by Steve | Apr 2, 2022 | Front Page News
By Thomas Lambrecht
In the aftermath of the postponement of General Conference until 2024, there is understandably an explosion of interest by local churches in how to withdraw from The United Methodist Church and unite with the Global Methodist Church. As reported in a previous Perspective, this process of decision-making for local churches may take time (several months, up to a year or two). Congregations will act when ready, but it will also take the approval of their annual conference, which may only meet once a year, thus delaying the effective date of realignment.
Because General Conference has not yet adopted the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, there is no unified plan of separation for local churches to follow. What will be required in each annual conference will be different. Good News has appealed to bishops and annual conference leaders to take a gracious and amicable approach toward separation, rather than a punitive one.
Some bishops have said that they will do all they can to help local churches move to where they want to be, whether that is remaining United Methodist or aligning with the Global Methodist Church. They have promised not to put obstacles in the way of churches and pastors who want to realign to the GM Church. A few bishops have indicated a willingness to use ¶ 2548.2 to allow congregations to change affiliation and to work with churches to reduce the financial demands for departure.
As mentioned in that previous Perspective, one option for reducing financial demands, even using ¶ 2553, is to allow the payment of pension liability through use of a promissory note, rather than an upfront cash payment. As the plan sponsor, an annual conference can work with Wespath to make this solution work, so that the liability of future pension payments is covered, no pastor’s pension would suffer because of separation, and that the local church would have an affordable route to realignment.
Other bishops and annual conferences, however, seem determined to try to prevent local churches from moving to the Global Methodist Church with their property and assets. In addition to the already high financial cost of withdrawal under ¶ 2553, some conferences and bishops are requiring repayment of previous grants made to the local church and even a percentage of the church’s appraised property value – anywhere from 20 to 50 percent! This would force a congregation to essentially pay twice for a facility that they already paid to erect and maintain. In most cases, the annual conference put no money into constructing that church building, but will in these instances reap a windfall as the church departs (if it is even able to afford such a departure). Even some bishops who signed the Protocol are now backing off from its principles in order to support onerous financial requirements.
What are the ramifications of such an approach?
Annual Conference Withdrawal
One unintended consequence of a failure for General Conference to meet and pass the Protocol is that annual conferences may be able to depart from the UM Church more easily than if the Protocol had passed. Judicial Council is expected to issue a ruling by mid-May on whether an annual conference can vote to withdraw. In a previous decision, the Judicial Council has stated, “The annual conference … exercises autonomous control over [its] agenda, business, discussion, and vote on the question of withdrawal” (Judicial Council Decision #1366 on page 44).
If the Judicial Council rules in line with its previous decision, the annual conference (in the absence of any other legislation passed by General Conference) could determine to withdraw from the UM Church and align with the GM Church by a simple majority vote. The Protocol, on the other hand, would require a 57 percent vote to do so. This would make it likely that more annual conferences would withdraw before the 2024 General Conference than wait for the Protocol to pass in 2024.
Weakened Local Churches
Annual conferences that impose high financial costs on departing congregations will weaken those congregations that can afford to disaffiliate under those terms. Hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars that could have been used to support the ministry of that local church will now support the bureaucracy of a liberal annual conference. Congregations will have to tap out their financial reserves, cut back on ministry programs and staff, and/or borrow heavily (paying costs for interest on indebtedness) in order to align with a denomination that reflects their theological and missional identity. Some congregations taking this route might not even survive. Other congregations will suffer a heavy financial burden that could hamper their ministry in the community for years. The serious financial costs jeopardize the ability of all these congregations to have a strong start in a new denomination.
These onerous financial demands would do harm to these congregations – contravening Wesley’s dictum to “do no harm” that is often cited by centrists and progressives as one of their guiding lights. What annual conferences might gain to help ensure their institutional status quo could severely compromise the ability of departing congregations to continue strong ministry in their local communities.
Hostage Congregations
The more likely alternative is that congregations faced with insurmountable financial costs of realignment will simply be stuck in a United Methodist denomination that is rapidly leaving them theologically. With these financial demands, the annual conference is essentially holding the church hostage, forcing them to remain within a church in which they no longer fit.
Such a situation is not good for the local church, nor is it good for the annual conference. Obviously, the local church that is begrudgingly still United Methodist is not going to wholeheartedly support its annual conference’s mission and purpose. It may not willingly support financially an annual conference that would treat its congregations with such disrespect. The annual conference may get less money out of the congregation than if it just allowed the church to leave with paying two years’ apportionments and no property payment.
Traditionalist members of that reluctantly remaining congregation may decide they do not need to be part of a congregation held in a denomination against its will. They may decide to drive down the road to another (probably non-denominational) congregation and be lost to Methodism. The remaining congregation will grow weaker with the loss of members, again compromising its ability to offer vibrant ministry in that local community. The vicious circle of members leaving, reduced ministry, and more members leaving could ultimately lead to the demise of that congregation.
How does it serve the interests of the annual conference to force congregations to remain in the annual conference against their will and potentially cause the congregation to close? First, from a progressive perspective, it would disempower and eventually get rid of annoying traditionalists and their “old-fashioned” understanding of the faith that is getting in the way of real progress toward an inclusive progressive church (without losing that congregation’s valuable property). Second, it would allow the annual conference to send liberal pastors to serve that congregation and hopefully change the character of the church to being a progressive one by replacing departing traditionalists with new, more progressive members. Worst case, if the church closes, the annual conference could at least sell the property and use the proceeds to fund progressive ministry in the years ahead.
