by Steve | Nov 24, 1989 | Archive - 1989
Archive: What E. Stanley Jones might say to the United Methodist Church
By James S. Robb
Good News Senior Editor James S. Robb has nearly completed his biography of E. Stanley Jones. This project has taken Robb five years to research and write. From this extensive research he has penned what he believes the illustrious Methodist evangelist and missionary would say to the UM Church. However, the following text is in Robb’s words.
I am grateful beyond words for the privilege of addressing my beloved Methodist Church, especially as I’ve been off on kingdom business for some 16 years now.[1]
Even though my ministry was among all denominations and all religions, the sacred spot in my affections because it was at the altar of a Methodist church in Baltimore that I was introduced to the Master. For this I shall be eternally grateful. I am also thankful my church had the grace to free me from my usual duties as a Methodist missionary in India, the land of my adoption, to work with causes and denominations there and around the world.
As I gaze across the present United Methodist Church my thoughts run in two directions. I see both advance and retreat. Those who have read some of my books know I pled with the church and the whole country for years to give the Negro a chance. What business had America calling herself “land of the free” when an entire race within her borders was at best only semi-free? But I now find that justice has at last been done, at least partially. Remember, a wise radicalism is sometimes the truest conservatism.
Another cause for which I struggled for half a century was a greater social consciousness among America’s church people. I constantly spoke against the tendency to make churches into fortresses of piety which lock out the hurts of a needy world. A phrase I often repeated is that a church without a social conscience is like a soul without a body. So I am filled with gratitude that the Methodist people have made feeding the hungry and clothing the naked a stronger priority. Even more, I am thrilled that an emphasis on changing the structures which oppress man has been added. And of course the continued Methodist commitment to eradicating the evil of war can only nourish the soul of the church.[2]
But even with these advances I must conclude that all is not well with the modern Methodist Church. I see grave dangers. I’m told that much of the distress over the direction of Methodism has concerned a membership loss. Certainly a drain of personnel is a legitimate worry, since each loss represents a soul.
Yet the real tragedy involves mission, not membership. On earth I was called many things—minister, missionary, states man. But it was in my capacity as evangelist that I found my greatest fulfillment I traveled on every continent, preaching some 60,000 sermons.[3] My audiences and settings varied enormously. However, my message was always a variation on one theme— “Jesus is Lord.”
More than any other Methodist minister of my day I worked with persons of other religions. We sat together as brothers and rose up as friends. But I never lost sight of the fact that man’s chief need is conversion—moral, social and spiritual. I even tried to convert famous non-Christians such as the Mahatma Gandhi and the Emperor Hirohito. You see, religions are man’s search for God, whereas Christianity is God searching for Man. It’s the Word become flesh. All that we know of God comes from Jesus. He is and always must be our focus.
Thus, I am amazed to learn that the emphasis upon conversion has nearly evaporated. It seems to have been replaced by emphases such as social work and education. As Jesus said when on earth, “You should have done these things without Luke 11:42, Phillips). There is much we can do and should do once we are converted, but until we are converted we can do but little.
I understand some of these changes have come as a result of certain theological shifts in the area of biblical interpretation. In my lifetime I never thought we should make the Bible an idol. Yet to water down Scripture in such a way that Jesus is no longer God strikes me as nothing short of treason from those who profess to be His followers.
Then there are others who claim one can be both a Christian and sexually immoral. This line found a following at the end of my ministry. I felt sure it would not have lasted this long, but I find it has yet to play itself out. The very notion rings hollow. The Christian way is the natural way, and at bottom immorality is profoundly unnatural. A moral universe will never stand for it.
And to suggest, as a number of modern Methodists have, that personal conversion is not a real necessity flies in the face of all we know about human nature. There is only one way to transform the morals and character and spiritual basis of Man, and that is through conversion brought about by faith in Christ
Half a century ago I often said that only one-third of church members were truly converted. This was the greatest need of the Church in my day. Tragically, I believe the need is even greater now.
Methodism has been one of the great movements in the world for more than two centuries. We have taken the Gospel to the ends of the earth, blessing the world. I plead with you not to allow the spiritual boiler that has driven this movement to grow cold, for to do so will produce more than a dropping membership. It will result in a battle for your collective life.
James S. Robb is the senior editor of Good News and editor-in-chief of Bristol Books.
[1] Dr. Jones refers to his death in January 1973 at the age of 89.
[2] A lifelong pacifist, Dr. Jones opposed even such popular wars as World War II.
