by Steve | Mar 17, 2022 | In the News
Dr. George G. Hunter III is the founding dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Now retired, he is the author of numerous books dealing with evangelism, mission, church growth, and ministry.
In 2000, he published The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach The West … Again (Abingdon). Steve Beard sat down with Hunter to talk about Celtic faith, spirituality, imagination, and the supernatural. This interview first appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Good News.
What inspired you to investigate Celtic Christianity?
For longstanding reasons – partly subconscious, perhaps rooted in my genetic makeup or ancestral memory – I have always been more interested in ancient Celtic Christianity than practically any other Protestant that I know.
Four or five years ago a book came out called How the Irish Saved Civilization written by Thomas Cahill, a cracker-jack historian. It stirred my interest in the expansion of Celtic Christianity. He tells the story of how Patrick’s evangelization of Ireland developed an alternative way of doing church and reaching people. Cahill describes how the Celtic monks copied decaying scrolls on to new scrolls and thereby kept much of the Greek and Roman learning of antiquity alive – thereby “saving civilization.” The monks rescued learning from the oblivion of the Dark Ages when the Vandals, Franks, Frisians, Goths, Visigoths, and other “barbaric” peoples overwhelmed the Roman Empire and destroyed the libraries. The Celtic monks kept “civilization” alive.
Cahill tells the story of how people – joining apostolic leaders such as Patrick, Columba, Columbanus, Aidan and others – reached one barbaric population after another across Britain and western Europe. They did this even though the Roman branch of the church thought it was “impossible.” The Romans thought that barbarians could not be Christians. The Celtic movement proved you could evangelize people first and civilize them second.
Then a book came out about three years ago by Anglican Bishop John Finney entitled Recovering the Past. Finney profiles the Celtic movement’s basic mission approach. My book spells out much more specifically how the Celtic Christian movement reached and discipled the barbaric population of Europe.
How do you see this relating to Christianity in the 21st century?
I see, all around us, the rise of “new barbarian” populations. These are the people whose lives are sometimes out of control – driven by compulsion or hijacked by substance abuse. Growing numbers of people have a “rough edge.” If they came to church, they wouldn’t know when to stand up, sit down, or what to say to the pastor afterwards. They wouldn’t know how to find II Kings or II Corinthians. If they said anything, they might split an infinitive or utter an expletive! There are a growing number of people, across the whole western world, who aren’t quite refined and aren’t always nice. Over the years, I have observed that almost all churches overlook those populations. At least nine out of ten churches I’ve worked with will never get around to offering the Christian faith to people who aren’t already sufficiently “civilized” by the church’s standards. Most churches never reach out to people who aren’t “refined” enough to feel comfortable with us, or to people who are too out of control for us to feel comfortable with them.
What kind of rethinking must take place in the modern-day church in order to learn from the Celts?
First, the church probably needs to entertain the idea, as though for the first time, that lost people matter to God, including people who are not “like us” or recognizable “good” church people.
Second, within our Wesleyan tradition, people need to entertain a fresh understanding of the doctrine of prevenient grace. The Holy Spirit is working through the events and circumstances of people’s lives to awaken receptivity to the gospel. If we believe that lost and out-of-control people matter to God and that the Holy Spirit is already initiating an engagement with them, some of the other things will follow.
Sometimes when I’m leading a seminar I’ll ask people if they remember their first kiss? Most people will raise their hands. I ask, “Did you really know what you were doing?” Then, I ask, “Did that stop you from doing it?” Of course it didn’t. The point is that love finds a way. I discovered that the way forward with out-of-control populations today is astonishingly consistent with some of the ways Patrick, Columba, Aidan, Columbanus, Brigid, Hilda and others found to reach the “barbarians” of their time.
You write at length about the “new barbarians” in your book. Tell us more about them, particularly those with addictions.
This is a much more vast population than most church leaders are aware of. Vast numbers of people have a genetic vulnerability for addiction, like other people have a genetic vulnerability to diabetes. But we now know about the added factor that drugs, some more than others, change the chemistry of the brain at varying rates in a way to induce a lifetime of “craving.” At that point a person’s life is, more or less, hijacked and, by themselves, cannot always control what they do. They experience unspeakable guilt and shame, and a profound spiritual battle that the Evil One and the demons exploit.
Years ago, I heard Art Glasser, who taught mission theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, say, “The form that possessive destructive evil takes varies from one generation to another and from one culture to another. It’s most dominant form in our culture and this generation is addiction.” The more I circulate, the more convinced I became that Glasser was right.
In most every city you can find a church or two that steps out of polite conventionality and targets those lost, hijacked people. Likewise, you can find churches that have a dozen, or even a hundred, 12-step meetings at different times of the week in various places.
Some of these churches are invading enemy territory and visiting people in bars and high drug-use neighborhoods, rediscovering that the “sower goes forth to sow the seed of God’s word.”
Addiction can be attached to alcohol, nicotine, heroin, crack cocaine, or even sex. Millions of people live lives out of control; addiction is destroying them inch by inch. These people matter to God. Christ died for them and the power of the Holy Spirit is available to them. Tragically, the Church has what they need, but most churches aren’t offering it to the people who need it most.
Nevertheless, the Recovery Movement is the “underground awakening” of this generation. More people are discovering the grace of God for the first time in their lives through a recovery ministry than through all of the evangelism programs combined. As a professor of evangelism and church growth I had to take that seriously.
Some might flinch at the notion of welcoming out-of-control segments of our society into “perfectly good” congregations. It sounds a bit explosive and adventuresome. Is risk-taking part of Celtic Christianity?
Yes. The gospel song about the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep has the other 99 sheep safe in the fold while the shepherd searches. But that is not the way Jesus’ parable reads. The parable has the 99 huddled together in the wilderness while the shepherd leaves them to hunt for the lost sheep! The parable suggests there is some inherent risk in being a Christian.