This warped perspective of the Kingdom of God prioritizes progressive ideology over living by the Golden Rule. It treats traditionalists in a way that no progressive or centrist would want to be treated. It reflects a power play that cynically capitalizes on the fact that centrist/progressive bishops and annual conferences hold most of the power and can treat congregations unjustly with impunity. The only thing that might restrain them is a moral compass that remembers Jesus’ dictum that Christians are called to serve one another, not lord it over one another.
Blocked Progressive Agenda
Another consequence of attempting to hold traditionalists in the UM Church against our will is the potential that centrists and progressives might find their agenda for the church is blocked. Right now, the number one legislative priority of centrists and progressives is adopting a plan to regionalize church government. Their goal is to enable the U.S. part of the church to govern itself without interference from the new African majority.
However, plans to regionalize church government involves amending the church’s constitution, which will require a two-thirds vote at General Conference and a two-thirds vote of all the annual conference members around the world. If traditionalists in the U.S. and particularly in Africa are not allowed to withdraw, there will be more than enough votes to block any attempt to regionalize, thus defeating the centrist/progressive agenda.
I have never understood the centrists’ and progressives’ feverish attempts to keep the African churches part of the UM denomination, when the Africans alone could scuttle their legislative priorities. African delegates are much more informed than in the past and much more willing to have their own opinions and resist the dictates of bishops who go against the interests of faithfulness to traditionalist understandings of the faith. Despite hardball efforts by some liberal African bishops to muzzle traditionalist African leaders, African delegates are prepared to stand on their own in opposition to attempts to change the church’s teachings or marginalize African influence in the church.
The second legislative priority for centrists and progressives is to eliminate from the Discipline the traditional definition of marriage and allow the ordination of non-celibate LGBT persons to ministry. Yet, traditionalists still hold a narrow majority of the delegates to General Conference. Progressives pushed hard to elect progressive delegates to the 2020 General Conference and succeeded in making gains among clergy delegates. It is likely, however, that a 2024 General Conference will require new elections for a new delegation, and progressives might not be as successful. The number of U.S. delegates will decrease due to membership declines, and the number of African delegates will increase due to their membership growth.
It appears likely that if traditionalists are held in the UM Church by unaffordable financial requirements, there will still be a slim traditionalist majority at General Conference 2024. This is counterproductive to enacting the centrist and progressive agenda of “full inclusion” and U.S. autonomy. Thus, the quest for financial gain through intimidating traditionalist congregations into remaining United Methodist may turn out to be self-defeating for centrists and progressives.
Let the Conflict Continue
Ultimately, the worst consequence of forcing traditionalists to remain United Methodists against their will through onerous requirements is that it continues the conflict in the church. As long as a substantial group of traditionalists remains in the UM Church, there will be theological conflict. Previously, the goal has been to resolve the conflict, release and bless one another to pursue ministry in the way consistent with our divergent beliefs, and move forward in a positive direction. Bishops and annual conferences that impose unaffordable provisions on local churches wanting to realign are abandoning the opportunity to resolve the conflict and allow the church to move forward in a positive way. Instead, they would be placing short-term, primarily financial self-interest ahead of setting a positive future for the church.
Bishops and annual conferences in this moment have a choice. They can escalate the conflict with onerous requirements and attempt to block congregations from leaving The United Methodist Church. Or they can take a reasonable approach that facilitates the resolution of our church’s theological conflict for the sake of creating the opportunity for a positive future for all. For the sake of Christ’s Kingdom, it is to be hoped they choose the way leading to a positive future.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Mar 29, 2022 | Front Page News, Home Page Hero Slider
By Thomas Lambrecht
There was a popular song in the 1960’s, “What’s It All About, Alfie?” It asks the question, what is life and love all about? It was the theme song of the movie, Alfie, in which a wayward man is searching for meaning in life.
With the postponement of General Conference until 2024 and the announced launch of the Global Methodist Church on May 1, 2022, many people across The United Methodist Church are waking up to the reality of separation in our denomination. Hundreds of churches are applying for disaffiliation from the UM Church. Hundreds more are discerning whether their future lies in the GM Church. In the process, thousands of laypersons who have been in the dark about all the conflicts leading up to this point are asking, “What’s it all about?” Why are many churches leaving the UM Church? Why would our congregation consider leaving for the GM Church?
This article aims to give a succinct, but not exhaustive, summary of what is at stake.
Theological Crisis
Baked into the DNA of United Methodism since 1972 is the idea of theological pluralism – that there are many different understandings of the faith and nearly all understandings are welcome within United Methodism. From the time our denomination was founded, we have not had a coherent, unified understanding of our faith. Is Jesus without sin and error, or was he a flawed human being like the rest of us who somehow became a revered moral teacher? Was Jesus’ death on the cross necessary for our salvation, or was it an act of so-called “divine child abuse?” Did Jesus really rise bodily from the grave, or was his “resurrection” only a greater spiritual awareness on the part of his disciples?
From the beginning of our church in the 1960’s, many boards of ordained ministry have approved candidates for ordination who believed and taught very diverse understandings of the faith. Beneath headline-grabbing issues such as marriage and sexuality, root theological issues have divided United Methodists for decades revolving around evangelism, church planting, the Great Commission, Sunday school curriculum, and even the most fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. Those moving into the GM Church believe clergy (and indeed all Christians) should be able to recite the Apostles’ Creed without holding crossed fingers behind our back or reinterpreting the words to mean something other than what they say.