[3] Dr. Jones preached from three to five times each day for some 60 years. This feat makes him the all-time champion sermon-giver, leaving John Wesley far behind.
by Steve | Nov 23, 1989 | Archive - 1989
Albert C. Outler Remembered
By Leicester R. Longden
November/December 1989, Good News
Some people seem unfamiliar when we meet them in a different context. We have known them so well in one setting we are surprised when we discover they have inhabited another sphere with distinction and verve. Such was the case with Albert C. Outler. His friends in psychiatric circles were puzzled to discover that he was a noted editor and historical theologian. Scholars and ecclesiastics who had seen him helping Roman Catholic bishops translate Vatican II documents and who knew his translations of Augustine and his work on the Greek Church Fathers could be dismayed when they saw him turning his scholarly talents to the study of such a “minor” figure as John Wesley. One of Outler’s colleagues at Perkins Seminary once said that he had labeled Outler only as a “Yale man” until he went to Europe with him and saw the leading theological minds of the day seeking Outler’s opinion as a respected equal. Great theologians and bishops who knew him personally were perplexed at the number of occasions that Outler offered himself to speak to students, congregations and civic groups.
This man of many contexts will seem even greater to us now that he has left us. His death on September 1 has called forth a number of recollections from the many communities that knew and loved him. The reading of these obituary notices may be for us an instructive exercise in understanding the Wesleyan sense for taking the world as one’s parish.
Born in a Methodist parsonage in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1908, he grew up in what was called “the cultural and psychological and social cocoon of Georgia and Southern Methodist traditions.” He once joked in print that some have come “further” but “none from further back.” Learning from his family how to be both a free and loyal Methodist, Outler burst his cocoon to become an outstanding student at Yale, earning a Ph.D. in patristics while at the same time receiving the equivalent of an M.A. in psychotherapy and social psychology. A professor first at Duke University and then at Yale (while also serving as a pastor), he went to Perkins Seminary and Southern Methodist University in 1951 where he served the cause of theological education in the Southwest until his “retirement” in 1974.
During his distinguished career Outler established a worldwide reputation in academic, ecclesial, and ecumenical affairs. As an academician he established himself as a gifted teacher and publishing scholar. The esteem in which he was held by theologians, historians, and university faculties is seen in that he was elected to more than 80 endowed lectureships, given 14 honorary degrees and had 2 endowed faculty chairs named after him. He was president of the America Society of Church History, the American Theological Society, and the American Catholic Historical Association. His scholarly achievements will live after him especially in his contribution to the critical edition of John Wesley’s Works. In United Methodist circles he was teacher to a long line of pastors and scholars, preacher to the Uniting Conference in 1968, and the chair of the Doctrinal Study Commission from 1969-1972.
Outler was widely recognized as an ecumenical figure of significance and creativity, particularly for his 10-year role as the chair of the North American Section of the Faith and Order Study Commission on Tradition and Traditions and as a delegated observer to the Second Vatican Council. On Aldersgate Day, 1987, the Benedictine Order honored him with its Pax Christi Award, stating that “for many of the bishops at the Second Vatican Council, [Outler had been] their most valued interpreter of what they themselves were doing.”
In the latter part of his career, Outler became increasingly identified with a renaissance of Wesley studies in which he played an important role in reinterpreting John Wesley as a significant theologian, over against the earlier stereotypes of Wesley as “founder” or “organizer.” Frank Baker, in a survey of Wesley studies from 1960 to 1980, called Outler a “colossus towering over all others throughout this period.” Another important contribution during these years was his cooperation with United Methodist pastor and evangelist Edmund W. Robb in the establishment of A Foundation For Theological Education (AFTE). With a board of trustees which includes bishops, theologians, pastors and laity, AFTE awards fellowships to promising pastor-scholars seeking the Ph.D. degree. The purpose has been to make an impact on theological education by strengthening the “classical Christian witness within the church and it seminaries.”
The reading of Outler’s obituary notices could be especially instructive for the standing of theological pluralism that United Methodists. Reflection on the breadth of his theological vision, along with a re-reading of his sermon for the Uniting Conference of 1968, could call us again to the high task of being a catholic, evangelical and reformed church. It would be too easy for those who praise Outler’s own role in the recovery of Wesley as theological mentor to overlook Outler’s own significance as theological mentor to United Methodism. It may be reasonably claimed that the story of 20th-century United Methodism and its struggle for theological clarity regarding its historical and doctrinal identity cannot rightly be told without describing Outler’s place within it. But if he is appreciated only in one context, then the founding of AFTE will excite some, but they will be puzzled by the statement on Our Theological Task, which raised the many conflicts over the concept and experience of “pluralism.” In the same way, those who value freedom above all else in theological pluralism my be puzzled by “truth.” Perhaps what is needed is a renewed search for “our common history” (a favorite phrase of Outler’s) and an understanding of theological pluralism that looks for the continuity of traditions within the whole stream of Christian tradition. Outler could be very impatient with the polemics and politics of various “theologies” over against each other. His “theological vocation,” as he saw it, was to be a Christian who took the modern world and its ambiguities seriously and yet “still claimed [a] full share of the whole of the Christian heritage.”
