by Steve | Aug 27, 2021 | In the News, Magazine
Photo Courtesy of Alex Grodkiewicz(Unsplash).
By Thomas Lambrecht –
In a sermon preached in the run-up to the 2019 General Conference, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky (Greater Northwest Episcopal Area) promoted the One Church Plan and her vision for the inclusiveness of the church. That vision reflects the understanding of the majority of centrists and progressives in United Methodism. Her sermon is not a systematic treatment of the idea of inclusiveness, but it contains some perspectives and assertions that illustrate the theological gulf existing in United Methodism today. (Thanks to Scott Fritzsche , United Methodist blogger, for pointing out this sermon.)
Handling Scripture
Stanovsky outlines how she believes we ought to read and use the Bible in our theology. “When it comes to the Bible, people make choices about how they listen to what they find there; which stories they let shape and inform their lives, and which they let fade into the background of timebound inscrutability. … People are looking for a biblical story to emerge that deserves to be called ‘good news.’ And when they go searching in the Bible, some passages speak to them, and others they set aside. … The challenge for people like you and me is to find the Good News in the Bible. When we find that, we can let the rest recede into the background.”
There is no question that some passages of Scripture speak more clearly and meaningfully to our current circumstances than other passages do. That is why we can read the Bible today and find something fresh and relevant to our lives that we never saw before, or at least that never spoke to us in the same way before. God’s Word is truly “living and active!”
At the same time, we cannot let our personal, devotional reading of Scripture be the end of our theological engagement with the Bible. Stanovsky notes that the Bible “is so thick and has so many stories, you can find almost any message there.” Reading it only for “what speaks to me” runs the risk of finding in Scripture only what we want to see. Reading it “to find the Good News in the Bible” puts us in the position of determining what “good news” is. We become the arbiters of what the Bible means and teaches, which means we have just created our own personalized religion.
Throughout the history of the Church, it has been recognized that the Bible cannot be simply the property of individuals to make of it what they will. Rather, the Bible is to be interpreted and understood by the Church as a whole, in community. A good example of that is the first Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). The apostles and elders gathered together to discuss and determine what the teaching and moral stance of the church would be, based on Scripture as understood collectively. And the “collective” that interprets Scripture is not limited to just certain Christian scholars and leaders of the church in one nation at one time. Rather, the collective extends back 2,000 years through the history of the church and across the globe.
Stanovsky’s and others’ approach to Scripture makes it easy to “set aside” biblical teachings we do not want to hear or that do not fit our preconceived idea of what the Christian faith is all about. In this case, it enables her to set aside the passages in the Bible that speak about the meaning of marriage and sexuality because they do not agree with her understanding of inclusiveness. She and others can put aside 3,000 years of consistent biblical understanding by both Judaism and the Christian Church in favor of whatever they define as “good news” for today. Our different approaches to Scripture yield a deep difference in theology and moral teaching, particularly in this area of inclusiveness.
All Means All
Stanovsky states, “Some leaders in our Church are asserting that homosexuality is a sin, and that people who choose a life of sin should not be fully accepted in the Church.” She sees the Traditional Plan that was eventually adopted by the 2019 General Conference as “a desperate attempt to define once and for all who is ‘inside’ and who is ‘out.’”
This is a misunderstanding of the traditional position. For traditionalists, it is not a matter of people being accepted in the church or not. Rather, it is a matter of what behavior promotes God-ordained human flourishing and what does not. By performing same-sex marriages, blessing same-sex unions, and ordaining partnered gays and lesbians, the church would be sanctioning relationships that the Bible does not.
Stanovsky goes on, “But in the Bible, in the ‘good news’ section of the Bible, Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them.’ … He invites tax collectors, a woman with a flow of blood, a lame man, a blind man, raving lunatics, lepers, women of questionable reputation, people on their death beds, Samaritans, … a Roman military commander, an Ethiopian Eunuch. … In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest’” (emphasis original). In keeping with her approach to the Bible, Stanovsky accepts these “good news” parts of the Bible, while setting aside other parts of the Bible that might contradict or at least temper this message of inclusion.
Stanovsky’s application of these parts of Scripture confuses welcome and invitation with discipleship. Jesus (and by extension the Church) does and ought to welcome and invite all people to come and follow Jesus. The front door of the Church ought to be wide open to everyone.
Once in the door, however, the invitation is to a life of transformative discipleship. The cliché expression is that Jesus accepts us as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way.
The provocative illustration of this insight is the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14). In the story, a king invites many people to a wedding banquet for his son. But the people invited do not show up, despite repeated invitations and pleading. So, the king tells his servants to “go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” They “gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
The first group of potential guests refused to come and thereby excluded themselves from God’s reign. The second group, both bad and good, came to the feast as they were, where the king provided them with wedding clothes to wear. But one guest refused to put on the provided wedding clothes. He was unwilling to change. He was good enough as he was, he thought. But he excluded himself from God’s reign by his reliance on his own goodness. “For many are invited, but few [show by their response that they] are chosen.”