One way this doctrinal pluralism manifests itself is through disagreements over the understanding and interpretation of Scripture. Is the Bible “the true rule and guide for faith and practice” we say it is in our doctrinal standards (Confession of Faith, Article IV)? The United Methodist Church affirms, “Whatever is not revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor is it to be taught as essential to salvation” (Ibid). Yet, many bishops, clergy, and UM leaders, for example, want to rewrite the biblical understanding of marriage taught in Scripture (e.g., Matthew 19:2-9) and ignore or countermand the explicit teaching of Scripture that same-sex relationships are not in keeping with God’s design for human relationships (e.g., Romans 1:21-27; I Corinthians 6:9-11). Some high-profile United Methodist leaders would go so far as to relegate whole chunks of the Bible to the category of “they never reflected God’s timeless will.”
This disregard for the clear teaching of Scripture undermines its authority. If the Bible can be wrong about one important aspect of Christian theology, can it be wrong about other aspects of faith? The Bible should be our authority for what to believe, not what aspects of Scripture we accept as God’s self-revelation and what aspects we ignore. In the latter case, we become the authority for our own faith. But that approach contradicts what we say we believe as United Methodists. We would no longer be true to our Wesleyan understanding.
The theological crisis manifests itself most clearly right now in attempts to officially contradict Scripture by affirming same-sex relationships. We don’t vote at General Conference on the deity of Jesus or whether God performs miracles. But that crisis also manifests itself every time a pastor preaches an Easter sermon without reference to the resurrection or communicates that the way to salvation is “doing all the good you can” apart from Jesus’ atoning death on the cross.
For decades, our denomination has been able to muddle through despite all these theological differences. What has cast the church into an existential turning point now is the second crisis, an ecclesiastical crisis.
Ecclesiastical Crisis
The short description of our ecclesiastical crisis is that The United Methodist Church has now become unable to function by the processes and rules set by our church constitution. Over the years, bishops and other leaders who disagreed with the church’s teachings have increasingly turned a blind eye to violations of that teaching. The unwillingness to hold one another accountable to the teachings and practices of the church is the acid that has eaten away the foundation of our denomination.
In 2002, then-Bishop Joseph Sprague published a book, Affirmations of a Dissenter, that reinterpreted or denied many of the main tenets of Christianity. A complaint was filed against him for “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrine of The United Methodist Church.” Those in charge of adjudicating that complaint took no disciplinary action against Sprague. Apparently, his beliefs were within the pluralistic realm of United Methodist faith.
Over the last 20 years, the accountability processes for clergy and bishops have broken down. Bishops have decided to circumvent the process by “resolving” complaints with little or no discipline for clergy who violate our church’s requirements. By the same token, complaints against bishops are “resolved” with no accountability by those bishops and church leaders entrusted with upholding the church’s Discipline. Bishops and leaders are only willing to enforce those provisions they agree with.
In 2016, the denomination appeared ready to unravel at General Conference. As a last-ditch effort to preserve unity, General Conference authorized a Commission on the Way Forward to figure out a solution and bring it to a special 3-day General Conference to be held in 2019. Contrary to the wishes and lobbying of many U.S. bishops, the 2019 General Conference reaffirmed once again the church’s historic stance on the definition of marriage and the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians. It further added accountability provisions to ensure that the church’s clergy and bishops would abide by the church’s teachings.
In response, many U.S. bishops and annual conferences publicly apologized for the conference’s decision and sought to distance themselves from it. More than half the U.S. annual conferences passed resolutions repudiating the decision of General Conference, with at least 11 saying they would not abide by it. Several annual conferences in spring 2019 ordained persons as clergy who did not meet the denomination’s qualifications. One European central conference removed the church’s teachings from its Social Principles. Another European annual conference and the whole U.S. Western Jurisdiction began looking into the possibility of separating from the UM Church because they disagreed with the General Conference stance.
Faced with this widespread rebellion against church teaching in parts of the U.S. and Western Europe, a group of bishops and church leaders representing traditionalist, centrist, and progressive theological perspectives agreed to a proposal for amicable separation. Called the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, this proposal provided a clear and amicable way for traditionalist congregations and clergy to leave the UM Church, allowing the church to then change its teaching to accommodate a progressive understanding. (For more analysis on why traditionalists are willing to be the ones to move to a new church, despite the current Discipline upholding a traditionalist position, see this article.)
The Protocol was poised to pass at the May 2020 General Conference. With the pandemic causing the postponement of General Conference, finally now until 2024, progressives became increasingly impatient to move the church in a progressive direction. Several annual conferences adopted vision statements that stated they would now start “living into” the future they envisioned, despite the fact that the provisions in the Discipline remain unchanged.
Some individual bishops began taking punitive actions against traditionalist clergy, removing them from their appointments and in some cases even expelling them from the denomination without due process or trial. None of these bishops has been held accountable for their actions. There are bishops now who are openly stating that the General Conference (the only body empowered by our church constitution to make decisions for the whole denomination) can no longer adequately govern the church.