In the famous Christian Century series of “How My Mind Has Changed,” Outler offered in his mid-career a self-judgment which may now inform our memory of him and instruct our continuing vocation: “If I could choose my own epitaph I would want it to speak of one who was sustained in a rather strenuous career by the vision of a Christian theology that gives history its full due; that makes way for the future without having to murder the past; that begins and ends with the self-manifestation of God’s mystery in our flesh and our history.” [Feb 3, 1960, p. 129]
Leicester R. Longden is Associate Professor of Evangelism and Discipleship, Emeritus, and Director of United Methodist Studies at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
by Steve | Nov 23, 1989 | Archive - 1989
Archive: Fatal Attraction
The Seductive Promises of Socialism Have Subverted Our Concern for the Poor
Part One
by Clark H. Pinnock
We live in an era of the unprecedented expansion of the Christian movement throughout the world. Ours is a hopeful time of great opportunity for discipling the nations and making a significant impact upon cultures around the world, particularly in the direction of relief and development.
Disagreement accompanies that opportunity, though. Christians disagree on how believers should pursue the task of helping the poor (aside from acts of generous charity, on which we generally do not disagree). Ideology is dividing Christians from one another. In our search for answers to the problem of poverty some look to socialism and its constellation of ideas, while others have different recommendations. It would be pleasant to leave ideology aside and concentrate entirely upon “kingdom” issues, but that, sadly, is not possible. An ideology is basically a set of ideas which attempts to explain the world and suggests ways to change it for the better; an ideology can also trap and seduce us by blinding the mind and preventing it from seeing reality.[1]
To be blunt, I am troubled at the way in which our proper Christian concern for the poor has been unwisely routed along the tracks of collectivist economics. That long detour seriously jeopardizes the possibility of doing effective good and threatens to short-circuit well-meaning Christian intentions. If we are serious about “God’s preferential option for the poor” (to use the jargon of liberation theology), then it is neither wise nor prudent to side with an ideology which, as I will argue, has such a bad record in regard to reducing the misery of poor people.
A Sad Case of Ideological Entrapment
My argument is that our frequent lack of good judgment about poverty questions is rooted in an entrapment. Whenever the issue of ideological entrapment is raised some believers cite the Nazi “Christians” (or perhaps, to some, even the religious right in the United States) as examples of a bad tendency. But there is a very serious case of entrapment which few are willing to name: the tendency of a significant number of church leaders in the 20th century to tie the cause of God’s kingdom to the cause of communism or socialism in some milder form.
This entangling alliance can be compared without much exaggeration to the alignment in Germany of the kingdom of God with the Nazi ideology.[2] What makes the comparison appropriate is the fact that the Marxist movement is not just a failure as a self-proclaimed revolutionary force in improving the lot of the poor, but it is also a unique historical evil even in the 20th century which has witnessed many evils on a massive scale.
Marxism has led to the starvation and murder of millions of victims on the very borders of the West, while many of our political and intellectual leaders and even some church leaders have looked the other way and prattled on about the bright new hope of socialism. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and many others have documented the torture and oppression carried out by socialist dictators against their own unfortunate peoples. Between fascism and communism there seems to be no practical difference.[3]
There is a danger of getting sidetracked into telling the dismal story of the romance of certain churchmen with Marxism and the left in general; what we really need to focus on is the foolish act of endorsing collectivist economic practice which has harmed the poor so much. We have to see that socialism is the great political myth of the 20th century and that its appeal is precisely mythical and not empirical. No one could be attracted to socialism on empirical grounds because evidence of its successes does not exist. The attraction is the seductive appeal which myth has for the human imagination.[4]
Briefly, then, let’s itemize some of the pieces of evidence which reveal ideological entrapment. Before 1960 support for Marxism was visible in what Paul Hollander calls political tourism.[5] Hewlett Johnson (the pathetic and amusing Red Dean of Canterbury), along with many intellectuals such as Bernard Shaw, Arthur Koestler and Malcolm Muggeridge, traveled to the Soviet Union in the 30s, at the very time Stalin was consolidating his total power and beginning to liquidate millions under his iron rule. They came back to the West singing the praises of the great socialist revolution in Russia. Their desire to believe the seductive promises of the revolutionary myth robbed them of practically every vestige of critical reason.[6]
Since 1960 the situation has deteriorated further. Christians on the left no longer praise Stalin, but some continue to applaud the ideology on which he based his murderous power. So-called liberation theologians and church leaders proclaim an alliance between Christians and Marxists and see socialism as the way to move beyond class-based society.[7] Miranda, admittedly more radical than most, goes so far as to equate communism and Christianity.[8]
True, the various liberationist writers usually take pains to say they find fault with some dimensions of Marxism, but their criticisms are never so radical as to prevent them from supporting Marxist revolutions. In their view no matter what is wrong with socialism, capitalism is worse. In line with this thinking the World Council of Churches has assisted Marxist guerillas in Africa under the guise of combating racism. In a brilliant display of double standards, these same churchmen are silent about human rights violations in Cuba, Ethiopia and Angola while complaining bitterly about infractions in South Africa and El Salvador. Political pilgrims are currently flocking to Nicaragua to see the latest revolution firsthand.[9]
Some Christians support a very ugly reality in a less direct way. The sainted “peace movement,” for example, is supported by many who have good intentions but little prudence. The peace movement’s greatest success so far was to compel a U.S. retreat from Vietnam and help to make possible the genocide in Cambodia and the wretched oppression of Communist Vietnam from which thousands continue to try to flee in flimsy boats upon dangerous seas. Yet some Christians do not seem to recognize how their noble-sounding efforts serve the cause of Marxist oppression. It feels so good to be for “peace” that they do not want to spoil it by facing facts.