The invitation to come to Jesus is all-inclusive. None of us is able to come on our own, apart from the grace of God. We do not rely on our own goodness or merit, but only on the grace and mercy of our crucified and risen Lord.
Entering God’s reign, however, is for those who respond to the invitation in faith and obedience to the way of discipleship. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
I make no judgment here about any individual person’s standing with God. Thankfully, the Lord determines who is “in” and who is “out.” The point is that not everyone will be saved – a tragic reality that ought to spur our motivation to share the faith with everyone in both word and deed. It is the Church’s job to teach and proclaim the faith, realizing that not everyone will respond. To focus in that task on inclusion without fostering obedience to God’s will is to miss a big part of the Gospel. An essential element of faith is striving to do God’s will and live in a way that pleases him.
Of course, it is nearly impossible perfectly and consistently to do the will of our heavenly Father. One of the most popular Methodist sayings is that “we are going on to perfection.” (Translation: we just blew it!) Stanovsky acknowledges this when she says, “In this way, God works in us and through us, to guide us toward loving with a perfect love. To be made perfect in love in this life.” Striving toward perfect love is required of all who would name the name of Christ.
That perfect love is made manifest in obedience to God. As Jesus said, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:10). Or as John puts it, “If anyone obeys [Christ’s] word, love for God is truly made complete in them” (I John 2:5).
The Point of Our Disagreement
We somewhat agree on the goal: everyone is invited, and we ought to strive to be made perfect in love by doing God’s will. The disagreement is not over inclusion – who is “in” and who is “out” – but over what God’s will is. Centrists and progressives believe it is God’s will for same-sex attracted persons to be able to live out and express their sexuality as they feel inclined with persons of the same sex. Traditionalists believe that we ought to all live out our sexuality within the boundaries of monogamous, heterosexual marriage, according to God’s will expressed in the consistent teaching of Scripture.
I could respond further to other aspects of Stanovsky’s sermon. Fritzsche in the post linked up above demonstrates how Stanovsky (and many progressives and centrists) do not take proper account of the doctrine of original sin and its effects on human sexuality.
But I think the core of the disagreement over inclusiveness is confusion between hospitality and discipleship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian during World War II, famously wrote in The Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” The Church’s job is not to be hospitable and make us comfortable with the way we are or to feel content in our sin. Rather, it’s job is to invite us to be crucified with Christ – putting to death the old person with its sinful habits and shortcomings – and be raised to a new life in Christ – by his grace putting on a new self that is clothed in the fruit of the Spirit and living in perfect harmony with God’s intention for a life of human flourishing.
No one ought to be under the illusion that it is easy to be a Christian. We all have our sins and wounds to overcome (hence, the importance in holding to the doctrine of original sin). As another cliché puts it, we are all on level ground at the foot of the cross. None of us can make this discipleship journey by our own strength. We need the supernatural power of God at work in us, and we need the encouragement and accountability of each other in the Body of Christ. It is simply our failure to agree on the standards we are to be accountable to that is leading us to the need to walk separately in different denominations.
by Steve | Aug 26, 2021 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, September/October 2021
“We must go back, way back to our future,” said Bishop Mike Lowry. “We need to go back to the heart of the gospel in its full dimension – both spiritual and social.” Photo by Valerie Johnson (Shutterstock) and modified by Kendall Jablonowski.
By Mike Lowry, Bishop of the Central Texas Conference
The harsh reality is that we are in a post-Christendom age. No longer does the Christian faith, and more specifically the United Methodist Church, assume a leading societal position.
During my first year or so as a bishop, when I would mention that we were in a post-Christian era, clergy would tend to sigh and say, “look we already know this, that’s obvious.” To which I would respond (then and now!) “But I don’t see you changing your behavior. Most of you are operating as if we are still living in a time of Christendom” (i.e. a time of dominant cultural Christianity and influence). When I would make similar observations in a group laity, it almost inevitably sparked passionate discussions about whether this was an accurate or true statement. It would quickly be followed by comments related to the various issues of what we have come to call the “culture wars.”
While there can be no doubt that we are still grappling with various issues of the “culture wars,” I think it is safe today to say that with most of high society, the culture wars are over. In much of American society, traditional cultural Christianity (which is very different from and should not be confused with deep discipled orthodox Christianity!) has largely been defeated. Put bluntly, the cultural wars are largely over, and cultural Christianity lost.
Regardless of where you see yourself and your church on the conservative to liberal (or if you prefer traditional to progressive) spectrum, none of this should be news to us. The challenge of faithfulness is what do we do about this new day and culture in which we find ourselves?
Charles Taylor’s encyclopedic A Secular Age chronicles our movement from a time in history where belief in God was a given that could be assumed to an age where the notion of a transcendent God is one option among many. Closer to earth, in the central part of the State of Texas (the geographical area of the conference I serve), those in regular worship on an average Sunday in the United Methodist Church make up approximately 1.1 percent of the population.