Within the Celtic outreach model, people are being grounded in Christian truth and spiritual disciplines, are part of a small group, and they reach out in teams. If these elements are held, probably no one will be lost to “the other side.” But when we keep the people in the church – to eliminate all risk, we rob them of the greatest adventure – following Christ as his ambassadors in the real world.
Celtic Christianity appears to invest heavily in creativity, imagination, and spiritual experience rather than merely spiritual knowledge. Does that play a role in their evangelism and ministry?
Yes. There is now more latitude, and more need, to be creative in how we “do church” and present the gospel. That means engaging people with the gospel in lots of different ways in addition to preaching and didactic teaching. The approach involves culturally relevant music, using the people’s language rather than church’s traditional language, employing poetry, drama, and the visual arts. More and more churches are discovering a kind of multi-media approach to dramatize the gospel in as many different ways as they can. The key to this is allowing the “rebirth” of our imagination.
As the enlightenment has faded, western humanity appears to rely less on logic and reason – we are speaking of differences of degree – and relies more on imagination and experience. The Celtic movement would coach today’s communicator to engage people through their imaginations in a range of creative ways. You maximize the possibility that people will get the message and they’ll discover the beginning gift of faith.
Celtic Christianity also seems to emphasize the interconnectedness between life and theology in a more profound way than most churches today. The Celtic cross incorporates a circle in the center, representing our physical world and nature. The Celtic prayers acknowledge the every-dayness of life and its connectedness to theology.
The Celtic movement presents a whole range of options for our churches. Celtic Christianity was enormously more “culture friendly” than the Roman branch of the church. It even believed that you could find things in the people’s primal religion that could be used to help interpret the gospel. They believed that the gospel came not to destroy but to fulfill the prior religious aspirations and some of the experiences of the people. Celtic Christians believed that the High God that their neighbors believed in – who was unavailable – had indeed come to us and is one with us in Jesus Christ.
Celtic Christians were also “nature friendly,” believing that the animals and birds and fish of the fields, forests, jungles, and rivers are more kin to us than the Roman branch of the church believed – which took a kind of exploitative approach to nature. Defenders of the Roman branch of the church will point to figures like Francis of Assisi. However, Francis discovered Christianity’s love for animals from the Celtic monastery at Bobbio, just a few miles from Assisi, which had been founded by Columbanus.
One aspect of Celtic Christianity is an openness to spiritual warfare. There also seem to be many more episodes of what John Wimber called “power encounters” or supernatural displays of God’s power – healings, deliverances, dreams and visions.
This issue would need to be nuanced very carefully. Compared to present-day traditional western Christianity, Celtic Christianity emphasizes much more experience, the revelation of God through dreams, the power of intercessory prayer, etc. There also appears to have been a significantly greater emphasis on healing – physical, spiritual, and emotional healing – than what we usually find in the church down the street.
When it comes to what Wimber called power encounter, its cousin exorcisms, and some of the other Halloween-oriented ministries, those appear to have been occasional projects of the Celtic movement. They would do it when necessary but they didn’t count it necessary very often. It appears there were such ministries but they were episodic. The later “hagiographers,” who wrote about the lives of the saints, were enormously more interested in spiritual warfare than the saints had been!
Yet even in the Celtic prayers, you read a greater sense of the recognition of the Evil One, of dark forces. Perhaps it was because they were surrounded by Druid culture, but even its written liturgical prayers reflect far more of a cosmic struggle than what we see in mainline, denominational Christianity.
Yes, they certainly had a more vivid sense of the supernatural. They had a vivid sense of the presence of God and a vivid sense of all three persons of the Trinity. They had a vivid sense that we are to pray without ceasing. It meant praying into each situation, and their prayer life reflected their awareness of evil forces in their midst. Part of their life of prayer was to be protected from the Evil One and delivered from the powers of sin, evil, and death. Frankly, I have learned to pray for protection; Christians who are in denial of the presence of evil are more vulnerable than they know.
How would a local church adopt a more Celtic way of “doing church?”
I would recommend adopting the four-fold Celtic approach to preparing people for ministry. It appears to me to be vastly more sophisticated and effective than anything now being attempted in most churches.
First, every person in a monastic community spent some time in solitude, out in nature. They had a saying, “Go and sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Patrick himself discovered the presence of God, that he had learned about in the catechism, in the midst of nature. The Celts believed that time alone in nature is indispensable for triggering a God-consciousness.
Second, everyone had a soul friend. This is not a superior such as a spiritual director, but more like a peer with whom one could be totally vulnerable.
Third, most Celtic Christians were members of a small group who met weekly. Ten or fewer people were led by a person who was most chosen for his or her transparent devoutness.
Fourth, everyone was involved in the life of the monastic community – worship, and Scripture memorization, etc. A great many illiterate Celtic Christians knew all 150 psalms by heart because they rehearsed 30 psalms a day; as a community, every five days, they rehearsed all the psalms.
Everyone, in the community, was involved in ministry with seekers. At some point in their development they would be a seeker’s soul friend, or they would observe and help a seeker in their small group who was discovering faith.
That fourfold approach – solitude, soul friends, small group, and ministry of the community – including ministry with seekers – appears to be a potent synergizing combination to produce contagious saints than any of the “improvements” in the last 12 centuries.
What kind of ministry did the Celts have to seekers?
It was, essentially, the “ministry of hospitality.” The monastic community would simply admit into its ranks people who had not yet discovered the gift of faith. The community seems to have believed Christianity was more caught than taught. The people were more likely to catch it in the community of faith rather than by being left to their own devices in the world. That strategy was recovered by Wesley in 18th century Methodism. The Celts, and the later Methodists, welcomed and involved seekers who hadn’t yet experienced justification.
In the book, I feature 18th century Methodism as a historic case of “unconscious reappropriation” of the Celtic Christian vision. I’ve read all of Wesley’s writings and cannot find much evidence that he consciously drew upon ancient Celtic Christian materials. A number of those themes, such as small groups, hospitality and imagination, were by that time in the DNA or ancestral memory of British Christianity. From time to time, various movements in the Christian community have rediscovered and reinserted those themes.
