A United Methodist Pact of Umar?

John Lomperis on January 13, 2023

If non-liberals choose to remain within a rapidly liberalizing United Methodist Church, what sort of treatment can they expect? An answer is indicated by recent statements of two moderate United Methodist bishops as well as the model of the Pact of Umar, a medieval document outlining the status and restrictions for newly conquered Christians living under Islamic rule.

Together, they suggest a future in which, by design, many non-liberals remain United Methodists as second-class citizens, but then, as with the Pact of Umar, this constituency is increasingly depleted by attrition and heavy-handed repression, until almost all of them finally die off.

Nowadays, Bishop Gary Mueller is especially known for his controversial decisions and the preventable, explosive contention during the final two months of his recently concluded tenure as Arkansas’s bishop. But before that, Bishop Mueller was arguably a rare true moderate bishop, distant from and criticized by both traditionalist and liberal factions. In recent years, he supported different proposals that would have changed the UMC Discipline for the first time to officially allow same-sex weddings and non-celibate gay clergy (unacceptable to traditionalist leaders), but in a way that would come with meaningful, permanent protections for the consciences of theologically traditionalist United Methodists (in which liberal leaders had no interest). He found virtually no one to join him.

In a swan-song editorial, issued shortly before he announced his retirement, Mueller acknowledged “the inevitability of a binary split in the United Methodist Church” and recognized that the UMC’s newly dominant liberal faction risks alienating not only theological traditionalists but also moderates. He warned of potential for “a significant exodus of traditionalists and moderates.” How to avoid this? The moderate bishop said:

“It is not enough to say there is a space for everyone, there needs to be an intentional welcoming of moderates and traditionalists that involves words, but more importantly actions. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for moderates and traditionals to receive the message, ‘You are welcome if you stay quiet and pay your apportionments.’ The United Methodist Church needs to seek out moderates and traditionalists, value the gifts they bring and fully welcome them into leadership in congregations, districts, annual conferences and the general church. …

Church leaders will have to make sure this welcome is clear and unambiguous, and offer specific reasons why moderates and traditionalists are a valued part of the church.”

Yet the recent actions of the UMC’s liberal faction form a pattern of consistent decisions to do exactly what Mueller warned will alienate moderates and traditionalists.

Mueller’s editorial correctly observed that at this point, millions of moderates and traditionalists still remain in the UMC, but through his institutional-loyalist lenses, may read too much into this fact. Just because some people have not yet left the UMC today does not necessarily mean that they never will. But whatever their reasons, for at least the next several years, a large number of moderates and conservatives will likely remain in the UMC, even as others are increasingly driven out by denominational leaders failing to heed Mueller’s warnings.

Indeed, the heavy-handed barriers that bishops and other officials have been imposing on congregations seeking to disaffiliate are largely driven by the simple, unbiblical financial greed of denominational bureaucrats wanting to keep for themselves a large portion of moderate and traditionalist United Methodists’ church properties and annual apportionment payments.

What sort of treatment can the initially sizable constituency of non-liberal United Methodists expect from a rapidly liberalizing UMC?

Bishop Leonard Fairley has been praised for treating traditionalist congregations relatively fairly (although not graciously, in the true sense of the term) in recent disaffiliations. By the very relative standards of American United Methodism’s remaining active bishops, it has appeared that moderate and traditionalist United Methodists have little reason to expect much better treatment than what Bishop Fairley offers, with other bishops taking a much more hostile posture against non-liberals.

But under Bishop Fairley (before his assignment changed to focus on leading the Kentucky and Central Appalachian Missionary Conferences), the North Carolina Conference leadership chose to treat the theologically traditionalist Pioneers Church extraordinarily unfairly.

American United Methodism’s decades-long membership decline and struggles to expand beyond older whites outside of urban areas are major sources of denominational anxiety. So one might expect enthusiastic support for this new congregation planted in Durham by a gracious, young, culturally sensitive, “passionate and eloquent” Latina pastor trained at the UMC’s own Duke Divinity School and pioneering innovative approaches to urban ministry.

