowd in. By traditional measures, these religious societies do not fall into the category of confessional churches.
However, the majority of Christian denominations have creeds, articles of religion, or confessions of faith which articulate their doctrinal foundations. Such landmark documents appear in church disciplines, books of worship, catechisms, and hymnals. Liturgies for worship, church membership, and ordination also express these theological confessions. The UM Church has such a section in its 1992 Discipline— “Our Doctrinal Standards” and “General Rules.”
John Wesley and the early Methodist societies embraced the “Articles of Religion” of the Church of England and the creeds of the ancient church as “true and valid ” doctrinal expressions of the Christian faith.[5] And, from the first, Wesley’s Methodist conferences kept “Doctrinal Minutes” as well as “Disciplinary Minutes.”[6] In 1763, John Wesley prepared a Model Deed for his preaching houses in Great Britain. This deed provided that those who preached in Methodist places of worship must “preach no other doctrine” than established Methodist standards.[7]
On July 14th, 1773, the first American Methodist conference met in Philadelphia, eleven years before the Methodists in America officially organized as a denomination. The minutes of that conference of American Methodist preachers state that “the doctrine and discipline of the Methodists [must comprise] the sole rule of our conduct.” Furthermore, “If any preachers deviate from the minutes, we can have no fellowship with them till they change their conduct.”[8]
When the Methodist Episcopal Church formally organized in 1784, the newly-formed denomination adopted as doctrinal standards twenty-five Articles of Religion and John Wesley’s Standard Sermons and Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament. If ministers failed to “preach the doctrine” of the church, American Methodism’s founders insisted that “no ancient right or appointment shall prevent their being excluded from our connexion.”[9]
Historian Albert M. Shipp related an incident at a conference in 1792 at which Bishop Asbury presided:
“All were examined by the Bishop as to their confession of faith and orthodoxy of doctrine; two were found to be tending to Unitarianism. The Bishop requested all the members of the Conference to bring forward as many texts of Scripture as they could recollect to prove the personality of the Trinity. … The two preachers recanted their errors, and were continued in fellowship. Bishop Asbury preached from Titus 2:1, ‘But speak thou the things that become sound doctrine.’ … Deep feeling pervaded the audience; the sacrament was administered; the services were continued until near sundown; many sinners were awakened, and then souls were converted.”[10]
The 1792 Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal said that church members “clearly convicted of endeavoring to sow dissentions in any of our societies, by inveighing against … our doctrines … shall first be reproved by the senior Minister or Preacher of his circuit: and, if he afterwards persist in such pernicious practices, he shall be expelled.”[11]
In 1798, Methodism’s first two bishops, Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, published annotations to a special edition of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Coke and Asbury wrote, “We wish to see this little publication [the annotated Discipline] in the house of every Methodist, and the more so as it contains our plan of Christian education, and the articles of religion maintained, more or less, in part or in the whole, by every reformed church in the world. … Far from wishing you to be ignorant of any of our doctrines … we desire you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the whole. We know you are not in general able to purchase many books: But you ought, next to the word of God, to procure the Articles and Canons of the church to which you belong.”[12]
Coke and Asbury contended, “Heretical doctrines are as dangerous, at least to the hearers, as the immoral life of a preacher. … Those must indeed be blind, who can sit for any time under the ministry of socinian, universalism, or any other heretical minister.”[13] Bishop Asbury frequently reminded his younger colleagues in the itinerant ministry of the importance of a clear understanding of Methodism’s confessional position.