We have evolved to the point in our denomination that the actions and decisions of General Conference can be ignored with impunity by bishops and annual conferences that disagree. Bishops have become a law unto themselves within their own annual conferences, not subject to accountability to other bishops or the broader church. Decisions of the Judicial Council can be ignored. The third postponement of General Conference indicates that the power of institutional preservation of the status quo is greater than the inclination to move into a healthier future. Many progressives and centrists seem increasingly uninterested in an amicable way to allow separation to occur. Instead, many seem to want to punish traditionalists for holding the beliefs that we have and at the same time doing whatever they can to delay or prevent traditionalist clergy and churches from separating from the UM Church in order to join a GM Church that more faithfully represents our faith perspective.
End Game
Where does this leave us, besides in a mess? Given the theological and ecclesiastical dysfunction of the church, many traditionalists are no longer able to wait for General Conference to pass the Protocol. The longer the delay, the less likely its adoption becomes. Meanwhile, theologically conservative church members are leaving our churches and clergy are retiring or leaving the church. Hundreds of churches have requested disaffiliation from the UM Church this year, with hundreds more contemplating that possibility over the next 24 months, even before General Conference meets.
To accommodate this groundswell of departures and to prevent the loss of these congregations to Methodism, the Global Methodist Church has announced it will launch on May 1 of this year. As last week’s Perspective explained, there are ways for a church to move to the GM Church with its property and assets intact. In some annual conferences, the way may be prohibitively expensive, but it is still possible.
Hopefully, the narrative in this article helps explain why many churches are willing to do what they must in order to separate from the UM Church.
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Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News
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by Steve | Mar 18, 2022 | In the News
By Thomas Lambrecht
The third postponement of General Conference until 2024 and the announced launch of the Global Methodist Church on May 1, 2022, have set off a storm of interest and controversy. Faced with the reality that a new denomination is moving forward without the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, many questions answered by the Protocol are now uncertain.
Some individuals and churches are almost in panic mode, thinking that they have to make a decision right now (or at least by May 1). Others are just waking up to the fact that separation is taking place in the UM Church.
Important Timeline Considerations
First, it is important to understand that the launching of the Global Methodist Church on May 1 is just the starting point for that new denomination, not a deadline. Beginning May 1, the GM Church will be able to receive congregations, clergy, and annual conferences into its membership. There is no deadline for a congregation, clergy person, or annual conference to join the GM Church. It will be open to receiving members and churches from other denominations whenever they want to join, with no endpoint.
There are some local churches that have already withdrawn from the UM Church that will be positioned to join the GM Church on May 1. There may also be non-UM churches of a Wesleyan heritage who are also able to join on May 1. The vast majority of churches will take time over the next few years to move into the GM Church.
We understand that there are probably more than 100 churches across the U.S. that have already requested disaffiliation so far in 2022. These churches have been moving through a disaffiliation process guided by ¶ 2553 in the Discipline that requires apportionment and pension liability payments. These churches will need to have their disaffiliation approved by their annual conference meeting in May or June. They will not move into the GM Church until they receive that annual conference approval.
Now that the door is open to join the GM Church after May 1, there will be hundreds more local churches that will apply for disaffiliation over the next year. They will also have to move through the disaffiliation process set by their annual conference and bishop. This will again require approval by their annual conference, either at a special session called sometime near the end of 2022 or at their regular session in spring of 2023 (for the U.S. – the time frame for churches outside the U.S. may be different). Thus, this wave of churches would not be able to join the GM Church until the end of 2022 or the middle of 2023.
Then, as things develop for the GM Church and the UM Church has a chance to further define itself, there will be other congregations down the road that make the decision to move into the GM Church. It is important to note that the provisions of ¶ 2553 expire at the end of 2023, meaning that churches withdrawing under that paragraph need to do so before their annual conference session in 2023. However, there are other avenues in the Discipline that allow local churches to move to the GM Church (see below).
The bottom line is that there is no need to panic or make a rushed decision. Churches can take the time they need to evaluate their situation and the options available to them and make a prayerful, well-considered decision about their future. The doorway into the GM Church will always be open!
¶ 2553 Vs. ¶ 2548.2
There are two main ways that churches can disaffiliate from the UM Church and move into the GM Church: ¶ 2553 that was adopted at the 2019 special General Conference and ¶ 2548.2 that has been in the Discipline since 1948. What is the difference between the two?
¶ 2553 was adopted in 2019 as a way for churches that disagree with the denomination’s position on LGBT ordination or same-sex marriage (or with their annual conference’s response to the denomination’s position) to withdraw from the UM Church. The focus here is on withdrawing to become an independent congregation, after which the church might decide to align with a different denomination, such as the GM Church. Almost all the churches that have withdrawn under ¶ 2553 have become independent and not aligned with another denomination (so far).
¶ 2553 requires that the departing congregation pay two years’ apportionments and the total amount of its unfunded pension liability to the annual conference before departing. Approval for withdrawal requires a two-thirds vote of the church members voting at a church conference, the conference board of trustees, and a majority vote of the annual conference. The local church would then be able to keep its property, assets, and liabilities as it continues forward as an independent congregation or decides to align with another denomination.
¶ 2548.2 was originally adopted in 1948 to facilitate the transfer to other denominations of church facilities that no longer were able to serve a changing community by remaining United Methodist. The paragraph allows the annual conference to transfer (“deed”) the church’s property to a denomination represented in the Pan-Methodist Commission (five African-American Methodist denominations) or “another evangelical denomination.” Instead of moving into an independent status, the congregation would move from the UM Church directly into the GM Church.
