by Steve | Apr 1, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Heather Hahn
A call by a group of retired bishops to end the United Methodist Church’s ban on homosexual clergy has prompted varied reactions from church leaders.
In the past two weeks, some bishops have urged prayer and thoughtful discussion. Others have expressed disappointment in the retired leaders. Still others have voiced support for the change. In each case, bishops have stressed their commitment to uphold church law.
Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, released a statement on February 3 encouraging “thoughtful, prayerful dialogue about sensitive and challenging issues.”
“We call this holy conferencing,” Goodpaster wrote on behalf of the council’s executive committee. “We are committed to embody this in our
own life as a council and lead the church in doing the same.”
Meanwhile, three more retired bishops have signed the “Statement of Counsel to the Church,” bringing the total to 36 retired bishops asking the church to change its policy. About 42 percent of the denomination’s 85 retired bishops have signed the statement, released January 31. Most signers live and serve in the United States. Three retired leaders from the denomination’s central conferences signed the statement.
The Book of Discipline states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”
The retired bishops’ statement asks that this passage be removed.
Only General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking body, can change the Book of Discipline. The subject of homosexuality has surfaced every four years at General Conference, and delegates consistently have voted to keep the restriction.
The next such gathering is scheduled for April 24-May 4, 2012, in Tampa, Florida, and Goodpaster asks church members to pray for the whole church as General Conference approaches.
In the mean time, Goodpaster assured church members that the Council of Bishops remains “committed to living within the covenant defined by the Book of Discipline.”
‘A serious matter.’ Neither active nor retired bishops are allowed to vote at General Conference. Still, it is “a serious matter” when a group of bishops communicates to the church disagreement with established doctrine, Bishops John Schol and James E. Swanson said in separate statements to their respective conferences.
“The Council of Bishops needs to teach and lead; and when the church is divided on essential doctrine, teaching and leading becomes even more important,” Schol told the Baltimore-Washington Annual (regional) Conference in his statement.
In coming months, Schol said he hopes to invite United Methodist bishops with varying views to share the denomination’s teachings on controversial matters. He committed to pray for the church and asked others in his conference to do the same.
Swanson shared a similar message with the Holston Conference, which encompasses 900-plus churches in Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.
“We want to make it clear that we respect the right of people of good conscience to disagree with the positions of The United Methodist Church,” Swanson said in a joint statement with Mary Ruth Richards, conference lay leader. “However, we assure you that we are committed to faithfully upholding the Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church.”
Florida Area Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker said he supports the denomination’s basic position. “It’s in agreement with Scripture and ecumenical Christian tradition in the broadest sense,” he said. “We have the Church — with a capital C — in many different cultural settings, and in those different cultural settings, there are different understandings of human sexuality. I think in making its decisions, the Church must be mindful of its responsibility to its members in all its cultural settings and not just select ones.”
Voices of disagreement. Some bishops expressed disappointment with the retired bishops’ public opposition to the Book of Discipline’s current rule.
“I think that it’s unfortunate that this group of bishops has stepped outside of the covenant relationship and find this the only way in which to voice their opinion about the issue of homosexuality,” Oklahoma Bishop Robert E. Hayes Jr., said in an interview.
He said the statement steps outside the accepted process for changing church policy. Any person, regardless of whether that individual is clergy or a layperson, can petition General Conference to ask for a change.
“This circumvents our way of handling difficult issues,” Hayes said. “I am very disappointed the bishops chose this way to make their opinions known.”
Bishop Eben K. Nhiwatiwa of Zimbabwe said, by and large, people in his conference stand by what the Book of Discipline says about homosexuality.
“Africa should not be pushed on this issue,” he said. “The position of The United Methodist Church right now is the position that is in sync with the context of the African church right now.”
Bishop John Innis of Liberia agreed. He said he respects the retired bishops, but he must stand with the Book of Discipline.
“We are all created by God,” he said. “A person who practices homosexuality can be my friend, but I cannot condone that behavior.”
Voices of support. Bishop Robert T. Hoshibata of the Oregon-Idaho Conference takes a very different view. He is among those who endorse the retired bishops’ statement.
He believes “good, biblical people” are on both sides of this issue.
“But … in the context where I am doing ministry, there are many persons that I know—gay and lesbian and transgender—who are good people, good Christians, who the church is neglecting or turning away from,” he said.
Retired Bishops Sharon Z. Rader and Donald A. Ott said they circulated the statement to their fellow retirees urging the change in part because of their experience as church leaders.
Since the statement was released, Rader said the responses she has personally received have been almost universally positive.
She said many have told her the initiative “brings hope for the future of our church and the making plain of our desire to invite, receive and empower all who desire to live as faithful disciples of Jesus as part of The United Methodist Church.”
