by Steve | Dec 30, 2016 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
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by Steve | Dec 23, 2016 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
In Part 2 of a 2 part series on Mary, mother of Jesus, the Rev. Rob Renfroe shows us about her relationship with God.
“So one, its critically important that we come to a good understanding of who God is, but it can be terribly difficult and confusing doing so. So where should we go? Where should we look to come up with a full and accurate picture of who God is? Christians have always said that we should go to the Holy Scriptures where God has revealed Himself to His people. And I don’t believe there’s a better place to go in all of Scripture to get a clear and concise picture of God, than to this hymn of praise that Mary sang, when she was told that she was to bring God’s son into the world.” Rev. Rob Renfroe, President of Good News, says during his advent sermon.
by Steve | Dec 21, 2016 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
In Part 1 of a 2 part series on Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Rev. Rob Renfroe explains how she can be an example to us all.
“It’s one of the best known stories in all the Bible. An angel appears to a young, Jewish maid, in a little town called Nazareth. And Gabriel announces to Mary that she will be with child and give birth to a son. She is to give him the name Jesus and He will become great and He will be called the Son of the Most High.” Rev. Rob Renfroe, President of Good News, gives a advent sermon talking about Mary giving birth to Jesus.
“Now having said that at the same time as I’ve thought about it, I’ve thought, that in some ways what Mary is called to do, is not all that different from what God calls every one of us to do. I mean her task simply stated was what? To receive Christ so she could bring Christ into the world. And it seems to me that what Mary was to do physically each of us who knows Christ, we are to do spiritually, we are to receive Christ. So we can bring Him into the world for others.”
by Steve | Dec 19, 2016 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
By Walter Fenton-
Widespread acts of ecclesial defiance, General Conference, and the launch of the Wesleyan Covenant Association are just a few of the major developments in a very tumultuous year for The United Methodist Church. Here’s a recap, in more or less chronological order, of the year’s five biggest stories.
Ecclesial Defiance
Rev. Cynthia Meyer
From the Rev. Cynthia Meyer’s January announcement to her Kansas congregation that she was in a partnered relationship with another woman, to the Rev. David Meredith’s same-sex wedding service in Columbus, Ohio, three days before the convening of General Conference, ecclesial defiance reached new heights in 2016.
Meyer, who had only been with her small Edgerton, Kansas, congregation for six months, timed her announcement to help kick-off the Reconciling Ministries Network “It’s Time” Campaign. The initiative was geared to sway General Conference delegates to liberalize the church’s sexual ethics and its teachings on marriage. Meredith’s wedding, actually a political stunt, since he and his partner were officially married in December 2015, was timed to rally LGBTQ+ advocates on their way to General Conference.
In between these acts of defiance, several conference boards of ordained ministry voted to ignore the Book of Discipline . Deciding they were right and the rest of the church was wrong, two boards recommended for commissioning and ordination, clergy candidates obviously out of compliance with the church’s standards.
And though General Conference showed no interest in changing its teachings on same-sex marriage and the practice of homosexuality, within a matter of weeks progressive U.S. annual and jurisdictional conferences thumbed their noses at the church’s diverse, global body, and continued to defy decisions reached through holy conferencing.
Central Conferences and U.S. Traditionalists Stand Together
Evident to everyone at General Conference 2016 was the ability of traditionalist delegates from Africa, Europe, the Philippines and the U.S. to thwart much of the
Delegates at General Conference 2016 (UMNS)
progressive agenda championed by U.S. liberals.
Some progressive commentators charged U.S. conservatives with instructing Central conference delegates how to vote and claimed they “hijacked” GC 2016. Although progressives work hand-in-glove with their institutionalist allies at the church’s general boards, agencies, and on the Connectional Table and Council of Bishops, it’s somehow wrong for traditionalists to work together. Progressives still fail to understand how insulting and patronizing it is to Central Conference delegates when people insinuate they can be told how to vote.
Members of the African Initiative made it very clear they have their own agenda and will not take their marching orders from anyone.
