Is United Methodism dividing over sex, specifically over same-sex marriage? Or is it over deeper issues of scriptural authority?
The answer is yes and yes, but it’s a little confusing. And different factions have their preferred talking points.
My recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted sexuality’s role in the division. Some liberals on social media responded with, “Aha! So, you admit it’s about sex, thank you!” Some conservatives responded, “No, no, it’s about scriptural authority,” while suggesting I must be distorting because I’m a member of the “liberal” media!
Many United Methodist liberals relish thinking conservatives are leaving over “just” sex because they often insist there’s no other major basis for disagreement: “We affirm the doctrinal standards!” And they claim, after they change the church’s teachings on sex, the doctrinal standards will remain unchanged.
It recalls the scene from The Sound of Music when Hans Zeller, the Nazi gauleiter, assures the von Trapps after the German occupation, “Nothing has changed! Austria is the same!”
Much will change after United Methodism liberalizes on sex. The official doctrinal standards, like parchment locked in a safe, may not change, which is inconsequential. They are not rigorously upheld now, if at all. And they will be even less relevant under a sexually liberalized denomination, which will stress affirmation over the Gospel’s traditional call to salvation and transformation.
Liberals like to claim that conservatives are focusing on sex. But liberalizing the church’s sex teaching has been the main battle flag issue for United Methodist liberals for decades. When enough conservatives have exited to allow it, liberals will take about five minutes at General Conference to delete the church’s traditional sex teachings.
As to conservatives who like to claim the split is not about sex but about scriptural authority, the story is more complex. Sex is the precipitating issue if not the originating issue. A split focused on strictly scriptural authority would have happened 80-100 years ago. Methodist seminaries were embracing modernist theology early in the 20th century.
Borden Parker Bowne of Boston Seminary, Methodism’s premier theological school, was tried for heresy in 1904 for denying the orthodox faith. He was the founder of Boston Personalism and thought Christian teachings about miraculous events like the Virgin Birth irrelevant. A jury of bishops found him innocent, and no other clergy were ever tried by the church for false teaching. The implication was no teaching could be so false as to merit a trial or any consequences.
Over 100 years ago the church’s doctrine essentially became elastic. Clergy who insisted on the orthodox faith based on a high view scriptural authority were often tolerated, but they typically could not, especially if outspoken, become bishops, seminary professors, or agency executives, with some exceptions. Protestant Modernism, with its stress on morals and social reform, governed the church, absent deep theological orthodoxy, much less traditional Methodist teaching about salvation, sanctification, holiness, and perfection. Wesleyan evangelicals became a subculture within wider Methodism.
Of course, most lay people did not notice this change unless they were looking very closely. Heterodox clergy still preached in orthodox language while privately attaching different meanings to it. They may preach about the resurrection on Easter, but they did not mean a full bodily resurrection. They were usually shrewd enough to know that lay people would not accept Modernist assumptions against the miraculous.
Meanwhile, official Methodism from the 1930s onward, if not before, in official materials and pronouncements, focused on the Social Gospel. There was little to no talk about evangelism or the New Birth or lost souls, which were artifacts from a best forgotten past, no longer relevant.
Official Methodist stances on social and political issues became more and more secular. In 1970 United Methodism officially endorsed abortion rights after a 20-minute debate at General Conference. This stance departed from historic universal Christian teaching, but there was little controversy.
In the 1970s and 1980s, United Methodism abandoned missions evangelism overseas and began backing, and financing, Marxist revolutionary movements under the aegis of Liberation Theology. Media exposés in Reader’s Digest and Sixty Minutes spotlighted this radicalism, so there was some controversy, but not enough to precipitate reform, much less split the church.