When Bishop Asbury died, the renowned Methodist preacher, Ezekiel Cooper, delivered Asbury’s funeral sermon at the historic St. George’s Church in Philadelphia. Cooper said, “[Asbury] was careful to regulate, all his religious tenets and doctrines, by the book of God. Mr. Wesley’s Sermons, and Fletcher’s Checks [to Antinomianism], exemplify his leading doctrines.” Discussing Methodism’s doctrines, historian Able Stevens concluded, “They are the staple ideas of [the church’s] preaching, of its literature, of its … inquiries in its class-meetings, prayer-meetings, and in the Christian intercourse of its social life. … [the church’s] spiritual life and its practical system could not long subsist without its special theology.”[14]
At the 1808 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the delegates established restrictive Rules to safeguard the integrity of the church’s confessional standards. The First Restrictive Rule states, “They shall not revoke, alter, or change our articles of Religion, or establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.” The uniting conference of 1939 which joined the M.E. Church, the M.E. Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church cited this Restrictive Rule and reaffirmed the new church’s commitment to the Articles of Religion.
Similarly, the United Brethren Church and the Evangelical Church established doctrinal standards when they first organized. When those two denominations merged in 1946 to form The Evangelical United Brethren Church, the new church adopted a Confession of Faith which contained the church’s doctrinal beliefs. In 1968, when the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church merged, the newly-formed United Methodist Church established the E.U.B. “Confession of Faith” and Methodism’s “Articles of Religion” as standards of doctrine. These theological confessions continue to appear in each edition of the Discipline, and the First Restrictive Rule protects them from alteration.
United Methodism’s Book of Worship and Book of Services further support the church’s doctrinal beliefs. The UM Hymnal contains ten ecumenical Christian creeds and affirmations that strengthen the biblical and consensual faith of Christianity. Weekly, most UM congregations confess the Apostles’ Creed.
United Methodism is not a confessional denomination in a rigid sense. For instance, the church does not refuse fellowship with those who use other ways to confess the catholic faith, such as the Lutheran Formula of Concord or the Presbyterian Westminster Confession. In another sense, however, the United Methodist Church is a confessional church: its members “shall not revoke, alter, or change our Articles of Religion, or establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.”
In 1864, the Methodist Episcopal Church developed a ritual for receiving members which said, “Let none be received into the Church until they … give satisfactory assurances … of the correctness of their faith …. “[15] Included in the ritual is the statement, “The ends of this fellowship are the maintenance of sound doctrine.”[16]
Today’s UM membership vows include a covenant “to be loyal to the United Methodist Church and uphold it by prayer, presence, gifts, and service.” Loyalty to the church certainly includes belief in, and faithfulness to its doctrines. In the selection and ordination of clergy, the Discipline requires a knowledge of, a commitment to, and a promise to preach and maintain the doctrines of the United Methodist Church (¶ 425, p. 226). Similarly, the Discipline mandates that bishops “guard, transmit, teach, and proclaim, corporately and individually, the apostolic faith…. ” [ and] “teach and uphold the theological traditions of the United Methodist Church” (¶ 514, p. 280).
To say that the United Methodist Church is not a confessional denomination is to imply that the church does not confess a core of doctrines deemed essential for salvation and church order. Without a common confession of faith, each church member would be free to believe and teach what he or she pleases. However, the United Methodist Church is a confessional denomination. The evidence demonstrates it.
Footnotes
[1] Thomas W. Ogletree, “In Quest of a Common Faith: The Theological Task of United Methodists.” Quarterly Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring, 1988, p. 44.
[2] The term quadrilateral refers to Scripture, reason, experience, and tradition. Some interpret the quadrilateral to mean that reason, experience, and tradition are coequal with Scripture. Others contend that Scripture constitutes the primary and final source of authority for the church.
[3] The German Faith Movement aimed at accommodating German Christianity to “the German spirit” and returning the nation to pre-Christian pagan religions. The Faith Movement of German Christians confined its membership to persons of Aryan descent, and it sought to make the German Church a united body which supported national socialism as championed by Adolf Hitler.
[4] Henry Drummond, German Protestantism Since Luther, London: The Epworth Press, 1951, p. 20.
[5] See Rupert E. Davis, “Doctrinal Standards of Methodism,” The Encyclopedia of World Methodism, ed. Noland B. Harmon, 2 vols., Nashville, The United Methodist Publishing House, 1974, I, 698.