Commission on A Way Forward
When it became apparent at General Conference that any attempts to liberalize the church’s teachings on marriage and ordination, including the Connectional Table’s misguided “A Third Way” plan, had no chance of passing, a compromise – of sorts – was reached. Conservatives agreed to spare progressives the embarrassment of seeing cherished legislation soundly defeated by tabling all petitions on the church’s sexual ethics. In exchange, delegates agreed the Disciplines‘ teachings would remain in force, and the Council of Bishops would appoint a commission to bring a definitive resolution to the church’s decades long debate to an unprecedented called General Conference in 2018 or 2019.
Incoming Council of Bishops’ president Bruce Ough acknowledged the council is hopelessly divided. The very idea of a commission was the bishops’ way of acknowledging they needed an ad hoc body to resolve the crisis. Unfortunately, in predictable fashion, and even as the threat to the church’s governance escalated, it took the COB nearly five months just to appoint the commission members. Its lethargy pushed the called General Conference back to 2019, and even that is only a possibility.
In the meantime the church’s worship attendance continues to plunge, some local churches have decided to withhold apportionments, and a lack of trust in denominational leaders has deepened.
Episcopal Election of the Rev. Karen Oliveto
The Rev. Karen Oliveto accepts her election by the Western Jurisdiction as a UM bishop. Her wife, the Rev. Robin Ridenour, stands behind her. UMNS photo.
Despite the compromise reached at General Conference, delegates at the Western Jurisdictional Conference ultimately decided to add fuel to the fire of ecclesial defiance. After 16 ballots, they decided to reject perfectly capable episcopal candidates with all the requisite progressive bona fides the jurisdiction typically requires, and instead elect a lesbian clergywoman they all knew was married to a United Methodist deaconess.
The UM Church now has a bishop of the whole church, leading the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area, who is willfully in violation of the church’s teachings on marriage, and who eagerly confessed to the New York Times that she has presided at over 50 same sex weddings during her clergy career.
The Wesleyan Covenant Association
In the meantime, United Methodists who staunchly support the church’s teachings, its polity, and its good order, met in Chicago to launch the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Over 1,800 people gathered for the hastily planned one-day conference on October 7.
It’s chairman, the Rev. Jeff Greenway said, “I am convinced God is doing a new thing among those of us who claim the historic, orthodox, evangelical, Wesleyan expression of our faith. I believe we are planting seeds today that – when full grown – will bear the fruit of a vital Wesleyan witness and a dynamic Spirit-filled Methodism across the globe.”
It was clearly one of the most momentous years in the church’s history, and sets the stage for disruptive change to come.
Walter Fenton is a United Methodist clergy person and an analyst for Good News.
by Steve | Dec 9, 2016 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
By Walter Fenton-
The United Methodist Church’s General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) reported a 2.9 percent decline in weekly worship attendance from 2014 to 2015. Some observers merely shrug when they hear about a 2.9 percent loss. It seems deceptively inconsequential.
The stark truth is that a 2.9 percent decline means a loss of 82,313 worshippers, the largest loss in the denomination’s 48-year history. On average, UM local churches in the U.S. collectively welcomed 2,832,239 to worship services each weekend in 2014. That number dropped to 2,749,926 in 2015.
2012 General Conference delegate. Photo by Paul Jeffrey, UMNS.
The figure is considered a key indicator of the health and vitality of the church, and it is an important number for helping the GCFA construct the quadrennial budgets for the general church. Last year, when the GCFA learned that average worship attendance fell 2.6 percent from 2013 to 2014, it revised downward its budget proposals for the 2016 General Conference delegates.
While a 2.9 percent decline from one year to the next does not immediately threaten the church, cumulative drops of two percent or more are cause for grave concern. In four of the last six years the denomination has seen drops above that threshold.
Throughout much of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, average worship attendance declined, but not precipitously so. While the rate dropped overall, there were years when average worship attendance actually increased. (The last time the denomination registered an increase in worship attendance was 2001, when the figure grew by 1.7 percent. Many church statisticians considered that rise an anomaly due to a resurgent, but brief interest in church attendance shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The UM Church was not alone in seeing an increase in 2001.)