Only sexuality was ever seen sufficient to split the church officially. United Methodism had debated sexuality since 1972. Conservatives always warned that any liberalization would split the church, and now it is. Of course, the liberal view of sexuality descends from 120 years of liberal theology and disregard for traditional scriptural authority, as understood by the historic and universal church. It’s important to note that not all liberals today are Modernists. Many now affirm the miraculous especially if they are postmodernists. But they do not insist on orthodox teachings about Jesus’s virgin birth or resurrection as imperative Christian teaching, even if they personally affirm.
So, the church is dividing over sex and over deeper underlying issues. Traditionalists should not be embarrassed about defending and dividing over traditional Christian sexual teachings. God’s creation of man and woman, and His plans for marriage and chastity, are central to the Christian message. The wider architecture of Christian faith is hard to sustain absent the Christian understanding of marriage as lifelong union between male and female, which mirrors the cosmic wedding of Christ with his Bride the Church.
But we should recall that the split, although precipitated by differences over sex, had a long 100-year preamble of wandering from Christian orthodoxy. United Methodism’s split perhaps can date to the failed heresy trial of seminary Professor Borden Parker Bowne, whose heterodoxy presaged the church’s future, with dire and tragic consequences.
Comment by td on August 23, 2022 at 10:46 pm
It really seems that the institutional problem is that the institution is not following its own legitimately-adopted rules and standards. And this goes way beyond same sex “marriage”. I think everyone has mostly been disregarding all the rules and standards that they don’t like for a very long time.
Most bishops have only been holding certain persons accountable if it serves the bishop’s own personal interests. Does anyone view any of the US bishops in the UMC as spiritual leaders? To be more blunt, how many of your own UMC pastors have you considered to be true spiritual leaders?
I honestly don’t see that there is a way (beyond the workings of the holy spirit) to put this genie back in the bottle- and that applies to both “sides”.
Comment by Sigma on August 24, 2022 at 9:22 am
Well thought out piece of writing. These two statements really impacted me:
As to conservatives who like to claim the split is not about sex but about scriptural authority, the story is more complex. Sex is the precipitating issue if not the originating issue.
It’s important to note that not all liberals today are Modernists. Many now affirm the miraculous especially if they are postmodernists. But they do not insist on orthodox teachings about Jesus’s virgin birth or resurrection as imperative Christian teaching, even if they personally affirm.
That is what makes this whole ball of wax tricky. If you are laity, you really do have to be paying attention to who falls into the wheat and the chaff….and sometimes it really is hard to tell the difference.
Comment by David Connon on August 24, 2022 at 10:48 am
Mark Tooley, thank you for posting this detailed, clear, and thoughtful chronology. Your analysis is persuasive.
Comment by Mark on August 24, 2022 at 11:36 am
Mark, I think this might be the most helpful piece you’ve written. Traditional Methodists need to look back at our history and realize we were getting wobbly way back before the Civil War. We never handled living on main street very well.
After the German thinkers infected our American theologians, and our seminaries fell in the first half of the 20th century, the writing was on the wall.
Comment by Gary Bebop on August 24, 2022 at 12:15 pm
Mark Tooley’s writeup has much substance to ponder. He knows his Methodist narrative, source materials, and the modern trajectory. The Global Methodist Church erupts out of the dismal swamp that Methodism has become. But traditionalists who forecast the acceleration of United Methodism’s collapse must reckon with institutional reality. Wespath is not predicting the collapse of United Methodism, and traditionalists should reckon soberly, and not as enthusiasts, with the fact that denominations in historical decline continue to function and occupy strategic locations. The GMC will have brand and legacy competition.
Comment by Gary Booth on August 24, 2022 at 12:34 pm
We can’t even agree on what we disagree about.