More folly is evident when many churchmen enthusiastically endorse Lenin’s discredited theory that poverty in the two-thirds world was somehow caused by the prosperity of the West Lenin concocted that dependency theory to explain why Marx’s own predictions about capitalism had failed so badly and to account for the rising standard of living on the part of the proletariat in the West Lenin’s gambit obviously has great appeal for the leaders of impoverished states looking for someone to blame for their own deficiencies or bad decisions, but its appeal for Western churchmen can only be explained in terms of seduction by Marxist myth.[10]
There is even a distinct possibility that support from churchmen, coming at a time when Marxism has lost most of its legitimacy and mythical appeal (owing to its brutality and colossal failures), will actually prolong the life of communist empires. What a supreme irony it would be if Christians were to give Marxism the religious legitimacy which it could never have generated for itself as a secular doctrine!
The Utopian Fallacy
The alignment of some Christians with Marxism can be explained by invoking the category of the utopian myth. Human hope for salvation in history—the millennial longing for a world purified of evil—is immense. Christianity provides a solution, but those who want change according to their timetables, not God’s, sweep aside even developed critical judgment in their rush to force open the gates of Eden. In this respect socialism possesses a clear “advantage” over capitalism. Socialism is one of the most powerful myths of the modem era, and the fact that it is nowhere realized only adds to its appeal.
It is vital to understand that a fugitive vision of this sort forever tantalizes those who long for it. Capitalism may produce better results in terms of productivity. It may produce a better car at a cheaper price. Capitalism, however, cannot compete with socialism in the area of romantic appeal.[11] This quality of romance has enabled Marxists to disregard the empirical data and persist in policies long after they have been seen to be ruinous.
Given our theology, Christians may be understandably vulnerable to ideological seduction from the utopian left. For one thing, God’s Spirit makes us sensitive to our own sins and failings, and this can alienate us from our own admittedly imperfect society. Indeed some of us feel so keenly the shortcomings of Western culture that we are prone to accept even false charges hurled against it and idealize societies just out of view, especially if they make a claim to social justice as Marxist regimes always do.
Paradoxically, it is easy for us to become estranged from our own society at the very moment millions are desperate to emigrate to it Somehow that socialist utopia just over the horizon must be a better place, we think, whether it be Tanzania, South Yemen or Albania. Just listen to the Christian terminology socialists use about equality and brotherhood!
But a deeper cause of our willing seduction lies in the millennial dimension of the Gospel message itself. Do we not pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10)? Do we not long to see Christ transform the nations and create a just and peaceful society? Of course we do, and this very fact exposes us to hucksters peddling the miracle ideology guaranteed to deliver the millennium for us.
How easy it is to be indifferent about practicalities in the realm of hope and religion; how easy to want to treat all people as if they were saints—not sinners; how easy to relish a foolish course of action in the name of a greater faith! Whatever moral grandeur can be found in the rhetoric of Marx is more than destroyed in the deadly havoc which has resulted from the implementation of his theories.
Part of today’s problem also lies in the secularization of the faith of certain of the theologians themselves. I would not want to suggest that all left-leaning Christians suffer from a loss of faith. But it is clear that political theology can easily be a substitute for faith rather than an expression of it. Owing to a crisis of faith in the message of the Bible, religious liberals during the past two centuries have sought to perform various kinds of salvage operations in order to have something left over once the old faith disappeared.[12]
Furthermore, intellectuals are unlike ordinary people in that they tend to feed upon ideas rather than realities. Many like nothing better than the grand theory which seems to tie everything together in a perfect mental system. Therefore, many gravitate to utopian schemes like Marx’s, and it seldom crosses their minds to ask the prosaic question of why the masses prosper under market economies and suffer deprivation under centrally planned systems.
The specter of Marxism as a failed myth comes clearly to expression in the new English edition of the work of Ernst Bloch. His work (some 1500 pages in English translation) is perhaps the most extravagant defense of Marxism ever mounted. Here we see a man whose mind was so obsessed by the hope for paradise that he refused to look reality in the face. Looking forward to the Novum, to the kingdom of God without God, he was able to persuade himself that this glorious future had begun to take shape in the Soviet system. From the purges, the gulags and the forced collectivization, Bloch has evidently learned nothing. The only fascism he can see is in the United States. Here we find a man so obsessed by utopia that he can condone mass murder in its name.[13]
In the end, the legacy of Marx is to have bequeathed a myth to the world so strong that it can withstand a thousand refutations. Brutality and folly notwithstanding, the vision is likely to endure because of its seductive power, particularly if Christians are taken in by it.
