Come One, Come “All to Light the Fire!” Church Renewal Conference

United Theological Seminary’s church renewal conference, “Light the Fire!” will be held later this week, May 8-9 in Tipp City, Ohio (near Dayton).

We have previously reported on United’s dramatic turnaround, as a declining liberal seminary that is seeing God richly bless its renewed commitment to historic Christian orthodoxy and openness to the reality of the supernatural.

This annual event is becoming a great connecting opportunity for biblically faithful United Methodists from around the country. One notable marker of the quality of these annual gatherings’ programming is how, in noted contrast to so many United Methodist ministry-equipping events, “Light the Fire!” has been able to attract evangelicals from beyond United Methodism and outside of the world of declining, liberal oldline Protestantism.

This year’s theme is “The Fullness of Christ: A Church for All People,” focusing on ministry and disability.

Last year’s “Light the Fire!” focused on divine healing. While this makes many modern United Methodists uneasy, we were reminded at the conference of the presence of such miracles in our own history, from John Wesley recording divine healings (including ten such healings of himself) to George Whitfield arising from his deathbed to continue preaching the Gospel. Furthermore, one speaker shared that some 70-80 percent of Americans pray for healing and/or believe divine healing happens today, indicating that this is not at all restricted to self-identified Pentecostals and charismatics.

Bishop James Swanson of Mississippi preached an energetic sermon in which he speculated that modern United Methodist wariness of divine healing stems from our dislike of giving up control. With decades of free-falling U.S. membership, United Methodists have “come up with all kinds of stuff to turn it around” without appreciating that this is God’s work, not something we can do on our own. The bishop quipped, “Isn’t it funny that T.D. Jakes can fill up a big convention center, and yet when we have annual conference, we have to partition off part of the meeting space so that it looks like we have a crowd,” since people do not expect anything spiritually exciting to happen at our denominational gatherings. Swanson shared his own story of suffering from a serious, seizure-inducing illness as a boy, but then waking up healed and henceforth seizure-free after his mother prayed over the sleeping young bishop-to-be.

Toddie Holeman of Asbury led a powerful session on the central Christian practice of forgiveness, even in the face of such great evils as pastoral infidelity, the murder of one’s children, and genocide. She stressed the inherently communal character of Christianity and how “[i]n every relationship, someone is bound to behave badly.” The Asbury professor pointed out how when we are hurt, we refuse to consider the circumstances from which our wounder was coming, but when we are the ones who do wrong we feel entitled to be judged by a lower standard because of our circumstances.

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown of Indiana University argued that divine healing, rather than speaking in tongues, was the central practice of global Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. She noted, for example, that only 47 percent of Brazilian Pentecostals speak in tongues, while roughly 9/10 report having experienced divine healing. She also noted the spread of the idea, promoted by charismatic leaders like John Wimber, that divine healing is a divine evangelistic tool to overcome resistance to the Gospel. The state university professor also shared about some of her evidence-based research pointing to the apparent efficacy of some miraculous religious healings, although she noted there is weaker evidence for the efficacy of attempts for such healings within the context of Eastern religions rather than Christianity. While Christian prayers for healing are not always answered, Gunther Brown noted that now most advocates have stopped attributing this to simple lack of faith.

Famous evangelical New Testament scholar Craig Keener of Asbury Theological Seminary led another workshop on the miracles performed by Jesus in the biblical gospels. He stressed that “[t]hese stories of healing are not in there so we can allegorize,” but rather “[t]hey really happened.” The Asbury professor identified nineteenth-century German philosopher David Strauss as a key pioneer of the belief, popular in various forms among theological liberals today, that Jesus did not actually perform any miracles. But Keener reported that healings done through Jesus in His name, which serve “to get people’s attention for the sake of the Gospel,” have been seen from early church history through the present day. While some try to attribute such healings to psychosomatic or other natural causes, Keener noted that this cannot be said about people rising from the dead, such as he himself has observed several times in central Africa, his own sister-in-law coming back after a three-hour cessation of breathing, and Wesley’s report of a Mr. Myrick rising from the dead after his prayers for him on Christmas Day, 1742. While “God is not contractually obligated to heal us” in every specific situation, he said that a “no” answer from God sometimes meant “no” but other times was a challenge to deepen our faith in persistence.

Internationally known Pentecostal leader Randy Clark led a workshop in which he reported his experiences with divine healings and prophecies, and ended with an extended session of individually praying God’s blessing on participants who asked for it.

Another heartbreaking but helpful workshop was devoted to practical ways churches can minister to shame-burdened victims of domestic and sexual abuse.

The more United interacts with and becomes shaped by the Pentecostal/charismatic movement, the more important it will become for its professors and administrators to take care to keep within biblical boundaries, and to guard against some of the excesses and imbalances for which parts of the tradition have become notorious. But even non-charismatic Christians can celebrate how this formerly liberal seminary is now so strongly committed to recognizing the greatness of the triune God, thus rejecting the core of theological liberalism: an elevated view of humanity combined with a diminished view of God plus a rationalist skepticism about the reality of supernatural events occurring in history or in the present.

One welcome example of such necessary caution was the inclusion in last year’s conference of a plenary session by Dr. William J. Abraham of Perkins School of Theology on “When the Healing We Hope for Doesn’t Come.” The major United Methodist theologian spoke very personally about the recent, preventable, unexpected death of his 41-year-old son, Timothy, despite prayers by many for his healing. Remarkably, Abraham reported that he had “not had the slightest temptation” to “get angry at God,” as this “makes no coherent intellectual sense” to him and “[o]ur perspective and range of information is limited at best.” So he reported that on an intellectual level, “[s]ubmission to the will of God is, for me, entirely apt,” since “God does indeed know best.” Nevertheless, he candidly opened up about his own “grief and agony” and his wish to have his son back, even if the price would be to give up his high-profile career to care for him the rest of his life. The bereaved father offered many other thoughtful reflections without easy answers, including sharing that now whenever he takes communion he thinks of his Christian son “gathering with the church triumphant.”

Bishop Ken Carter of Florida led a good workshop addressing intercessory prayer. In the closing communion service, he noted with appropriate sobriety that “[s]ometimes the healing comes in this life, and sometimes in the resurrection.” Regardless of whether or not we see the specific miraculous healings for which we ask, the Florida bishop led the conference to an end on a theme which ran throughout the two-day event, stressing our dependence on God, Whose response is beyond our human limits or control.

As of this writing, registration is still open for this week’s “Light the Fire!”