An Interesting Time to Be United Methodist

on October 17, 2013

The following remarks were delivered by IRD’s UMAction director John Lomperis on October 8, 2013 to the semi-annual meeting of the UMAction Steering Committee, the body of faithful United Methodist clergy and laity to which our United Methodist program is accountable.  

 

We certainly live in interesting times within the United Methodist Church.

The increasingly global nature of our denomination is transforming the church in ways which are generally very exciting.  But this also brings some new challenges and not-neatly-predictable dynamics into United Methodism.

Thanks in part to IRD President Mark Tooley and I, the United Methodist voices represented in the media are not just liberal voices.

We are in the midst of an ongoing season of turnovers in the top executive leadership of several of our denomination’s general agencies.  While it is still too early to tell exactly what sorts of differences will be made, there may be some significant opportunities for improvement.

Even with the effectively unaccountable General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), still under Jim Winkler’s leadership, there is something partially positive to report.  In May, UMAction launched a public-pressure campaign turning the board’s frequent boasting of “not being silent on pressing issues of justice and human rights” into a challenge of their dead silence on the grisly mass murders of Philadelphia late-term abortion and infanticide provider Kermit Gosnell.  This apparently got the GBCS to respond by publicly denouncing some of Gosnell’s crimes in surprisingly strong language.  There were a great many flaws in the GBCS’s response.  But it marks the first time that we know of the GBCS opposing the abortion industry in any way.

In any case, our liberal-dominated general agencies and seminaries owe their still-formidable-but-crumbling power within our denomination to being propped up by the sinking sand of a rapidly eroding financial support base.  For that erosion of their own support base, such agencies can thank the clear, traceable ways in which their own work has spurred the ongoing implosion of United Methodism in the United States.  As liberal seminaries face declining enrollments (and a corresponding declining influence in United Methodism), independent, evangelical Asbury Theological Seminary has been educating more new United Methodist ministers than any other school, and more than several official UMC seminaries combined.  Meanwhile, United Theological Seminary’s dramatic reorientation towards orthodoxy has corresponded with it becoming one of the fastest-growing seminaries in the country.

After decades of bleeding faithful, conservative members from the UMC, we now hear a new level of talk from our theologically secularized friends about them being “not optimistic” about their future ability to steer the UMC to their liking.  After all, between the last two General Conferences, they actually lost ground on sexual morality.  The best they could show for all of their costly efforts at the 2012 General Conference was cynically, forcibly stopping business from happening, which is hardly sustainable as a long-term strategy.

A recent press release from one liberal United Methodist caucus made an odd point of stressing that other mainline Protestant denominations have officially caved in to the sexual revolution.  This simply raises the question among United Methodists, orthodox and heterodox alike, of why such destructive liberal activists don’t simply leave our church alone and move to one of those other bodies.  It’s not like the liberal caucuses have any discernible deep commitment to historic, core United Methodist doctrine.  (And no, a couple of distorted one-line quotes from John Wesley don’t count).  So on the one hand, liberal United Methodists now have plenty of better ecclesial fits to which they can go.  And on the other hand, the same secularized liberal theology, and especially cultural capitulation on sexual morality, that we have long combatted has now spread far beyond just oldline Protestantism.  Thus, as Mark has eloquently pointed out, given the lack of “safe” other churches to escape to, faithful United Methodists are finding that they might as well stay in our church and “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 1:3).

Now we are seeing all kinds of fantastically unrealistic proposals to change our church structure for the sake of liberalizing official UMC teaching from within.  We see this in that suggestion that the UMC could just merge back into the Episcopal Church or in various attempts to resurrect some version of the already very-dead 2008 Global Segregation Plan.  One apparent example of the latter is a proposal from the Northeastern Jurisdiction to eliminate jurisdictional conferences.  Of course there is also the unprecedented chatter among many of the liberal caucuses’ own supporters about forming a new, unapologetically liberal Methodist denomination in which they could have whatever policies they wanted.  But as long as the liberal caucus leaders see their personal self-interests as lying in silencing such talk, we can expect to keep hearing about equally dead-on-arrival proposals for restructuring the UMC.