Furthermore, in the eight states of the South Central Jurisdiction of the UM Church, this percentage is roughly average. For a wider view, consider the Washington Post headline: “Church membership in the U.S. has fallen below the majority for the first time in nearly a century.” According to the story, “The proportion of Americans who consider themselves members of a church, synagogue or mosque has dropped below 50 percent … It is the first time that has happened since Gallup first asked the question in 1937, when church membership was 73 percent.”
Gil Rendle, the recently retired Senior Consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation (TMF), has commented about our society that “we are in a moment of seismic shift.” He calls this an anxious time because we need to move ahead without really knowing where we are going. The good folks at TMF talk in terms of “following the North Star of purpose.”
The issue for us is who or what defines and shapes our purpose. For the faithful church of Jesus Christ, the North Star of purpose is driven by the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. For Christians I submit that our purpose should not be driven by our emotions, our preferences, or especially whatever is considered culturally popular (regardless of whether it is progressive or traditional). We will not navigate ourselves out of the morass we are in by the politics of either the left or the right.
“We are, in many ways, a civilization adrift on the stormy seas of relativism and existentialism,” writes Louis Markos in On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis. “The first ‘ism’ has robbed us of any transcendent standard against which we can measure our thoughts, our words, and our deeds; the second has emptied our lives of any higher meaning, purpose, or direction. Our compass is broken and the stars obliterated, and we are left with nothing to navigate by but a vague faith in the modern triad of progress, consumerism, and egalitarianism. They are not enough.”
There is a deep hunger in our times which is at once both counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. Mother Teresa’s comment to a reporter after delivering lectures in America remains strikingly accurate: “I’ve never seen a people so hungry.” Signs of spiritual starvation are all around and yes, even in our churches. We need more than good advice. We need good news! We desperately need the gospel of Jesus Christ!
The truly great news is that this is precisely what God in Christ through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit offers us. We must go back, way back to our future.
Back to Our Future. In the 1989 film Back to the Future II, there is a pivotal scene in which Doc Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) arrives in his DeLorean time machine to take Marty (Michael J. Fox) and Jennifer (Claudia Wells) back to the future. Reluctant to head off on another adventure through time, Marty asks about the urgency. Doc Brown replies: “It’s your kids, Marty. Something’s got to be done about your kids!”
If not for our sake, then at least for the next generation, let us stop this insidious dance with slow decline in the United Methodist Church. We need to go back to the heart of the gospel in its full dimension – both spiritual and social. Make no mistake. To do so will cut uncomfortably across the scarred wasteland of our cultural wars tearing at every single one of us. It will call us back to our primary allegiance to Christ above and beyond political party, financial gain, racial identity, and even nationality.
The cross is not a symbol of execution, but a sign of victory. The grave is not a grief-filled prison, but an empty tomb of triumph. The birth of the church in worship at Pentecost is not a gathering of polite gentle religion, but an assembly of the troops under the leadership of the Risen Lord through the Spirit’s power and presence, saturated in praise to the glory of God.
We need not fear. We have lived through the crisis of decline and massive cultural change before. Just think of the earliest Christians. They were a tiny, persecuted minority which offered a social witness radically different from any of the competing political or social platforms of their day. They understood themselves to be in, but not of, the world. Thus in 2 Peter, what scholars think might have been a baptismal address, we read: “Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
A conviction of being in but not of the world was at the very heart of the Methodist movement. In his book John Wesley in America: Restoring Primitive Christianity, Methodist scholar Geordan Hammond concludes that Wesley “continued to believe that primitive Christianity provided a normative model to be restored. Wesley had no doubt that the doctrine, discipline, and practice of the primitive church was embodied by the Methodist movement.”
A crisis is an accelerator. In the slamming impact of COVID-19 and the wrenching internal church doctrinal dispute over human sexuality, we as a church are being given by God an opportunity to re-embrace our purpose and commission. I contend simply that we must go back to the earliest Christian movement in the Roman Empire over the first three centuries and to the early Wesleyan (or Methodist) revival of 18th century England for guidance.
The death of nominal Christianity or cultural Christendom is a good thing. Ironically, or more accurately providentially, the Christian church grows when persecuted and withers when awash in prosperity. Individually and collectively we are being forced, by the movement of the Holy Spirit, to confront whether we are really Christ followers or not. Put theologically and biblically, is Jesus Lord of your life and your church’s collective life or not?
Forward to a New Spring. How then do we move forward in faithfulness and fruitfulness? As stated earlier, the North Star of purpose is driven by the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. It is given to us by the risen Lord for the sake of this disease stricken world. In his book The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch puts it this way: “The desperate, prayer-soaked human clinging to Jesus, the reliance on his Spirit, and the distillation of the gospel message into the simple, uncluttered message of Jesus as Lord and Savior is what catalyzed the missional potencies inherent in the people of God.”
