by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023
Finding Life Between Law & Grace —
By Carolyn Moore —
Not long ago, I got a text from someone who was a part of our local congregation until she moved to another state. She’d seen something in her devotional guide that sparked memories of things we talked about when she was part of our fellowship.
“Today’s devo reminded me of our time together in healing prayer when you said to me, ‘You’ve prayed … now WALK IN IT.’ Those three words (‘walk in it’) have resonated with me, over and over, when my mind and emotions overtake my faith. Healing prayer. Imagine! Actual healing. Daily healing. Sanctification. Remember when I thought sanctification was ‘Heyull’?”
That’s how she spelled it: h-e-y-u-l-l. Heyull.
She was a new Christian (we will call her Janet), or at least, a renewed one. She’d come home to Jesus after years away. It had been a great joy to see Janet find her place in the body of Christ and watching Jesus do some significant healing in her life. I had prayed with her and listened to her complicated story and we’d shed tears together.
Janet was right, of course: sanctification is hard work. By the time someone gets serious about the process of changing spiritually, they’ve usually tried all the other options and have discovered there is no short cut. If change is going to happen, something has to die, and deaths are not easy! Ask anybody who has had to quit smoking or drinking or drugging or who has had to quit any unhealthy habit. The quitting itself is hard work.
Somewhere in the death of that thing, we get a glimpse – if not of where we are, then – of where we’ve been. So sanctification happens while we are doing it, and we feel it when we walk from death to life or from darkness to light. We know from the contrast that hell has been in the equation, and it is only for the promise of what is on the other side that we bother. Or because our hell got bad enough to move us on. All of this is to say, holiness is not for wimps.
Passed on from Wesley. Methodism’s founder John Wesley and his brother Charles lived in the 1700s. They were pastor’s kids, but their mom is the one who really discipled them. John especially seemed to have a strong hunger for a deeper life of faith. His understanding of salvation was broader and deeper than “getting saved.” When he talked about it, he used terms like “Christian perfection” and distinguished between personal and social holiness – think journey inward and journey outward – and over time he developed his understanding of what we call “entire sanctification.”
A few months before he died, Wesley wrote this in a letter to Robert Carr Blackberry: “This doctrine [entire sanctification] is the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists; and for the sake of propagating this chiefly He appeared to have raised us up” (September 15, 1790).
In his book Perfect Love, Dr. Kevin Watson defines it theologically this way: “Entire sanctification is the doctrine that defines Methodism’s audacious optimism that the grace of God saves us entirely, to the uttermost.”
I love that phrase: audacious optimism. I love thinking of us as the people who carry that kind of spirit, truly the spirit of Jesus. It is the glorious trust in God’s ability to make us better than what we are and then, better and better still. It is the belief that God actually has the capacity to heal me and make me whole and holy.
It goes against the typical narrative surrounding the idea of holiness. The Puritans ruined it for all of us. They made it sound like a list of dry and joyless rules we had to follow in order to keep God happy. As a consequence, we still tend to hear that word and get very serious and wonder what we’ve done wrong. We forget that freedom and lightness and joy are the hallmarks of a holy life.
Holiness is meant to release us into the joys of the Kingdom of God. To operate in holy love – loving God with all my heart and loving my neighbor as myself. That’s how we advance the Kingdom of God. It is not meant to be an unbearable burden. Instead, it is the ultimate form of freedom.
I’ve discovered that you don’t have to understand it to pursue it. You just have to want it – to desire your motives to be more pure, your desires to be more Christ-honoring, your heart to be more open to loving like Jesus.
Far from being restrictive and fun-sapping, holiness calls out the best in us and causes us to glorify God. It is art, not engineering. It is the good life.
“This is Methodism’s big idea: salvation brings not only forgiveness and pardon but also empowerment and freedom to live a faithful and holy life entirely and right now,” writes Watson. “This is our grand deposit – the treasure that God has entrusted to the particular people called Methodists.”
Big questions. Before they were ordained, Wesley would ask Methodist pastors if they intended to be saved entirely – to the uttermost. He had a list of nineteen questions that he asked every pastor. Methodists to this day still use those questions. Three of the first four deal with entire sanctification.
• Have you faith in Christ? In other words, what would it take for you to engage your faith?
• Are you going on to perfection? This question is not about whether we have reached it or even if we can. The question is: are our lives pointed in that direction? Are you heading in the direction of spiritual perfection?
• Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Seriously, are you going someplace spiritually? Do you actually expect to get there? Is your intention to be perfect in love? To be so ruthlessly opposed to stagnation in our life with Christ that we continually press on toward the prize of perfect love? Because holiness or Christian Perfection or entire sanctification is ultimately about love.