She and Ott have not sought the signatures of active bishops, but Rader is looking forward to hearing their thoughts.
“We hope the change we propose will help bishops and the whole church to find our place beside Jesus where people live on the margins of church and society,” she said.
At this point, the Council of Bishops has not discussed the retired leaders’ proposal as a group.
Goodpaster, the council’s president, predicted in an interview that when the council meets in May, “there will be some conversation.”
Heather Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service. Linda Bloom, a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service, also contributed to this article.
by Steve | Apr 1, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Duffy Robbins
One of the questions I’m often asked with regards to youth Bible studies or Sunday night youth group messages is: “How should we decide what to teach?” We talked in the last issue of Good News about how to develop a youth ministry teaching curriculum. The key emphasis there was balance: we want to make sure that we’re not teaching repeatedly on the same pet topics over and over again, reproducing our own personal blindspots, and leaving our youth group kids undernourished because they’ve been exposed to only a few of Scripture’s many food groups.
Clearly a balanced diet of biblical truth is important for growing Christians.
But still, it’s often confusing when we try to sort out when to teach what, where, and to whom.
Mosaic Teaching. The best way to approach a question like that is to recognize that no one youth meeting stands alone. Every meeting we plan, every lesson we teach, every activity we do is a part of the larger mosaic of our youth ministry program. What that means, in one sense, is that every tile of the mosaic has to fit in with the overall big picture. A lot of us just piece together all these neat little tiles of “youth stuff” without really considering how it all goes together. What we end up with looks like a mosaic piece that was dropped on the ground, and then was hurriedly put back together. There’s no coherent picture. To maximize the impact of each individual lesson or study, we’ll want to give some thought to how a given study on a given night ties in with a devotional on another night, and how those two lessons tie in with other elements of your program.
There are lots of different ways of doing this, and the best one is the one that works best for your ministry. But, if this is a new concept for you, here’s a simple way to think “big picture” about your ministry. Let’s say, for the sake of simplicity, that there are three broad pieces to a balanced youth ministry environment: outreach, nurture, and leadership development, and your speaking at various times will reflect each of these three emphases.
• Outreach: speaking targeted to unchurched students;
• Nurture: speaking targeted to students who have made an initial commitment to Christ, and now need motivation and training for growth;
• Leadership Development: speaking aimed at students (and adults) who are willing to own some leadership vision for the ministry.
Thinking in terms of these three broad pieces can help you maintain balance and purpose as you plan Bible studies and talks for a given three to six month period. One way to conceptualize it is to think of the year in terms of youth ministry “seasons”—to recognize that certain times of the year lend themselves better to certain types of ministry emphases, and therefore to certain types of topics and themes when you teach.
This could vary by region of the country and even by community, but just as an example, Fall seems like a natural time to do outreach. In the Fall, you have a lot of kids who have never come to youth group or club before. They’ve just moved up to a new grade, they’ve just moved into the area, they’re joining new organizations, new groups—they’re just open to a change. And this emphasis on outreach would be translated into every facet of your ministry—the topics you do in small groups, the thrust of your leadership training, the way you shape a Fall retreat, your ministry to parents—everything. And, it’s reflected in the topics you teach on. Each piece of the mosaic is part of a larger picture.
And then, let’s say, by mid-October, when the main thrust of any beginning-of-the-school-year emphasis on outreach begins to level off, that would be a reasonable time to then shift gears and speak on topics and themes that are more related to nurture. It’s not that a ministry from that point on would ignore outreach. If a student comes and says, “Can I accept Christ?” you’re not going to say, “uh…well, that was last month.” But there is a shift in emphasis, and that’s reflected in the way you plan your teaching topics. And again, this shift in emphasis is woven through every facet of the program so that in some ways what is happening in small groups, or in Sunday school, or in mid-week club is setting the table for the talk or study you’re doing in a given week.
The concept is more important than any actual calendar dates. The idea is to use the natural tides of your ministry to help you plan your topics.
by Steve | Apr 1, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Liza Kittle
The 2009 local church statistics* from the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) are in. United Methodist Women (UMW) lost 45,151 individual members and 488 local units in one year. (*Numbers reported from GCFA run one full year behind.)
The annual membership loss in UMW reflects a pattern that has taken place for several decades, but much more significantly in the past several years. Since 2006, UMW has lost over 72,000 members and over 1,200 local units.
According to GCFA, the current membership of UMW at the end of 2009 stood at 594,808 with 18,963 local churches reporting UMW units.
These numbers are taken from individual local church reports which are required by the United Methodist Church and therefore represent a highly accurate assessment. The Women’s Division, the governing body of United Methodist Women, is not required to report their membership numbers to GCFA, as they operate differently from other church entities. The Women’s Division continues to maintain that UMW membership totals “more than 800,000.” In 1974, UMW had a membership of 1.36 million women.