¶ 2548.2 does not require specific monetary payments. Other paragraphs in the Discipline require the congregation’s share of unfunded pension liabilities be cared for. Wespath has expressed openness to these liabilities being covered by a promissory note secured by a lien on the church’s assets, rather than an upfront payment in full (see below). This approach would relieve one of the major financial barriers to especially smaller local churches wanting to move to the GM Church, but it requires annual conference approval of this approach. ¶ 2548.2 does not specify a threshold for local church approval of this transfer, so it could allow a simple majority vote by the church’s members. The transfer requires approval by the bishop, the district superintendents, the district board of church location and building, and the annual conference. The local church’s property, assets, and liabilities would be transferred to the GM Church, which would then release them to the local congregation because the GM Church has no trust clause.
Some annual conferences have put additional requirements on the disaffiliation process under ¶ 2553 (and could under ¶ 2548.2), such as an extended discernment period for the local church or payment of a percentage of the church’s property value. Some annual conferences at their upcoming sessions will be considering proposed policies that would govern the terms of local church disaffiliation under ¶¶ 2553 or 2548.2.
In the interest for an amicable resolution of our denominational division, the use of a promissory note for pension liabilities and the elimination of extra financial terms (additional apportionments, percentage of property value) would help by not placing undue hurdles in the way of local churches that want to move to the GM Church. With a vision for maintaining a heart of peace, it should be as easy and fair as possible for churches to move to where they want to be. Congregations should not feel as though they are being coerced into remaining United Methodist.
What about Pension liability?
In my Perspective two weeks ago, I wrote, “[¶ 2548.2] allows pension liabilities to be transferred to the local church or to the other evangelical denomination.” In another place, I stated, “a local church can carry its pension liability with it” into the GM Church. I need to clarify those statements, and in one respect, I was incorrect.
There are two ways that a church’s share of its annual conference’s unfunded pension liability (an amount roughly 4-7 times their annual apportionment) could be cared for. One way is an upfront cash payment by the church to the annual conference. Churches either would have to raise the money to make the payment or, in some instances, may be able to borrow that money as secured by their property.
The other way to care for the pension liability would be for the church to enter into a promissory note in the amount of the liability, secured by a lien on the church’s property. There would only be payments on that note if the annual conference needed to make payments to Wespath to cover unfunded liabilities. (This would normally only happen in case of a severe economic downturn.) The advantage of this approach is there would be no large upfront payment that could price many churches out of the possibility of withdrawing. Payments would only be made when there was a need for the money to cover pensions, which happens very rarely. The annual conference, as the pension plan sponsor, would need to approve this approach.
The UM annual conference would still have the pension liability, and the withdrawing local church’s share of that pension liability would still be owed to the UM annual conference. But with the promissory note approach, the church would only pay money to the annual conference when it is needed. In a recent FAQ document, Wespath allowed this approach. “While paragraph 1504.23 mandates a pension withdrawal payment, it does not address the timing of the payment under all potential paths of separation…. [U]nder paragraph 2548.2, while the payment is due in full, the annual conference in its sole discretion, may agree to adjust the timing of the payment.”
As currently envisioned, the Global Methodist Church would not assume any responsibility for unfunded pension liability. It would attach only to each local church, which would only make payments when the funds are needed. (I apologize for this incorrect information.)
As people process the options available to them, we will be dealing with many more questions that arise. There is no reason to have all the answers immediately. Take the time to research the answers. View the Global Methodist Church website for much information (globalmethodist.org).
See these two recent articles:
The process for Congregations to join the Global Methodist Church
How clergy align with the Global Methodist Church
More articles from the GM Church will be forthcoming. Feel free to email us with your questions. Stay tuned for more informative articles in the future.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News. Photo from Shutterstock.
by Steve | Mar 17, 2022 | In the News
Dr. George G. Hunter III is the founding dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Now retired, he is the author of numerous books dealing with evangelism, mission, church growth, and ministry.
In 2000, he published The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach The West … Again (Abingdon). Steve Beard sat down with Hunter to talk about Celtic faith, spirituality, imagination, and the supernatural. This interview first appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Good News.
What inspired you to investigate Celtic Christianity?
For longstanding reasons – partly subconscious, perhaps rooted in my genetic makeup or ancestral memory – I have always been more interested in ancient Celtic Christianity than practically any other Protestant that I know.
Four or five years ago a book came out called How the Irish Saved Civilization written by Thomas Cahill, a cracker-jack historian. It stirred my interest in the expansion of Celtic Christianity. He tells the story of how Patrick’s evangelization of Ireland developed an alternative way of doing church and reaching people. Cahill describes how the Celtic monks copied decaying scrolls on to new scrolls and thereby kept much of the Greek and Roman learning of antiquity alive – thereby “saving civilization.” The monks rescued learning from the oblivion of the Dark Ages when the Vandals, Franks, Frisians, Goths, Visigoths, and other “barbaric” peoples overwhelmed the Roman Empire and destroyed the libraries. The Celtic monks kept “civilization” alive.
Cahill tells the story of how people – joining apostolic leaders such as Patrick, Columba, Columbanus, Aidan and others – reached one barbaric population after another across Britain and western Europe. They did this even though the Roman branch of the church thought it was “impossible.” The Romans thought that barbarians could not be Christians. The Celtic movement proved you could evangelize people first and civilize them second.