The current Alpha course is a more recent case of a movement reappropriating many Celtic Christian outreach principles without being fully aware of their ancient source.
You spent time in Ireland, Scotland, and England – at places like Iona –while preparing your book. Many people seem to be doing that. Why?
I think that Celtic Christianity virtually invented the pilgrimage, and our generation has rediscovered its subtle power. The Celts believed that the “veil” between earth and heaven is much “thinner” in places historically associated with a monastic community, or faithful preaching or service, or conversion of a tribe. We experience, in ways we cannot fully explain, that we are more likely to experience God at Iona, or Lindisfarne, or Glendalough, than at Rupp Arena or downtown Manhattan.
This interview appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Good News. Featured image from Shutterstock.
by Steve | Feb 4, 2022 | In the News
Christians and the News Media (part 1) – By Thomas Lambrecht
I was trained in seminary under the slogan that we need to “preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” In other words, it is important to relate biblical faith to the everyday lives and happenings of the people in our churches.
Some preach only the Bible, leaving the message hanging in midair, disconnected from practical, daily reality. Others preach only the newspaper, focusing almost exclusively on the events of the day and pontificating on how a Christian ought to react to those events. How do we responsibly connect biblical teaching and theology with the experiences of our world?
In the last decade, the situation has become much more complicated and harmful, with the proliferation of news sources available on the Internet. Many of these sources, whether established news networks or random individuals who post their thoughts for the world to see, no longer pretend to be objective sources of news, but end up injecting so much political opinion in their reporting that it ceases to be objective. We even have news sources offering conflicting stories and contradictory “facts.” How are we to discern what is true? What implications do these conflicting perspectives have for how we are to live our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ?
Christian author and editor, Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro, has just come out with a new book addressing the fraught relationship that Christians can have with the news media. Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News offers a biblically-influenced way to think about how we consume the news.
As we begin this new year, perhaps some have resolved to do better in how we pay attention to the news and how we interact with social media. I would like to highlight a few thoughts from Bilbro’s book to help guide our thinking in this area.
To What Do We Pay Attention?
Bilbro begins by surfacing the problem of information overload. We are bombarded with thousands of messages every day, whether Facebook posts, Twitter threads, TV news stories, reality shows, and more. Some information is important: a storm is moving into the area tomorrow, the president is proposing a new program to deal with poverty, the latest wisdom on adjusting to the Covid pandemic. Other information is trivial: cat videos, a new store opening downtown, what my best friend is having for lunch.
He warns that paying attention equally to all these various pieces of information can harden our minds and hearts. We begin to not care about any of the things we hear or read because it is too much for us to care about. Nearly every day, I read about a shooting that has taken place in the Houston area. (With a population of 6 million people, that is not surprising.) Paying attention to all of those reports, I may soon begin to think daily shootings are normal and expected, not something I should care about. Perhaps on the order of another traffic backup on the daily commute home.
Bilbro warns that this hardening of the mind and heart (what he calls “macadamization,” like paving an asphalt road) can be dangerous to our spiritual and emotional health. The hardening of our hearts and minds prevents us from caring about the things God cares about and wants us to care about. We become inured to situations that we ought to engage in helping to find solutions. We find it harder to hear God’s voice and feel his heart for the world.
Antidotes to Hardening
Bilbro offers several ways to counteract the hardening effect of the news.
Most obviously, we can reduce the time spent watching or reading the news. I know some people who spend 8-10 hours a day watching a news channel or surfing Twitter. There is no way that amount of exposure is healthy for our minds or spirits. One helpful rule of thumb might be to spend no more time on the news media than we spend reading the Bible, praying, or reading devotional books. It can help us get our lives back in balance.
A second solution is to spend more time contemplating and thinking about the things we read. Reading or listening to one news story or opinion after another tends to make us glaze over. Instead, we can put our roots down deeper into selected issues that we are passionate about. If ending human trafficking is our passion, we can spend more time on news related to that and less time on other social problems. We can spend time learning about that passion and engaging in activity addressing it. Focusing on a few key issues helps combat the hardening that comes from dabbling in many issues.
That leads to a third option, which is to pay attention to stories that directly affect me or enable me to get involved. I can do something about human trafficking. I can help people whose town was wiped out by a tornado or a wildfire. Learning how a politician views issues important to me will affect how I vote in the next election. Caring enough about something to take action in response combats the hardening that deadens our conscience and our capacity to love.
A fourth suggestion is to focus on meaty issues, rather than fluff. C.S. Lewis recommended that, after reading a new book, one should read an old (classic) book before reading the next new one. Read things that have stood the test of time. Bilbro supplements that advice by saying, “we ought to spend at least one – and probably more like two or three – minutes reading books or meaty essays for every minute we spend scrolling through a news feed, listening to the radio, or surfing around the Internet checking in on the latest news. These longer essays and older books act as a kind of ballast, helping us better discern which new headlines are actually significant.”
Bilbro’s final suggestion to combat hardening of the mind and heart is to learn a craft or a hobby. Such things as cooking meals, building wooden furniture, growing a garden, playing piano, or knitting a sweater teach us to focus on everyday reality and keep us grounded. They may even open space and inclination for more contemplation, thinking about reality and how things relate to our spiritual life in Christ. I remember as a child practicing piano and stopping every now and then for a moment of silence to think about the music and what I was learning. Cultivating a craft or hobby helps make us more susceptible to God’s Spirit moving and working in our lives.
When I was a child, the adults around me often talked about “hardening of the arteries,” a disease that afflicted many of their friends and relatives. The hardening of the arteries hinders the flow of blood to the body and contributes to the decay of various bodily organs.
In the same way, the hardening of our minds and hearts due to information overload can hinder the flow of the Holy Spirit and the working of God in our lives. We can lose our sensitivity to spiritual things and our ability to care about others. It is important for us to take steps to guard and preserve our spiritual sensitivity and create a climate in our lives where the Lord can do his transforming work.