• Are you earnestly striving after it? Sounds a little intimidating and pushy, doesn’t it? And not very fun. “Earnestly striving” sounds a lot like legalism or self-effort – everything we are trying to get away from – right?
When discussing holiness, it is easy to get off track. It can be tempting to become more interested in the laws than in the Law-giver. So from our earliest history, our people have mishandled this gift of holiness. We made it more interesting for engineers than artists, carefully carving it into hundreds (or countless) rules to memorize and master. We turned an abstract work of immeasurable beauty into a blueprint.
Hard work. Entire sanctification is hard work. The writer of Hebrews says, “For the joy set before him (Christ) endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
So not even Jesus got a pass on that walk through pain to get to the other side where the joy is. The hard work of sanctification is the part of solid, orthodox Christianity we don’t often talk about. It is really about understanding what God wants to do to our lives.
The woman who texted me, Janet, got her first taste of sanctification. “Now I accept the power and pain of it only because I’ve learned I cannot handle the burn of sanctification without Jesus’ constant presence,” she wrote. “Not my actions or feelings but his presence and power.”
I can feel how much she has learned as she has walked out this journey. Sometimes our talk about sanctification can seem a bit abstract. But nothing is more real than this spiritual work of “growing in every way more and more like Christ” (Ephesians 4:15, NLT). That’s how the Apostle Paul put it. Nothing is more real than the power and pain that comes with seeking and developing a tolerance for Jesus’ constant presence. But don’t you want it?
At the same time that I was interacting with Janet about sanctification, I spent the day in a courtroom. I had two recurring thoughts in my mind. One was, I can’t believe we are here. I can’t believe it has come to this. I can’t believe we had to ask a secular court to decide for Christian people what is right. This is exactly why Paul didn’t recommend it. Court and the law causes us to focus on what is wrong, rather than being free to focus on what is right and good and pure and holy. The law will never get us the distance of grace.
Sometimes circumstances will draw us to that legal option when it seems like the only one we have left. But, can the Law ultimately get you where you want to go?
The other thought in that courtroom was, This Sunday, I’m talking about the difference between law and grace and how law and grace interact with the process of sanctification. Yet, here I sit in a courtroom, leaning on the law and wishing for grace.
That was a moment for me. I recognized that no human system can generate grace, because grace is incubated in relationship with God. This is one of the meta-stories of the Bible. We begin in the Old Testament with God bringing his people out of exile into the desert, then handing them the Law as a first primer – think of it like a first coat of paint – on their way to understanding God’s true colors and the vibrant color of sanctification.
In Exodus, we get the Ten Commandments. In Leviticus, God begins to drill down into each of those major themes to teach us that a thousand times a day we are confronted by pockets of death. However, inside this fallen state there is a choice and an invitation to go looking for life.
Leviticus is a hard book. It is where Bible reading plans go to die. Why? Because it is hard to hear the bigger point, which is that holiness really is all about life.
So, ridding your house of yeast, ridding your clothes of mold, ridding your life of sexual activity you weren’t designed for – all those rituals and laws for the Israelite – were little practice sessions on how to go looking for life. At the center of this whole conversation in Leviticus – all of it about what it means to be holy, about what it means to live the good life – sits what they call the Holiness Code. And like a heading over this section, God tells Moses to tell the people: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).
The Hebrew word for holy is qodesh. We find that word more than 100 times in the book of Leviticus. Seventeen times in Leviticus chapters 21 and 22, we find either that we are holy or that God is, or that we are to be holy because God is. All the way through the Holiness Code – Leviticus chapters 17 to 26 – God makes it clear that the point is to know God as he is. We do these things so we can identify with God, so we can know him, so we can recognize his voice when we hear it.
We are holy by proximity to God. It is his character and his voice that make us holy.
The writer of Leviticus gives us this whole section of very specific laws about all kinds of things: mold, not putting a curse on someone, not seeking revenge, sexual relationships. It reminds me of those warning labels made by lawyers: “This coffee is hot” or “This plastic bag is not a toy.”
We have to be told because on our own, we are drawn toward death. So the author talks very directly about behavior but he comes back to this refrain over and over again: Be holy because I am. In other words, get close enough to God to hear his voice.
These laws are highly relational. In fact, it is also in the Holiness Code in Leviticus that we find the second greatest commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself.
Stop and think about this for a minute. This is the line Jesus plucked from all those laws in the Holiness Code. The one line he pulled into his teaching was this: Love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, take care of each other because this is the filter that every other law has to run through.