But left-leaning local media tarred this church plant as supposedly “controversial” with opposition apparently primarily centered around the fact that Pastor Sherei Lopez Jackson personally believes in “an interpretation of scripture that Christian marriage is a sacred covenant between one man and one woman and believe[s] that sexual intimacy has the potential to be at its healthiest in that context.” But even critical reports of the congregation indicate that it was not at all prioritizing or making a big deal of promoting this particular stance. For intolerant liberals, it was apparently sufficiently damning that the congregation had some ties to a couple of Christian networks with a traditional biblical view of marriage and that the congregation was suspected of itself being quietly “non-LGBTQ+ affirming.” A liberal reporter for a major state newspaper reported that—gasp!—unlike other businesses in the neighborhood, “there are no [LGBTQ+] Pride flags anywhere” in this congregation.

This stance, no matter how graciously, non-judgmentally, and non-prominently held, was apparently enough grounds for a rather insane level of strident condemnation and public protests by local activists against the congregation, which reportedly decided last year to leave the UMC for the Wesleyan Church.

Think about the fundamentally totalitarian nature of these protests. Some people try to exercise their freedom of religion and freedom of association to start a faith community. No one is forced to attend their worship services. Some of their beliefs happen to not be shared by the majority of residents of its locale. There is one detail about this congregation’s beliefs which its leader does not emphasize and about which she apparently prefers to remain relatively quiet. However, even this faith community’s largely pursuing a self-censoring silence about this particular minority belief is not good enough. The protesters apparently felt entitled for this private association to publicly declare it affirmation of the protester’s own beliefs, or else this faith community must be loudly harassed and unwelcome to even exist.  

This situation gave United Methodist leaders a chance to show if they were ever willing to defend theologically traditionalist United Methodists facing even the most unfair, unhinged attacks. Instead, these denominational leaders sought to gain approval for themselves from the attackers, by throwing the congregation, its continuing ministry, and its minority female pastor under the bus. 

A News and Observer article posted the full text of a groveling apology letter, reportedly sent “to neighbors in the Geer Street area” on December 6, signed by Fairley, along with Gray Southern (Assistant to the Bishop & Conference Secretary), Mike Frese (the district superintendent), Tim Catlett (Executive Director of New Faith Communities for the conference), and Lisa Yebuah (a prominent pastor and also the conference’s cabinet-level Spiritual Director and Advisor for Inclusion and Equity). Screenshots of their letter can also be viewed here.

Their letter affirmed the protesters’ bizarre belief that there was “harm caused” by the planting of Pioneers, declared “We are sorry that we were not initially attentive to the harm that might be done when a new congregation was started, which was not fully affirming of the LGTQIA+ community and inclusive of marriage equality” in that neighborhood, and prostratingly “offer[ed] our confession and our deepest apologies for the missteps that have brought us to this point.” While Pioneers was reportedly initially financially supported by the UMC, these UMC officials assured the neighbors that they no longer had anything to do with each other, financially or otherwise, and that the UMC conference is now “changing the practices within our Office of New Faith Communities,” implicitly to prevent making such a terrible mistake ever again. 

Think of the profound anti-ecumenical bad form of high-ranking UMC bureaucrats sending out a letter to the neighbors of now another denomination’s congregation to encourage negative prejudices against that church, while essentially begging this congregation’s neighbors, “but please like us United Methodists—we’re not like this bad church plant in your neighborhood!”

With growing hostility to biblical views on marriage in much of American culture, we can expect future incidents in which other theologically traditionalist Methodist pastors and congregations face similarly unhinged opposition over not affirming same-sex marriage. When that happens, if these congregations and pastors have chosen to remain United Methodist, why should they expect their own bishop and district superintendent to be less likely to throw them under the bus than what happened under the leadership of even one of the most relatively fair-minded bishops remaining in the UMC?

Note that Pastor Lopez Jackson reportedly cited two things— “her personal beliefs, as well as the rules of the United Methodist Church”—as preventing her from officiating gay weddings. When United Methodist leaders so publicly abandon a pastor who (unlike others) was actually following the UMC rules, why should we expect these leaders to have the back of any pastor facing similar opposition after the rules are changed to no longer be on such pastors’ side?

In the immediate future, enough non-liberals will remain United Methodists to make it impractical to hunt down and forcibly excommunicate every last one of them.

Considering the future of this United Methodist constituency starting out as initially sizable (per Bishop Mueller) but subject to internal intolerance, particularly against attempts to grow (per Bishop Fairley) makes me think of the infamous Pact of Umar.