Our next blog on this topic will explore how our consumption of the news affects our perception of time.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Jan 26, 2022 | In the News
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By Rob Renfroe
Covid vaccination for United Methodists in the United States is an issue of choice – not of convenience. Inoculation availability in the U.S. is widespread and accessible. This is not the case for all United Methodists in other countries. While it can be hard for urban and travel-oriented United Methodist to comprehend, some General Conference delegates live hundreds of miles away from locations where vaccinations are offered by their governments and health agencies. Those in rural sections of some countries have limited travel options (no private cars, buses and planes run irregular and infrequent schedules, dirt roads are sometimes impassable, and costs are prohibitive for the average person). This creates extraordinary hardship when it comes to reaching destinations to get vaccines.
To attend General Conference, international delegates must meet the government requirements for entry to the United States, which include a WHO-approved Covid vaccination. While the vaccine is provided free of charge for delegates by their home nation, the travel and lodging expenses are not. Neither are they provided by The United Methodist Church.
Traditionalists established a freewill, non-obligatory program to help defray the travel costs for rural General Conference delegates in other countries to receive the vaccine. The program covers travel, hotel stays, and food while delegates receive the vaccine at government health facilities.
Unfortunately, this has suddenly become a hot-button controversy, instead of a widely supported mission. The reaction of progressives and institutionalists to this traditionalist effort to help international General Conference delegates receive vaccinations for Covid-19 is as predictable as it is sad.
The Executive Committee of the Council of Bishops, a body of international bishops, unnamed members of the Commission on General Conference, and progressive bloggers report being “appalled” and “outraged” at the “harm” we are doing and have charged us with colonialism and “jeopardizing the integrity of General Conference.” Our motives are reported to be perverse and cynical, though none of our critics has spoken with us about why we began this initiative. These attacks are the same charges the same people have levelled against us whenever we have collaborated with international delegates on issues where we hold common beliefs.
First, how did we arrive here? Then, let’s ask and answer who is truly guilty of a colonialist mindset – traditionalists or progressives and institutionalists?
I know how the vaccine initiative came about because I was on the phone call when it was developed. The conversation really was this simple. “For the good of the church, General Conference needs to meet in 2022 and pass the Protocol.” “What’s likely to prevent that from happening?” “If the international delegates are not able to attend in representative numbers, the Commission on General Conference could understandably decide GC should be postponed.” “How can we help with that?” “One African bishop and a number of African delegates have asked for help in getting vaccinated so they can attend.” “Are the General Board of Global Ministries, the Commission on the General Conference, or the Council of Bishops doing anything to help make that happen?” “No. Representatives of the Council of Bishops have told us there are no such plans from official church agencies to help delegates get vaccinated.” “Let’s offer to provide travel expenses for those delegates who want to get the vaccine.” “Shouldn’t we ask other groups to join us so it’s clear we don’t have an ulterior motive?” “Yes, in addition to inviting the General Board of Global Ministries, let’s ask progressive and centrist caucus groups to help fund the effort.” (By the way, we did ask those groups to join the effort and they declined.) “It’s going to be expensive.” “Sure, but our people are counting on us to get the Protocol passed and stop the harm being done to the church.” “We will have to move quickly because the Commission on the General Conference might make a decision on postponing General Conference as early as January. We need to demonstrate that nearly all delegates can get vaccinated in order to attend General Conference.” “OK, our decade of partnering with international delegates has created a good network for getting the word out and helping delegates become vaccinated. Let’s do it whether or not we have to pay for it all.”
Thus, the plan was created. The Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA), Good News, the Confessing Movement, and UM Action were very transparent about what we were doing by informing key episcopal leaders of our plans, by asking other groups to join us before the plan was put into action, and later when we announced to the general church what we were doing. Nothing was hidden. Nothing was nefarious. Nothing was done that deserved to be described as dark and malevolent. Even if some might disagree with our efforts, neither our actions nor our motives warranted outright condemnation from our brothers and sisters in Christ. Such is the world we live in. Evidently, such is the church we live in.
So, what about the charge of colonialism? And who has actually acted in ways that could be described by that ugly term?
Was it a traditionalist bishop or a progressive bishop who wrote the following after General Conference 2012? “Delegates from Africa once again proclaimed that their anti-homosexual stand was what U.S. missionaries taught them. I sat there wondering when our African delegates will grow up. It has been 200 years since U.S. Methodist missionaries began their work of evangelization on the continent of Africa; long enough for African Methodists to do their own thinking about this concern and others.” It was not a traditionalist, but progressive Bishop Minerva Carcano who disrespected an entire continent. How did the Council of Bishops, the Commission on General Conference, and progressive bloggers who champion the dignity and inclusion of persons of color respond? Were they outraged and appalled? Did they condemn her colonialist assertion that if Africans do not share her opinions they are unthinking and ignorant? No. Not one of them said a public word taking her to task.
Who withdrew their financial support from Moscow Seminary after General Conference 2019? When the Russian delegates spoke often and passionately on the conference floor, defending a traditional understanding of sexual ethics, was it traditionalists, or progressives and centrists who sent the message: there will be no more support for your theological training until you begin to teach what our liberal western seminaries teach? It was not traditionalists, but a large centrist/progressive local church that has promoted the UM Church as a “big tent,” welcoming all. Several church ministries in Africa suffered a similar fate after GC 2019, prompting the WCA to start a Central Conference Ministry Fund to help projects that lost financial support from centrists and progressives. Did any group that has condemned us for providing funds for vaccinations speak out against removing funds from those who are doing the work of Christ in Russia and Africa? Of course not.
Who is currently floating plans to regionalize the church? Who is proposing to create a structure that would keep international delegates from voting on the sexual ethics and the ordination standards that Methodists in the United States would be expected to follow? Who is putting into reality Mainstream UMC executive director Mark Holland’s idea that, “It is impossible to share a governance structure with a global church which is both fundamentally disconnected from and disapproving of the culture of the United States. This new reality gives us 5 reasons why we should consider some version of an autonomous U.S. church.”