Then a book came out about three years ago by Anglican Bishop John Finney entitled Recovering the Past. Finney profiles the Celtic movement’s basic mission approach. My book spells out much more specifically how the Celtic Christian movement reached and discipled the barbaric population of Europe.
How do you see this relating to Christianity in the 21st century?
I see, all around us, the rise of “new barbarian” populations. These are the people whose lives are sometimes out of control – driven by compulsion or hijacked by substance abuse. Growing numbers of people have a “rough edge.” If they came to church, they wouldn’t know when to stand up, sit down, or what to say to the pastor afterwards. They wouldn’t know how to find II Kings or II Corinthians. If they said anything, they might split an infinitive or utter an expletive! There are a growing number of people, across the whole western world, who aren’t quite refined and aren’t always nice. Over the years, I have observed that almost all churches overlook those populations. At least nine out of ten churches I’ve worked with will never get around to offering the Christian faith to people who aren’t already sufficiently “civilized” by the church’s standards. Most churches never reach out to people who aren’t “refined” enough to feel comfortable with us, or to people who are too out of control for us to feel comfortable with them.
What kind of rethinking must take place in the modern-day church in order to learn from the Celts?
First, the church probably needs to entertain the idea, as though for the first time, that lost people matter to God, including people who are not “like us” or recognizable “good” church people.
Second, within our Wesleyan tradition, people need to entertain a fresh understanding of the doctrine of prevenient grace. The Holy Spirit is working through the events and circumstances of people’s lives to awaken receptivity to the gospel. If we believe that lost and out-of-control people matter to God and that the Holy Spirit is already initiating an engagement with them, some of the other things will follow.
Sometimes when I’m leading a seminar I’ll ask people if they remember their first kiss? Most people will raise their hands. I ask, “Did you really know what you were doing?” Then, I ask, “Did that stop you from doing it?” Of course it didn’t. The point is that love finds a way. I discovered that the way forward with out-of-control populations today is astonishingly consistent with some of the ways Patrick, Columba, Aidan, Columbanus, Brigid, Hilda and others found to reach the “barbarians” of their time.
You write at length about the “new barbarians” in your book. Tell us more about them, particularly those with addictions.
This is a much more vast population than most church leaders are aware of. Vast numbers of people have a genetic vulnerability for addiction, like other people have a genetic vulnerability to diabetes. But we now know about the added factor that drugs, some more than others, change the chemistry of the brain at varying rates in a way to induce a lifetime of “craving.” At that point a person’s life is, more or less, hijacked and, by themselves, cannot always control what they do. They experience unspeakable guilt and shame, and a profound spiritual battle that the Evil One and the demons exploit.
Years ago, I heard Art Glasser, who taught mission theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, say, “The form that possessive destructive evil takes varies from one generation to another and from one culture to another. It’s most dominant form in our culture and this generation is addiction.” The more I circulate, the more convinced I became that Glasser was right.
In most every city you can find a church or two that steps out of polite conventionality and targets those lost, hijacked people. Likewise, you can find churches that have a dozen, or even a hundred, 12-step meetings at different times of the week in various places.
Some of these churches are invading enemy territory and visiting people in bars and high drug-use neighborhoods, rediscovering that the “sower goes forth to sow the seed of God’s word.”
Addiction can be attached to alcohol, nicotine, heroin, crack cocaine, or even sex. Millions of people live lives out of control; addiction is destroying them inch by inch. These people matter to God. Christ died for them and the power of the Holy Spirit is available to them. Tragically, the Church has what they need, but most churches aren’t offering it to the people who need it most.
Nevertheless, the Recovery Movement is the “underground awakening” of this generation. More people are discovering the grace of God for the first time in their lives through a recovery ministry than through all of the evangelism programs combined. As a professor of evangelism and church growth I had to take that seriously.
Some might flinch at the notion of welcoming out-of-control segments of our society into “perfectly good” congregations. It sounds a bit explosive and adventuresome. Is risk-taking part of Celtic Christianity?
Yes. The gospel song about the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep has the other 99 sheep safe in the fold while the shepherd searches. But that is not the way Jesus’ parable reads. The parable has the 99 huddled together in the wilderness while the shepherd leaves them to hunt for the lost sheep! The parable suggests there is some inherent risk in being a Christian.
Within the Celtic outreach model, people are being grounded in Christian truth and spiritual disciplines, are part of a small group, and they reach out in teams. If these elements are held, probably no one will be lost to “the other side.” But when we keep the people in the church – to eliminate all risk, we rob them of the greatest adventure – following Christ as his ambassadors in the real world.
Celtic Christianity appears to invest heavily in creativity, imagination, and spiritual experience rather than merely spiritual knowledge. Does that play a role in their evangelism and ministry?
Yes. There is now more latitude, and more need, to be creative in how we “do church” and present the gospel. That means engaging people with the gospel in lots of different ways in addition to preaching and didactic teaching. The approach involves culturally relevant music, using the people’s language rather than church’s traditional language, employing poetry, drama, and the visual arts. More and more churches are discovering a kind of multi-media approach to dramatize the gospel in as many different ways as they can. The key to this is allowing the “rebirth” of our imagination.
As the enlightenment has faded, western humanity appears to rely less on logic and reason – we are speaking of differences of degree – and relies more on imagination and experience. The Celtic movement would coach today’s communicator to engage people through their imaginations in a range of creative ways. You maximize the possibility that people will get the message and they’ll discover the beginning gift of faith.