The shrill extremism that the liberal caucuses offer nowadays is the sort of hysterical radicalism one expects from folk who see themselves as marginalized and despairing of ever gaining power.  They do not display the sort of rhetoric or behavior you get from folk who see themselves as serious, grown-up partners for governing our church.  It is certainly jarring to see what we are seeing from them in terms of open/gender-neutral bathrooms, further explicit support for promiscuity, public celebration of an “any-means-necessary” ethos, open celebration of raw physical force as a praiseworthy tactic for getting one’s way at General Conference, and renegade clergy clearly admitting that their word has no value, even when given in the most sacred covenants before God and the church.  By their own consistent words and actions, liberal United Methodist caucus activists have made it abundantly clear that they emphatically do not see themselves as being in any sort of meaningful covenant relationship with orthodox believers who happen to be members of the same denomination.  I understand that that is hard to swallow for those who have not already done so, but it is sadly, inescapably true.  In many ways we should actually be grateful for such removals of the moderate-seeming masks from liberal United Methodism, as this is very helpful for clarifying what is really at stake in our denomination’s controversies.

A rather intriguing concession about liberal theology’s overall impotence in building and sustaining strong, healthy congregations came out of the Reconciling Ministries Network’s recent “ChurchQuake” convocation.  It was comment from that wing of the church to the effect that the activists and illegally affiliated congregations in the pro-sex-outside-of-marriage “Reconciling” movement need to face the challenge of how their influence can endure when their local churches may not survive the century.  We see a much more positive outlook for many of our more strongly evangelical United Methodist congregations.

Despite all the positive trends, now is not the time for any of us to rest on our laurels or treat the UMC turnaround we all want as guaranteed.  Many major challenges could still destroy our denomination if we are not vigilant and forceful in responding.

I think that all of us here have experienced serious wounds in the United Methodist Church from the sorts of problems UMAction tackles.  We all know current or former UMC members for whom such wounds are rather deep.  Such widespread wounding continues at the hands of unprincipled adherents of a secularized liberal theology seeking to ruthlessly highjack the church for lesser purposes.  We also must not let our struggle against pro-homosexuality activism blind us to the deep, real wounds of members of the LGBT community.  Of course, such wounds have been ultimately made worse by the sin-affirming church movements.  In our own ministry of renewal, we must continually take care to compromise on neither grace nor truth.

For those of us who are laity, our local congregations are continually at risk of being devastated if our respective bishops decide to send us new pastors who are typical graduates of many of our official United Methodist seminaries.

We can expect some chief beneficiaries of our unsustainable status quo to be quite eager to do what it takes to preserve their lofty positions and privileges, no matter the cost to the church.  As liberal official UMC seminaries struggle to attract students, I expect even more of a push for coercive curtailing of evangelical alternative options in order to protect liberal, apportionment-funded seminaries from the consequences of their own refusal to make needed reforms.

The last General Conference cut our denominational budget by six percent (which was much less than what many thought was needed) and an eventual dramatic shrinkage of our unsustainably bloated denominational bureaucracy is likely inevitable.  Nevertheless, for the immediate future, several of our UMC general agencies actually appear to be in surprisingly strong financial shape.  This is problematic insofar as some general agency staffers, whose salaries are paid by the apportionments skimmed from our congregations’ offering plates, have no qualms about abusing their positions and their privileged access to regional United Methodist leaders to promote causes directly contrary to biblical and official UMC teaching, demonize United Methodists whose belief in core United Methodist doctrine apparently makes us worthy of their contempt, and heavy-handedly manipulate the political processes of the church to their advantage.

