I spend a lot of time writing about the UMC. Much of what I say is critical, I admit it. I want to be clear, though: this is critique from within. It is critique derived from a deep love of the UMC and a desire to see us become the most effective we can possibly be in fulfilling our mission: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
I was raised in the UMC, and for the first part of my life simply took for granted that I was a United Methodist. In seminary, though, I asked myself a tough question: do I want to stay in this tradition or do I want to look for another tradition where I fit a bit better? I chose the first path.
There have been a few posts in the blogosphere lately about why people stay in the UMC despite all of the infighting that goes on, so I thought I’d put in my two cents. This is not an exhaustive list, but several reasons come to mind:
1. Like other Wesleyan traditions, we are heirs of a powerful revival that is still going on through much of the world. Revival is in our bones.
2. We are the heirs of a profound theological heritage. Wesley may not have been a constructive theologian, but he brought together a very rich set of ideas related to the Christian life. These ideas were rooted in the faith of what he called the “primitive church,” meaning the church of the first five centuries, and which he believed to be derived faithfully from scripture. The emphasis upon holiness and sanctification, new birth, and the power and work of the Holy Spirit are some of the Methodist movement’s most valuable theological emphases. I would love to see these take center stage again in our corporate discourse.
3. We provide an alternative to Calvinists. I mean no offense to these brothers and sisters in Christ, but there are a few roads I can’t go down with them. And these roads are important. They relate to the nature of salvation, the nature and function of scripture, and the character of God. Calvinism is quite dominant in North American Protestantism right now. Pastors such as John Piper and Mark Driscoll have huge audiences. I would like to see Wesleyanism make some inroads into these conversations.
4. We have a strong intellectual tradition. United Methodists and their forebears have established numerous fine institutions of learning, particularly in North America, but also in other parts of the globe. We value education, including theological education. Intellectual inquiry into the nature of the faith comes naturally in our tradition.
5. Our understanding of holiness is both personal and social. Now we have to be careful here. When Wesley talked about “social holiness,” he wasn’t talking about what we would call “social justice” today. What he meant was that we don’t come to lives of holiness by ourselves, but in community with other people who were also devoted to personal holiness. In other words, we need each other. Our Christian fellowship helps us to know God more fully.
6. That having been said, the people called Methodists have long been known as advocates for a more righteous society and social change. Have we always done this? Of course not. But social engagement is in the DNA of United Methodists, going back all the way to John Wesley himself.
7. We ordain women. Some of the most inspired and Spirit-filled ministers I have ever met have been women, and God is raising up women as powerful leaders all around the world right now. To deny ordination to these people who are called by God is both unfair and unwise.
8. The most important reason that I remain with the UMC, however, is that I believe that God is at work among and through us. If I didn’t believe this, I’d be gone. Why do I believe it? I see it over and over. Yes, there are the statistics about church decline…. Yes, there are churches that are as lifeless as a rock…. But there are also vibrant congregations–in the U.S. and abroad–filled with the Holy Spirit, where lives are changed. As a seminary dean, I go to a lot of churches, and let me tell you: God is not finished with the United Methodists.
Look, I know there are problems. I write about them all the time. Nevertheless, as someone wiser than me once said, “All denominations sin. We just sin differently.” And even as we are cognizant of our sin, it will be well for us to be aware of our virtues.
Comment by Pip Brandy on February 27, 2014 at 10:51 am
Dean Watson,
I’m a regular reader of this site and find much inspiration in it. I’m a Calvinistic Baptist (although we don’t actually use that term), but I find it encouraging to read about those fighting to keep the mainline churches from full apostasy. I’m very thankful for those efforts, it actually makes me feel less alone.
I do have a question about ordination of women. I understand that this site and I assume all of its contributors (yourself included?) are opposed to “sanctifying,” for lack of a better word, sexual sins (including same-sex, adultery, pre-martial, etc.). However, I’ve always connected in my mind, even if this is only coincidental historically, the move from ordaining women leading ineluctably toward accepting these other sinful behaviors. Assuming you personally, and the UMC tradition broadly, emphasizes the authority of scripture, I was just interested in a cursory defense of how to justify ordaining women (which I find by the Bible to be explicitly prohibited) while holding the line on sexual sins (and ordination of those practicing them, etc.) without these arguments becoming self-contradictory.
I won’t respond back, just interested in getting a good “from the horses mouth” understanding. Thanks!
Comment by Philip on February 27, 2014 at 11:23 am
The UMC’s overall mission is the prepare and actively participate in The Kingdom of God. In order to do so we do ministries and support causes that we believe reflect the Kingdom of God. We believe the patriarchal systems and prohibitions that have historically denied women the right to claim the order and calling that the Holy Spirit has placed upon them to be the result of sin rather than the will of God. We therefore completely and unashamedly support and celebrate female ordination. We further believe that the “slippery slope” argument should never under any circumstances be used as a reason not to adopt practices that point toward The Kingdom.
Comment by David on March 4, 2014 at 12:36 pm
Thanks, Philip for your response. There is something in it.
I think I might respond in a more traditional and concrete way. For United Methodists, Scripture is our primary authority for faith and practice. Our “Articles of Religion” – the basic doctrinal statement of the United Methodist Church – say the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament contain everything that is necessary for salvation and all essentials of the Christian faith. (We also like to say that we rely upon reason, tradition and experience to understand our faith, but these necessarily must be in agreement with Scripture and afforded a secondary role.)