Observe the Sabbath … and take care of each other.
Don’t make or worship idols … and take care of each other.
Take care of your body … and take care of each other.
Don’t leave the weak ones behind … take care of each other.
Respect foreigners and elders. Take care of each other.
All of this is to say that we are holy not only by proximity to God, but in proximity to each other. How we live impacts the people around us. This is why Jesus got so frustrated with the Pharisees. Over and over, he watched them become experts in the law while they cared nothing for people.
The law can only take you so far. It can tell you that your actions are right or wrong, but it can’t fix your motives, nor can it repair your heart.
So can we ever be entirely sanctified? Only by the love of God, manifested in the person of Jesus Christ, taking us by the hand and walking us that final stretch from the best we can do into the holiness of God.
Flying in the clouds. Not long ago, I had a prophetic vision in a time of prayer where I saw myself in the cockpit of a plane flying through the clouds. Eventually my plane would break through and I’d be able to see what I was flying toward. My fear while I was in the bank of clouds was that I would fly directly into a building.
That’s a pretty anxious feeling. When the clouds are thick or the weather is particularly bad, they tell me it can be disorienting for your eyes to go back and forth between what you see in the window and the panel in front of you. That’s because the messages aren’t the same. What is out the window tells you that you may be out of control, but the panel tells you the truth. The panel can tell you what true north is and it can show you altitude and terrain. It can communicate directly with air traffic controllers and it even has systems in place to fix itself.
The control panel actually can tell you what is true. And this, maybe, is a little bit like the Law. It can tell us what is true. When things get confusing it is wiser to keep our eyes on the control panel – on the Law – rather than looking out the window on a world that wants to turn it all upside-down.
When an airplane flies into a high-traffic area, there is something better and more accurate than a control panel: the control tower. Those in the control tower see the big picture. They see the buildings, the traffic patterns, the weather – they see it all. The control tower knows where all the other planes are. To find the runway, the pilot has to depend on the voice in the tower.
Perhaps that is what grace is. The Law is rules on a page, but Grace is a voice. If we want to land safely, we need to become intensely interested in that voice – not just to hear it but to trust it, to believe in it. Faith is trusting the Voice, even in the clouds.
“I had to learn my first lesson of the Christian life: how to obey before I understood. My whole life had taught me to master a concept before I could assent to it,” wrote Rachel Gilson in Christianity Today. “How could I possibly agree to something so costly without grasping the reason?”
Gilson was relating how God navigated her through some thick clouds. “In the end, it came down to trust. I knew Jesus was worthy of trust, because he had made a greater sacrifice,” she wrote. “He had left the bliss, the comfort, the joy of loving and being perfectly loved, to live a sorrowful life on earth. He took the pain and shame of a criminal’s death and suffered the Father’s rejection, all so I could be welcomed. Who could be more deserving of trust?”
She passes on a very important truth: “The obedience of faith only works when it’s rooted in a person, not a rule. Imposed on its own, a rule invites us to sit in judgment, weighing its reasonableness. But a rule flowing from relationship smoothes the way for faithful obedience.”
As Rachel makes clear, the difference between law and grace is the difference between rules and relationship. It is the difference between following the panel and following the Voice. It isn’t that one is wrong and the other is right. It is that one can only take you so far.
And that, I believe, is Paul’s point when he talks about law and grace in his letter to the Romans. He teaches that the Law has done its job when it tells us that what we are doing when we sin is wrong. When the Law does that, it is doing its job. It is telling us while we’re in the clouds that we are heading toward a brick wall. Paul even says that we make it worse on ourselves when we trust our own brain by watching out the window instead of looking at the panel.
“I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:22-25).
That’s it! We cannot be perfected outside of an intimate and growing relationship – friendship – with Jesus, until we learn not only his Law but his voice. We cannot be perfected in love until we surrender to him when we can’t see two feet in front of us in the clouds. That’s where the real perfecting happens because that’s where faith clicks in. To be made perfect in love, to be perfected in love toward our neighbor, to land on that runway – we have to learn how to listen for the tiniest, thinnest whisper of God even in the thickest cloud.
Carolyn Moore is the founding pastor of Mosaic Church in Augusta, Georgia. She is the author of several books, including, most recently, When Women Lead (Seedbed). Photo: Shutterstock.
by Steve | Aug 23, 2023 | Features, Sept-Oct 2023
Estonian Churches Withdraw —
By Heather Hahn (UM News) —
The 23 United Methodist churches in the Baltic nation of Estonia are leaving the denomination to form the independent Estonia Methodist Church.