Comment by Bob on August 24, 2022 at 3:56 pm
Ha! Bowne, Brightman and Knudson, who held sway at Boston for 50 years, all came from strong evangelical homes and continued to claim their evangelical feelings long after they discarded the content of evangelical/traditional Christian faith. They bowed toward Wesley but lit candles before the shrines of Harnack and Schleiermacher. EF Tittle, who held sway at (then) prestigious First Church Evanston Il for 30 years until his death in 1949, strongly emphasized the importance of the resurrection while explicitly denying any need to believe this stuff actually happened. The same with illustrious bishops G. Bromley Oxnam and Francis McConnell, and Garrett seminary icon Harris Franklin Fall. While all and perhaps most ‘evangelicals’ may not officially depart the US church, enough will do so to tip the balance. Look out, apartheid Israel, the Board of Church and Society is coming for you, Caterpillar and Motorola. Rejoice, O RCAR and Planned Parenthood, for thy financial salvation will be near at hand. Look for who gets elected as delegates in 2024 and who gets elected for bishops in 2022 to read the tea leaves…
Comment by Anthony on August 24, 2022 at 5:05 pm
The current Council of Bishops meeting labels Mark Tooley as spreading “negative rhetoric” and “falsehoods”. Of course that’s what they would say because that’s all they can say in that they have NO SCRIPTURAL basis to stand on supporting their liberal theology. So, they can only cast stones at those who stand on Scripture in assessing the UMC schism. These reactionary accusations by the COB only verifies and substantiates what Mark Tooley says here.
Comment by Gary Bebop on August 24, 2022 at 7:46 pm
Doctrinal and Disciplinary guard rails, even the cultural of holy practices, will not staunch the import of novelties into the GMC. Laity are no match from the wiles of clever clergy. United Methodism was ruined by its leadership cadre, the ones we trusted to teach faithfully and not lead the church into divagations. Confusion is sown by the constant corruption of terminology. This is our Methodist cultural habit of disguising agendas with ambiguous nomenclature while feigning “doing no harm,” even innocence. Euphemism and periphrasis are rampant in this church.
Comment by Pat on August 24, 2022 at 8:38 pm
With an autocratic management model, it is no wonder the Methodist church has been in conflict for those many years. With no accountability to the USA Methodist Church leadership, a focus on Christ and Biblical scripture for operation, you have the final decline and destruction of the USA Methodist Church. Mark told the truth and as hard has his efforts have been, the satan led leadership of the USA Methodist church has led to the split, the loosing of many traditional Methodists who have no time or patience in a waiting game to see if the GMC will be any different. Mark has battled long and hard for the Methodist church, but there were those who knew from the beginning what they were going to with regard to the USA Methodist church. Thank you Mark for you efforts, your dedication to the Methodist denomination. There were too many challenges, battles to fight and roadblocks to overcome. The Protocol was a grand attempt but only led to a delay. If leadership of the USA Methodist church refuses to follow the 2019 Book of Discipline, you can ‘t expect long term members in local churches to wait around for the end. Thus, the massive loss of members to new churches and denominations.
Comment by Loren J Golden on August 25, 2022 at 1:14 am
When I left United Methodism in 1991, it was from a theologically liberal UMC congregation for an Evangelical PC(USA) congregation (Eastminster) in the same city (Wichita, KS). I was in my mid-twenties at the time and had come to the conviction that I needed to grow in my faith, but that growth was not going to happen at College Hill United Methodist Church.
College Hill’s position on human sexuality versus Eastminster’s was not the driving factor in my decision (even though the PC(USA) was in the midst of the controversy over the denomination’s Human Sexuality Report, overwhelmingly defeated at the General Assembly that year), but rather how the Scriptures were handled from the pulpit. At College Hill, the senior pastor would set his own context, into which the associate pastor would read the morning text, and then after the chancel choir sang the morning anthem, the senior pastor would proceed to preach on whatever subject he wanted to preach on that morning, irrespective of what the Scriptures read that morning actually said. At Eastminster, after the choir sang the morning anthem, the senior pastor would read the morning text and then proceed to exegete it, with application to the lives of the men and women in the congregation. At College Hill, it was plain that the Scriptures held very little weight; at Eastminster, they were regarded as the very Word of God.