This article is excerpted from Freedom, Justice and Hope: Toward a Strategy for the Poor and the Oppressed, Marvin Olaslcy, editor; chapter 4, “The Pursuit of Utopia” by Clark H. Pinnock. Used by permission of Good New, Publishers/ Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 60154.
Dr. Clark H. Pinnock is professor of theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, and the author of Reason Enough, Set Forth Your Case and other books. This article was excerpted from Freedom, Justice, and Hope, edited by Marvin Olasky, 1988. Used by permission of Good News Publishers/Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 60154.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Gregory Bawn discusses ideology in broader terms in his book Religion and Alienation, A Theological Reading of Sociology (New York: Paulist Press, 1975), for example on pp. 99-111.
[2] Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler (New Haven: Yale, 1985).Also Richard J. Neuhaus, “The Obligations and Limits of Political Commitment,” This World, August 1986, pp. 55-69.
[3] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the Western World (London: BBC, 1986) is one of his many books. See also Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow, Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1986), and Paul Johnson, Modern Times, the World from the Twenties to the Eighties (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983).
[4] Sociologist Peter L. Berger has best pointed this out: The Capitalist Revolution, chap. 9.
[5] Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims, Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba 1928-1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
[6] Lloyd Billingsley tells this story in The Generation That Knew Not Josef: a Critique of Marxism and the Religious Left (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1985).
[7] See John Eagleson, ed., Christians and Socialism (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1975), pp. 161, 163, 168, 169. The larger picture is painted by Andrew Kirk, Liberation Theology: an Evangelical View from the Third World (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979) and by Deane W. Ferm, Third World Liberation Theologies: an Introductory Survey (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986).
[8] J.P. Miranda, Communism in the Bible (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1982).
[9] Blase Bonpane calls on his readers to join in the armed struggle as Christmas in a charming book entitled Guerrillas for Peace, Liberation Theology and the Central American Revolution (Boston: South End Press, 1985). For more information on the leftist involvements of these churchmen, see Ernest W. Lefever, Amsterdam to Nairobi, the World Council of Churches and the Third World (Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1979); Paul Seabury, “Trendier Than Thou, the Episcopal Church and the Secular World,” Harper’s Magazine, October and December 1978; and Richard J. Neuhaus, ‘The World Council of Churches and Radical Chic,” Worldview Vol. 20 (1977), pp. 14-22.
[10] Thomas Sowell, Marxism, Philosophy and Economics (New York: William Morrow, 1985), pp. 213-215; P. T. Bauer, “Western Guilt and Third World Poverty,” in Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusions (Boston: Harvard University Press 1981).
[11]Peter Berger, The Capitalist Revolution, p. 208ff. He Writes, “Socialism is one of the most powerful myths of the modern era; to the extent that socialism retains this mythic quality, it cannot be disconfirmed by empirical evidence in the minds of its adherents” (p. 215).
[12] This is the thesis of Van A. Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (New York: Macmillan, 1966).
[13] Ernest Bloch, The Principle of Hope (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985). Let us not forget that Bloch was the inspiration for Moltmann’s Theology of Hope (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).
by Steve | Sep 28, 1989 | Archive - 1989
Archive: Solzhenitsyn And the United Methodist Church
By James S. Robb
In the dog days of August 1989, I have been spending my evenings reading Solzhenitsyn’s August 1914.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn stands as perhaps the world’s greatest living author. In my mind he is the outstanding Christian writer of this century.
His excellence is all the more amazing when you consider Solzhenitsyn is Russian. For nearly 30 years he has enthralled the world with his illuminating novels of Soviet reality and, especially, his horrifying account of Stalin’s labor camps, The Gulag Archipelago.
I’ve been hooked on Solzhenitsyn since high school. But I’ve just now gotten to August 1914, his historical novel covering the Russian army’s disastrous first battle against the Germans at the outbreak of World War I.
I was hoping to be lost in literary bliss and historical reflection, but the events described in the book jarred me back to my everyday preoccupation—the United Methodist Church. In fact, as I read, it became clearer and clearer that the state of the Russian army in 1914 and the state of the UM Church today are remarkably similar.
In 1914 the Tsars still ruled Russia. The Bolshevik takeover was still three years off. However, the empire was teetering mightily.
Nowhere did that feebleness manifest itself better than in the army. For one thing, the army was equipped magnificently—to fight a 19th-century war. Whereas the Germans had airplanes and automobiles for reconnaissance, the Russians still relied upon Cossack cavalry troops to find the enemy.