[6] Frank Baker, “The People Called Methodists—3. Polity,” A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, 4 vols., London: Epworth Press, 1965, 1978, 1983, 1988, I, 243.
[7] Frank Baker, “The People Called Methodists—3. Polity,” A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, 4 vols., London: Epworth Press, 1965, 1978, 1983, 1988, I, 229.
[8] Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, Annually held in America; From 1773 to 1813, Inclusive, New York: Daniel Hitt & Thomas Ward, 1813, p. 5.
[9] Ibid., p. 48.
[10] Albert M. Shipp, The History of Methodism in South Carolina, Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1883, p. 178.
[11] 1792 Discipline, “Bringing to Trial, Finding Guilty, and Reproving, Suspending, or Excluding Disorderly Persons from Society and Church Privileges,” Philadelphia: Printed by Perry Hall & Sold by John Dickins, 1792, pp. 56,57.
[12] Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, with Explanatory Notes, by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, 1798, p. 4.
[13] Ibid, p. 189.
[14] Abel Stevens, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, New York: Carlton & Porter, 1867, 4 vols., II, 215, 216
[15] 1864 Discipline, p. 37.
[16] Quoted in Frederick A. Norwood, Church Membership in the Methodist Tradition, Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1958, p. 50.
by Steve | Sep 22, 1994 | Archive - 1994
Archive: Prayer and praise denote Aldersgate ’94 gathering
A whole lot of praying and praising was going on in Washington, D.C. when more than 1,450 United Methodists gathered for Aldersgate ’94, the 16th denomination-wide conference on the Holy Spirit. The four-day event was sponsored by United Methodist Renewal Services Fellowship Inc., an affiliate of the denomination’s Board of Discipleship. The conference focused on charismatic worship experience and prayer for renewal of the United Methodist Church by the Holy Spirit.
Much of the praise was in song, often accompanied by tambourines, interpretive dancers waving brightly colored pennants, guitars and other musical instruments. Prayer and Scriptures were integral parts of lessons and sermons. Days began at 6:30 a.m. with an hour of prayer and concluded with an altar call at the end of the evening worship. Bible-study sessions, workshops, and additional worship filled time between.
“Every area of the ministry is growing,” Gary L. Moore, executive director of United Methodist Renewal Services Fellowship, told Good News. “People are seeking a vital relationship with a living God. They are hungering and thirsting for real discipleship in Jesus, not just revamped religion.
“There is an intense desire for opportunities to worship Jesus and not just go through the motions of forms that fail to touch the heart,” Moore said. “I believe there is a smoldering fire in the heart of Methodism that only needs the wind of the Holy Spirit to stir it into a raging fire of revival. Our ministry strives to be a part of fanning the flame.”
The Rev. Rodney Smothers of Atlanta, preaching at the first of four 2 1/2-hour worship services, spoke of United Methodism’s tendency to over structure. Urging the church to go back to basics, Smothers said Jesus did not criticize but introduced sinners to the love of God: “We serve a God who is in the business of renewing us.”
The Rev. Robert Stamps of Arlington, Virginia, said the conference “Witnesses to the diversity of the church,” adding that members of the denomination do not look alike, dress alike, or worship alike, but are united. Addressing racial diversity, he projected that, by the year 2044, white people of northern European ancestry will make up less than half the U.S. population, a statistic he said most white people—himself included—may find threatening. But God is not threatened, Stamps said.
Church members’ reactions to these changes will determine the future, Stamps said. He warned that United Methodism could become “a small homogeneous sect with a few black congregations thrown in.”
“We’re to do as God did [at Pentecost] … learn to speak [others’] languages. Sooner or later you have to be a part of this whether you want to or not, and the later is heaven,” Stamps asserted. “Heaven isn’t going to make us homogeneous. Heaven itself is a rainbow.”