Fast forward to 2010. By this time, a job change had moved me to the Kansas City area, where I was a member at another Evangelical PC(USA) congregation (Colonial). The PC(USA) was again embroiled in controversy over human sexuality—along with the authority of Scripture and the Lordship and sole saving efficacy of Jesus Christ—and Colonial’s Session (Presbyterian-speak for elder board) discerned that the Holy Spirit was calling Colonial to reconsider her denominational affiliation. The General Assembly that summer would vote for the fourth time to repeal its ordination standards, requiring pastors (aka teaching elders), ruling (lay) elders, and deacons “to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” (Book of Order §G-6.0106.b) The difference between 2010’s vote and the previous votes (in 1997, 2001, & 2008) was that the forces of worldly accommodation had the votes in the presbyteries to ratify the GA’s decision.
The question about ordination standards may have been the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Colonial, which had been planted in 1953 as a church in the (southern) Presbyterian Church in the United States, had come with the majority of PCUS churches into the PC(USA) in the 1983 merger with the UPCUSA, to be “salt and light” in the denomination, rather than join either the Presbyterian Church in America (founded in 1973) or the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (founded in 1981), either of which would have been a better fit theologically and ethically. The saints at Colonial believe the Bible and trust the Gospel of Salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Sadly, this conviction put them at loggerheads with the PC(USA)’s Heartland Presbytery with whom Colonial had been unequally yoked, and there were flashpoints that highlighted this dichotomy between Colonial and the PC(USA).
The year before the definitive vote to vitiate the denomination’s ordination standards, a gentleman on Colonial’s staff who had earned his M.Div. from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL, was seeking ordination in the PC(USA), so he could be called as an associate pastor at Colonial. In his statement of faith, he stated that he believed in the bodily Resurrection of our Lord from the grave; yet one teaching elder in good standing told him on the floor of Heartland Presbytery that if he believed in the bodily Resurrection, then he could not vote for him.
As another example, while Colonial was in its season of discernment, seeking the Lord’s leading, the Colonial Session and an Administrative Review Committee from Heartland Presbytery held a series of town hall meetings, to discuss why they thought that the Lord was leading Colonial to either seek dismissal to another Reformed denomination, or to remain in the PC(USA). In the first of these, a ruling elder at Colonial expressed his concern that Heartland was unable to support the Biblical teaching that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all and the only way of salvation. In response, one of the members of the ARC said that for him, Jesus Christ is his Savior and Lord, but that he thought it “arrogant” to believe that God would limit salvation from sin and death to those who put their faith in Christ alone, despite what the Lord Himself said in John 14.6.
And so, in August 2010 Colonial overwhelmingly (97%) voted herself out of the PC(USA) and into the EPC. In October of the following year, Eastminster followed suit.
The grave dichotomy between the Bible’s teachings on human sexuality and the world’s may very well be the impetus that pushes many individuals and congregations today to separate themselves from the Mainline Protestant churches and denominations, in favor of more Biblically faithful alternatives, but it is hardly the only reason—nor is it the most important.
Comment by Anthony on August 25, 2022 at 12:12 pm
Mark,
With this sort of reaction – you can be absolutely positive that you are on the right road. Perhaps the Council of Bishops and their liberal colleagues could take a look amongst themselves with relation to “negative rhetoric” and “falsehoods” before attacking others.
https://www.facebook.com/104412195655220/posts/d41d8cd9/129440366485736/
Comment by Anthony on August 26, 2022 at 8:46 am
Mark Tooley – Dallas TX Methodist cleric posts his dream that I choke to death on bologna sandwich, evincing spiritual & intellectual depth for parts of the denomination, & further confirming need for unfolding split.
Comment by JoeR on August 27, 2022 at 7:01 am
The lack of courageous leadership for decades in the UMC is appalling. The Book of Non-Discipline is used as a bludgeon only when convenient by Bishops. Congratulations liberals – you’ve made your point and will get millions from disaffiliating congregations to keep your boat above water for a time. I will not bow to the god of those who chase the flavor of the month cause.