With the female membership of the UM Church remaining fairly stable at about 4.4 million, the new UMW membership numbers mean that only 13.5 percent of the women in the denomination belong to United Methodist Women.
This is quite shocking due to the fact that United Methodist Women is the only officially sanctioned women’s ministry program in the UM Church. What about the other 86.5 percent of the women in the UM Church? Sadly, due to pressure from the Women’s Division, United Methodist leadership refuses to listen to the heart cries of most of the women in the denomination.
Currently, the Book of Discipline requires that every local church “shall” have a United Methodist Women group. For twenty years, Renew and the women of the church have waged a spiritual battle with the Women’s Division at General Conference to have the Discipline changed to read that every local church “may” have a UMW group. This new language would not “tear down” United Methodist Women, but give women more options in forming other types of women’s ministry programs.
Changing that one little word in the Book of Discipline has proven a herculean task. The first year the language change was proposed, the vote was very close when brought to the main floor of General Conference, as many delegates saw the benefit and logic of a variety of women’s ministry options.
In subsequent years, however, the Women’s Division has waged an all-out battle to maintain the original language. Why would anyone disapprove of offering other options for women, especially as the needs and gifts of women are so varied in today’s world? This question has remained both puzzling and frustrating in the minds of laity and clergy for years.
While many larger churches have vibrant women’s ministry programs in their local churches and ignore the UMW requirement in the Book of Discipline, it remains a greater challenge for medium and small membership churches. Pastors and women in these churches feel threatened by violating the Discipline, so they continue to struggle along even as their membership dwindles and fruitfulness diminishes.
Many district superintendents and bishops even pressure their clergy to stand by the language and don’t provide encouragement or support for women who desire other ministry options. Without official endorsement from annual conferences and the General Conference, vibrant women’s ministry will continue to be maligned and discouraged.
How is the Women’s Division able to sustain so much power and influence over women’s ministry? There are several reasons. One reason is the Division maintains a virtually separate structure from the other boards and agencies, which allows them to operate autonomously within the church. While currently the Division comes under the mantle of the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM), that relationship has become less symbiotic as the Division has withdrawn its annual gift of 10 million to GBGM. The Division does however still maintain a 40 percent representation on the GBGM Board of Directors.
Current economic conditions and impending restructuring of general boards and agencies haven’t seemed to affect the Women’s Division. Not only has the Division taken several programs under their wing from GBGM such as the Deaconess Program, the National Mission Institutions (which the WD owns), and Community Ministries personnel and programs, but their 2011 budget reflects staff additions and increased administrative costs. A current breakdown of the 2011 budget of the Women’s Division can be downloaded from the Renew website (www.renewnetwork.org). The Women’s Division continues to be a powerful autonomous force within the United Methodist Church even as their membership dwindles.
Another important reason for the powerful influence of the Women’s Division lies at General Conference. The Division is allowed to host the orientation session for female delegates, whereby they tell the delegates which legislation they favor/disfavor and instruct them on obtaining powerful positions in legislative committees. This “orientation” gives the Division an unfair advantage and access to delegates before the first plenary of General Conference even begins, making substantive disciplinary changes difficult.
While United Methodist Women has a great historical legacy, its sole position as the only avenue for women’s ministry is growing increasingly unrealistic and unacceptable. The falling membership numbers of the GCFA report bear this out.
With a new emphasis on building vital congregations over the next decade, a new emphasis on strong women’s ministry options must be a priority of the church. Each local church has a group of unique women with unique needs and gifts. Every local church’s women’s ministry program should reflect the diversity of the women it serves and equips for ministry.
If we are truly the church of “Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors,” this motto should apply to women’s ministry as well. It is time for the bondage placed on the women of the UM Church by the Women’s Division to end. In a few years, if statistics continue to show these sharp annual declines in UMW membership, the church will face a crisis. Women want vital women’s ministry and if it’s not available, they will find a church home elsewhere. Please join Renew in advocating for the women in the UM Church who desire a variety of women’s ministry options.
Liza Kittle is the President of the Renew Network (www.renew-network.org), P.O. Box 16055, Augusta, GA 30919; telephone: 706-364-0166.
by Steve | Apr 1, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Steve Seamands
In the American church and in our culture in general, we are so accustomed to seeing crosses on church buildings or in sanctuaries, wearing them on chains, or carrying them in processions that it’s virtually impossible for us to grasp the utter horror that the very mention of crucifixion provoked in the Ancient World. “Do you sell gold crosses?” a customer inquired in the jewelry section of a Denver, Colorado, department store. “What kind would you like?” asked the clerk, as she pulled out one of the trays, “A plain one or one that has the little man on it?” For most of us, the cross is an endearing, often sentimental, religious symbol that evokes positive feelings.