The Rev. Gregg Parris of Muncie, Indiana, told worshipers the third evening that “for too long … the charismatic movement [has] been overequipped and underchallenged.” Observing that members have great faith in the God of yesterday and of tomorrow, Parris urged belief in “the God of now.” He advised “a global perspective,” citing statistics about church growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
“We need to move in the power of the Holy Spirit,” he concluded. “The power of God has a single purpose … to empower the church to take the Good News where it hasn’t been heard.”
The Rev. Lawrence Eddings, an evangelist from WoodinviIle, Washington, warned against weakening the message of salvation to make it culturally and socially palatable. “People must be saved [by] the name of Jesus,” Eddings said. “Wherever the church has affirmed that faith, … the church flourishes.” He advised, “Boldness is the ability to articulate faith in love. … It doesn’t mean to be abrasive and attacking. It doesn’t mean to be controlling.”
Eddings challenged the church “to take up its ministry of healing” spirits, emotions, bodies, and relationships. God can work miracles through “unschooled, ordinary people” as well as through the highly educated, he said. He emphasized prayer as essential to a relationship with Jesus and to learning God’s will. Eddings said, “We are the people of God. We are authorized to be in ministry to the world in the name of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and there will be results guaranteed by God.”
Similarly, in one of the Bible-study sessions, the Rev. Seth Asare, the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at UM-related Boston University School of Theology, advised that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit “should be used in the ministry to bring people to know Jesus Christ.”
In 1995, the 17th annual conference on the Holy Spirit will be held in Orlando, Florida.
Adapted from United Methodist News Service
by Steve | Sep 20, 1994 | Archive - 1994
Archive: Robb responds to radical feminism, challenges bishops
“Council of Bishops, are you listening? We will not bow our knee to Sophia,” the Rev. Edmund Robb Jr. said at the 1994 Good News “Summer Celebration ” in Dallas. “We will no longer support heresy with our money! … We demand something new and bold and courageous,” he said. “And we ask you to take a firm stand with historic Christianity and denounce the heresy that is plaguing our church today.”
On the closing night of the national, three-day event, Robb gave an evangelical response to “biblical faith and radical feminism.” Christians must support feminism as fair treatment but “hold the line ” against feminism as anti-Christian ideology, he said.
Robb, a United Methodist clergyman who heads an evangelistic association based in Marshall, Texas, is a former Good News board chairman and is now board chairman of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Before his presentation, the Good News board honored him for 30 years in evangelistic ministry.
In his hard-hitting address, Robb defended Christianity and evangelicals in their historic support of women, charged that the contemporary feminist movement has strayed from its mission of full and equal citizenship for women, and condemned the “radical feminist movement as represented in the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference in Minneapolis” in November 1993.
The Church of Jesus Christ is the “greatest women’s liberation movement in history,” Robb declared. “Wherever the Christian faith has gone, women have been elevated and liberated,” he said. Evangelicals, he continued, should “rejoice in the new freedom and opportunities for women in the western world ” and “repent that we have not been in the forefront of the struggle for feminine rights and dignity.”
Drawing particular criticism from Robb were “contemporary expressions of ‘Christian’ feminism [that] strike at the very heart of the orthodox faith.”
“Some have accused us of trying to suppress freedom of expression in our criticism of the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference,” he observed. The accusers are “free to say anything they like, but if they do not uphold the basic doctrines of the church, they ought to have the integrity to get out.”
Robb said “most feminists deny or question the authority and divine inspiration of the Scriptures,” and “many radical feminists base the authority of their faith on the emotionally unstable experiences they have had as oppressed women, rather than the objective truth of the Bible.”