Disapprove of the culture of a western, post-modern, progressive nation with a liberalized sexual ethic (and a church that approves of its values), and a leading centrist spokesperson believes the solution is a U.S. church that is independent from the influence of those unenlightened persons who have not yet accepted the superiority of the American way. And that is the church centrists and progressives now envision and are proposing.
Who wants to diminish the influence of international delegates in the affairs of their denomination because they do not see them as equal partners in determining the will of God? It’s not traditionalists, but progressives and centrists who see international delegates as obstacles to enacting what liberals in this country have decided is God’s will. It’s they, not traditionalists, who see Africans and Filipinos as “work-arounds” to be marginalized, not as brothers and sisters worthy of respect and of fully participating in the process of holy conferencing.
By contrast, who is currently preparing for a denomination in which whites may very well be in the minority? In fact, a denomination in which Americans may be in the minority? Not the progressives and the centrists who plan to remain in the present UM Church in the United States, which is over 90 percent white and which will remain close to that when traditionalists leave.
The Global Methodist Church will be very different. Most of Africa will probably go with the GM Church and a good part of the Philippines may join, as well. International members and persons of color are likely to be in the majority of the new denomination. We who are creating the GM Church know that and we welcome it.
And who believes that international delegates are so lacking in conviction and virtue that their votes can be bought by the promise of a vaccine? That’s one of the charges made against our efforts: we’re attempting to buy votes. Really? By offering to help delegates become vaccinated when we have not made our assistance dependent on anyone telling us how he or she will vote? When we will have no way of knowing how anyone voted when General Conference is over? That’s our plan for influencing the outcome of General Conference? We’re spending $135,000 to buy votes when even Mark Holland agrees that 80% of the international delegates and at least 90% of the Africans voted for the traditional plan in 2019? The charge that traditionalists are buying votes is ludicrous.
But more egregious is the insinuation that the integrity of Africans, Filipinos, and others is for sale to the highest bidder. Those of us who have worked with and who are friends with international delegates know them to be persons of integrity and principle. And it angers and disgusts me when progressives insinuate otherwise. I wait for the Executive Committee of the Council of Bishops, members of the Commission on General Conference, and progressive and centrist leaders to join me in expressing how appalled and outraged they are by these attacks on the integrity of our brothers and sisters.
So, who looks down upon and diminishes delegates living outside of the US, most of them persons of color and poor? Who has demeaned their intellect, their education, and their virtue? Who has defunded them for holding to the positions the UM Church has held since its inception? Who is creating a church that will diminish their influence in the future?
I guess a simpler way of asking those questions is: Who is guilty of a colonialist mindset? Not those who have treated international delegates as equal partners and who are grateful for their influence and who are creating a denomination where their strength will be even greater. Just maybe it’s the group that, for years, has thought it a useful tactic to project their own failures and prejudices onto others. That would include many institutionalists, progressives, centrists, and bishops. And just maybe the next time they decide to be appalled, aghast, and outraged, they should begin with the log in their own eye. That would certainly give them more credibility than they now possess when they condemn others.
Rob Renfroe is a United Methodist clergyperson and the president of Good News.
by Steve | Jan 24, 2022 | In the News
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By Thomas Lambrecht
There is a very old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” It seems that is the case regarding the vaccine initiative promoted by the Renewal and Reform Coalition. Led by the Wesleyan Covenant Association, Good News, the Confessing Movement, and UMAction have committed a total of $135,000 to provide access to Covid vaccines for non-U.S. delegates. The U.S. government currently requires all persons entering the U.S. to be fully vaccinated against Covid. In an effort to remove one of the barriers to holding an in-person General Conference as scheduled in August-September 2022, the Coalition spearheaded an effort to ensure that all delegates could get vaccinated if they desired to do so.
Now, three non-U.S. bishops have issued a statement “deploring” the initiative, calling it “brazen interference in the affairs of The United Methodist Church in Africa.” They believe that “forming a new denomination means leaving a trail of destruction” and “pits us against each other.” Bishops Ruckert (Germany), Nhiwatiwa (Zimbabwe), and Juan (The Philippines) issued the statement. Unnamed “leaders” of the General Commission on the General Conference piled on with their own anonymous criticism of the initiative in a UM News Service article.
Before addressing the leaders’ specific complaints, one must note the over-the-top hyperbolic language used. One would think that the vaccine initiative threatened the existence of human civilization! There are many things to be appalled at in our world today, from ongoing civil wars to the potential invasion of Ukraine, from the economic hardships posed by the pandemic to the millions of casualties of that same pandemic, and the list could go on. It would seem that an initiative to vaccinate 100-200 UM delegates in rural Africa would not rise to that same level of threat.
It appears the three bishops’ main complaint is that the Coalition’s vaccine initiative smacks of “colonialism.” They state, “The unfortunate thing about the entire process by WCA is that it has all the marks of colonialism which our countries went through in [sic] some years ago.” The bishops never define what the “marks of colonialism” are, so it is difficult to determine whether the WCA/Coalition is guilty. Rather, it appears any action taken by Americans that some progressive leaders do not like can be labeled “colonialism” in an effort to besmirch the motives and actions of those Americans. It has become a knee-jerk reaction of some liberals to actions they disagree with, the charge having no real substance, but the powerful effect of stigmatizing those labeled as “colonialists.”
The bishops protest, “One would have thought that our friends and partners in the WCA would have taken some modest time to consult with the church leaders in the Central Conferences so that we move together in how to implement such a cause.” However, the initiative was taken in response to requests from African delegates and church leaders there, who realized that in some areas of Africa, delegates would be unable to be vaccinated, jeopardizing the possibility of their participation in General Conference. African delegates and leaders identified where the need for the initiative exists and are themselves administering the funds, with the normal accountability process in place to ensure the funds are spent with integrity for the purpose for which they were given.