Scholars debate the details about the precise origins and use of this document, purportedly issued in the seventh century to govern the status of large numbers of newly conquered Christians subject to Muslim rule. But over later history, the Pact of Umar became a widely cited influence, shaping treatment of non-Muslim minorities into the 20th century and even the 21st century (see here and here). You can read a translation of one version here.

In exchange for being allowed to exist, the Pact called for subjugated Christians to extreme restrictions, including:

  1. Giving mandatory, financially costly support to exclusively benefit members of the Muslim community.
  2. Agreeing to “not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.”
  3. “We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.”

This is obviously a recipe for devastating once-large Christian communities and ultimately driving them towards extinction. This includes ongoing bleeding from children abandoning the faith of their Christian parents.

Of course, the contexts are vastly different. But the recent statements from Bishops Mueller and Fairley, together with wider trends in denominational leadership, suggest the beginnings of an informal, de facto sort of United Methodist Pact of Umar. In this unwritten agreement, then in exchange for being allowed to exist within the UMC, traditionalists must be subjugated to extreme restrictions, including:

  1. Understand that indeed, the deal the denomination is offering you is “You are welcome if you stay quiet and pay your apportionments,” with these apportionments supporting increasingly liberal denominational leadership and extreme liberal agendas with which both  moderates and traditionalists strongly disagree.
  2. If there is an already existing traditionalist congregation, it will not be shut down immediately. But do not count on any financial support, or perhaps even permission, for planting a new theologically traditionalist United Methodist congregation. As the Pioneers Church found, the denomination would be ashamed to be associated with such a church plant. And as denominational officials consider which congregations to support with grants, don’t expect any traditionalist congregation falling on hard times or in need of building repair to be a priority. 
  3. Leading bishops (other than those named in this article) view United Methodist traditionalists’ faith and values as, in their own words, a sickening “virus” that “eventually gives rise to violence and death.” Therefore, they do not want United Methodist traditionalists to spread their faith, whether through church plants or other means. And traditionalist congregations and pastors remaining in the UMC had better not let denominational officials catch them doing too much to try to prevent members from embracing progressive, LGBTQ-liberationist theology. 

Under such a United Methodist Pact of Umar, combined with ever-dwindling numbers of new traditionalist pastors interested in or approved for United Methodist ordination, we can expect traditionalist faith to increasingly die out within the UMC. Among other things, traditionalist parents who choose to stay UMC should expect their children to eventually abandon orthodox faith. Their children may carry on the light of theologically traditionalist faith, or they may continue as United Methodists, but they are very unlikely to do both. 

Don’t hold your breath waiting for any bishop or district superintendent to make any serious effort to show why such a United Methodist Pact of Umar is not the future non-liberals can expect in the UMC, or that there is any realistic way to prevent it.

  1. Comment by Gary Bebop on January 13, 2023 at 12:55 pm

    This is truly an overflowing dirty laundry bag. I appreciate the effort to sort through this ugly pile. Frankly, the evidence will spook some traditionalists. They will calculate their odds of surviving the hostility of the present cultural transformation and may conclude it’s not worth the effort to “resist” what’s coming. Resistance will become costly. Resisters may stand alone. Where will they turn for allies?

  2. Comment by David S. on January 13, 2023 at 2:12 pm

    As I and others, who’ve been members of other mainline denominations that have decided that syncretism and being friends with the world is more important than being faithful Christians have observed…look no further than our experience to see what will happen in the UMC under these wolves and hirelings.

  3. Comment by David Mu on January 15, 2023 at 6:07 pm

    Certainly not on the side of the traditional church, but you could not pay me to be with this forming UMC. It’s the same with all (let’s just use that word) liberal church elsewhere – the gulag of ‘correct’ party rulings moving ever further down the left road. And these days – that’s clearly VERY far down the road. And – the days of tolerate ‘big-tent’ IS over.

    This new UMC does seem to be posed for being a real leader of the loon-church, and a promising model for the other seven sisters in their own left gulags. Fine if you are interested in that kind of thing, but it is a toxic one with lots truly bad ideals just wanting to trash.

  4. Comment by Phil on January 15, 2023 at 11:55 pm

    How welcome will non-conservatives feel in the GMC?