By a 97 percent majority vote on June 16, the Estonia District affirmed the churches’ decisions to disaffiliate. The district’s voters then directed that church property and assets be transferred to the autonomous Estonia Methodist Church as of July 1.
Among the assets going with the newly created Estonia Methodist Church are several diaconal institutions and the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital.
United Methodist Bishop Christian Alsted, who leads the Nordic-Baltic-Ukraine Episcopal Conference, described the district conference as solemn and prayerful but also very emotional.
“Personally, the disaffiliation grieves my heart – I find it unnecessary, and I believe it is a loss to the Methodists in Estonia as well as to the entire UMC,” he said in a press statement.
“Nevertheless, I respect and honor the decision made by the Estonia Methodist Church, and I stand with my commitment to help all annual conferences, districts and local churches in the Nordic, Baltic and Ukraine episcopal area to live into a future, where they believe they can serve with integrity.”
The district, which has about 1,500 members, is part of the larger Baltic Annual Conference that includes United Methodist churches in Lithuania and Latvia. Remaining in the conference are 18 churches with about 870 members total. Annual conferences are The United Methodist Church’s basic organizing units around the globe.
In 2019, General Conference – the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly – approved a policy that allows churches to leave with property “for reasons of conscience” related to homosexuality if they meet certain procedural and financial obligations.
Since the church law took effect, [more than] 6,000 United Methodist churches in the United States, about 20 percent of U.S. churches, have received the required approvals to disaffiliate. But that policy – the Book of Discipline’s Paragraph 2553 – only applies in the U.S. and is set to expire at the end of the year.
Under Estonian civil law, the church in Estonia could simply leave with property, Alsted said. But Estonian church members wanted to leave “in a peaceful and respectful manner,” the bishop added.
To accommodate that goal, the Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference held a special session online in March to vote on a process that would allow for Estonian churches to exit in an orderly way this year.
The central conference approved a process that required each Estonian congregation support disaffiliation by at least a two-thirds vote. At least 30 percent of a church’s professing members needed to be present when the vote took place. Most votes were unanimous for withdrawal, Alsted said. The district then confirmed the separation when it met in June.
The disaffiliation process also requires the exiting Estonian United Methodist churches to be up-to-date in paying their apportionments – shares of church giving that support ministry beyond the local church. Beyond that, the Estonia Methodist Church does not have to pay any additional compensation.
At the district conference in Tallinn that marked the Estonian churches’ disaffiliation, Alsted and the Rev. Robert Tserenkov, Estonia’s district superintendent, signed an agreement of mutual recognition between United Methodists and Estonian Methodists.
“Each recognizes in one another that they are constituent members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church as expressed in the Scriptures, confessed in the Church’s historic creeds, and attested to in our common doctrinal standards,” the agreement said.
The agreement also commits the central conference and new independent church to collaborate wherever possible in mission and ministry and to welcome each other’s members.
Tserenkov, who will lead the new denomination alongside an elected council until it elects a bishop, expressed his hope for the future. “May God bless and guide the Estonian Methodist Church forward, as he has done by his grace for 116 years!”
During the district’s ordination service, Alsted offered his hope that the two churches will be like Paul and Barnabas in the Book of Acts after they went in different directions.
“Despite their sharp disagreement and their decision to part ways, God continued to bless them and make their separate ministries fruitful,” Alsted said. “I pray that the decisions made this weekend, as difficult as they were, will lead to fruitfulness.”
Heather Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. This article was distributed by UM News. Photo: Nordic-Baltic-Ukraine Area Bishop Christian Alsted, left, and the Rev. Robert Tserenkov, Estonia District superintendent, sign an agreement of mutual recognition between the Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference and the Estonia Methodist Church. The 23 United Methodist churches in Estonia are leaving to form the Estonia Methodist Church, which Tserenkov will lead alongside an elected council until the new denomination elects a bishop. Photo courtesy of Bishop Christian Alsted via UM News.
by Steve | Aug 18, 2023 | Home Page Hero Slider, In the News
Centrist Misconceptions —
By Thomas Lambrecht —
Over the last several weeks, this Perspective has been in dialogue with the weekly e-newsletter of Mainstream UMC, a caucus group representing United Methodist centrists. Mainstream’s articles have been illuminating what the future United Methodist Church will likely evolve into. They certainly have indicated the direction many centrists see the church pursuing.
Last week’s Mainstream missive contained a number of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations about those who are disaffiliating. Their article is entitled “Clarity.” So in the interest of clarity, let us examine some of the mistaken ideas Mainstream puts forward about traditionalists who are disaffiliating.