“Between 1974 and 2002, we lost an average of 4,720 in worship attendance per year,” said Dr. Don House, a professional economist and former chair of GCFA’s Economic Advisory Committee. “But a major shift occurred in 2002. The rate skyrocketed to an annual rate of 52,383 between 2002 and 2012, and now we’ve seen losses of 62,571 (2012-2013), 75,671 (2013-2014), and 82,313 between 2014 and 2015. This is not sustainable.”
Generally, declining rates of worship attendance have a knock-on effect. As local churches see fewer and fewer worshippers, they find it harder to stem their declines. Eventually, they discover they can no longer afford a full-time pastor, which only exacerbates their situations.
More broadly, the denomination then struggles to recruit new pastors, particularly younger ones with families and college debt. People considering full-time ministry justifiably wonder if there would be a local church appointment available that could pay a decent salary with health and pension benefits.
Calculations like this ultimately impact the church’s seminaries in declining enrollments, leading to reduced staffing at the institutions, and even threatening their viability. In short, the drop in worship attendance erodes the very infrastructure many believe is necessary to reverse the downward trend.
In a 2014 report to the GCFA and the Connectional Table, the denomination’s highest administrative body, House warned that the church needed to quickly adopt a credible and metrics driven plan to arrest the plunge in worship attendance. If it failed to do so, he projected that by 2030 the denomination would slide into permanent decline and face collapse by 2050.
Dr. Don House – a lifelong United Methodist – holds a Ph. D. in economics and chairs the denomination’s eight-member Economic Advisory Committee. Photo by Steve Beard.
When House prepared his report he possessed attendance records through 2013. Based on the figures at hand he projected an annual rate of decline of 1.76 percent, but the numbers from the last three years (2.1, 2.6, and 2.9) are well above that rate.
“If we experience a growing rate of decline, as demonstrated since 2012,” said House, “our window for a turnaround strategy will be shorter than I originally projected. We cannot maintain the connection unless we are able to implement and fund a strategy within the next 14 years.”
All five jurisdictions in the U.S. experienced average worship attendance losses in 2015. The Western Jurisdiction led the way with a drop of 3.6 percent followed by the Northeastern (3.5), North Central (3.2), South Central (2.8), and the Southeastern (2.5).
Four of the 56 U.S. annual conferences actually bucked the downward trend with increases in attendance: Yellowstone (9.5 percent), West Virginia (4.3), Dakotas (1.7), and Peninsula-Delaware (1.1).
Conferences with the steepest losses were: Eastern Pennsylvania (7.3 percent), New Mexico (6.8), Susquehanna (5.7), and Dessert Southwest (5.4). Between 2014 and 2015 the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference saw one of its largest and fastest growing local churches exit the denomination.
Wesley Church in Quarryville, PA exited the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference in 2015.
Various reasons for the decline in attendance have been cited.
There is general agreement that many local churches are located in areas where the general population has been declining for years (e.g., western New York and Pennsylvania, and across the upper Midwest and Great Plains states). When these churches were planted in the 19th century their locations made good sense, but now, due to declining population, they are difficult to sustain. It is also true that UM Church members are an aging population, so some of the decline in average worship attendance is simply due to attrition.
These natural declines are not being offset by local church growth in the major metropolitan areas clustered along the coasts, across the south, and in other urban areas where other denominations and non-denominational churches are either holding their own or seeing increases. For instance, the UM Church has only a few large, growing congregations in the densely populated urban areas of the northeast and the west.
Of the approximately 32,100 local UM churches in the U.S., 76 percent (24,654) average less than 100 in attendance, and nearly 70 percent (16,909) of those actually average less than 50 on Sunday morning. Local congregations below that threshold are often challenged to afford a full-time pastor or to find the resources necessary for a sustained plan of evangelization.
Beyond the reasons cited above, there is considerable debate as to why worship attendance has fallen for the past 14 years straight, and why the rate has accelerated so dramatically in the past five.
Many progressives and some centrists argue the church is woefully out of step with the broader culture, particularly with millennials. They claim the church is actually alienating many people with its stands on social issues, particularly those having to do with sexual ethics and marriage.