While non-US members of our denomination largely share the same values as UMAction on major, fundamental issues facing our church, we know that apportionment-funded liberal church officials have been shamelessly strategic in working to poison the waters of trust between faithful overseas United Methodists and U.S.-based United Methodist renewal groups.  Their positions give such denominational officials tremendous ability to self-servingly distort the issues facing our church.  The GBCS deserves special mention for its not being above publicly calling us a bunch of “snakes” or spreading outright lies about us.  It obviously creates challenges for building bridges with a non-US church leader if he has already been told by trusted UMC officials that all of us here are not really a fellowship of committed United Methodist clergy and laity who are loyal to historic UMC doctrine and who self-sacrificially seek the best for our own beloved church, but rather that we are just a bunch of nefarious, venom-fanged, CIA-linked, non-Methodist puppets of shadowy extremist conservative Catholics whose real agenda is to destroy the United Methodist Church!  Meanwhile, the unofficial but well-funded liberal caucuses have increasingly been doing their own political organizing within the central conferences.

The so-called “biblical disobedience” movement is a nationally promoted spiritual siege against our church, which seeks to harass, humiliate, and subjugate United Methodism through overwhelming repetitions of dishonest, church-killing renegade clergy brazenly betraying the UMC Discipline and their own ordination vows.  The “biblical disobedience” campaign’s noise is greatly bolstered by funding from secular gay activist foundations openly hostile to any form of biblical Christianity.

Furthermore, we dare not underestimate how a combination of our denominational culture’s institutional idolatries and simple emotional aversion to acknowledging the fallenness of our whole world (including the church) influences many United Methodists who share our biblical faith and values to avoid honestly facing the stark realities of our church’s problems.  But as the late IRD President Diane Knippers memorably said, cancer treatments can be unpleasant, painful and humiliating, but the alternative of not addressing the problem is far worse in the long run.

To follow up on an earlier point, beyond the United Methodist bubble, we do need to take time to grieve the way in which the sexual revolution has, to varying degrees, taken over the other mainline Protestant denominations and spread to other churches.

Given the rapidly changing landscape in the public-policy sphere, we evangelical American United Methodists need to be thinking more strategically about the future threat of growing government coercion against United Methodists and other believers who adhere to historic Christian teaching on sexual ethics and the sanctity of human life.  Such government coercion could even take the form of outside pressure on the United Methodist Church to strengthen the hand of heterodox, secularizing forces in our internal debates.  The track record of the liberal caucuses indicates that they would hardly hesitate to welcome such support.

In the face of such challenges, our U.S. United Methodist bishops – with precious few and sporadic exceptions – have offered anything but courageously faithful Christian leadership.  I heartily agree with another renewal group leader when he recently said that it’s time for those of us devoted to the Scripture-based reform of our denomination to stop waiting for leadership from our bishops, because the sad fact is that they choose to let social pressures from heterodox bishops intimidate them from offering the leadership our church needs.  If UMAction and our renewal-group allies do not step up and say the things that need to be said and provide the leadership that needs to be provided within United Methodism, then who will?

We know that with God’s help, a renewed and reformed United Methodist Church is possible.  A communion known for following its own rules, biblical faithfulness, evangelistic effectiveness, and refusal to let its institutions be used as pawns in any secular, partisan political agenda.  A church in which learning that a new potential pastor is a graduate of “a United Methodist seminary” has become a good reason for trust.  A denomination in which the loudest public voices from our ecclesial establishment are those that make us feel excited rather than embarrassed about being United Methodists.

We have many sources of encouragement in our ministry of church renewal.  We should note the sorts of positive contemporary trends I summarized earlier.  We must always remember that the foundational identity of Methodism itself was as a very biblically grounded church renewal movement.  While we of course have some differences with our conservative Southern Baptist brethren, we can still be encouraged by the example of how a major, stretched-out leadership revolution in the late-twentieth century brought that church from having its own issues with theological liberalism in its seminaries, pro-homosexuality advocacy, officially endorsing abortion, and an out-of-touch, stridently liberal denominational lobby office to becoming a very different denomination today.

Above all, our confidence is not in ourselves nor our circumstances, but in our all-powerful God, Who throughout history has always called His people to tasks that are indeed impossible to accomplish on our own.  But thanks be to Him, we are not alone!

He certainly has our work cut out for us today.  So let’s get going with His kingdom work.