Forced Conformity
The Mainstream article begins by describing disaffiliating traditionalists as “looking for a denomination where everyone will be forced into lockstep about Scripture, about what discipleship looks like, about whose love is worthy of God’s blessing and whose is not” (emphasis added).
First of all, there is no “force” involved. For example, those who align with the new Global Methodist Church are choosing to do so because they agree with the stated beliefs of the GM Church. Some centrists appear to have the misconception that people who voluntarily unite under a banner of common theological commitments are somehow being “forced” into some type of artificial unity. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The GM Church has set forth its understanding of the faith, through its doctrinal standards and social witness statements. It subscribes to the ancient creeds of the church, as well as the doctrinal standards of the UM Church. It maintains the 2,000-year-old teachings of the church on marriage and sexuality. It understands discipleship as a process of becoming daily more like Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit and guided by the teachings of Scripture. If someone does not agree with these foundational understandings of the Christian faith, they would not voluntarily join the GM Church.
What is different about the GM Church is that it will expect its pastors and bishops to teach and maintain the doctrines of the church. Ironically, that is what the UM Church also says on paper. The “Historic Questions” asked of all candidates for ordination include these: “Have you studied the doctrines of The United Methodist Church? After full examination do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the Holy Scriptures? Have you studied our form of Church discipline and polity? Do you approve our Church government and polity? Will you support and maintain them?”
For many years, these “Historic Questions” have been viewed as a type of historical relic that some candidates answer with their fingers crossed. That is not how John Wesley, Methodism’s founder who wrote the questions, saw them. Wesley was big on accountability for both doctrine and polity (church government). He expected Methodist preachers to abide by both.
Maybe this is what the Mainstream article means when it says people are “forced” to conform to certain understandings about the Christian faith. Aside from the fact that this accountability is voluntarily chosen by (not “forced” on) those who seek ordination as clergy, accountability to the organization’s doctrines is no different in the church from what is expected in secular businesses. Employees and especially leaders in any business are expected to promote the “company line.” Deviating from that message is ample cause for loss of employment. Should the church exert less accountability on its leaders than secular businesses do?
In addition, there is no “lockstep” on all theological matters in the GM Church. The foundation is covered in its doctrinal standards and social witness statement. Aside from these foundational matters, there is considerable latitude in opinions and beliefs about various other, nonessential teachings. Within a commonly-held boundary of basic belief, there is much room for theological exploration and disagreement (see further below).
Misrepresenting Wesley
The Mainstream article goes on to describe those who are disaffiliating as those “who cannot tolerate differences.” It quotes John Wesley as saying, “Though we can’t think alike, may we not love alike?” It argues that Wesley omitted the ancient creeds from Methodist doctrine “because he understood how they could become stumbling blocks to faith.” The article sums up its reasoning with the statement that “Methodists have never been about uniformity of belief, but rather uniformity of mission.”
Church historians can weigh in on whether Wesley thought the creeds could become stumbling blocks to faith (I think not). Suffice to say that the doctrines contained in the ancient creeds are also included in the Articles of Religion, which form the basis for United Methodist doctrinal standards. Perhaps Wesley thought including the creeds would be redundant and superfluous, given the already more robust doctrinal standards in the Articles of Religion.
It is certainly historically incorrect to state that Methodists have never been about uniformity of belief. Wesley himself during the formative years of the Methodist movement in England separated from the Moravians and then the Calvinists due to doctrinal differences. Both separations were actually quite sharp, with published articles pro and con trading accusations and even insults. Wesley was definitely concerned about doctrine. It is only in the 20th century that Methodists, in their drive toward ecumenical relations and denominational reunification, deemphasized doctrine as a uniting force.
Wesley’s quote above about thinking “alike” is taken out of context by Mainstream. In his sermon on the Catholic Spirit, he is urging that we treat one another as Christian brothers and sisters, despite differences in theology. But he is talking about belonging together to the larger Body of Christ, the universal or “holy catholic” church, not the qualifications for belonging to a particular denomination.
Elsewhere in the same sermon, Wesley says, “A catholic spirit … is not an indifference to all opinions. … This unsettledness of thought, this being ‘driven to and fro, and tossed about with every wind of doctrine’, is a great curse, not a blessing; an irreconcilable enemy, not a friend, to true Catholicism.” The saying that all manner of theological teachings and opinions are welcome within one denomination creates the kind of indifference and unsettledness that Wesley repudiates. Wesley’s sermon is best applied to the future relationship between the UM Church and the GM Church as different denominations within the one Body of Christ.