Yes, the Russians had obtained radios to send orders back and forth across the battle field. Unfortunately it had not occurred to them to code their transmissions. Consequently the Germans knew Russian battle plans as soon as the Russians did. The fact is by that time the Russians were so calcified in their thinking they could not even see the need for a modem army.
That reminds me of the United Methodist Church’s deployment of buildings and personnel. Like the Russian army, the church is really well positioned to minister to last century’s America. A vigorous 19th-century Methodism put its churches right where the people were—in the rural areas and county seat towns.
But today’s Americans tend to live in big cities. The population of rural regions has actually declined, while the population of cities has boomed.
So what have we United Methodists done about it? Nearly nothing. The majority of our churches are still in farm country, while we plant relatively few new congregations in urban areas. The need’s obvious enough, but we haven’t enough vitality to do anything about it.
Another interesting thing about the 1914 Russian army was its lack of ideological unity. As I’ve stated, the Tsars and their imperial system still held sway. Yet fewer and fewer people had confidence in the old ways, even in the army.
For example, young officers tended to be university-trained members of the middle class. Like their non-army fellow intellectuals, they hated the Tsar and the Tsarist system. That was fine, except such attitudes could hardly aid the war effort. When the heat was on there was a tendency to think, “Who cares if it’s all swept away?”
Our situation in Methodism seems similar. A couple of generations of Methodist preachers have been educated to doubt (to a lesser or greater extent) the very essentials of the faith. So when the chips are down should we trust the future of our church to those who are unsure about the validity of the Apostle’s Creed?
Most interesting of all, the Russian army of World War I was led by the most inept generals imaginable. These officers were well-connected flatterers, mostly, rather than fighting men. Indeed, some of the top Russian generals of 1914 had never seen combat. They had been promoted mostly because they had friends in court and hadn’t rocked the imperial boat.
Because they were self-seekers instead of leaders these officers proved much more interested in their reputations and well-being than in the army’s actual success. They were all appearance and no action. Some were actually physical cowards. Nearly all refused to listen to good advice, relying instead on ill-tuned instinct and inadequate experience.
Solzhenitsyn describes the hapless General Artomonov, who sends his men into murderous battle, pulls them back just when their bloody sacrifices begin to pay off then lies brazenly to the army commander, saying, “All attacks beaten off. Am standing firm as a rock.” This man, the author explains, is really just a private in general’s clothing.
Are there parallels with our leaders—the bishops, superintendents and agency officials? Unfortunately, a number of them seem to have been chosen mostly because of their high visibility and good public relations. Alas, they have obtained high office only to find their church besieged on all sides. And too many are absolutely unprepared to lead in the situation.
I can think of five or ten of our leaders who have strategic insight on what to do about our collapsing membership. A few more have shown real leadership in restoring our spiritual vision. But considering the gravity of our situation, that’s not nearly enough. My main impression after reading August 1914 is that a system can falter and collapse while millions passively watch, understanding exactly what is happening.
Yet few are willing any longer to risk their lives to save the failing cause.
by Steve | Sep 28, 1989 | Archive - 1989
Archive: Lausanne II: What Happened and Where Were The UMs?
Analysis By George G. Hunter III
More than 4,300 participants and observers from denominations and movements in nearly 190 countries assembled in Manila’s Philippine International Convention Center for the Lausanne II Congress on Evangelization, which met in July. Involvement in this first full conclave since the historic 1974 congress in Lausanne was intense due to the participants’ earnestness and the convention center’s welcome refuge from the city’s monsoon, humid heat. This congress called “The Whole Church” to take “The Whole Gospel” to “The Whole World.”
At the most serious level this congress was anticlimactic compared to the 1974 congress. For instance, the most influential 1974 paper and address came from Dr. Ralph Winter, who defined different levels of evangelism and challenged evangelicals across the earth to identify and reach the world’s approximately “16,750 unreached peoples.” The 1989 congress, by comparison, celebrated the influence of the first congress; its pageantry, stories, testimonies, speakers, music and dance from many Third World movements were moving, at times marvelous.
Still, some themes from this 1989 congress will probably influence world Christianity in the years ahead. First, Thomas Wang, the Lausanne Committee’s outgoing international director, is leading a movement to mobilize the world’s churches to reach all the earth’s unreached people groups by 2000 A.D. Several years ago Southern Baptists defined this convenient and visible goal; it now appears that many of the world’s churches and mission agencies will rally around it.
Second, Ray Bakke and others rang the bell for urban ministry, reminding the congress that by 2000 A.D. more than half of the earth’s population will be urban. The Christian mission faces an increasingly urban world and must redeploy much of its attention, prayer and human resources to serve and reach the struggling populations of cities.
Third, Jim Montgomery’s DAWN (Discipling A Whole Nation) strategy, pioneered in the Philippines, is now being implemented in several other nations. This congress in Manila stimulated much conversation, at least, between denominational leaders of a dozen or more nations.