Let me offer three key markers we might employ as elements for moving forward to a new spring from the earliest Christians in the Roman empire: (1) Clear in Christological identity: Jesus is Lord!, (2) Sacrificial in service, and (3) Wise in witness.
The Apostle Paul put it this way in the opening chapter of his letter to the beloved Philippians: “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well – since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have” (Philippians 1:27-30).
Did you read that? “The privilege” of suffering for Him!
An additional key marker of faithfulness was assumed by the earliest Christians and put firmly in place by the leaders of the Methodist revival. Both embraced the use of small groups for discipleship formation. The first small group was made up of 12 disciples who became the apostles, the sent ones. In the Gospel of Mark we read, “He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits” (Mark 6:7). Those called Methodist under first Wesley and then Asbury’s tutelage in America were required to be a part of a “Class Meeting” for their own spiritual growth and discipleship training.
Moving forward to a new spring necessitates a biblical and theological recovery of the gospel. Both the earliest Christian witness and the Methodist revival focused on what God was doing in and through us, not what we humans are working at. Their focus was on God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! I am tired of a spiritually atrophied Unitarian United Methodism which acts as if the Holy Spirit is not real. I have had it with a vague deistic theology which condescends to Jesus as an interesting teacher but denies his kingship. The Lord is calling us back to the center of the Christian faith in the great doctrines of the incarnation, sin, salvation, and sanctification in both their personal and social dimensions. Wesley’s dying breath was anchored on the incarnation: “The best of all is that God is with us.”
Ask yourself, when was the last time you heard (or preached!) a sermon on salvation? When was the last time you were challenged to explicitly turn your life over to Christ – the Lord/leader of your life – over, above, and beyond your own transitory preferences?
Alan Hirsch’s book, Reframation, highlights three aspects of salvation in today’s culture – salvation related to (1) guilt, or (2) shame, or (3) liberation. All three are historically a part of the Christian doctrine of atonement or soteriology (the “way” of salvation). Furthermore, the early Christian Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, explicitly refused to limit salvation to simply one element or aspect of life (i.e., sin as related only to guilt), but lifted as the center of orthodoxy the greater understanding of core Christian doctrines like the Trinity, the incarnation, sin, salvation, and the church. It is past time we go back to teaching the essentials of our faith.
Firm core/Flexible strategies. A crucial way to think and pray about our future in a new spring is to guard the core while being flexible in strategy. For years we have done just the opposite. We’ve been loose and even indifferent to the core while being rigid in strategy. The early church, as well as the early Methodists, did just the opposite. They held firmly to the doctrinal core of the Christian faith and were wide open on strategy. Wesley was so flexible on strategy that he went so far as to embrace field preaching, which he considered “vile” (his word, not mine).
For congregations and conferences in the United Methodist Church, guarding the core and being flexible in strategy will involve an openness in organizational structure, creative worship styles, and deployment of clergy (to mention just a few areas) while assiduously rebuilding the doctrinal core of the Church.
A necessity in moving forward in a new spring is the recovery of a working discipline in our life together. This is an uncomfortable subject in today’s rabidly individualistic culture, but I invite us to look back to our future. Indeed, I would go so far as to assert that we must recover a sense of communal discipline, or we shall surely perish.
I have on my desk a “class meeting ticket” which used to be a basic part of being a Methodist. To recover who we truly are – those who are methodical and disciplined in their faith walk – will mean that our church “membership” will be less than our average worship attendance. The earliest Christians held the concept of church discipline so deeply that they debated the issue of readmittance to worship of those who had proved apostate or unfaithful.
Grace must abound, but it cannot be cheap. Currently, I fear that we have strayed into a culture of “cheap grace.” Pouring out his life as a martyr in resistance to Hitler and the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s profound insight should resonate with the core of our being and the practical essence of how we go about being “church” together. “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession,” he wrote in The Cost of Discipleship. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Let all that you do be done in love. Now, I come at last to that element of which I am reluctant to speak. I have come to believe that if we are to find a way forward, as the Holy Spirit is leading us, the United Methodist Church must engage in some form of denominational separation.
In 1786, John Wesley famously said, “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”
Painfully, this is too often largely the truth in United Methodism today. Our internal church struggle, which I take to be doctrinally important and serious, is damaging the witness of us all. We need to set each other free. It is time we move forward to a new spring through a grace-filled separation which would allow for shared ecumenical ministry and the possibility of a coming back together in the future.
A litigious fight over property and position benefits no one and damages the advancement of the kingdom of God towards which, I trust, we all work and pray. I believe the best way to accomplish this is through the so-called “Protocol” which will be voted upon at General Conference in 2022.