When it comes to belonging to a denomination, Wesley says, “every follower of Christ is obligated by the very nature of the Christian institution to be a member of some particular congregation or other, some church … (which implies a particular manner of worshipping God; for ‘two cannot walk together unless they be agreed’). … I ask not therefore of him with whom I would unite in love, ‘Are you of my Church? Of my congregation?’” Clearly, in his sermon on the Catholic Spirit, Wesley is talking about Christian love embracing brothers and sisters across denominational lines, not advocating for a “big tent” view of one’s own denomination.
Trivializing Doctrinal Difference
At the beginning of his essay, “The Character of a Methodist,” Wesley writes, “We believe indeed, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God; and herein we are distinguished from Jews, Turks, and Infidels. We believe the written word of God to be the only and sufficient rule, both of Christian faith and practice; and herein we are fundamentally distinguished from those of the Romish church. We believe Christ to be the eternal supreme God, and herein are we distinguished from the Socinians and Arians. But as to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.”
Plainly from this quote, Wesley believes there are certain foundational opinions or beliefs that are essential for being a Christian. The often-quoted admonition to “think and let think” does not apply to these foundational beliefs.
The Mainstream article charges that the church’s teaching “around LGBTQ marriage and ministry is a stumbling block to faith for many. It is standing in the way of our mission and keeping generations of people from a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.” Traditionalists counter that ignoring Scripture on these issues contravenes one of the basic foundational beliefs of Christianity, that “the written word of God [is] the only and sufficient rule, both of Christian faith and practice.” This is something that “strikes at the root of Christianity” and therefore cannot be ignored.
We might note that there are many teachings in the Bible that might act as “a stumbling block to faith” and in fact did so in the time of Jesus. The fact that there is only one God was a stumbling block to polytheistic Gentiles. Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah was a stumbling block to Jews. Many of Jesus’ teachings were met with resistance and even caused some to walk away. Yet, the early Church never thought it was appropriate to further the mission of the church by discounting, watering down, or compromising on these foundational truths. In fact, it was the distinctiveness of the church’s teaching and proclamation that won converts in the early centuries. Compromising today regarding LGBTQ teachings would carry the same negative impact on the church’s mission.
The Mainstream article goes on to charge that a “legalistic adherence to a few obscure Scripture passages is exactly what Jesus warns against in the Gospels. We should not be caught up in legalism, and neglect ‘the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.’” However, the article omits the next sentence in Matthew 23:23, “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
Jesus does not set “justice, mercy, and faith (or faithfulness)” against “a few obscure Scripture passages.” It is not either/or, but both/and. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-19).
The Mainstream article concludes with the acknowledgement that “if our social witness does not align with our professed faith, then we are not only failing in our mission, but we are doing a disservice to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” This is precisely what traditionalists believe is happening in the UM Church. Progressives and centrists have taken their social witness in a direction that does not align with our professed faith. Many traditionalists have determined that they cannot continue in a church that is failing in its mission and doing a disservice to the Gospel.
These are deep theological difference that cannot be trivialized by saying, “There is a place for everyone in the UMC.” Who is right, traditionalists or centrists and progressives, may not be obvious for another 100 years or more (or until we get to heaven). In the meantime, however, it is apparent that we cannot live together in the same church denomination and maintain our separate strong convictions. As Wesley advocated in his sermon on the Catholic Spirit, we must allow individuals and congregations the freedom to follow their own consciences without coercion or penalty. That is one basic way we can love one another.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News. Art: John Wesley at 85. Stipple engraving by F. Bartolozzi after J. Zoffany, 1760. Public domain, Wellcome Collection.
by Steve | Aug 16, 2023 | In the News
CT: Maui Fires Burn Site Where Hawaiian Queen First Brought Christianity to the Island
Tragically, in addition to the human lives, homes, and businesses, there were many local churches in Lahaina Town that were lost to the flames — including the historic Waiola Church, Lahaina United Methodist Church, Grace Baptist Church, and Holy Innocents Episcopal Church. Remarkably, Maria Lanakila Catholic Church is still standing.
Excerpt from Christianity Today: In Lahaina, local Christians grapple with the widespread damage. While the leaders of Lahaina Baptist Church were “amazed” to learn that their church was still standing—despite everything around it “literally in ashes”—all but two of their church families lost their homes. …
While Christians from all over have offered donations and prayers, it’s locals who understand the scope and significance of the loss, concentrated around the place where Christianity first came to Maui.
“It’s a historic town with a lot of cultural and historical significance for the Native Hawaiian people,” Rocky Komatsu, pastor of Waiehu Community Church, told Baptist Press, who compared the devastation to a war zone. “A lot of people talk about it as a tourist town, but it really is very important to the Native Hawaiian community.”
