by Steve | May 5, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Leaders Discuss Evangelism
by M. Garlinda Burton
Prominent United Methodist scholars and some of the church’s most provocative pastors began building bridges among academia, church bureaucracy and grass-roots parishes during an international symposium held in Atlanta earlier this year.
Evangelism—why and how—was the common ground plowed by scholars representing the gamut of church thought and geography, from Malaysia and South Africa to Wilmore, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois.
Conclusions drawn by the 35 speakers were myriad, but common observations included:
- evangelism is a “theological imperative” for the UM Church;
- seminarians and pastors are pushed to be administrators and paper-pushers, and lack proper training to perform the “primary task” of evangelism and Christian nurture;
- responsible, effective Christian evangelism is incomplete unless converted people become instruments for social justice and world peace.
Some at the symposium pointed fingers, but most accepted at least partial blame themselves (or on behalf of their disciplines) for the church’s lost fervor for evangelism.
Washington-based professor James C. Logan criticized theological education for “increasingly distancing itself from the community of faith,” in favor of finding credibility “in academic circles.”
“Theologians need evangelism. Theology is faith seeking understanding,” he said, urging colleague theologians to reclaim their place as partners in the church’s ministry.
A coordinator of the symposium, Logan is the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary, supported by the Foundation of Evangelism. The foundation, which raises money for evangelism education, sponsored the symposium.
Methodism must reclaim its ardor and self-confidence to be an instrument for God’s plan for the world, said the Rev. Peter C. Graves of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Great Britain.
He decried an “ignostic” church—full of people ignorant of the power of their own Christian faith—and contrasted it to the vibrant Methodist renewal movement begun by founder John Wesley.
“The early church grew simply because it never occurred to them not to. The people were so convinced of the Holy Spirit’s power to change people’s lives that they wanted to be a part of that,” Graves said.
He also reprimanded an elitist clergy network for failure to include laypeople in ministry, thereby “ignoring the greatest wasted resource in the church.”
Also championing laypeople was the Rev. George Hunter, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky. “In Wesley’s movement, the ministry and mission of the church was primarily entrusted to laity,” Hunter said. “Methodism radically ‘out-laitized’ other traditional Christian movements in its day.”
But, said the Rev. Kenneth Carder, Knoxville, Tennessee, the church bureaucracy and seminaries do not push evangelistic education or Bible study and reflection for pastors, but stress administrative duties. That leaves little time for personal renewal, much less nurturing laypeople to be in ministry, he said.
While Wesley admonished pastors in his charge to study five hours a day, “pastors and congregations devote prime time to institutional maintenance and administrative tasks, and the hierarchy of the church tends to reinforce and support such use of time,” Carder said.
“In my thirty years as a pastor, I have had only one district superintendent and one bishop to admonish me to study. I have yet to have any (churchwide agency) leader seek to hold me accountable for the theological integrity of my preaching,” he said.
While identifying structural barriers to true evangelistic spirit in higher education and the church bureaucracy, several speakers said evangelism at all levels of the church must be guided by belief that Christianity can make a difference in individual lives and in the world.
Patricia Brown, mission evangelism executive for the church’s Board of Global Ministries, New York, called for renewed connection between personal piety and social holiness, the hallmark of the early Methodist movement.
“Because of our fear of anything that has the appearance of propaganda or proselytism … (our) evangelism has lost its passion,” she said. Brown admitted her own fear of wrong-headed evangelism gone amok—used to manipulate people and evoke “fear and guilt.” However, she urged her colleagues to “do the gospel.”
The Rev. Joe Hale, chief executive of the World Methodist Council, agreed. He lamented that the notion of evangelism has become associated with self-serving “televangelists” and unscrupulous persons concerned only with converting people to their own brand of Christianity.
Quoting late theologian Georgia Harkness, he said, “We must rescue evangelism from the ‘red-light’ district of the church,” and call converted Christians not only to the Good News, but live it out in justice ministries.
M. Garlinda Burton is director of the Nashville, Tenn., office of United Methodist News Service.
by Steve | May 4, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: The NCC and the New World Order
by Alan Wisdom
The long-troubled National Council of Churches (NCC) has a new general secretary who speaks of change. The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell has said that she is “very concerned about the ineffectiveness of our public witness.” She looks toward a kinder, gentler NCC, in closer touch with its constituency and its audience. “I am trying very hard as general secretary to bring a more balanced tone to our statements,” Campbell asserts. “I want them to be more pastoral, more rooted in theology.”