Traditionalists and other centrists argue the church has lost its evangelical zeal, and also claim the Council of Bishops’ public failures to maintain the good order of the church has undermined local church effectiveness, sapped the morale of clergy and laity who have come to distrust their leaders, and driven members away from its congregations. They also dispute the claim that the church’s sexual ethics and teachings on marriage are driving millennials away. They note that some of the largest churches in the denomination affirm the denominations’ traditionalists teachings and continue to draw large numbers of the demographic.
Despite the record loss for the denomination, many local churches continue to thrive, grow, and show signs of health and vitality in the ministries they undertake every day.
“I am confident,” said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of Good News, “that when we United Methodists are at our best, we have a message that will win people to Christ, transform lives, and send out dedicated disciples to the last, the least, and the lost. I’ve seen it happen over and over again in many different places. But given the crisis we are facing, we must be prepared, going forward, to consider bold ideas and implement major structural changes.”
Walter Fenton is a United Methodist clergy person and an analyst for Good News.
by Steve | Dec 8, 2016 | In the News, Uncategorized
By Steve Beard
Unbeknownst to him, Professor Thomas C. Oden was the prime agitator to the agony and ecstasy of my seminary experience. It was wading through 1,400 pages of his three volume systematic text books that introduced me to his dear friends Athanasius, Basil, John Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, as well as Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine –– that’s just to name a few.
To be honest, sometimes it felt like fraternity hazing and at other times it read devotionally, healing the wounds of my worn-out and stretched mind.
Looking back on it, I would not have had it any other way.
It was with deep sorrow and great gratitude, mixed with a redemptive joy, that I heard about the death of Dr. Oden (1931-2016), my dear friend who taught me so much about the faith once delivered to the saints.
There will be many glowing testimonials to Tom – and none of them will be exaggerations. The praise will be deserved. He was a one of a kind theological mind with a deep spiritual yearning to be faithful to the deep roots of Christianity. Over our 25 years of friendship, there are a few notable reasons I have always trusted Oden.
First, he was steadfastly committed to the historic teachings of Jesus. He made a professional vow to be theologically “unoriginal,” a counterintuitive move for a brilliant intellect within a culture where newer is always considered better and theologians huff and puff to “keep pace with each new ripple of the ideological river.” Oden was sold out to the witness of the martyrs, saints, and prophets –– the faith that has been “everywhere and always and by everyone believed” to be the truth of Christianity.
Second, he had a checkered past. For some reason, I trust those whose skeletons have already been laid bare. He wasn’t always a bleeding heart for orthodoxy. As a “movement theologian,” he dabbled in theoretical Marxism, existentialism, demythologization, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt therapy, humanistic psychology, and parapsychology. Oden liked the bandwagons and everyone winked and nodded. Everyone, that is, except the late Jewish scholar Will Herberg, a brilliant colleague at Drew University who hounded Oden to rediscover his Christian roots.
“The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I still felt depressed even in acquiescence,” G.K. Chesterton wrote many years ago in Orthodoxy. “But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy like a bird in spring.”
Taking Herberg’s admonition seriously, Oden incrementally turned his back on the countless trendy movements and “the fantasies of Bultmannianism” he had embraced and ended up being United Methodism’s preeminent and most prolific theologian.
Third, Oden smiled. Sounds insignificant, but it was not. He was pastoral and deeply concerned about the care of the soul. He was a lover of ideas, an engaged student and teacher. Oden was not bitter –– mildly amused, but not bitter. He was actually grateful for his colleagues –– feminist, form critical, deconstructionist, and even heretical –– who challenged him to be more clear in his espousal of orthodoxy. He only asked for a fair hearing.
One would need a billboard to list all his books. Oden spent 17 years editing the 29-volume Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. My last lengthy interview with Oden dealt with his four-volume collection of John Wesley’s Teachings. He showed that Wesley’s instructional homilies addressed the “whole compass of divinity” through his deep grounding in ancient ecumenical teaching.
The same could be said of Professor Thomas C. Oden. Rest in peace, my treasured friend and teacher. I know that you are relieved to no longer see through the glass dimly, but finally you are granted the joy to see your Savior face to face.
Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.