When Queen Keōpūolani—married to the ruler who united the Hawaiian islands, King Kamehameha—moved to Lahaina in 1823, she invited two American missionaries who brought the faith to the island. Americans William Richards and Charles Stewart taught Scripture to Keōpūolani and prayed with her, and she converted shortly before her death later that year.
After Honolulu, “Lahaina is home to the second-most complete complex of historic Hawaiian Christian sites in one place to be found in all of Hawaii,” said Chris Cook, an expert on Hawaiian missionary history. “The loss of all but the Lahainaluna sites leaves a major gap in the statewide census of intact Hawaii missionary-era (1820–1863) structures.”
Lahaina’s historic Waiola Church just celebrated its 200th anniversary. The church dates back to a service that Richards and Stewart organized in May 1823. Buried in its graveyard are members of Hawaii’s aliʻi, or royalty, including Queen Keōpūolani. Previously known as Waineʻe Church (Waineʻe means “moving water” in Hawaiian; Waioli means “water of life”), over the years, its building has been damaged or destroyed four other times by strong winds and fires, and the church hall was engulfed in flames in last week’s blaze.
“Buildings can be replaced, even though our church has an awful lot of history,” Anela Rosa, the church’s lay minister, told USA Today. “Our strength lies in our people, who are just as important, if not more.”
Read Morgan Lee’s complete report for Christianity Today HERE. Photo: Maui Landsat Photo.jpg
by Steve | Aug 11, 2023 | In the News, Perspective / News
Defining the Church
— By Thomas Lambrecht —
As folks consider disaffiliation from The United Methodist Church and engage in foundational work to start the Global Methodist Church, it causes one to consider the question, “What is the church?” Is the church merely a local body of believers? Is the church a denomination? What does it take to be a “viable” church? Does disaffiliation mean a congregation is leaving “the church?”
A recent article by Dr. Kenneth J. Collins, Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, helps flesh out our understanding of the church from a Wesleyan perspective.
Collins points out that John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, “actually employed two basic frameworks, not one,” when attempting to define the church. Those two frameworks help us look at the concept of church from two different angles.
The Institutional Angle
The first framework comes from the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles, condensed and adapted by Wesley into our current Articles of Religion. Article XIII says, “The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.”
As the article states, this definition focuses on the visible church. It entails things that can be seen and verified. The key marks here are:
- A group of believers in Christ
- The preaching of the pure Word of God – preaching that is based on the Bible, without watering it down or changing it
- The administration of the Sacraments (baptism and Holy Communion) according to the directions given in Scripture
These three marks can apply at any level of the church. A congregation can be “the church.” An annual conference or district can be “the church.” A denomination can be “the church.” All that is necessary is for these three marks to be present.
What is a “congregation of faithful men?” Simply put, it is the presence of believers in Christ in a congregation (male and female). Collins notes, “Later on historians reckoned that this definition of the church, which informed the life of both Anglicanism and Methodism, allowed for the mixed assemblies of sinners and saints, of nominal and real Christians, that Augustine recognized in his own ecclesiology and played out in large national churches such as the Church of England.” In other words, the presence of some unbelievers or nominal Christians in a body does not nullify it being a church. As long as some true believers are present, the body can be considered a church.
Biblical preaching is an essential mark of the church. The preaching of human ideas, however lofty, or teachings that are divorced from Scripture contravene this mark. The consistent lack of biblical preaching in a local body or in a denomination could cause one to suspect it is no longer a Christian church, even if true Christians are present in the congregation.
The proper administration of the Sacraments is also essential. A controversy in 2018 over the worship practices of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco is one illustration. In an open letter, Bishop Minerva Carcaño states about Glide, “Sunday Celebrations are uplifting concerts, but lack the fundamentals of Christian worship. Baptisms are conducted periodically but in the name of the people rather than from a Christian understanding of Baptism. Holy Communion was done away with some time ago and only introduced back into the life of the congregation this past Spring, but outside of the Celebration gatherings and with much resistance.” The absence of the Sacraments, or the administration of the Sacraments in a faulty manner could cause one to suspect that a body is no longer a Christian church.
The Spiritual Angle
Wesley’s second framework for defining the church is based on the four marks of the church lifted up in the Nicene Creed, articulated by the Second Ecumenical Council in AD 381. It states, “We believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church.”
These marks are much more subjective and less overtly visible. In fact, Wesley maintains that the invisible universal church consists of all believers in Christ, no matter their denomination or nationality. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, non-denominational, Pentecostals are all part of the universal church.