Originally, however, when the apostles preached about the cross it was the absolute antithesis of that. Far from being a religious symbol, originally the cross was shocking, revolting and offensive, a disgusting irreligious symbol if there ever was one. Since the typical Methodist today is largely unaware of this, it is important to recover, what the apostle Paul calls, the “scandal” of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:23). What has become so familiar to us needs to become strange again. As Fleming Rutledge puts it:
“Not even the celebrated film by Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ, can convey the full ghastliness of crucifixion to a modern audience. We don’t understand it because we have never seen anything like it in the flesh. The situation was very different in New Testament times….Everyone knew what it looked like, smelled like sounded like—the horrific sight of completely naked men in agony, the smell and sight of their bodily functions taking place in full view of all, the sounds of their groans and labored breathing going on for hours and, in some cases, for days. Perhaps worst of all is the fact that no one cared.”
We tend to associate the horror of crucifixion with agonizing physical pain—what Mel Gibson so vividly portrayed in his film. And it’s no accident that our English word, excruciating, is derived from crux, the Latin word for cross. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia describes it like this:
The wounds swelled about the rough nails, and the torn and lacerated tendons and nerves caused excruciating agony. The arteries of the head and stomach were surcharged with blood and a terrific throbbing headache ensued. . . . The victim of crucifixion literally died a thousand deaths. . . The suffering was so frightful that ‘even among the raging passions of war pity was sometimes excited.’”
Yet despite such unbearable physical agony, people in Roman times dreaded the shame associated with crucifixion even more. Since crucifixion was reserved for the dregs of society, outcasts, slaves and common criminals, the fact that one was crucified defined him as a miserable, wretched being that didn’t deserve to exist. By pinning them up like insects, crucifixion was deliberately intended to display and humiliate its victims. It was always carried out in public, often at a prominent place such as a crossroads, outdoor theater or hill. Crucifixion was a spectacle event, a grisly form of entertainment where men and women jeered and heaped ridicule upon the victim. The public mockery of Jesus during his crucifixion (Mark 15:29-32) was typical. The fact that those crucified were completely naked added to the shame. So did the fact that they were often denied burial and became food for vultures and other scavengers.
Crucifixion, then, was deliberately designed to be loathsome, vulgar, revolting and obscene. That’s why, although common in Roman times, it was rarely mentioned in cultured literary or social settings. Crux was a four-letter word, not to be used in polite company. Cicero, one of Rome’s greatest philosophers, said that no respectable person should ever have to hear it spoken.
The hideous shame associated with crucifixion was the main reason why the message of the cross seemed ludicrous to its original hearers. As Paul put it, “When we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended, and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense” (I Corinthians 1:23). To proclaim that someone hanged on “the tree of shame” was the Savior of the world or the Messiah was bizarre, disgusting–sheer madness.
Alister MacGrath likens the early Christian preaching of the cross to a modern business or corporation choosing a hangman’s noose, lynching tree, firing squad, gas chamber or electric chair as its logo. What advertising agency would advise you to choose an instrument of execution as the symbol of your organization? “Its members would instantly be regarded as perverted, sick, having a morbid obsession with death, or having a nauseating interest in human suffering….Only an organization determined to fail as quickly and spectacularly as possible would be mad enough to choose such a symbol.”
But that’s exactly what the early Christians did. They made it the centerpiece of their preaching. As Paul reminded the Corinthians, “When I first came to you I didn’t use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God’s message. For I decided to concentrate only on Jesus Christ and his death on the cross” (I Corinthians 2: 1-2). As strange and outlandish as it seemed, they were convinced it was the supreme demonstration of the power and wisdom of God.
The scandal of the cross helps us understand how God works to accomplish his redemptive purposes in the world. As God declares through the prophet, Isaiah, “My thoughts are completely different from yours…And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isaiah 55:8).
The cross reveals that God’s upside down kingdom is often downright offensive to us. God uses that which the world considers despicable and weak to manifest his power. What does that say about our desiring strength as the world counts strength? Or our attempts to downplay or soften the offense of the cross?
The scandal of the cross also reveals who God takes sides with. By allowing himself to be “counted among those who were sinners” (Isaiah 53:12), crucified between two despicable criminals, God casts his lot with the poor, the powerless, the wretched, the dispossessed of the earth. Liberation theologians speak of God’s “preferential option for the poor.” What is seen throughout scripture–God’s concern for the helpless, the outcast, the widow, the orphan, the fatherless and the oppressed–is impossible to miss when the Son of God hangs on a cross between two thieves.