Colonialism disempowers those who are its victims. Throughout the last ten years, the Renewal and Reform Coalition has worked together with African leaders in the Africa Initiative to empower Africans. Where barriers to their full participation have stood in their way, we have sought to work with them to remove those barriers. Whether it has been providing resources or training, working together to elect Africans to general church leadership positions, or enabling alternate delegates to attend General Conference, the Coalition has sought to amplify the voices and participation of Africans, as well as Filipinos and Eastern Europeans, who in the past have been marginalized by some general church processes. Their participation is a matter of justice: their voices must be heard as the church considers very important matters impacting their local churches. What the Coalition has done is the very opposite of colonialism. Providing vaccine access so African delegates can participate in General Conference is just another way in which disadvantaged voices can be brought forward.
It is interesting that none of the three bishops serve in annual conferences where the delegates have trouble obtaining the vaccine. Rather than pledge to assist in vaccination efforts for the families, congregations, or communities associated with United Methodist delegates, they simply condemn this modest effort. It is easy to criticize a program that does not benefit one’s own delegates.
The three bishops’ other main complaint is that the vaccine initiative is an attempt to unduly influence African delegates to vote with traditionalists at General Conference. The bishops declare, “When individual interest groups begin to offer benefits to delegates, they jeopardize the integrity of General Conference.” According to the article, “Commission leaders also object to ‘The appearance of perceived or real influence of the vote of General Conference delegates on any number of matters under consideration.’” This tired argument has been trotted out before and is insulting to non-U.S. delegates. It seems some UM leaders think non-U.S. delegates cannot think for themselves or stand on their own convictions. They believe that African delegates’ votes can be “bought” by traditionalists, notwithstanding the fact that 95 percent of African United Methodists are already traditionalists and do not need their vote to be “bought” in order to agree with U.S. traditionalists.
A third complaint raised by the bishops as well as the anonymous Commission leaders declares that the vaccine initiative (in the words of the bishops) “is not an expression of vaccine equity.” They continue, “We are dismayed that the WCA would choose to help provide vaccines to only a few people and not the community as whole [sic].” The Commission leaders say, “As is apparent through the data on the current omicron variant, a focus on vaccinating one member of a family, household, workplace, church or other group while not vaccinating the other members of the group would not ensure that the vaccinated individual would have the most protection from the virus.”
We have become painfully aware that vaccination does not protect people from becoming infected. More and more vaccinated and even boosted individuals are suffering bouts of Covid. However, the vaccine does protect against serious illness and death in most cases. Therefore, vaccinating any person offers protection from serious illness and death, whether or not other members of their family or group are vaccinated.
This is a classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. The perfect outcome would be to vaccinate every single person in the world who desires it. Does that mean that if we cannot vaccinate every single person, we should vaccinate no one? Vaccinating some is better than vaccinating none. Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt, British pioneer of radar technology, is quoted as saying, “Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.” In other words, if we wait for the perfect solution, we will never accomplish anything. Just because we cannot offer “the most protection from the virus” does not mean we should offer no protection from the virus.
Vaccinating delegates so an in-person General Conference can take place does not contradict or interfere with the goal of vaccine equity, sharing more of the vaccine to the countries who can least afford it. The two initiatives have different purposes that harmonize, rather than conflict. In some cases, vaccinating a village leader who happens to be a delegate can act as a positive example for others to obtain the vaccine. The members of the Coalition wholeheartedly support vaccine equity and the GBGM “Love Beyond Borders” Advance. Both initiatives are worthy of support, and championing one does not mean one cannot also back the other. This would be a false dichotomy.
The unidentified Commission leaders put forward a few other criticisms:
- “The unofficial advocacy group’s collection of private medical information.” Presumably, this means finding out the vaccination status of individual delegates. Such information is necessary to help delegates obtain visas. Knowing the vaccination status of the delegates is also a primary piece of information for the Commission in determining whether to hold an in-person General Conference. Such information is not shared, except in the aggregate. Knowing the overall vaccination status of delegations helps make the case that lack of vaccination is not a barrier to an in-person General Conference. Besides that, any delegate coming to the U.S. will have been vaccinated, so that will already be publicly known by virtue of their attending General Conference.
- “Fundraising and distribution of resources are not bound by The United Methodist Church’s auditing requirements.” As religious non-profits, the members of the Coalition are bound by universal auditing requirements and at least two of the organizations annually obtain a professional audit of their books governed by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). In addition, Good News and the WCA are members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), which holds its members to the highest standards of financial and governance integrity.
- “Interference and possible disruption in the medical treatment plans of existing public health departments and ministries.” The vaccinations are given free by government public health authorities. The Coalition’s vaccine initiative only pays for transportation, food, and lodging to enable persons to receive the vaccine. Delegates who receive the vaccine do not preclude or take the place of any other person receiving it. There is no interference or disruption because the delegates attend the vaccine clinics in small numbers.
- “Liability in the case of an adverse medical outcome or developing condition.” It is up to the individual delegate whether they want to be vaccinated. It is a decision between the person and his or her doctor. No liability accrues to those who simply provide transportation to receive the vaccine at the delegate’s request.
Before proceeding with the vaccine initiative, the WCA approached UM leaders to find out if there were plans by official church agencies to enable delegates to secure vaccines. There were not. The Coalition approached GBGM to find out if they were willing to enable delegates to secure vaccines. They did not respond, and their vaccine programs appear to be aimed at building up the general health system of countries, rather than specifically providing vaccines, particularly to delegates. The Coalition approached centrist and progressive caucus groups to invite them to join in this effort in order to make it a “bipartisan” initiative. They have either declined to participate or have yet to respond.
It is the role of leaders to help organizations move forward toward the organization’s goals. So far, the official United Methodist leaders as a whole have failed to help the church get “unstuck” by enabling an in-person General Conference to take place. In the absence of leadership from official bodies, the Coalition took it upon itself to provide that leadership to surmount at least one substantial barrier to holding General Conference. Dwight L. Moody is quoted as saying, “I like my way of doing [evangelism] better than your way of not doing it.” Applied to our current situation, providing some leadership, however imperfect, is preferable to having no leadership.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | Jan 17, 2022 | In the News
Mural of Coretta Scott King at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta. Photo: Steve Beard.
By Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) –
Throughout the epic freedom struggle of African Americans, our great sustainer of hope has been the power of prayer. We prayed for deliverance in a dozen African languages, chained to the holds of slave ships, on the auction block, in the fields of oppression, and under the lash. We prayed when we “followed the drinking gourd” on the Underground Railroad. We prayed when our families were torn asunder by the slave traders. We prayed when our homes and churches were burned and bombed and when our people were lynched by racist mobs. So many times it seemed our prayer went unanswered, but we kept faith that one day our unearned suffering would prove to be redemptive.
As a young child growing up in Marion, Alabama, I remember my pastor at Mt. Tabor Church responding to the racial abuse of one of our congregation by saying, “God loves us all, and people will reap what they sow. So just keep on praying. Don’t worry. God will straighten things out.” I believed he was right then, and I believe it still.
My parents made sure that prayer would be a regular part of my life, and it has been to this very day. Prayer is how we open our hearts to God, how we make that vital connection that empowers us to overcome overwhelming obstacles and become instruments of God’s will. And despite the pain and suffering that I have experienced and that comes to all of our lives, I am more convinced than ever before that prayer gives us strength and hope, a sense of divine companionship, as we struggle for justice and righteousness.
Prayer was a wellspring of strength and inspiration during the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout the movement, we prayed for greater human understanding. We prayed for the safety of our compatriots in the freedom struggle. We prayed for victory in our nonviolent protests, for brotherhood and sisterhood among people of all races, for reconciliation and the fulfillment of the Beloved Community.
For my husband, Martin Luther King Jr., prayer was a daily source of courage and strength that gave him the ability to carry on in even the darkest hours of our struggle. I remember one very difficult day when he came home bone-weary from the stress that came with his leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In the middle of that night, he was awakened by a threatening and abusive phone call, one of many we received throughout the movement. On this particular occasion, however, Martin had had enough.
After the call, he got up from bed and made himself some coffee. He began to worry about his family, and all of the burdens that came with our movement weighed heavily on his soul. With his head in his hands, Martin bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud to God: “Lord, I am taking a stand for what I believe is right. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can’t face it alone.
Later he told me, “At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear a voice saying: ‘Stand up for righteousness; stand up for truth; and God will be at our side forever.’” When Martin stood up from the table, he was imbued with a new sense of confidence, and he was ready to face anything.
I believe that this prayer was a critical turning point for the African-American freedom struggle, because from that point forward, we had a leader who was divinely inspired and could not be turned back by threats or any form of violence. This kind of courage and conviction is truly contagious, and I know his example inspired me to carry on through the difficult days of my journey.
A few nights after Martin’s moment of truth, I had mine. I was sitting in my living room in Montgomery, chatting with a friend, while my new baby daughter, Yolanda, was asleep in the back room. Suddenly, we heard a loud thump on the front porch. Because of all the recent threats, I urged my friend to get up. “It sounds as if someone has hit the house. We’d better move to the back.”
As we moved toward the back, we felt a thunderous blast, followed by shattering glass and billowing smoke. I hurried to Yolanda’s room and thanked God that she was all right. I called the church where my husband was speaking, but he was addressing the audience at the time. He called me back shortly afterward as a large crowd gathered at our house, and then he rushed home.
The crowd was angry at what had happened, and there was a lot of tension between the police and those who had gathered, some of whom were armed with guns, rocks, and bottles. In the midst of all of the turmoil, I said a silent prayer for the protection of our family and the restoration of peace. Then Martin began to speak to the crowd from the front porch of our home. “My wife and baby are all right, ” he said. “I want you to go home and put down your weapons. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence.”
As Martin continued to speak, I was enveloped by a growing calm. “God is with us,” I thought. “God is truly with us.” The fear and anger around me began to melt like the receding snows of spring. Almost at that moment, Martin concluded his remarks to the crowd: “Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not stop, because God is with this movement. Go home with this glowing faith and this radiant assurance.”
Martin’s speech on that day was yet another crucial turning point for our freedom struggle because it set the tone of nonviolence that gave our movement its unique credibility and enabled all of the victories we achieved under his leadership.
From that day on, I was fully prepared for my role as Martin’s wife and partner in the struggle. There would be many more days of difficulty and worry, and there would be many more prayers. But the unwavering belief that we were doing God’s work became a daily source of faith and courage that undergirded our freedom movement.
It is said that every prayer is heard and every prayer is answered in some way, and I believe this is true for people of all faiths. I still believe that the millions of prayers spoken by African Americans from the Middle Passage on down to today have been heard by a righteous and loving God.
Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006), the late widow of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was the Founder and former Chairman, President, and CEO of The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia. Mrs. King was a human rights activist for more than 40 years.
This excerpt appeared in the March/April 2004 issue of Good News. Reprinted from “Standing in the Need of Prayer” from the Schomburg Center, with permission from The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.
by Steve | Jan 14, 2022 | In the News
By Thomas Lambrecht
In October 2021, after 16 months of Covid-related delay, the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) adopted a plan to allow traditionalist congregations to disaffiliate over the church’s gridlock over LGBTQ ordination and same-sex marriage. That plan has now given rise to a new, theologically conservative denomination called the Alliance of Reformed Churches. Several smaller networks of traditionalist churches also formed prior to the General Synod’s action.
According to articles by Kathryn Post in Religion News Service (RNS), “The RCA is a historically Dutch Reformed denomination dating back to the 1620s, when New York was known as New Amsterdam. Today, the RCA has fewer than 200,000 members and 1,000 churches.”
“It’s really about how we view the Bible, how we understand God and the nature of the church,” the Rev. Lynn Japinga, professor of religion at RCA-affiliated Hope College, is quoted as saying. “It’s a fundamental difference in approach to the Christian faith that’s the source of all this.”