Campbell points to “unity” as the focus for NCC theology, which would appear to run counter to the council’s habit of “prophetic” witness. To be prophetic, by current CC standards, means to begin with the premise that social and class conflicts are fundamental and pervasive in American culture and international affairs—a “structural” problem that requires a radical response on behalf of “oppressed” groups. This requires taking clear side in all social and political issues, which necessarily makes a shambles of unity.
Hence, the dilemma: Will Campbell maintain unity as solidarity with the oppressed in the customary divisive, prophetic style? Or will she seek a broader unity of the Church, a true ecumenism—but at the cost of antagonizing the “prophets”, the self-proclaimed champions of the oppressed, who hold powerful positions in her organization?
There may be no better test for the new general secretary than her special project, a series of NCC consultations entitled “Toward a World Made New: The Public Witness of the Churches and the New World Order.” The project made its debut last November. Significantly, the first paper presented by Yale Divinity School Dean Thomas W. Ogletree offered a challenging re-evaluation of the last 30 years of ecumenical social activism.
Ogletree expressed his sympathy with “the central themes of the ecumenical Protestant witness” since the 1960’s: “racial justice, advocacy for the poor, resistance to an unjust war, and opposition to the nuclear arms race.” Nevertheless, he observed, there was a high price to be paid for adopting that agenda: intensified conflicts within NCC member denominations.
The problem, according to the Yale dean, was that the social witness repeatedly “went beyond—and in some respects, counter to—well-founded traditions of social thought in American Christianity.” For example, most U.S. Protestants have believed that our economy, if managed wisely and justly, could provide for all Americans. Likewise, they have “supported American wars out of a basic confidence in America’s positive role in God’s purposes in this world.” But, Ogletree said, increasingly sharp ecumenical criticisms of U.S. capitalism and U.S. military involvements “placed in question the Protestant presumption of America’s basic goodness.”
Ogletree argued for relinking the churches’ social witness to their peoples’ traditions. He asserted that an effective Christian witness must come to grips with “the reigning civilizational ethic of society.” In the U.S. case, that means our churches must draw critically on American ideals such as liberal democracy and a mixed capitalist economy in order to expand their Christian vision of peace and justice. Ogletree was not suggesting a blind blessing upon “Christian America.” He was affirming that “patriotism has by no means lost all legitimacy within a Protestant social witness, nor has it become improper to celebrate the social and political accomplishments of the American people.”
The Yale dean called for change not only in the churches’ message, but also it’s way of advancing that message. He described the clergy activists, starting in the 1960s, who “had a tendency to identify ourselves as individual prophets.” Their goal, he said, “was to gain control of ecclesiastical structures if we could, and use them in order to promote our own views.” These ecumenical leaders have not listened well to other religious voices, according to Ogletree, and they have the greatest difficulty in communicating with evangelicals in their own churches. They pass resolutions on all sorts of topics, presuming that the numbers (in decline) and prestige of their own mainline denominations would guarantee them a wide hearing.
Taking the Advice
Subsequent presentations indicated, however, that powerful sectors of the ecumenical world were not prepared to accept the Yale dean’s advice. Those in attendance—primarily NCC staff and General Board members, as well as denominational staff—received much more enthusiastically the arguments made by the subsequent parade of speakers who claimed to represent oppressed peoples around the world. These speakers stood fast in their deep suspicion of liberal democracy, capitalism, and the entire “reigning civilizational ethic” of this country. The victimizer, of course, is and was the evil West.
Dr. Ninan Koshy, former director of the World Council of Churches’ Commission on International Affairs, identified himself more generally with “the Third World” and “the South.” From that perspective, he viewed President Bush’s announcement of a new world order as a threat: “The message is heard as one of domination, of unipolar hegemony, of increasing dependency of the Third World on the West. It signals that the United States is unashamedly laying down the rules of the world order and is being prepared to enforce them.” Koshy warned against possible “false hopes” in “the wonders of the free market economy and even democratization.”
Professor Thomas Hoyt of Hartford Seminary sketched a vague vision of the ecumenical movement as “a rainbow coalition which surpasses that of Jesse [Jackson’s].” It would join “women, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, persons with disabilities,” and others. These would “learn new values of love and sharing” which “may call for a critique and challenge to the economic systems which privilege some and oppress others.”
The Rev. William Sloane Coffin—the epitome of the unreconstructed 1960s clergy activist-delivered the closing summary in fine utopian style. Coffin did not try to focus the NCC’ s concern on a few key issues. Instead he extended Hoyt’s rainbow to include yet another, a trendier oppressed being: “Mother Earth.” He suggested that schoolchildren should “pledge allegiance also ‘to the earth and to all the flora and fauna and human life it supports; one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water, economic justice, liberty and peace for all’.”