  1. Comment by David Moberly on October 17, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    Really interesting piece. As a former UM, I loved the tradition and compassion so prevalent in our church growing up but have come to mistrust the disparity in treatment for the unborn with a stated cause of social justice and compassion among UM’s. It is great to see an awareness of these issues making its way to the forefront of though.

  2. Comment by Kevin Condon on October 17, 2013 at 1:44 pm

    Thank you for your strong voice and support for orthodoxy in our denomination and fidelity to biblical Christianity and Wesleyan principles. We will continue to support you.

  3. Comment by cleareyedtruthmeister on October 17, 2013 at 4:22 pm

    John, thanks for your well-reasoned insights.

    As we know, the political arm of the UMC, represented mainly by GBCS, has been gradually replacing historic Christianity with a distressing mix of new age spirituality and modern left-wing politics. That combination has become the de facto “religion” which they promote. They need to be called on their increasing antipathy to orthodox Christianity, but apathy and ignorance among the laity (and many pastors) remain entrenched.

    You have done an admirable of making lemonade out of lemons, but the GBCS, as we all know, continues to be lemons. Their condemnation of Gosnell, done, no doubt, kicking and screaming, in a way is problematic because it allows a wolf to be partially covered in sheep’s clothing.

    They need to be seen for what they are so they can be shut down.

  4. Comment by Daniel on October 17, 2013 at 7:06 pm

    I disagree with the assertion that there are no “safe” churches for orthodox UMC members. How about PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), REC (Reformed Episcopal Church), and the choice I made, LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod). All I had to give up was female clergy, a big plus for me, and Wesleyan Arminianism, although I must say most sermons I heard were pretty light in the theology area and heavy into salvation through social justice. In return I got thoroughly orthodox/reformed theology, as well as wonderful liturgy and music. Also, I gained a refreshing reverence for Holy Communion. No more “everyone regardless of belief is welcome at table” and no more big gobs of bread floating in the cup where three year old kids dropped the hunk they had ripped off.

    If I sound bitter, I am. I saw the Virginia Annual Conference turned from a somewhat orthodox conference into an unabashed liberal bastion of unrepentant feminism in just a few years. Yuck!

  5. Comment by Forgiven Sinner on October 18, 2013 at 1:04 am

    Onward Christian Soldiers! It is inspiring to see faithful Methodists finally fighting back against the cancer of secular humanism/radical feminism/militant homosexuality that has infected and corrupted the church. Presbyterians should be standing shoulder to shoulder with you on the front lines of the battle. May you fight on with the truth of God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit – and supported by the prayers of fellow believers!

  6. Comment by John S on October 18, 2013 at 7:30 am

    PC(USA) lost the battle long ago but in doing so their demise warned many in the UMC as to what was coming. Thus organizations were formed for the purpose of fighting the good fight and as a result the UMC and BOD if not the agencies, etc. has adhered more closely to orthodoxy.

    A Presbyterian who desires a more orthodox profession will have to join one of the smaller presbyterian communions.

  7. Comment by halehawk on October 18, 2013 at 11:10 am

    Thank you for this insightful reflection. I am in agreement with the current social principles of The United Methodist Church, and therefore I disagree with some of IRD’s agenda. However, I appreciate your perspective.

    I would like to give IRD a “heads-up” about something that may allow Wesleyan Christianity to survive and move forward in a healthy way. It has become clear to me (and I think many others) that our current Book of Discipline is no longer viable or effective. Tweeking it here and there will not make much difference for the future of the church. However GC 2012 has asked The Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters to make proposals for a NEW, Global Book of Discipline. The committee met in Budapest a few weeks ago, and as I read the tweets about their meeting I was heartened by the direction the group was taking. They envision a 2 volume BOD–one for the global church that focuses on theology, history, and identity, and other more regional volumes. The new book would not focus so much on rules and structure.

    I think this is something that we should be taking seriously…

  8. Comment by John S on November 5, 2013 at 10:12 am

    Ahh, the old two chuches scheme revamped since it was voted down. One for the enlightened UM of the US and N. Europe and one for those who have not yet seen the light.

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