The “oneness” or unity of the church does not depend upon any kind of institutional unity. If it did, then the church stopped being a true Christian church in 1054 when the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics separated from each other. Christians residing in different denominations are still part of the one universal church. That means United Methodists in the post-separation era are still part of the universal church of Christ. And the Global Methodist Church (and other independent congregations who have disaffiliated) have not left the church but remain part of the universal church of Christ.
Disaffiliating from or leaving a particular denomination does not mean that one has left the church of Jesus Christ. Our unity is spiritual, rather than institutional. One can experience that unity in ecumenical gatherings where the name of Christ is lifted in worship and preaching. There, all serve the same Lord, regardless of what part of the Body of Christ in which they find their home.
Holiness is another essential mark of the invisible, universal church. Wesley helpfully describes it this way:
The Church is called holy, because it is holy, because every member thereof is holy, though in different degrees. … If the Church, as to the very essence of it, is a body of believers, no man that is not a Christian believer can be a member of it. If this whole body be animated by one spirit, and endued with one faith, and one hope of their calling; then he who has not that spirit, and faith, and hope, is no member of this body. It follows, that not only no common swearer, no Sabbath-breaker, no drunkard, no whoremonger, no thief, no liar, none that lives in any outward sin, but none that is under the power of anger or pride, no lover of the world, in a word, none that is dead to God, can be a member of his Church (Works, 3:55)
But who can judge the holiness of individual members? Who knows our hearts but God? We are all sinners and fall short in some aspects of living a Christ-like life. What “degree” of holiness is necessary in order to be part of the church?
The mistake we make here is trying to make the invisible spiritual universal church line up with the institutional church. The institutional church will never be “pure” in the sense that all its members are holy. To attempt to “weed out” any “unholy” or insufficiently holy members only does damage to the church. Jesus taught about this in the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). When the servants wanted to pull up the weeds that were mingled with the wheat, the owner replied, “No, because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest” (vs. 29-30). It is only at “the end of the age” (vs. 39) when the weeds and wheat will be separated. God, who knows our hearts, is the only one who can separate the wheat from the weeds.
Accountable discipleship is the pathway to holiness, as the Spirit of God works within each one, transforming us into the likeness of Christ. We all ought to be accountable to live up to the ideals set before us in Scripture. Bishops and pastors ought to be accountable for their preaching, teaching, and leadership, as well. But grace and forgiveness are a big part of the discipleship journey. None of us is perfect, nor do we perfectly reflect the image of our Savior in all we do and say. The test of our holiness is our willingness to confess our sins, receive God’s forgiveness, and strive to do better. It is only when we turn our back on God, refusing to acknowledge our sins or receive his forgiveness, that we take the path away from holiness.
Integrating the Two Angles
The key point is that the institutional, visible church is not identical with the invisible, spiritual, universal church. There are members of the institutional church who are not true believers in Christ and are therefore not members of the invisible, universal church. At the same time, the invisible, universal church includes believers from all denominations, nationalities, races, and ethnicities. After all, Jesus was “slaughtered, and [his] blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). All these ransomed people belong to the universal church, no matter which part of the institutional church they are members in.
In a garden, there are certain plants, like tomatoes and peas, that need support in order to grow and bear fruit. So, gardeners set up structures like tomato cages or pea towers for these plants to grow upon in order to maximize their fruitfulness. Without these structures, the plants will not be nearly as fruitful.
In the same way, the institutional church is a visible support structure for the invisible, universal church. Different structures can help different parts of the church grow in that part of the garden in which they are planted. If a particular structure or denomination is not serving the purpose of fruitfulness for which it was intended, it can be modified or even abandoned. Only, whatever structures are used, they must contain the seven essential marks outlined above.
This is why some congregations are disaffiliating from the UM Church. They believe the UM Church is abandoning the pure Word of God by affirming behaviors that Scripture warns against. And they believe the UM Church is described by Collins as having “apparently abandoned the universal call to repentance, and therefore to forgiveness and holiness as well” with regard specifically to same-sex relationships and the church’s understanding of marriage.
When some believe the institutional support structures are not fulfilling their purpose of bringing about spiritual fruitfulness in line with the seven marks of the church, they feel justified in exchanging that support structure for a different one that holds more promise of fruitfulness. In doing so, they may be leaving one institutional church for another, but they are not leaving the invisible, universal church. In fact, they are attempting to be even more faithful to that universal church by disaffiliating. Let us pray that the new structures being built will be faithful to the seven marks of the church and yield even greater fruitfulness for the kingdom of God in the years ahead.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and vice president of Good News.