To those of you who insist on some version of unity at all costs, I remind you that we came into being by separating from the Church of England after the Revolutionary War in 1784. I would further ask, based on a historically irrefutable reading of church history, that if you really believe in unity at all costs, then why are you not already a member of either the Greek Orthodox or Roman Catholic branches of the Church universal?
Do you recall the word of the Lord as it comes to us from the Prophet Isaiah? “But now thus says the Lord… Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine… I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:1, 19).
Presiding at what I believe will be my last Annual Conference, I think this is where we find ourselves no matter in which camp we place ourselves. We are wandering in the wilderness as a church, and we know what deserts are like. May the words of the Apostle Paul to the contentious, troubled church at Corinth provide guidance to us all: “Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:13-14).
Mike Lowry is the Bishop of the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. This is a revised version of an Episcopal address delivered to the conference on June 21, 2021. Upon his retirement, Lowry will join United Theological Seminary as the school’s first Bishop-in-Residence. Bishop Lowry, the longest-tenured leader of the Fort Worth episcopal area, has served the Central Texas Conference since 2008.
by Steve | Aug 23, 2021 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
Noble Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai is the survivor of a Taliban assassination attempt. Her image was on display in 2016 on the complex of parliament buildings of the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. (Shutterstock).
By Thomas Lambrecht –
Now that the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan, many are concerned about the future for women and girls in that country.
The Taliban has a history of oppressing women and depriving them of human rights, as well as administering harsh punishments for various offenses against Islamic codes.
The U.S. made a big difference in improving the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan, investing $780 billion in women’s equality projects. As a result, millions of girls were able to attend school. Enrollment at the University of Kabul is 53 percent women, and a similar percentage are participating in advanced degree programs there. Women are starting to work in a significant percentage of government positions.
Will women be able to continue going to school and work outside their homes? Will they be able to go out of the house without an accompanying chaperone? These basic freedoms that we take for granted are now in question there.
“Afghan girls and young women are once again where I have been — in despair over the thought that they might never be allowed to see a classroom or hold a book again,” writes Malala Yousafzai, a survivor of a Taliban assassination attempt, in the New York Times. She is the youngest-ever Noble Peace Prize laureate. “Some members of the Taliban say they will not deny women and girls education or the right to work. But given the Taliban’s history of violently suppressing women’s rights, Afghan women’s fears are real.”
Christians ought to be in the forefront of speaking up for the equality of women. In the first chapters of Genesis, God creates woman as an equal and complementary partner for man (Genesis 2:18-25). Women and men share equally in being made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). One can go so far as to say that the image of God in humanity is incomplete if considered only as one gender.
That is why it is so disheartening to read the perceptions of some non-Christians who believe conservative Christians take the same oppressive attitude toward women that the Taliban do. A recent tweet on Twitter about the Afghan takeover reads, “A true cautionary tale for the U.S., which has our own far religious right dreaming of a theocracy that would impose a particular brand of Christianity, drive women from the workforce and solely into childbirth, and control all politics.”
As Dr. David Watson, academic dean at United Theological Seminary, replied, “I know exactly zero Christians who want to do this.” He is right on point. In all honesty, even those in other Christian denominations that do not permit women to serve in leadership roles in the church do not espouse the kind of “Handmaids Tale” hysteria propped up on Twitter.
Those of us within the Wesleyan/ Methodist tradition have a seriously different way of thinking and processing our spiritual life together than do some Christians who forbid women from teaching Sunday school or leading Bible studies that contain men. In some denominations, women cannot serve as pastors or priests. And in some denominations, women cannot even vote in a congregational meeting.
I am glad to be part of a tradition that honors the place of women as equal to men, both in the church and in the world. In the new Global Methodist Church, women will play an important role in leadership and ministry, for which I am grateful. While I am aware – and saddened – that there are still United Methodist congregations that refuse to accept the ministry of a female pastor, women’s equality will be a non-negotiable issue in the new denomination.
There are plenty of examples of strong women who served in leadership roles in the Bible. Miriam, Deborah, Esther, and others in the Old Testament. Lydia, Priscilla, Junias (an apostle), and others in the New Testament. Men and women are equally gifted and serving as prophets in the Bible.
In our own Wesleyan tradition, we begin with Susannah Wesley, who taught sons John and Charles (and the rest of her 17 children) in the home, especially regarding the Bible and spiritual matters. Throughout her life, Susannah was a confidant and advisor to John, not afraid to disagree with him and offer strongly worded advice! As the early Methodist movement grew, women served as class leaders and lay preachers. Women were ordained as clergy in some branches of Methodism as early as the 1800’s.
There have been some cultural circumstances where it did not make sense for women to serve in a particular role. For example, women were unsuited to serve as circuit riders in America from the perspective of their own safety, given the physical hardships circuit riders had to endure, as well as the propriety of a woman alone on the frontier. But one should not extrapolate from these particular situations that women are generally unsuited for leadership.