And of course, all this has profound implications for us and our churches. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, if he suffered “outside the city gates,” in the garbage heap, the place of disgrace, among the reviled, “so let us go out to him outside the camp and bear the disgrace he bore” (Hebrews 13:13). We too are called to be involved with the lowest and the least, the despised and the dispossessed of the earth.
John Wesley came to understand this in a profound way when, about ten months after his heartwarming experience at Aldersgate, he embarrassingly descended into field preaching on April 2, 1739. Here’s how he describes the event in his journal: “At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation speaking from a little eminence in the ground adjoining to the city to about three thousand people.”
Until then, Wesley had been a strict Oxford don who was concerned that things be done “decently and in order.: That meant preaching should happen in a pulpit in church buildings. Finicky about his personal appearance, he couldn’t tolerate a speck of dirt on his clothing. He hated commotion and disturbance, preferring the quiet of a university library to the noise of a large crowd. In the light of his personal preferences, no doubt field preaching for Wesley was “submitting to be more vile.” Although he would continue to engage in it throughout his life, he never became fully comfortable with it. As late as 1772 he admitted, “To this day field preaching is a cross to me.”
It was a cross to Wesley, because in “submitting to be more vile” he had, in effect, recovered and was participating in the scandal of Christ’s. What would happen if we Methodists today, following in Wesley’s footsteps, “submitted to be more vile”—regardless of what it means in our day and time? What would happen if, in following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, we would recover, both in our understanding and practice, the scandal of his cruel, ugly cross?
Stephen Seamands is Professor of Christian Doctrine at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky. This article is adapted from a chapter in his forthcoming book to be published by InterVarsity Press.
by Steve | Jan 19, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Elizabeth Glass-Turner and Steve Beard
Richard B. Hays, Dean of Duke Divinity School and George Washington Ivey professor of New Testament. Scott Jones, United Methodist Bishop of the Kansas Area. Wade Paschal, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Tulsa with 9000 members. Tom Albin, Dean of the Upper Room Chapel. Rebekah Miles, associate professor of ethics at Perkins School of Theology. L. Gregory Jones, vice president and vice provost for global strategy at Duke University and professor of theology at Duke Divinity School. Ben Witherington, Amos professor of New Testament for doctoral studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and author of over 40 books. Steve Rankin, chaplain at Southern Methodist University. Ted Campbell, past president of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary and present associate professor of Church History at Perkins School of Theology. Wendy J. Deichmann, president of United Theological Seminary.
What do they all have in common? They have all been instrumental in the renewal of the United Methodist Church. They all possess a Ph.D. And all of their doctoral studies were made possible by annual grants from A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE).
Founded in 1977, AFTE is the creation of two regal figures within United Methodism who could hardly have been more different—Dr. Albert Outler, the erudite seminary professor who at the time was the world’s foremost authority on all things Wesleyan, and Dr. Ed Robb Jr., traveling evangelist and the day’s best known critic and reformer of the UM Church.
Ironically, this oddest of couples discovered that they had much in common. They both loved the church, treasured our Wesleyan heritage, and were greatly concerned about the state of theological education within the denomination. And they both felt that true renewal would never be possible or lasting if UM pastors were not trained in the great tradition of classical Wesleyan theology.
In the late 1970s, theological education within the United Methodist Church promoted old-school liberalism, process theology, and liberation theology in all its forms. About the only flavor missing from this Baskin-Robbins approach to theological education was orthodoxy—the classical teachings of the church proclaimed by the apostles and the early church fathers and accepted by believers all around the world for the past 2000 years.
Many UM seminaries at the time had few if any true champions of classic Wesleyanism. And students often left the ivory towers of religious education confused about what to proclaim, ill-prepared for the pastorate, and out of touch with the needs and the beliefs of the church members they were to shepherd.
Albert Outler and Ed Robb were vexed over the theological trends in the seminaries preparing United Methodist preachers and professors. They wanted something substantial and transformative that would provide long-term change. What they agreed upon was AFTE, a program designed to raise up a new generation of leaders.
The basic motivation came from John Wesley. “The Wesleyan tradition affirms both sound learning and vital piety,” explains Dr. Steve G.W. Moore, the senior program scholar of AFTE. “The idea behind AFTE, which Albert Outler and Ed Robb had together, was that those two things had to be held together; one of the key contributing factors was preparing faculty members and leaders for the United Methodist Church who would hold those two together, who wouldn’t let theological education or higher learning be separated from the vital life of the church.
“The circuit riders were given the Wesley library and were expected to read it. There was the belief that when you love the Lord God, the mind is a part of spiritual vitality and spiritual renewal,” Moore continues. “In the Wesleyan context, renewal is not just a matter of either intellectual development or sophisticated theological development—it’s really shaping the whole person and understanding that mind, spirit, body, worship, community, and theological education are not separate from the church, but are an integral part of the church. The vitality of one is directly tied to the vitality of the other.”