On the issue of inclusive language, he said that evangelicals object to the “neuterizing or feminizing of God language … [beyond] simply the meaning of words [to] the very nature of God … Jesus has taught us to pray ‘Our Father,’ and as evangelicals we will follow his teachings.” Arguing that the Christian faith is one of revelation and not the product of human experience, Robb said, “God reveals himself only in masculine terms .” He said the Minneapolis event has given visibility to the agenda of “radical feminism,” which “questions the centrality and uniqueness of Christ; denies the reality of personal sin; defends homosexual and lesbian life styles; and is anti-male, anti-family, and anti-traditional values.”
The “Re-Imagining” Conference’s “worship of the goddess Sophia has shocked many in the church,” Robb said, and should be seen as “beyond the bounds of tolerance for orthodox believers.”
Criticizing the Council of Bishops for not repudiating the Minneapolis event, he said, “The greatest enemy of the church is the institutionalist who defends every program and activity, regardless of the consequences, and opposes any call for reform. This kind of leadership will destroy the church.”
Robb said United Methodist evangelicals are often called divisive and are urged to read John Wesley’s sermon, “The Catholic Spirit,” in which the founder of Methodism says, “As to matters that do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.”
To that, Robb responds, “We are dealing with matters that deal with the root of our faith. I suggest that the contemporary feminist movement with its gnostic New Age heresy is striking at the root of Christianity.”
Adapted from United Methodist News Service
by Steve | Sep 17, 1994 | Archive - 1994
Archive: Theological crisis decried at 1994 Good News celebration
Displeasure with a November ecumenical women’s conference was expressed repeatedly during the three-day “Summer Celebration” sponsored by Good News, the denomination’s evangelical caucus. The event was held July 21-23 in Dallas.
In opening remarks, Good News board Chairman Don Shell of Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, bemoaned the “church’s loss of a vital Christology, particularly as reflected in the recent ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference.” Soliciting comments and suggestions from the nearly 500 participants, Shell said board members are “disappointed in the lack of response by our institutional leadership to the agony our people are feeling about that conference.”
Most plenary speakers here referred to the controversy; and several leaders publicly and privately declared that the “issue isn’t going to go away.” A large number of United Methodists attended the conference, and the Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries paid expenses for 56 staff, directors, and other women.
In his report as editor and executive secretary of the unofficial caucus, the Rev. James V. Heidinger II said “Re-Imagining” may prove to be a “gift from God.”
“For the first time the church is talking about theology,” he said. “We are being forced to think doctrine again.” Heidinger made clear that the issue is not the church’s support of ecumenical events, or the Women’s Division’s mission history, or women’s theology, but “a frontal assault on foundational Christian doctrine at a gathering that was supposed to have been sympathetic and supportive of the Christian faith.”
He called the event a “coming-out of radical feminist theology … a poignant example of the near-fatal collapse in mainline Protestantism of authority, doctrine, memory, and tradition.” To stop a “theological and ethical free fall,” he said, “it’s time we pull the rip cord on the emergency chute.”
In his keynote address, the Rev. William H. Hinson, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Houston, the largest congregation in the denomination, chastised the Council of Bishops for failing to criticize the Minneapolis event. At its meeting in early May, the council agreed to conduct a study of wisdom literature in the Bible but did not comment collectively on the event.
Hinson described as “intellectual tyranny” and “intimidation” efforts to silence critics of the “Re-Imagining” Conference, which, he said, “reconstituted the Godhead” and in which participants “prayed to something other than Jesus Christ.” The church is in a struggle with doubts that damage its effectiveness, Hinson said, including “preachers … who wonder whether or not Jesus Christ is even necessary [for salvation].”
A major challenge during the conference came on the closing night when the Rev. Edmund W. Robb Jr. of Marshall, Texas, spoke on “The Biblical Faith and Radical Feminism: An Evangelical Response.” (See page 34.)
“Some have accused us of trying to suppress freedom of expression in our criticism of the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference,” Robb said, ” … but if they do not uphold the basic doctrines of the church they ought to have the integrity to get out.” Evangelicals are not antiwomen, Robb said, but are concerned about the “radical feminist movement as represented in the ‘Re-Imagining’ Conference.” On the eve of the convocation, more than 200 persons gathered to honor Robb for his 30 years in evangelistic ministry.