In addition, Coffin put in a pitch for two revolutionary changes: a redistribution of wealth and an end to all wars. He gave few clues to how these utopian goals might be achieved, except to claim that distinctive Christian doctrines might have to be jettisoned. “What the churches need most to ponder is less their many and differing creeds, more a single ethic of global responsibility” common to all major religions, Coffin contended. The NCC’s speakers knew much better what kind of world order they opposed than the kind of world order they favored. Speakers raged—again and again, often with almost the same words—against President Bush, the United States, and capitalism. The Rev. Dr. Charles Adams of the Progressive Baptist Convention set the tone at the opening worship service: “The President’s New World Order is nothing but the perpetuation of Old World racism, selfishness, hatred and greed.”
Most of the time, there was nobody—at the podium or from the floor—who questioned the repetition of these angry attacks on America. Nobody would directly challenge the anointed spokespersons for oppressed peoples.
Dissent from within
The lone voices of dissent came from the Eastern Orthodox. Most prominent was the Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky of the Orthodox Church in America. He had just ended his term as NCC president, and his own church, with four other Orthodox communions, had suspended its participation in the council. At the closing worship service, Kishkovsky spoke directly: “There were at this conference gaps and absences in our consciousness of human suffering and injustice.” The litany of suffering by oppressed peoples seemed selective, limited to the victims of western capitalism and Christianity. “Why is it that 20 million dead under Lenin and Stalin are not part of the litany?” Kishkovsky asked.
The Orthodox leader also made two points in apparent rebuttal of William Sloane Coffin. First, he urged that the churches’ ideal of community be more strongly grounded in a transcendent theology. Second, Kishkovsky insisted that the council clarify that “the Christian vision of justice and God’s kingdom is not the same thing as a political and economic utopia.” He remarked grimly, “The examples of political utopia from our time are images of hell and genocide.” Kishkovsky’s call “to find a way to make the policies of our government, especially our American government, more obedient to the cause of justice” appeared quite modest in comparison to Coffin’s agenda.
When the former NCC president finished speaking, only about one-quarter of the audience clapped vigorously. Another quarter clapped half-heartedly. And fully half of those attending the conference sat stony-faced with hands folded. They hadn’t liked what they’d heard. They were, after all, some of the very people whom Kishkovsky was criticizing for their selective solidarity, their weak theological grounding, and their embrace of false utopias. These were among the activists who, according to Ogletree, had damaged the ecumenical movement by their radical break with the traditions of their churches.
It was very clear that the NCC elite was not ready to change its tune. Too many ecumenical leaders have too much moral capital invested in the “prophetic” mode of social witness to give it up easily. Joan Campbell and others are to be commended for including voices, like Ogletree’s, suggesting healthier ways for the council to make its witness. But if she wants those voices to be heeded, and the NCC truly to get back in touch with its roots in the churches, she and others like her will have to put up more of a fight. At present, neither Joan Campbell nor any other NCC leader has shown a taste for such confrontation.
Alan Wisdom is a senior research associate with the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D. C. This is reprinted with permission from Religion & Democracy.
by Steve | May 3, 1992 | Archive - 1992
General Conference Afterthoughts
Archive: Yeas and Nays
General Conference is eleven days of highs and lows, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. It is the quadrennial showing of the good, the bad and the ugly within United Methodism. We arrive in unity with singing and communion and leave divided over politics and theology.
On the way to the final evening of adjournment, delegates and observers experienced many highs and lows, disappointments and encouraging moments:
- It was encouraging that delegates voted to fast 24 hours and contribute their meal money to post-riot Los Angeles relief efforts. A special offering garnered $24,000.
- It was disappointing, however, to discover from the Religious News Service that General Conference would cost $37,362 per hour or a total of $3.1 million for the 11-day event.
- It was encouraging that the delegates were not overcome with a spirit of pessimism about the future of United, Methodism, even though we have lost almost 250,000 members within the last four years. They voted in favor of ambitious and visionary plans of ministry to Hispanics, Native Americans, older adults and deaf and hearing-impaired persons.
- It was disappointing, however, to see that the General Conference refused to establish a separate Board of Evangelism to show our corporate interest in spreading the uniquely good news of Jesus Christ to everyone.
- It was encouraging that delegates rejected the General Council on Finance and Administration’s request for a 4.5-percent-per-year increase in the church budget.
- It was disappointing, however, to hear that the agreed upon increase in the budget will mean that apportionments from local churches, many of which are already financially strapped, will increase an average of 2.5 percent a year in 1993-96.