The mainstay of the organization is the John Wesley Fellows program, dedicated to aiding United Methodists pursuing doctorates by annually awarding up to five fellowships worth $10,000 each.
“When I first expressed interest in pursuing a Ph.D., a fellow student told me about AFTE and its mission,” explains Christine Johnson, a doctoral student at the University of Manchester. “She knew several professors who were Wesley Fellows and suggested that I look into the application process. What attracted me to AFTE was their obvious commitment to support evangelical theological education within the United Methodist Church. The more I learned about AFTE’s mission and theological commitments, the more excited I became about the potential of being a part of their work. I resounded with their desire to revitalize theological education with a greater emphasis on the classical Wesleyan tradition and was eager to network with other scholars who share similar faith commitments and interests.”
The total output of church resources from John Wesley Fellows is astonishing: in addition to teaching, preaching, and leading in a variety of capacities, an ever-expanding library of resources reflects the fruits of the investment AFTE makes in up-and-coming church leaders. For example, 21 scholarly contributors to the recent Wesley Study Bible were John Wesley Fellows—including the co-editor, Dr. Joel Green, Associate Dean for the Center for Advanced Theological Studies and Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Liberal seminary deans and presidents were skeptical at best when AFTE began its work. In fact, many were belligerent. One dean was quoted as saying that a John Wesley Fellow would become a member of his faculty only over his dead body. He has since passed on. Three of the Fellows are now professors at the seminary he once headed.
Over time, the credentials and the work of the AFTE students simply could not be dismissed. With degrees from schools like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Chicago, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, their academic pedigrees were beyond question.
Presently, John Wesley Fellows hold positions at eight UM seminaries: Candler School of Theology, Claremont School of Theology, The Theological School at Drew University, The Divinity School at Duke University, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Perkins School of Theology, United Theological Seminary, and Wesley Theological Seminary. Outside official UM seminaries, they also serve as professors at Asbury Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, Luther Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Seminario Evangelical Unido de Teologia, as well as numerous colleges and universities.
These scholars can be found teaching Christian Education, Christian Ethics, Evangelism, Higher Education/Administration, History, New Testament, Old Testament, Philosophy of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Spiritual Formation, Theology, Wesley Studies, and Worship/Liturgics.
“There is nothing harder to accomplish than systemic change,” reports Dr. David McAllister-Wilson, president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. “I work in a seminary because I believe it is the best place to affect the future of the church and to profess the distinctive syntheses of the Wesleyan movement: personal and social holiness; knowledge and vital piety. But we depend upon a stream of new faculty to accomplish this kind of steady, sustained renewal. The John Wesley Fellows program has made an extraordinary difference by providing an ever-freshening pool of candidates I look to first for almost every open faculty position. This is change on a generational scale which is respectful of the processes and standards of graduate education but determined in its Wesleyan identity.”
Although John Wesley Senior Fellows—the alumni of the program—find classic Wesleyan theology in common, they represent culturally diverse viewpoints ranging from United Methodist renewal group partners to Sojourners leadership.
While AFTE has been instrumental in supporting emerging leaders in the United Methodist Church for several decades, its appeal continues to broaden as the pathways to ministry are reshaped. Moore notes the changes to traditional ministry preparation: “We’re in the midst of the development of multiple paths through which people can pursue a calling to serve the church in pastoral or an extension ministry of the church. I think the church has not completely adapted to the multiple ways that people may need to take to get there. One of our currently funded fellows started the process to seek ordination and it has taken him seven years, from the moment he started the candidacy process to the moment last summer he was ordained as an elder. So much of it was bureaucratic paperwork. The church has not yet adapted—it’s built on kind of an old, professional, corporate model, rather than on a leadership development model. So I think that the truth is the church is always going to be in need of people who are called to leadership.”
Behind the scenes influence. The long-lasting impact that AFTE brings to the United Methodist Church isn’t limited to academic resources or seminary contexts. Surprisingly, the organization that quietly provides scholarships to so many noted pastors, scholars, and leaders has a relatively low profile. Rather, it is content to let its voice be heard through the endeavors of men and women such as Dr. Amy Laura Hall, Dr. Khiok-Khng Yeo, Dr. Priscilla Pope-Levison, Dr. Jerry Walls, Dr. Joy Moore, and Dr. Lester Ruth, to name just a few.
Executive Director Paul Ervin notes that he became familiar with the organization through the late Bishop Earl Hunt, a founding trustee of AFTE. “The thing that most surprised me was how effective it is and how little known it is,” says Ervin. “We’ve just always been very quiet, and have seen that as an asset—that John Wesley Fellows were focused on their mission, not attention. But it did surprise me, how effective AFTE is and how many places these scholars are at work.”