Comment by John Smith on August 27, 2022 at 3:40 pm
Amazing how the UMC is just now waking up to the fact that while it has made many claims it has never really stood for anything, especially if it might entail controversy.
Comment by Roy Jacobsen on August 28, 2022 at 6:12 am
Mark
Good job. Your statement that there were no trials for heresy in the UMC and predecessor denomination MEC, MEC South, Meth Protestant and EUB is incorrect. In the the liberal New York East Conference a Pastor serving Bethelship Norwegian Methodist Church in Brooklyn, in the heady years of liberalism., was put on trial. This was a conservative church filled with new believers who were converted to a lively faith in Jesus. In those years Bethelship was in the NY East Conference of the MEC. The was “convicted” and removed from membership in the NYE Conference as he preached and taught Christian Science doctrine. Best to check with Archives and History. Perhaps there were few trials but but not any! Good research project or maybe more can be found in a Phd dissertation.
Roy
Comment by George on August 29, 2022 at 8:57 am
There is absolutely nothing going on in the churches today that has not played out many times over the millenniums. When God in heaven was not enough, they made idol gods to also worship. The Church has split many times. Those who have left have also split. It never changes. Today, it is sex . Tomorrow it will be abortion. New liberal translations of the Bible or starting to appear. More will come. It will not be easy for traditional christians.
This secular world is attacking and turning our children as we watch. Satan is at work. I’m sure the liberals deny Satan as they do the virgin birth and the physical resurrection.
God help us. Please!!!
Comment by Jim Radford on September 3, 2022 at 11:48 am
Borden Parker Bowne was a nine-time Nobel prize nominee and an opponent of naturalism, particularly social Darwinism. That’s a theme that Conservative Christians would support, is it not? Even though, like Richard Rohr (who, incidentally, drives me crazy because he has a similar bent to Bowne), he would probably deny the crucial and central importance of, say, the Cross in salvation. That said, I don’t think that it’s accurate to label him as one of the bugaboos that conservative Christians have to fear (as a proto-liberal progressive) and as someone who threatens “traditional” “doctrinal standards.” The Genuine and Absolute Dyed-in-the-Wool Word of God is not about “doctrine.” It is Word made flesh; not word made word. Personalism (Boston, so-called) just locates the locus of truth in the person, and not in materialism. All of you good folks that believe in the Incarnation should vote thumbs-up on that. (For instance, think of Paul, who stated, “When it pleased God to reveal Christ IN me….”) A group of Bowne’s Boston contemporaries, Ralph Waldo Emerson among them, raised legitimate objections to the institutional (read: “traditional powers-that-be”) church of their day. Emerson, for example, tells of being in a Pre-Civil War southern congregation and listening to a revivalist preacher belt out an impassioned “come to Jesus” sermon. While Emerson was sitting beside an open window in the sanctuary, he could hear–at the same time the preacher was thundering away–a slave auction being held somewhere outside, at which an auctioneer was shouting out, “Going once, going twice….” Conservative Christians often do not have the best track record when it comes to upholding basic human dignity. So, I’m thinking that challenging the “traditional” is not all that bad. But, then again, now I find myself wondering: Are church trials, for folks like Bowne, going to be called for in the new Global Methodist Church? Oops, my bad. If not at least ugly on my part, it’s at most only tongue-in-cheek; I would imagine that there won’t really be church trials. Right? In any case, I do believe that one should in fact point out where persons such as Borden Parker Bowne miss the boat, with regard to miracle or the supernatural, but please do applaud him for wanting a metaphysical, and not so much a doctrinal, approach to assist in coming to terms with the meaning of existence. And, oh yeah, just FYI, Martin Luther King, who went to Boston University, appreciated Bowne.