Fourth, Os Guinness delineated the shape and impact of modernization upon the West and emphasized the need to re-evangelize the neo-pagan populations of Europe and North America. Although mission to the “post-Christian West” has been a topic of some conversation and advocacy since the early 1960s with interest amplified in the late 1980s by Lesslie Newbigin’s Foolishness to the Greeks, this congress should advance this cause.
So Lausanne II in Manila will undoubtedly influence the future of world mission and evangelism. However, none of these themes were launched as movements in the 1989 congress, and none are as innovative and mind-changing as several 1974 themes.
The 1989 congress was significant for who was there and perhaps for who was not. The congress’ daily newspaper reported that participants came from several Protestant denominational traditions as follows: Baptist, 25 percent; Anglican, 20 percent; Reformed, 15 percent; Lutheran, 10 percent; Pentecostal, 10 percent; Methodist, 5 percent and other denominations, 15 percent.
World Methodism: It would be difficult to argue from that data that World Methodism is once again a serious apostolic movement, though Joe Hale, Maxie Dunnam and Eddie Fox were present representing The World Methodist Council’s evangelism concern.
Representation from United Methodism in the United States was scarce—no American UM bishops were present. However, four American Episcopal bishops came, and they reported signs of evangelical renewal in many churches and in their denomination’s world mission. Establishment leaders from other mainline American denominations, notably Presbyterians, Baptists and Lutherans, were present in significant numbers.
To be more specific, one staff person attended from the Board of Global Ministries, one from The Mission Society for United Methodists, and no one attended from the Board of Discipleship’s section on evangelism. From seminaries that essentially serve United Methodism, five were present from Asbury and one from United. In fairness, the delegate selection process may have overlooked many qualified United Methodists (though the leaders of other denominations found a way to make known their interest in attending).
However, the small number of United Methodist leaders in Manila fueled this writer’s anxiety that, when the history of this period is written, the United Methodist Church will be the last mainline American denomination to be set free from the wave of the immediate past to recover its apostolic heritage, vision and power.
Moving beyond those who attended to those who led, the totality of Lausanne II, from the makeup of Lausanne movement committees to the choices for plenary speakers and seminar leaders, presupposed that parachurch organization leaders have much more to contribute than denomination leaders. Lausanne II also relied much less on committees and on insight from theology and mission professors than had Lausanne I. This is the major reason why this congress produced fewer influential ideas than the first.
Hijacking the agenda: As one attends or reads about major international meetings on mission and evangelization (the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) May event in San Antonio, Lausanne II and other major international events of the 1970s and 1980s), a trio of special causes—social justice, universalism, and signs and wonders—is often introduced from the floor by people who sometimes seem bent on “hijacking” the meeting’s main agenda. In San Antonio the WCC decided by a narrow vote against a version of universalism, and its Commission on Mission and Evangelism remains at least as passionately involved in justice issues as in evangelism. Perhaps 25 percent of the Lausanne II agenda, discussion and energy was focused on signs and wonders. And justice was such a formidable concern that a Manila Manifesto evolved which forthrightly called for social justice while, in the full spirit of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant, reasserting the primacy of evangelism within the Church’s total mission.
At one level it would be hard to identify three more dissimilar causes than universalism, social justice, and signs and wonders. But as ideological movements one can observe similarities: (1) Each cause has zealous advocates within its ranks who introduce their interest into any forum; (2) Each cause is intrinsically interesting and engaging; many Christians are primed at any moment to hear about any of the three and are favorably disposed to one or two; (3) The advocates for each cause frequently demand a hearing because they assume they speak from “higher ground” than the masses, though the place of the higher ground varies with the cause. The signs and wonders advocates are thought to speak from an inside spiritual track, the social justice advocates from a compassion ethic and the universalist advocates from an enlightenment idea, deeply ingrained in Western culture, about a universal religious consciousness in the hearts of all humans.
The persistent character of each of these causes, like the more perennial church renewal cause, is to negotiate being added to the evangelization agenda and then, once added, to co-opt the evangelization agenda. So evangelicals will often have to make the case for evangelization, even in “evangelism” gatherings!
Perhaps evangelicals are called to accept, consciously and cheerfully, this responsibility to champion the main business of the Church within the total business of the Church. The revealed Lord of the Scriptures, Who promised that through Abraham’s lineage all the peoples of the earth would one day be blessed and did entrust to the Church the Great Commission, does also desire peace upon the earth, justice for the poor and the renewal of His people.