Some quote I Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” Many scholars take this verse to refer to the specific situation Paul was addressing in Ephesus. Otherwise, it would not make sense for this same Paul to extol Priscilla as his coworker (regarding her as his equal), recognizing that she taught the preacher Apollos (Acts 18:24-26).
Of course, women may exercise leadership differently from men. It has been shown that women’s brains are wired differently than men’s, and that women general think in different ways than men. We should not expect that women ought to “lead like a man.” That would be a more subtle, but still insidious, form of discrimination against women.
As Christians, we need to welcome the gifts and perspectives of women on an equal basis with men. One’s gifts and perspectives may be different from the other’s, but that does not make one better than the other. The Body of Christ is not complete and able to function well if some of its members are not fully integrated as working members of the Body (I Corinthians 12). The Body is weaker to the extent that it does not use certain parts to their fullest potential. It would be like the proverbial saying of trying to “fight with one hand tied behind your back.”
As the father of three grown daughters and grandfather to two girls, I am conscious of their great potential as human beings. Seeing the basic equality and freedom of women questioned in other countries makes me appreciate the freedom we have here in the U.S.
The U.S. and its allies enabled a whole generation of Afghan women and girls to grow up receiving an education and able to contribute more fully to the functioning of their society. I hope that the nation’s new leaders will allow those women to continue playing an important role in building a strong and healthy Afghanistan. Failure to do so would be a travesty against those women and a tragedy for their nation.
The same is true of our church. Whether in the current United Methodist Church or in a proposed Global Methodist Church, we must be committed to welcoming and seeking out the gifts and contributions of women on an equal basis with men. There must be no room for a rejection of persons for leadership simply because of their gender. The cause of Christ needs “all hands on deck!” Every person is a valuable team member essential for carrying out Christ’s mission in a darkened and deceived world.
by Steve | Aug 13, 2021 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
Illustration by Shutterstock.
By Thomas Lambrecht –
Denominations are not in vogue right now in American culture. For the past 20 years, the non-denominational church movement has grown across the country until its congregations make up a significant portion of the Body of Christ in the U.S. and in Africa, as well. This reflects the tendency toward “do-it-yourself” (DIY) religion. Rather than submit to a prescribed set of beliefs, many pick and choose from various religious traditions to fashion their own personal religion. This smorgasbord approach to religion is highly individualized and made possible by the acceptance of the idea that there is no such thing as Truth, only an individual’s personal truths. It is amazing to hear some of the bizarre, unorthodox beliefs espoused by some who claim a Christian identity, even though (and perhaps because) they rarely or never attend a Christian church.
The individualization of religious belief is reflected in the non-denominational church movement, as well. Each church creates its own doctrinal statement and members join if they are in agreement (or at least can live with the statement). Church structure varies widely from one church to another, but most congregations have some kind of church board that may be either elected or appointed. Pastors are called or hired by the congregation, and each congregation is pretty much an island unto itself.
Some United Methodist congregations are dipping their toes in the water of non-denominationalism through the disaffiliation process enacted by the 2019 General Conference. The 100 or so churches in the U.S. that have separated under this provision have often become independent congregations, rather than affiliating with another denomination. Many of those churches may hope to align with the proposed new Global Methodist Church when it is formed. Others may find non-denominationalism attractive.
Becoming independent can be exhilarating. No one telling you what to do. No one demanding that you pay for this or that. No one telling you whom you must have as a pastor. You are free to structure your church as you like. You can decide as a congregation whether or not to support particular missions. It’s the same feeling one gets the first time one leaves home to live on one’s own.
Pretty soon, however, reality sets in. The responsibility of making all the decisions for a congregation without any guidance or support can become overwhelming. This is particularly true for smaller and mid-sized congregations.
That is why it is good to remember the reasons for being part of a larger denominational group.
Security in Doctrine
We are not saved from our sins and transformed into the image of Jesus by the correctness of our beliefs. But what we believe certainly influences our ability to be saved and informs the kind of life we live as a Christian. This is true at both the individual and the congregational level.
If we believe that everyone is going to heaven, then it is not important for us to share the good news of Jesus Christ or for individuals to surrender their lives to the lordship of Christ. If we believe the Bible is fallible, then it is all right for us to compromise the teachings of Scripture in order to be more culturally acceptable. If we believe the Bible and the Church historically are wrong about certain activities being contrary to God’s will for us, then we will be comfortable ignoring those biblical standards in the way we live our lives.
That is why it is so important for us to get our doctrinal beliefs right. Incorrect beliefs can lead us away from God and cause us to live lives that are not in keeping with God’s desire for us.
The Christian faith is not up for negotiation, either by individual persons or by individual congregations. The virtue of a denomination is that it has a set of beliefs that are consistent with historic Christian doctrine and vetted by a larger body of people. This helps keep individual Christians and individual congregations from going off the rails in their beliefs and “shipwrecking their faith.” Doctrinal accountability is essential for the Christian life.
