A Brazilian Methodist bishop speaking to United Methodists charismatics this Summer told how Methodism is growing in Brazil. And in an interview, he criticized the influence of theological liberalism.
Bishop Paulo Lockmann of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil addressed the annual gathering in July of Aldersgate Renewal Ministries (ARM), in Rogers, Arkasnas. ARM is a charismatic renewal ministry supported by The United Methodist Church’s official General Board of Discipleship.
| “God loves each and every one of us,” Bishop Lockmann told the gathering of Aldersgate Renewal Ministries, “and He continues miraculously transforming impossibilities of men into the possibilities of God.” (Photo courtesy UMNS) |
In the last 20 years, the autonomous Brazilian Methodist denomination has grown by over 100 percent, from 86,000 to 178,000 members, with an average weekly attendance of 100,000. Much of this growth has been driven by the bishop’s own annual conference, which since 1987 has quadrupled from 19,000 to 87,000 members and now includes 45 percent of Brazilian Methodism.
In his sermon to ARM, Bishop Lockmann stressed that Jesus Christ is not just the Savior of the world but also “the personal savior of you,” as John Wesley famously realized in his May 1738 conversion experience. “God loves each and every one of us,” the bishop declared, “And He continues miraculously transforming impossibilities of men into the possibilities of God.”
The bishop noted an entry in John Wesley’s diary telling of a day when imminent rainfall waited until an outdoor preacher finished his sermon. This was yet another modern demonstration of how “God carefully regulates the great and small things.” The bishop exhorted his audience “to be men and women who believe that God can always do the impossible,” as Lockmann has seen in his own life.
Lockmann cited Revelation 3:20: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and pen the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me.” He asked “how can we celebrate God,” with Jesus being kept outside of our personal doors. “It is an absurd thing to resist the glory of God!,” he declared.
In a workshop, Lockmann preached from Ephesians 4:1-16. He highlighted verse 14: “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” Warning of the dangers of doctrinal error and daily temptations, the bishop stressed the need for individual Christians to study Scripture independently and not just rely on their pastor. He pointed out that no parents would want their ten-year old child to remain in the crib and still need as much help as a baby. But by analogy, “some churches are filled with babies” when “God wants a church that grows; a mature church.” He warned that ten-minute “quiet times” translate into only ten minutes of divine grace. In contrast, he pointed out that John Wesley was known for spending three or four hours a day reading and memorizing the Bible, much of the time on horseback. The bishop exclaimed: “No wonder God used him!”
The bishop lauded the Reformation’s placing renewed emphasis on the doctrine on salvation by grace, rather than works. However, he warned that “not all of us stay on it.” In the Methodist Church in Brazil, he reported that 40 percent of members attend services several times a week while a much smaller minority go months without showing up. This may pose “no problem” for “those who believe in once saved, always saved,” it is “more complicated for” Methodists. Lockmann said. Thanks to an Arminian theological heritage, Methodists “believe you can fall from grace.”
Lockmann opposes the theological liberalism so common in U.S. oldline denominations. When asked how the Brazilian church would handle a bishop’s “denying Jesus Christ’s virgin birth, eternal divinity, physical resurrection, and death for our sins” (a problem in U.S. United Methodism), Lockmann responded that this simply does not happen in Brazilian Methodism. “All bishops are solid believers,” he insisted. Lockmann also said that any Brazilian Methodist minister espousing these beliefs would not be re-appointed to a church, “because these things are the center of our Christian faith.”
The bishop declaring his great love for John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He acknowledged that “some liberal people say that Jesus is Savior,” but so are Buddha and Mohammed. But if we are to profess true Christian faith, “we must say all the time for all people” that Jesus Christ is the only Savior.
Recalling his time studying in Germany, Lockmann lamented the “secularity” that he saw injected into theology. Some appeared to believe that we had to “get the Word more human and more applicable to humans.” But the bishop countered that true faith requires an eternal, transcendent perspective.
In response to a couple of questions from different workshop participants, Bishop Lockmann appeared reluctant to directly challenge theologically liberal U.S. Methodist bishops. While he has been to the last three United Methodist General Conferences and has shared his own beliefs there, he said that he did not feel confident offering specific advice to episcopal colleagues for contexts with which he was unfamiliar.
Regarding homosexuality, Lockmann explained that the Methodist Church in Brazil definitively teaches that “we must receive with love all people” and respect people “who choose the option for homosexuality.” But just like robbery or corruption, “the practice is still [what] the Bible says, a sin.” He told his interviewer that with the wider Brazilian culture unfortunately viewing homosexual practice as worse than other sins, there is no significant movement within the church to change its biblical position.
The Brazilian bishop also demonstrated little interest in the sort of political radicalism that in recent memory so prominently characterized some U.S. church engagement with Latina America. He approvingly cited an English writer who was convinced that England was saved from a violent upheaval similar to the French Revolution by Methodism’s spiritual revival of the land. When asked specifically about Liberation Theology, Lockmann explained that it arose in reaction against practices of the Catholic Church that conveyed the message that just as Christ suffered, the people needed to suffer and be oppressed under military dictatorship. So he believed that Liberation Theology’s original intent was “very healthy” and biblical. However, before long “communists latched onto” the movement, so that it “became a political vendetta” that brought “so much pain and so much hurt” and violence.
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