Evangelicals are called to be full-team players who persistently and winsomely remind the whole Church of the indispensable role of evangelization within “holistic mission” and, when necessary, to insist on it.
by Steve | Sep 26, 1989 | Archive - 1989
Archive: What Dorothy Sayers might say to the United Methodist Church
By Ruth Zimmer
Ask Dorothy Sayers a question, and you might not like her answer. She was not given to supplying comfortable or expected answers. A scientist found this out when he asked Dorothy Sayers to set down in a letter to his scientific organization “her reasons for believing in the Christian faith.”[1] Her response was unsettling, even startling, as she forthrightly began her letter by raising a series of straightforward, challenging questions to the scientist and his colleagues:
“Why do you want a letter from me? Why don’t you take the trouble to find out for yourselves what Christianity is? You take the time to learn technical terms about electricity. Why don’t you do as much for theology? Why do you never read the great writings on the subject, but take your information from the secular ‘experts’ who have picked it up as accurately as you? Why don’t you learn the facts in this field as honestly as in your own field? Why do you accept mildewed old heresies as the language of the church, when any handbook of church history will tell you where they came from?
Why do you want a letter from me telling you about God? You will never bother to check on it or find out whether I’m giving you personal opinions or Christian doctrines. Don’t bother with me. Go away and do some work and let me get on with mine.”
This is a tough answer and not the one expected by the scientist or his colleagues, we can be sure. Dorothy Sayers challenged them to do for themselves what they were well able to do.
Sayers is here calling for intellectual toughness and integrity—a theme found in many of her essays. In re-reading this letter recently I discovered to my chagrin that many times this same challenge could apply to me, to you, to many in our Methodist churches. Why is this so? We avidly read books on child rearing and training when we learn we are going to be parents; we take seriously the responsibility to read and learn the terms, the history, the great writings and the facts in our own fields of daily work (and even related fields), yet we do not approach our spiritual training, growth and development with this same intellectual honesty and directness. We too often accept secular and secondhand opinions on Christianity, not bothering to check them out with Christian doctrine or with the fount of Christian truth—the Scriptures. Others have risked their careers, and some have risked their lives so we could have the Scriptures to read for ourselves. Yet how many of us who call ourselves Christians read the Scriptures daily, seeking answers for our spiritual questions and guidance in our daily Christian walks? We are not doing for ourselves, spiritually, what we are well able to do. As a result many in our churches today have become biblically illiterate. Dorothy Sayers would not accept this kind of intellectual laziness. She would maintain that God clearly expects, even requires of us, intellectual honesty and integrity in our search for spiritual truth and guidance in our daily lives as well as in our daily work.
To our preachers, teachers, seminaries and other leaders in the UM Church, Dorothy Sayers might say, “Stop watering down the Gospel of Christ. Stress the essentials of the faith, and continually reinforce them. Believers need the strong meat of the Gospel; instead, you offer pablum,” and “The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama”[2] (“The Greatest Drama Ever Staged”). “You do Christ no honor ‘by watering down His personality’ so He will not offend. If the mystery of the ‘divine drama’ of God enfleshed in Christ shocks and offends believers, ‘let them be offended’” (“The Dogma is The Drama”). Many of Sayers’ most representative essays express this conviction that Christian truths must be stated dramatically and lived courageously.
Dorothy Sayers was just as direct and uncompromising in her statements on women’s rights. She was not an aggressive feminist, but she consistently pointed out that “male and female are adjectives qualifying the noun ‘human beings’”[3] (Are Women Human?); and, as human beings, women are just as varied in tastes, abilities and preferences as other human beings (men). Sayers believed one of the primary tasks “for any human being [was] … to [discover] and do [sacramentally and joyfully] the work for which he or she was created” (Are Women Human?). However, Sayers just as emphatically stressed that “it is ridiculous to take on a man’s job just in order to be able to say that ‘a woman has done it—Yah!’ The only decent reason for tackling a job is that it is your job and you want to do it.” [4]
Dorothy Sayers took the Church in general to task for failing to follow the example of Christ in His consistent treatment of women as genuinely unique human beings. He “never nagged … flattered … coaxed or patronized them,” she points out, “never mapped out their sphere for them [Mary and Martha], never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female …” (“The Human-Not-Quite-Human “). There is nothing more repugnant to a human being, Sayers reminds us, as “to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person” (A Matter Of Eternity).
Dorothy Sayers would feel the UM Church has done well in being at the forefront in the Church’s acceptance of women in roles of leadership.
Finally, I must acknowledge now what you have probably already guessed. Dorothy Sayers would not like the title of this article. She hated generalizations of all kinds (not just those made about women). She would immediately question, “To which UMC am I speaking? Which is the real UMC? The traditional, faithful followers of the Christ of Scripture or the heretical few who are destroying the Church?”
Dr. Ruth Zimmer is an English professor at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Christianity Today (December 11, 1981), p. 13.
[2] Many of these essays can be found in The Whimsical Christian (New York: Macmillan, 1978) such as “The Greatest Drama Ever Staged” and “The Dogma Is the Drama.”
[3] Sayers’ commentary on the usual slanted pulpit interpretation of the biblical account of Mary and Martha is a classic. (See “The Human-Not-Quite-Human” in Are Women Human? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971, pp. 46-47.)
[4] Sprague, Rosamond Kent, ed. A Matter of Eternity: Selections from … Dorothy L. Sayers. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1973.