That accountability is especially true when our theological perspective is a minority view within the overall Body of Christ in the U.S. Among evangelical circles, the predominant theology is Calvinist, whereas Methodists take a Wesleyan/Arminian perspective on theology. A colleague who is a professor at Asbury Seminary has often remarked that Wesleyan/Methodist churches that go independent tend to become Calvinist in theology within a generation of their departure from a Wesleyan denomination. Doctrinal accountability can keep our churches faithful to a doctrinal perspective that is valuable and needed in the Body of Christ today.
In Africa, many freelance independent, non-denominational churches preach a prosperity Gospel. For churches there, being part of an established Wesleyan denomination can help guard against the adoption of heretical doctrines that are harmful to their members in the end.
Accountability
That leads us to the next value of denominations: a system of accountability for both doctrine and behavior. In order to be effective, accountability has to be broader than what an individual congregation or its leaders can provide. Yes, it should not have to be this way, but in our fallen, sinful condition, we have human blind spots and mixed motivations that prevent us from seeing problems or from acting on the problems we do see, especially when we are close to the situation.
Throughout my ministry, I have witnessed repeatedly a congregation victimized by pastoral leadership that transgresses the boundaries of Christian behavior. Christianity Today just produced a podcast series that chronicles the rise and fall of Mars Hill Church, a megachurch based in Seattle, Washington. The congregation grew from a small Bible study to a multi-site congregation with 15 locations in four states. Weekend attendance was over 12,000. Then the pastor, Mark Driscoll, and other leaders were accused of “bullying” and “patterns of persistent sinful behavior.” Within 18 months, that giant church ceased to exist. Ironically, Driscoll became pastor of another church and continues some of the same dysfunctional patterns.
One can reel off the names of other high-profile pastors and ministry leaders who for years perpetuated a pattern of life and ministry that was deceitful and destructive. Those with oversight responsibility were too close to the situation or the person to see the problems.
In Africa and other parts of the world, the pastor is sometimes given unbridled power in the congregation. Some bishops take advantage of their position for personal gain. The church becomes an environment where the leaders say what is right, rather than looking to Scripture and denominational policies and procedures. In such an atmosphere, pastors and church members alike can be harmed by arbitrary and dictatorial leadership. Denominational accountability is the only thing that can protect pastors and church members from harm.
Denominational accountability systems do not always work the way they are intended (as our own United Methodist Church’s failures in this regard testify). But at least there is a system of greater accountability that can be reformed and made more effective. I believe the system envisioned for the proposed Global Methodist Church enhances accountability and fairness in a way that addresses some of the shortfalls in our UM accountability system. Certainly, there is a much greater possibility of holding leaders and congregations accountable when that accountability comes from outside the situation. We are often much more able to see and respond to the sins and shortcomings of others than we are in ourselves or our own families.
The Power of Collective Action
The United Methodist Church is a small church denomination. Over 75 percent of the more than 30,000 congregations in the U.S. average fewer than 100 in worship attendance. Individually, small churches have limited resources to accomplish large projects. Collectively, however, churches working and contributing together can do great things for God. That is one area where The United Methodist Church has leveraged our connectional system to make a real-world difference in the lives of people all over the globe. When it comes to hunger relief, poverty alleviation, education, ministerial training, and health care to name just a few areas, the UM Church has been able to pool the resources of many small churches to achieve significant results.
It is possible for independent churches to join associations of churches or otherwise link to support missions and ministries they agree with. The value of doing so as a denomination is to have the confidence that the missions and ministries supported by the denomination are consistent with the denomination’s doctrinal and moral standards. A denomination can make a long-term commitment to a geographic area or a certain large project that can be sustained, despite the fact that individual congregations might have to drop their support for a time, as other congregations come on to make up the shortfall. There is a greater chance of consistency and effectiveness with denominational programs that have built-in oversight and accountability from outside (as mentioned earlier).
Providing Pastoral Leadership
One of the most important tasks of a denomination is to provide pastoral leadership to its congregations. The denomination vets and approves candidates for a pastoral position in terms of doctrine, skills, and personal lives. This is work that an independent congregation would have to do for itself, often without the expertise in personnel work and theology to make informed judgments. In the case of independent congregations, finding a pastor takes a number of months and often a year or more, during which time the congregation is without a pastor. Smaller congregations will attract fewer and less qualified applicants, whereas, in a denominational system clergy express their willingness to serve where needed.
Again, the United Methodist system of clergy placement is not perfect. Many appointments are good matches between congregation and pastor. Other times, the match is not good. Part of the reason for this mismatch is the guaranteed appointment, meaning all United Methodist clergy must be assigned a place to serve. The proposed Global Methodist Church will not have a guaranteed appointment, whereby clergy who are theologically incompatible or deficient in skills still receive an appointment to a church regardless. The GMC is also committed to more extensive consultation with both potential clergy and congregations to ensure the best possible match and to enable longer-term pastorates.