Ervin shares that one of the most gratifying things to watch is the John Wesley Fellows’ quiet but deep involvement in the local church. “As a layperson, I’m interested in a theological education that will primarily look to train people who will be pastors in our local churches and teachers in seminaries. Because of that, I think that it’s important that the training they get gives them roots so they can lead their flock to the Lord. The thing that really impressed me about AFTE is that I’ve seen where they’re all involved in their local church, which is not always the case with professors in seminaries.”
The quiet effects of AFTE’s mission constantly emerge in unexpected places. Moore relates the story of visiting in his office with the head of a seminary in Africa. As they talked, Moore learned that two John Wesley Fellows had recently been to the seminary to teach, as guest professors, without pay. “I continue to be amazed at the creativity of our young, emerging fellows,” said Moore. “They’re creative, thoughtful, very deeply committed, and I marvel at it.”
Despite its low profile, AFTE has awarded over $2.5 million in grants since its inception in 1977. The organization does have a small endowment, but most of its resources dedicated to funding scholarships come from individual donors, many of whom have benefited from AFTE over the years. And it is this very camaraderie that draws students to AFTE in the first place.
Theological fellowship. Every winter, current and former John Wesley Fellows gather for their popular Christmas Conference. Part alumni reunion, part theological colloquium, part networking opportunities, the Christmas Conference provides fellowship, training, and brainstorming. This year’s Christmas Conference included plenary addresses on subjects like “The Future of Theological Education” as well as papers presented by, and responded to by, current and Senior Fellows.
Moore, himself a John Wesley Senior Fellow, describes the passionate exchanges that occur at the Christmas Conference and other gatherings. “To see our senior fellows mentoring and advising the funded fellows is really exciting to watch. It is the best of what the ‘community of scholars’ is about. It is also fun to see ideas that are launched at a Christmas Conference later become articles, books, presentations at national conferences, and especially completed dissertations!”
Moore continues, “it amazes me that when we ask the fellows, ‘what’s the most valuable thing that you’ve gained from being a John Wesley fellow?’ they all are appreciative of the scholarship—it helps them get through and complete their work. But they all talk about the fellowship—they’re part of a community of learners who are committed to real, vital, spiritual life, very thoughtful, historical, biblical commitments, and to community.”
In your mailbox. While AFTE may keep a relatively low profile, it should be familiar to seminary students: every United Methodist seminary student, regardless of the school they attend, receives a free subscription to Catalyst, AFTE’s quarterly publication dedicated to encouraging the academic and intellectual development of United Methodist students.
Ervin explains that Catalyst is “really to help encourage and push creative thinking, to think, ‘hey, I enjoy this deeper reading, I’d like to know more, maybe I’d like to consider getting a Ph.D.’ So it’s not just layperson reading, though a number of laypeople read it; it’s to support seminarians who are going through their education; it’s helpful for them to know that there are people out there who also are thinking creatively in the areas of Wesleyan theology.” Each issue of the Catalyst includes articles such as “Jesus in the Apocryphal Gospels” and “A Profile: Phoebe Palmer.”
Perhaps no other organization has influenced United Methodist theological training more than AFTE has in recent decades. The expected trickle-down of influence envisioned by Albert Outler and Ed Robb is now emerging all the clearer as students who were trained by the first John Wesley Fellows are now preparing mentees of their own. The AFTE family tree continues to grow new branches—and its fruit can be found in your own backyard.
“My father always believed it was better to light a candle than curse the darkness,” says Edmund Robb III, chairman of the AFTE Board of Directors and senior pastor of The Woodlands United Methodist Church in The Woodlands, Texas. “Looking at his life, he lit many candles that have reformed and renewed the United Methodist Church, but I think he might be proudest of AFTE. Its present influence and its potential to impact theological education for decades to come is hard to overestimate.”
To inquire about becoming a John Wesley Fellow or to make a donation to AFTE, contact Mr. Paul Ervin, Executive Director, P.O. Box 238, Lake Junaluska, NC 28745 (paulervin@prodigy.net). Phone: 828-456-9901. Catalyst subscriptions are available to the public for $5 annually. For more information, visit www.johnwesleyfellows.org or www.catalystresources.org.
Elizabeth Glass Turner is a freelance writer who has contributed to multiple online and print publications. She has an essay in the forthcoming “Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy.” Elizabeth currently resides in a multigenerational household with her husband and 11-month-old son.
Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.
by Steve | Jan 19, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Rob Renfroe
On December 16, the General Board of Church and Society hosted a luncheon and conversation at The United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. with Dr. Jerry Campbell, president of Claremont School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in southern California. Dr. Campbell has become well known for his leadership of The University Project which he describes as “a new model for theological education.”