The Rev. Ron Citlau, senior pastor of Calvary Church near Chicago, frames the question this way, “The issue for me and many of the people I know is, is it a thing for which Jesus Christ needs to come to redeem us, or is it a blessing he wants us to embrace? If we get sin wrong, there are larger issues at stake.”
The Reformed Church has similar issues of accountability comparable to The United Methodist Church. According to the articles, “The RCA has a localized structure that gives classes – regional church groups [similar to UM annual conferences] – authority over matters such as discipline and ordination. While all RCA churches follow the Book of Church Order, they don’t have to follow the General Synod’s recommendations.”
David Komline, associate professor of church history at Western Theological Seminary, is quoted as saying, “The General Synod has repeatedly made statements that are more traditional in orientation about sexuality, but those are just statements. There are no mechanisms in place to hold people accountable to these statements.”
Attempts to amend the Book of Church Order to define marriage as between a woman and a man passed the General Synod, but failed to win the necessary two-thirds approval from classes. According to Citlau, “We found that the RCA is designed in such a way, intentionally or not, in which the vast majority cannot move to what they believe is right because there are just enough progressive classes that can veto.”
The 2018 General Synod formed a team “charged with discerning whether the RCA should stay together, restructure, or separate.” The team proposed three options: 1) organizing the classes [annual conferences] by affinity, rather than geography, allowing churches to opt into classes based on shared values; 2) creating an external RCA mission agency that would allow departing churches to continue supporting RCA’s global mission work; and/or 3) allowing a departing church to retain its property and assets. These three proposals were considered at the 2020 General Synod that was postponed until 2021.
Even before the General Synod acted, one class [annual conference] withdrew from the RCA. As Citlau, one of the leaders in the breakaway class, is quoted as explaining, “The RCA has this albatross around its neck, and historically it moves very slow. From our point of view, the house is burning. We can’t keep saying, we’re going to wait five more years and have a couple of committees. It’s already a bloody mess, and until you’re willing to get in there and make some choices, there’s no way through.”
Komline, the church history professor, is quoted as saying, “People on different sides of the spectrum have been fighting for about 40 years and they’re sick of it. They believe their fighting is impeding their mission. I think that’s the case on both sides. The liberals want to go pursue justice, as they define it, and the evangelicals want to share the gospel as they define that.”
In response to the conflict, the 2020/21 General Synod adopted regulations for churches that have chosen to leave the RCA to retain their assets and buildings (the third proposal above). “We believe that the RCA has an opportunity in this moment to act in an exemplary way by providing a generous exit path for churches who decide to leave, and also by inviting these churches to act generously themselves,” Brian Keepers, a Vision 2020 team member who presented the recommendation, is quoted as saying.
The delegates overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to create an external global mission agency (the second proposal above).
However, the delegates did approve the first proposal above, forming a team to restructure the denomination’s regional church groups by affinity, rather than geography. Each group/class would make its own decisions on ordination and marriage.
It remains to be seen, however, whether traditionalist churches will stick around to participate in affinity classes. On New Year’s Day, 43 congregations left the RCA to join the traditionalist Alliance of Reformed Churches (ARC). According to the articles, “At least 125 churches from various denominations are in conversation with ARC leaders about joining.” Steven Rodriguez, an RCA church planter in Brockport, New York, is quoted as describing the departing churches as “a large group of conservative churches that are also providing a lot of income to the denomination.”
The new Alliance, according to one RNS report, “besides not affirming same-sex marriage or ordination of LGBTQ individuals, will have a strong emphasis on church planting and feature a flexible organizational model meant to foster theological alignment and efficient decision-making, according to ARC leaders.” As Tim Vink, the new denomination’s director of spiritual leadership and outreach, describes it, “We have a passion for this remnant of believers to become a part of reformation and revival in the Northern Hemisphere. Part of our strategic thinking is designing things for the 21st century that allows a multiplication of gospel-saturated churches and a multiplication of disciples.”
“We believe if the church is going to be successful in the 21stcentury, it needs to be powered by a more agile structure and it needs to be more theologically aligned than theologically diverse,” Dan Ackerman, ARC’s director of organizational leadership, is quoted as saying.
According to the RNS report: “Joel Baar, an ARC board member and elder at Fellowship Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan, which opted to join ARC by a vote of 604-9, said that theological conformity of ARC is part of what appealed to his congregation. ‘As the RCA was attempting to define and clarify marriage,’ said Barr, ‘and efforts had been happening over the decades in that regard, there continued to be this tension within the RCA of whether or not the Bible was the full authority of God’s Word. We started feeling at Fellowship we no longer belonged within the RCA.’”
RNS continued: “ARC will replace national in-person conferences with video calls, digital messaging platforms, and other forms of virtual communication to make decisions more efficiently, organizers said. Its board already meets twice a month to expedite response times.”
According to the articles, “RCA leadership has reached out to its congregations, hoping to sell them on RCA’s increasing diversity and new international church-planting and missional partnerships. Yet, the RCA is also committed to allowing departing churches to leave on good terms. ‘We want to bless our brothers and sisters who are choosing to find another denominational family,’ said Christina Tazelaar, director of communication for the RCA.
“The ARC seems equally dedicated to a smooth transition. ‘We bless the RCA, we pray for the RCA,’ said Vink.” Nevertheless, he went on, “the General Synod in October made it clear to many conservative churches that the time is now to look for a new wineskin.”
It is striking how similar the RCA’s situation is to our United Methodist dilemma. Even the words used by the leaders on both sides correspond almost exactly to what UM leaders have said.
If the Reformed Church in America could find a way to pull off an amicable separation, why couldn’t The United Methodist Church do the same? Here’s hoping the 2022 General Conference will follow their gracious example.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
Article Links
The Reformed Church in America faces rupture over LGBTQ gridlock
The Reformed Church in America moves toward restructuring, prepares for departures
Reformed Church in America splits as conservative churches form new denomination