The important point is that, when done well, the denominational process can supply churches with quality, committed pastoral leaders who will help the congregation realize its potential. It can help guard against clergy who are doctrinally or personally unqualified to serve in leadership. The process can do most of the heavy lifting that would otherwise fall to inexperienced volunteers in the local congregation.
Practical Resources
What is a good curriculum for your church’s Sunday school? What would be a good Bible study on stewardship? How can we get our youth more involved in the life of the congregation? What outreach strategies might be effective in our community? What type of pension, health insurance, and property insurance should our church provide? How much should we pay our pastor?
The list of questions and decisions that a local church needs to deal with is endless. A denomination can give a local church the resources to address these questions. In some cases (like the pension and insurance question), the denomination can provide a program the local church can plug into that it could not duplicate on its own.
I am excited that the proposed GMC is already working through various task forces to identify and flesh out resources and ministry models that can help guide local churches into more effective ministry in many different areas. A denomination can provide those resources and guidance for local churches in a way that the local church can trust. Those resources will be theologically consistent with the denomination’s doctrine and philosophy of ministry. Those resources will be tried and proven as workable and practical. Each congregation will not have to reinvent the wheel, but can draw upon the pooled wisdom and resources that many churches being part of one denomination can provide. Having one place to turn for ideas and guidance will save time and energy at the local level that can be effectively directed into actual ministry.
Much more could be said about the benefits of being part of an effective denomination. Part of a brief childhood poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow speaks to our situation:
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
United Methodists have experienced some of the horrid aspects of being in a denomination that is dysfunctional and ineffective in some key ways. The temptation is to jettison the idea of a denomination entirely, believing that we can certainly do better on our own. That is a false temptation.
We are certainly better and more effective as churches and as individuals when we work together with like-minded believers. A denomination gives us the structure and the possibility of doing just that. Together, we can make our new denomination good and experience that it can be “very good indeed!”
by Steve | Aug 11, 2021 | July/August 2021, Magazine, Magazine Articles
By Max Wilkins –
At TMS Global, we talk a lot about “joining Jesus in his mission.” But what, exactly, is that mission? Maybe you’ve wondered that, too. In recent decades, parts of the church in North America have watered down the mission of Jesus until anyone who is doing anything even remotely helpful or is simply being nice to others is thought to be on mission.
From its inception, however, the actual mission of Jesus has been about one thing: making disciples. Jesus spent the entirety of his earthly ministry making disciples. And as he gathered with his disciples on the evening before he was crucified, he prayed to his heavenly Father: “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4).
It is essential to note that Jesus had not yet been to the cross, much less risen from the dead. He had much remaining work to do. But he had made disciples. And it says something about the importance the Lord places on disciple-making that he would indicate that this was the work his Father sent him to do, and that by doing it, he had brought glory to his Father on earth. How remarkable that Jesus would now entrust this God-glorifying mission to us! Yet, that is exactly what he does.
The final words in Matthew’s gospel have come to be widely known as the Great Commission. It is understood by the church that in these words Jesus is giving marching orders to those who would join him in his mission.
“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18–20).
There is a command in these verses, and only one. I have had the opportunity to share with communities of believers in dozens of countries around the world, and I commonly ask them: “What is the command in the Great Commission?” Nearly 100 percent of the time the immediate and enthusiastic answer is: “Go!”
Many years ago, the late Christian singer Keith Green recorded a song entitled “Jesus Commands Us to Go.” It is a beautiful song, and the song’s sentiments are shared by many passionate believers. It is, however, also theologically incorrect. The Great Commission does not command us to go. We know this because the text is handed down to us in Greek, a language in which command verbs have their own form. When looking at this passage in Greek, it becomes clear: the only command in the entire passage is “make disciples.” In fact, Jesus seems to assume that those who follow him would not need to be commanded to go. Movement is more or less implied in the act of following. A better translation of this passage in English would be something like: “As you are going … make disciples!”
The mission of Jesus is to make disciples. Period. And while there are thousands and thousands of ways to make disciples, and we can utilize many platforms to accomplish this vital work, not everything that is nice and helpful is also disciple-making. It is essential that those who would live lives worthy of the calling of Jesus be about the work of making disciples. It is the only mission that ultimately matters, and the one that brings glory to God on the earth.
The good news is that we are not on our own as we live into this mission. Paul reminds the believers in Thessalonica that it is the power of God that makes the mission possible. These outcomes are both accomplished “by his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:11).
At TMS Global our mission statement calls us to join Jesus in his mission, but we understand that mission to be making disciples. Thus, all TMS Global cross-cultural workers are engaged in disciple-making regardless of their platform for ministry.
Max Wilkins is the president and CEO of TMS Global. This column is adapted from his latest book, Focusing My Gaze: Beholding the Upward, Inward, Outward Mission of Jesus. To learn more, visit seedbed.com/focusingmygaze, or inside cover.