I believe that there are two major reasons that we embrace the ordination of women as Methodists:
1) We find evidence that God and Jesus’ Apostles ordained women to positions of teaching and leadership. Interesting examples include Deborah, Miriam, and Priscilla. While we cannot argue that there are not prohibitions in certain passages of Scripture, where these occur amid a much larger stream of women in leadership, the only reasonable harmony seems to be that there were certain very specific NT contexts in which it was not helpful for women to teach or whose women were not yet prepared to lead or teach.
2) We find evidence that the Holy Spirit continues to use women in positions of authority and instruction. While John Wesley was initially opposed to women preaching to the Methodist Societies, he licensed Sarah Crosby to preach in 1761. The Methodist Protestant Church, and later the Methodist and United Methodist Church, kept this understanding alive from the very beginning of the modern evangelical/Wesleyan/Methodist movement though the Methodist Episcopal Church departed from it for a time.
Regarding your association of women’s leadership with Scriptural/Christian standards for human sexuality, I fail to see a direct connection, and I am not familiar with Scripture that associates the two explicitly.
Perhaps there is something more cultural to this association. Certainly, some people and some movements advocating for women have held more liberal views on a whole number of social issues not the least of which is human sexuality. I think that for many, the coincidence of the “women’s liberation” and the “gay liberation” movements in the 1960s and 1970s may cause some association between the two in some people’s minds.
I do think that there may or may not be something to the “slippery slope” that you mention. Again, Methodists have traditionally held a “high view” of Scripture as the authority for faith and practice. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, that perspective changed for many Methodists and slipped from prominence in our seminaries with the advent of higher critical models for the study of Scripture (not that they in and of themselves are bad). I believe that this is where the “slippery slope” argument may be valid. Where Scripture is no longer the authority for our faith, we are left to argue what seems most reasonable to us at the time, or what we feel the Holy Spirit is revealing to us. This introduces the possibility that doctrine or practice indicated by Scripture may “no longer” be binding. I feel that this is more of a “deadly precipice” than a “slippery slope,” but I think I am with you on that point.
Comment by David F. Watson on March 5, 2014 at 9:59 pm
Dear Pip,
Thanks for your kind tone of your question. I think that you and I would just emphasize different passages of scripture. Here’s a site that’s worth checking out:http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/womenapostles.htm. You may or may not find it compelling, but it does provide some great food for thought.
With regard to the “slippery slope” argument, I don’t generally find these compelling. We shouldn’t deny women ordination on the basis that we’re concerned about other matters.
Anyway, thanks for reading and God bless!
Comment by Ed Alex on February 27, 2014 at 11:33 am
Calvin and Piper and etc. are not the standard. It is Scripture that should be informing both Methodism and Calvanism, not Methodism informing Calvanism. I am a Reformed Methodist, if that’s possible.
Comment by Tom Cibenko on February 27, 2014 at 11:42 am
Hello, a time is coming when the simplicity of the gospel will be released to the denominational churches by the Holy Spirit! The wisdom of the churches based on mans perception will be rewritten and forever changed! Living under the law was replaced by the cross, when Jesus said ‘It is finished”! The Holy Spirit has replaced the burden of the law with the power of grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We should not say we are from one religion, person or ism, we should declare that Christ is the head of His church, the body of believers, His local expression of His Love. What should we do with the present churches, you might ask? Ask the Holy Spirit, why we do what we do? Good works done without faith as but dirty rags before the Lord. God is talking, just listen.
Did you know that Methodist believe in tongues, yep, after 10 years of attending my Methodist Church, not on word about it, nor concerning the gifts of the Holy Spirit!
Wake Up sons of man, do you not see it? Leadership in the Methodist church, Do you not see what the Lord is doing? The sheep that have been entrusted to you are hungry for the meat and must move on from the milk.
It is time for the New Wineskin, for a new wine is being released and the old wineskin will burst with the new wine in it! Keep it simple, remove what is not from the Lord, which is written on the heart of man. It is not in the books of discipline and other additions to God’s written and spiritual word.
Comment by Stephanie on February 27, 2014 at 5:24 pm
Thanks for this post! As the previous poster said as well, I found it inspiring. While there can be good reasons for leaving a tradition, there can also be good reasons for staying – and that takes a it’s own kind of thoughtfulness and resolve.
While I don’t know much about the Methodist church in the States, I was visiting Hong Kong this summer and was delighted to visit some Methodist churches there that were incredibly vibrant, really focused on meeting the spiritual needs of working professionals in the competitive city environment there. I’m Roman Catholic, and I’m embarrassed to say my previous (uneducated) impression had just been that Methodists were rather generically Protestant, somehow neither Anglican nor Lutheran… a pleasantly modest, but vague crew that aren’t known for much in particular about anything in the US. So it was really neat to see how proud my Methodist friends were of the church there, and they gave me quite an education in Methodist history, social engagement, and work in bringing God to the crowded high-rises of modern Hong Kong! A neat experience.
Comment by Jeffrey on March 1, 2014 at 10:00 am
the answer should be what is wrong with the UMC…
1.pro abortion
2.the lack of motivation to push back on the gay agenda inside the church with the reconciling network