One Bible study leader, the Rev. Joe Harris of Ardmore, Oklahoma, called on United Methodists to build their relationships on covenant, not conditions. He said people had the right to attend the Minneapolis conference, but not to ask for the church’s support. “Worshipping Sophia does not further the kingdom of God,” he declared. Harris, superintendent of the church’s Ardmore District and a member of the Good News governing board’s executive committee, said the 1996 General Conference should “renew our covenant and life together on the basis of what God wants us to do.”
Before an evening plenary session, the Rev. William Hines of Findlay, Ohio, prayed for “some leaders who refused to defend what we believe is non-negotiable .” Hines is vice chairman of the Good News board.
During a free afternoon, participants were invited to a previously unscheduled meeting to discuss the Minneapolis conference with Dottie Chase, a long-time Good News leader from Willard, Ohio. Chase, who attended the event, said the central issue it raised is “Who do you say Jesus is? He’s either the Christ and the Lord of the Church or he’s not.”
Also leading the two-hour informal session was Faye Short, director of the Evangelical Coalition for United Methodist Women (ECUMW /RENEW). More than 80 people attended.
Other plenary speakers during the “Summer Celebration” included the Rev. William J. Abraham, a faculty member at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas; Elizabeth B. Brown, author and speaker from Chattanooga, Tennessee; the Rev. Joseph Harding, cofounder of the church-wide “Vision 2000” program; and the Rev. Cornelius Henderson, president of Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta.
Eleven seminars dealt with topics ranging from abortion and prayer to ways of increasing the evangelical witness in United Methodist schools of theology. This year’s event, geared to all ages, was attended by people from 30 states and Canada.
Next year’s Good News event will be held in Cincinnati July 13-16 . Keynote speaker will be the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, recently elected president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Seminar topics will include “Organizing Annual Conferences for General Conference” and “Ministry to Homosexuals.”
Adapted from United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | Sep 16, 1994 | Archive - 1994
Archive: Straight Talk
News, Views, & Uproars
Good News was saddened to hear of the recent death of Tom Skinner, the well-known evangelist and former chaplain of the Washington Redskins football team. At the age of 52, he died of complications related to acute lymphatic leukemia.
Skinner dedicated his life to raising up a new generation of leaders, and to challenging white evangelicals to address the sin of racism and respond to the special challenges of the inner city. He was a plenary speaker at the historic 1970 “Convocation of United Methodists for Evangelical Christianity” sponsored by Good News.
“Evangelist Tom Skinner performed open-heart surgery on every white man as he spoke plainly and prophetically about the contradictions of evangelical thought and evangelical living concerning the hellish plight of the black man in America,” reported one Wesley Foundation director.
“My evangelical friends would say Christ was the answer, but they would never come,” Skinner told the convocation. “They would spend millions of dollars to send missionaries to reach black people across the sea, but they would not spend one dime to cross the street of their own town to talk to a group of black people.”
He concluded his message with this challenge: “There’s no way that I can respond to your Jesus when I discover you have moved out of the neighborhood to avoid me …. There’s no way I can respond to your Christ if your church remains segregated and closed. There is no way that I can respond to your Jesus if you’re not willing to pay the price of being a real brother to me. And a brother is a person who lays down his life for his friend. That is what the Church is going to have to do if it’s going to meet the present crisis.”
Skinner also delivered the keynote address at the 1991 Good News Convocation in Washington, D.C. “Jesus is not just about stopping things. He’s about building his kingdom! The kingdom of Christ, his authority and rule in the earth,” he said. Once again, he challenged the participants to be the Church in a multi-cultural society and especially in the nation’s needy urban areas. “We are to colonize our world and our neighborhoods,” he said. “We’ve got to be willing to go where the people are. We must test the Good News in the crack houses where the sinners are.”