Celtic Christianity also seems to emphasize the interconnectedness between life and theology in a more profound way than most churches today. The Celtic cross incorporates a circle in the center, representing our physical world and nature. The Celtic prayers acknowledge the every-dayness of life and its connectedness to theology.
The Celtic movement presents a whole range of options for our churches. Celtic Christianity was enormously more “culture friendly” than the Roman branch of the church. It even believed that you could find things in the people’s primal religion that could be used to help interpret the gospel. They believed that the gospel came not to destroy but to fulfill the prior religious aspirations and some of the experiences of the people. Celtic Christians believed that the High God that their neighbors believed in – who was unavailable – had indeed come to us and is one with us in Jesus Christ.
Celtic Christians were also “nature friendly,” believing that the animals and birds and fish of the fields, forests, jungles, and rivers are more kin to us than the Roman branch of the church believed – which took a kind of exploitative approach to nature. Defenders of the Roman branch of the church will point to figures like Francis of Assisi. However, Francis discovered Christianity’s love for animals from the Celtic monastery at Bobbio, just a few miles from Assisi, which had been founded by Columbanus.
One aspect of Celtic Christianity is an openness to spiritual warfare. There also seem to be many more episodes of what John Wimber called “power encounters” or supernatural displays of God’s power – healings, deliverances, dreams and visions.
This issue would need to be nuanced very carefully. Compared to present-day traditional western Christianity, Celtic Christianity emphasizes much more experience, the revelation of God through dreams, the power of intercessory prayer, etc. There also appears to have been a significantly greater emphasis on healing – physical, spiritual, and emotional healing – than what we usually find in the church down the street.
When it comes to what Wimber called power encounter, its cousin exorcisms, and some of the other Halloween-oriented ministries, those appear to have been occasional projects of the Celtic movement. They would do it when necessary but they didn’t count it necessary very often. It appears there were such ministries but they were episodic. The later “hagiographers,” who wrote about the lives of the saints, were enormously more interested in spiritual warfare than the saints had been!
Yet even in the Celtic prayers, you read a greater sense of the recognition of the Evil One, of dark forces. Perhaps it was because they were surrounded by Druid culture, but even its written liturgical prayers reflect far more of a cosmic struggle than what we see in mainline, denominational Christianity.
Yes, they certainly had a more vivid sense of the supernatural. They had a vivid sense of the presence of God and a vivid sense of all three persons of the Trinity. They had a vivid sense that we are to pray without ceasing. It meant praying into each situation, and their prayer life reflected their awareness of evil forces in their midst. Part of their life of prayer was to be protected from the Evil One and delivered from the powers of sin, evil, and death. Frankly, I have learned to pray for protection; Christians who are in denial of the presence of evil are more vulnerable than they know.
How would a local church adopt a more Celtic way of “doing church?”
I would recommend adopting the four-fold Celtic approach to preparing people for ministry. It appears to me to be vastly more sophisticated and effective than anything now being attempted in most churches.
First, every person in a monastic community spent some time in solitude, out in nature. They had a saying, “Go and sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Patrick himself discovered the presence of God, that he had learned about in the catechism, in the midst of nature. The Celts believed that time alone in nature is indispensable for triggering a God-consciousness.
Second, everyone had a soul friend. This is not a superior such as a spiritual director, but more like a peer with whom one could be totally vulnerable.
Third, most Celtic Christians were members of a small group who met weekly. Ten or fewer people were led by a person who was most chosen for his or her transparent devoutness.
Fourth, everyone was involved in the life of the monastic community – worship, and Scripture memorization, etc. A great many illiterate Celtic Christians knew all 150 psalms by heart because they rehearsed 30 psalms a day; as a community, every five days, they rehearsed all the psalms.
Everyone, in the community, was involved in ministry with seekers. At some point in their development they would be a seeker’s soul friend, or they would observe and help a seeker in their small group who was discovering faith.
That fourfold approach – solitude, soul friends, small group, and ministry of the community – including ministry with seekers – appears to be a potent synergizing combination to produce contagious saints than any of the “improvements” in the last 12 centuries.
What kind of ministry did the Celts have to seekers?
It was, essentially, the “ministry of hospitality.” The monastic community would simply admit into its ranks people who had not yet discovered the gift of faith. The community seems to have believed Christianity was more caught than taught. The people were more likely to catch it in the community of faith rather than by being left to their own devices in the world. That strategy was recovered by Wesley in 18th century Methodism. The Celts, and the later Methodists, welcomed and involved seekers who hadn’t yet experienced justification.
In the book, I feature 18th century Methodism as a historic case of “unconscious reappropriation” of the Celtic Christian vision. I’ve read all of Wesley’s writings and cannot find much evidence that he consciously drew upon ancient Celtic Christian materials. A number of those themes, such as small groups, hospitality and imagination, were by that time in the DNA or ancestral memory of British Christianity. From time to time, various movements in the Christian community have rediscovered and reinserted those themes.
The current Alpha course is a more recent case of a movement reappropriating many Celtic Christian outreach principles without being fully aware of their ancient source.
You spent time in Ireland, Scotland, and England – at places like Iona –while preparing your book. Many people seem to be doing that. Why?