- It was encouraging that delegates voted to move the Board of Global Ministries out of New York City, even though it was delayed for an additional four years.
- It was disappointing, however, that the delegates did not vote to pare down the top-heavy church bureaucracy by reducing the number of voting members on general agencies to 72.
- It was encouraging to hear the high-caliber discussions going on at the lunch-time briefings sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Democracy over the usefulness of General Conference resolutions, the future of Islamic-Christian relations, and ministry opportunities in the former Soviet Union. The leadership of John Stumbo and Diane Knippers was first-rate.
- It was disappointing, however, to watch as members of “Affirmation,” the caucus of lesbian, gay and bisexual UMs, were allowed to disrupt the General Conference with their protest banner and foot-stomping. Furthermore, it was discouraging to see some delegates, including the head of our Board of Church and Society, stand in prolonged solidarity with the protesters.
- It was encouraging that delegates approved May as “Christian Family Month,” with emphasis on family worship in the home, on setting aside a day of prayer for the family, and on the family in local church worship and program planning.
- It was disappointing, however, to hear so little serious discussion from the General Conference floor about the breakup of the family in America.
- It was encouraging to see delegates intentionally amend the proposed Book of Worship so as to avoid any direct references to “Mother God,” even though God is referred to as “Mother” in three different places.
- It was disappointing, however, to hear two different bishops intentionally avoid the phrase “Father” when referring to God. One bishop ignored it in a printed liturgical program and the other bishop avoided saying “Father” during a Scripture reading during a morning devotional.
- It was encouraging to see over 200,000 signatures in support of the spirit and the call to action of the courageous Memphis Declaration.
- It was disappointing, however, to hear some delegates, in committee and from the floor, downplay the importance of such an outpouring of grassroots sentiment in such elitist and condescending tones.
- It was encouraging to go home and return to our local churches where the ministry of Jesus Christ is evident year round.
by Steve | Mar 10, 1992 | Archive - 1992
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.
by Steve | Mar 9, 1992 | Archive - 1992
Archive: Vision for Renewal
Urban Outreach
by Jose R. Velazquez
There has always been an aura of both strange fascination and overwhelming fear surrounding the city. For the city is a place of stark contrasts: it is a mammoth conglomeration of magnificent sights and marvelous opportunities. But it is also a place beset with drugs, crime and poverty. In this milieu, the Church and its programs, for the most part, has been woefully inadequate. At best, some local churches have become nothing more than glorified social agencies attempting to meet social needs. Others are interested only in spiritual welfare. This dichotomy has been tragic. Both extreme approaches fall short of the biblical pattern that Jesus modeled for us and commanded us to follow.
We evangelicals have to admit a poor track record in this area of urban ministries. Though we take pride in our belief on the primacy of the Scriptures and our total commitment to its authority, we have failed to integrate its truths into the arena of city life. We have failed to trust the Holy Spirit, for ultimately it is not through programs that the effectiveness of the gospel is proven, but by utter faithfulness and bold reliance on God’s promises and power (Zechariah 4:6).
We have largely ignored the ever-growing presence of newcomers living in our cities, and have failed to develop meaningful and redemptive ministries for them, as well as for the poor and the oppressed (The United States is now the fourth, and possibly the third largest Spanish-speaking country in the world!). We have ignored the glaring fact that it is in our cities where the greatest concentration of persons live. And it is in our cities where 60 percent of the world population will be living by the year 2000!
So, where is the evangelical presence in our cities? How are we facing up to our commitment to demonstrate and proclaim the message of the Good News? Some are praying for solutions—and fleeing the city! (Did Jesus say something about being his witnesses in the suburbs of Jerusalem and in all the suburbs of Judea and Samaria…?) Jesus loved the city. It is significant that of the two occasions recorded in the Bible when Jesus wept, one was for a beloved friend, and the other for Jerusalem, the Holy City. Desperately needed in our cities are people who are motivated not by guilt nor by pity, but by a deep sense of love for Christ and people.
The city, indeed, presents for all of us a formidable challenge! Both the church with its resources and our seminaries must reformulate and reconstruct their focus of mission, giving priority to urban ministries. The crisis and opportunities implied in the urban challenge cannot be met by following old assumptions and using traditional structures. The voice of God is calling his ambassadors of reconciliation, who out of their love for God and for the sake of his kingdom are willing to invest their lives in the barrios and ghettos of our cities.
Jose R. Velazquez is a member of the Northern Illinois Conference of the UM Church and a member of the Good News board of directors. With his wife, Ruth, and their children, they have lived and ministered in the Chicago area for 25 years.