Skinner’s vision was demonstrated in an inner city Learning Center and a Leadership Institute established on a 35-acre farm. The Learning Center was the subject of a 1990 Good News cover-story.
Throughout his ministry, Tom Skinner was persistent in reminding the evangelical community that the kingdom of God transcends race, culture, economics, and politics. God is neither black nor white, Republican nor Democrat, liberal nor conservative. He is radically other.
“God is putting together this tremendous choir that the Bible says is going to stand up one day and sing, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,’” Skinner said. “That choir is going to put Africans and Asians and Hispanics and African-Americans and Chinese together. We will take all our instruments, languages, and cultures, and we will sing together, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive honor and glory and power and majesty forever and ever. Amen.’”
Tom Skinner is now a member of the celestial choir. We consider it an honor to have been challenged by his ministry.
Transforming Congregations recently held its first national board meeting. Through newsletters, workshops, and personal testimonies, Transforming Congregations has presented the hope of healing for the homosexual. Since its founding in 1988, Transforming Congregations has been under the leadership of the Rev. Robert Kuyper of Bakersfield, California.
The newly created board consists of a dozen representatives from seven states—from Pennsylvania to California. Board members include former homosexuals, mothers of gays and deceased AIDS patients, pastors, and other concerned persons.
The mission statement of the organization follows.
“Transforming Congregations is committed to provide information, resources and training to churches, districts and annual conferences for understanding of and involvement in a ministry of transformation of homosexuals, and also to encourage transforming ministry based on loving compassion, Scripture, and The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church.
“Transforming ministry seeks to: Affirm the biblical witness that homosexual practice is sin and that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to transform the life of the homosexual; Minister to persons struggling with homosexuality, their families, and all others affected by homosexuality, as partners in Christ’s work of healing; Call the church to recognize its need for repentance and healing of its homophobic and accommodating responses; Integrate all persons striving to live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ into full membership in the local church.”
For more information, write: Transforming Congregations, Trinity UM Church, 724 Niles St., Bakersfield, CA 93305.
After considerable discussion about the process being followed in presenting the Baptism Study before the church, the board of directors of Good News expressed its concern that “the Baptism Statement, By Water and the Spirit, the study guide, and the response sheet evidence a lack of evangelical input, are insensitive to former EUB traditions, and violate long-standing American Methodist convictions on the basis of church membership, as expressed in The Book of Discipline.”
Citing a written critique prepared by Good News board member, Dr. Riley Case (Kokomo, IN), board members conveyed concern that the proposed By Water and the Spirit statement gives baptism disproportionate prominence in the life of the church. Case has written in his critique that the new statement elevates “the importance of baptism to a level hitherto unknown historically in United Methodist circles.” This has important implications for United Methodism’s tradition of including on the preparatory role of the church all baptized children, and of the careful instruction of believers in preparation for becoming members of a local church.
The evangelical leaders also took action to officially endorse the Confessing Movement which was birthed at an April meeting in Atlanta during which a broad coalition of evangelicals gathered to discuss the crisis facing the UM Church. This unanimous action reflected the board’s strong affirmation of the purpose of the movement.
Finally, directors expressed disappointment that Dr. Al Yorn Steeg, senior minister from St. Luke’s UM Church in Fresno and recently elected president of the Mission Society for United Methodists (MSUM), had not been appointed to that post by his bishop. This reflects the continued unwillingness of many Steeg, a former missionary and successful pastor in UM bishops to appoint faithful United Methodists to the MSUM.
In refusing to get an “Appointment Beyond the Local Church,” Vom Steeg, a former missionary and successful pastor in the California/Nevada Annual Conference, was forced to take a “Leave of Absence.” At the same time, Good News directors note that UM bishops have made “Appointments Beyond the Local Church” to such secular organizations as Planned Parenthood, the March of Dimes, City Pride Bakery, and Chestnut Health Systems.