I think that Celtic Christianity virtually invented the pilgrimage, and our generation has rediscovered its subtle power. The Celts believed that the “veil” between earth and heaven is much “thinner” in places historically associated with a monastic community, or faithful preaching or service, or conversion of a tribe. We experience, in ways we cannot fully explain, that we are more likely to experience God at Iona, or Lindisfarne, or Glendalough, than at Rupp Arena or downtown Manhattan.
This interview appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Good News. Featured image from Shutterstock.
by Steve | Mar 15, 2022 | March/April 2022
By Rob Renfroe
In 1875 a remarkable woman was born. Her name was Mary McLeod Bethune. Both her parents had been slaves. At the age of five she began working in the fields. But as a young girl, she took an interest in her own education and found a way to attend a small, one-room, segregated school in South Carolina.
After graduating, she attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. She returned to the south and began to teach. But she didn’t stop there. She believed God was calling her to start a college for black students so they could receive a quality education – and so the world could see just how brilliant and beautiful young black men and women could be.
“If our people are to fight their way up out of bondage we must arm them with the sword and the shield and buckler of pride – belief in themselves and their possibilities, based upon a sure knowledge of the achievements of the past,” Bethune wrote in 1938.
She didn’t let the cost of starting a private school for African American students stop her. She didn’t let what others said stop her. She didn’t let the fact that she was young or black or a woman stop her. The spirit within her was not a spirit of timidity and fear. It was a spirit of strength and power. And in 1904 at the age of 29, Mary Bethune founded what would become Bethune-Cookman University.
In 1941, Dr. Bethune wrote an essay entitled “Faith That Moved A Dump Heap” to explain the origins and inspiration of her trailblazing school. The article’s title comes from the fact that the only land available was an undesirable plot that had become the town’s dump site called “Hell’s Hole.” She was able to raise the money to purchase the land through the sales of sweet potato pies and homemade ice cream to work crews.
Through her pioneering work and God-given vision, the first building on that land was called “Faith Hall.”
“We burned logs and used charred splinters as pencils, and mashed elderberries for ink. I begged strangers for a broom, a lamp, a bit of cretonne to put around the packing case which served as my desk,” she wrote in her essay. “I haunted the city dump and trash piles behind hotels, retrieving discarded linen and kitchenware, cracked dishes, broken chairs, pieces of old lumber. Everything was scoured and mended. This was part of the training – to salvage, to reconstruct, to make bricks without straw.”
For twenty years as a college president, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune made the most of her remarkable ability to inspire young people to dream their own dreams, overcome their own obstacles, and win their own battles. At the graduation exercises each year she would send her students into the world with these words: “Faith ought not be a puny thing. If you believe, have faith like a giant. And may God grant you not peace, but glory.”
It was Bethune’s way of telling her students that the battles that matter and the causes that are worthy of our lives are rarely accomplished without difficulty, courage, and sacrifice. You can live a comfortable life or you can live a great life. You can live an easy life or you can live a glorious life. Now, which do you think you were created for? Peace – or glory?
As Jesus saw the cross approaching, he told his disciples: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:23-24).
Jesus told the disciples he was about to be glorified and then began to talk about his death. Boys, if you want to see glory, keep your eyes open because it’s about to be on display. It will look like a man hanging on a cross. It will look like a back torn apart by thirty-nine lashes. It will look like blood flowing from a crown of thorns. It will look like a man who is exhausted and spent, struggling for breath. It will look like suffering and sacrifice, like giving your life to do the Father’s will and bring blessing to others.
We can live a life of peace and comfort. Or we can live a life that is great and glorious. But we cannot do both. We can live for self or we can live for others. We can protect ourselves from the pain of this world or we can step into that pain, knowing that it will cause us to suffer as we try to help others. We can endeavor to create for ourselves a paradise on earth or we can go to the hell holes of this world and do the difficult things that will bring hope and redemption to those who are lost. Now which do you think we were created for?
To those who are doing the difficult work of being a loved-one’s caretaker, setting aside your own needs and plans, and often unseen as you do it – that’s glory.
To those who are loving a child with special needs or being crushed by the weight of trying to help a teenager or a young adult overcome the power of an addiction – that’s glory.
To teachers, first-responders, and health-care providers who have been overwhelmed over the past two years and who have been tempted to quit, but you are still at your post because you know we need you – that’s glory.
To pastors who have and who continue to provide care for those who are struggling; to pastors who are tired and weary because of all the extra strain created by the pandemic; to pastors who have seen the attendance of their churches decline and who have watched members leave over the past two years but who work as hard as ever to prepare sermons that are encouraging and inspiring – that’s glory.
To churches that have expanded their ministries during the pandemic to those who are hungry, homeless, and struggling with mental illnesses; to churches that have overcome the natural tendency to turn inward during a time of stress and uncertainty and that have decided to be here for others – that’s glory.
To faithful pastors who find themselves demeaned and ostracized by their progressive peers and a liberal bishop, but who continue to stay strong, love all, and exemplify joy – that’s glory.
To those who overcome their fear and give generously, even sacrificially, to ministries that are bringing the Gospel to the lost, caring for the poor, and defending the faith, whether the amount is large or small – that’s glory.
We often think of greatness as being seen and celebrated. Doing big things and being recognized by others. But Jesus thought of glory as being a servant, remaining faithful, and sacrificing ourselves so some part of this world is made better, more the way the Father wants it to be.
So, I join Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and our Lord Jesus, and I wish for you and for our church, not peace but glory.