The Project is a joint effort of the Academy for Jewish Religion, California; Claremont School of Theology; and the Islamic Center of Southern California. The new model creates a consortium that will train Christian clergy, Jewish rabbis and Muslim imams. In the future, the Project anticipates educating clerics of other world religions, as well.
In making a case for the Project, Dr. Campbell stated: “The University Project represents the conviction that religion is not a competitive sport, that religion is not the tool of empire, and that religion is not a game of winner take all.” All well and good, but the more important question to answer is: What is religion?
Stating what something is not is usually easy to do and often makes for good rhetoric, but rarely is it sufficient to explain what something is. I could tell you that religion is not a man in striped pajamas or a little teapot— short and stout—but in so doing, what have I told you that religion is? Absolutely nothing.
In his 2009 Fall Convocation address, Dr. Campbell described his vision for The University Project. In that same address he bemoaned the fact that religion has so often divided people. In fact, he even condemned the early church for becoming “competitive” with “contemporary Judaism and with the other religions vying for position in the Roman Empire.”
Which religions were vying for influence during the Roman Empire? To name just a few, there was the Emperor Cult which proclaimed Caesar as a deity and demanded loyalty to him as a god. Another popular religion of the day was the worship of the mother-goddess of fertility Artemis. You may remember that Paul was attacked in Ephesus because his preaching turned people away from the fertility rituals involved in worshipping the goddess and the selling of her idols. And during the life of the early church, the Gnostic cults vied for position and influence, promoting their dualistic understanding of reality, teaching that many gods existed, and proclaiming that only certain human beings were capable of salvation and that not through grace, but through the acquisition of hidden knowledge.
Would Dr. Campbell really have preferred that the early church not preach the Gospel and “compete” with Emperor cults, fertility religions, and belief systems that left many without hope of ever finding God? Those early Christians who often proclaimed the Lordship of Christ at great risk to themselves and whom many of us consider heroes, according to Dr. Campbell, they were guilty of turning religion into a winner-take-all, competitive sport.
What about today? Should the church “compete” for the hearts and minds of persons who don’t know Christ as Savior? According to an article in The United Methodist Reporter, Dr. Campbell has stated that present-day Christians who believe they should evangelize persons of other faiths possess “an incorrect perception of what it means to follow Jesus.”
Stating what a religion is not is easy. Set up a straw man and knock it down. Draw some conclusions, and those who aren’t looking closely will believe that you have done something worthwhile.
But the real task is to ask and answer the question: What is a religion? And how we answer that question makes all the difference.
If religion is man’s attempt to find God, then fine, each one should plot his own course. If religion is the human search for meaning, then there may be as many paths as there are people. If religion is a set of moral values (instructions for how to live the good life and nothing more), what reason does any person have to believe that his or her ideas are better than anyone else’s? Maybe good folks should keep their views to themselves and certainly not evangelize others.
But, of course, religion is something different altogether. A religion is a belief system that claims to provide valid information about spiritual reality. Every religion claims to give real and accurate information about what matters most: the nature and character of God and the human predicament and how it can be solved.
And the Christian faith has always been clear in its proclamation (until recently when it became politically incorrect for some to do so): there is one God who created the universe and who made us in his image; who is holy and therefore cannot ignore our sin; who sent his Son Jesus to die for our sins so that we might be saved; and who says we may receive this gift by faith in Christ but we cannot earn it by performing good works or religious rituals.
Dr. Campbell has stated that religion should be a force for compassion, not competition. But what is compassionate about knowing the way of salvation, revealed by God and bought with the blood of Christ, and not sharing that truth with those who are without it? If the Christian faith is the truth about what matters most—who God is, who we are and how we can live eternally with him forever—and in the name of tolerance or mutual respect we fail to do all we can to bring unbelievers to faith in the truth that can save them, how can we possibly claim to be compassionate?
Truth always competes with falsehood. Science competed with alchemy. The germ theory and what became modern medicine competed with the idea that disease was the result of evil spirits. The fight for civil rights competed with the wrong and sinful notion that some persons were less worthy members of the human family than others and could be treated as such.
And we are glad for the competition of truth against falsehood in each of those cases. And though it was disruptive for the moment, in each instance it was compassionate to defend and spread the truth.
What the world’s religions teach about spiritual reality is so different from what Jesus revealed to be true about God and his plan of salvation that compassion compels us to proclaim the Gospel in hopes that all persons will come to know it. For it is the truth that sets us free—not religion; not wrong beliefs about God even if they are sincerely held; and certainly not the condemnation of faithful witnesses and martyrs in the past who spoke the truth when it would have been much easier to deny the uniqueness of Christ and his claim to be Lord—just as it is today.
Rob Renfroe is the President and Publisher of Good News.