  5. Comment by Jeff on January 16, 2023 at 10:20 am

    Phil,
    Non-conservatives will be warmly welcomed in the GMC. I’m basing that assessment on experience as a member of a medium-sized UMC congregation that is 80+% traditionalist and will likely vote to leave the UMC. “Some of our best friends are liberals and progressives.”

    But perhaps a more pertinent question is this: “How long before warmly welcomed liberal-progressives in the GMC become activist, and clamor to turn the GMC away from the inerrant Word of GOD, and Jesus CHRIST as THE way, THE truth, and THE life? How long before the proggies insist on abandoning worship of the Heavenly Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, and instead demand worship of Alphabet Pride, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Gaia, “reproductive rights”, drag queens, satan himself, and all the other antichrist claptrap they so deeply love?”

    I don’t know the answer to the question “how long” — my guess is, it’ll begin in the GMC in earnest in two to four years. But history shows that as long as there is a non-congregational, i.e. hierarchical, polity to invade, manipulate and exploit like a cancer, it’s only a matter of time. You see, since the progressive “faith” is not Christianity at all, but rather one of the many forms of worshiping the prince of the power of the air, it does not, cannot!, have the approval of GOD the Father, and therefore the progressive “religion” ABSOLUTELY MUST demand, as a substitute, the approval — belay that, not mere approval but whole-hearted BUY-IN — of Man.

  6. Comment by JoeR on January 16, 2023 at 3:37 pm

    Drag queens being in the works for ordination says enough. Would the last Methodist please turn out the lights and lock the door.

  7. Comment by John Smith on January 16, 2023 at 3:53 pm

    Its nice to see the awkward psMC has been dropped. The UMC will remain, just as a liberal denomination. The trademarks, logos, names will all move seamlessly and woe betide a traditional breakaway that tries to use them.

  8. Comment by Stephanie Jenkins on January 16, 2023 at 3:54 pm

    Saying your church is inclusive and truly being inclusive are two very different things.

  9. Comment by Phil on January 16, 2023 at 5:17 pm

    Jeff,

    About these progressives who you say are your some of your best friends. How exactly do you welcome them in your church? When I say welcome, I don’t just mean you let them through the door or share your coffee and donuts with them. I mean do you let them be fully a part of your congregational life or do you keep them at a distance? Are they allowed to teach Sunday school? Can they serve on committees? Would they receive support from you if they share with you that they had a calling to ministry? Have you told them that you don’t consider their faith Christianity at all? Do they know you think they follow the antichrist?

  10. Comment by Jeff on January 16, 2023 at 6:43 pm

    Phil,
    You act as if all those things are up to me.
    They are not.

  11. Comment by Phil on January 16, 2023 at 7:02 pm

    Jeff,

    The last two questions were specifically addressed to you. The others were directed more toward your congregation.

  12. Comment by Josh on January 16, 2023 at 9:12 pm

    Phil . . .

    Why would a progressive go to a church that is conservative/ traditional church instead of a progressive UMC church?

    If a progressive volunteered to teach in a traditional church, would they respect the teaching of the church and the authority of the church leaders?

  13. Comment by Steve on January 16, 2023 at 9:51 pm

    Josh,

    You act as if progressives and conservatives worship two different Gods. Progressives emphasize the social gospel of Christ while conservatives emphasize the moral gospel of Christ. Together, we praise the complete gospel of Christ.

    It is the activists on both sides that are dividing and destroying the church. That is what activists do to everything they put their hands on.

  14. Comment by Jeff on January 16, 2023 at 9:59 pm

    Your questions are “gotcha!” questions, Phil — not asked in good faith, in the spirit of discussion. I also note that you did not address my larger point whatsoever.

    Nevertheless, I’ll do my best to answer you in good faith.

    Some context: to the best of my knowledge there are no practicing homosexuals that regularly attend the assembled congregation, although there are a number of libs/progs who express that familiar “what’s the big deal” attitude about sexual immorality. Also, among the left-leaners there are more that I would call “liberal” and only a few that I would call “progressive” — and those would agree that they are progressive. Some of what I lump in with the libs are anti-abort anti-gay anti-tranny gun-totin’ yellow dog Democrats, but I’m still pretty confident that come voting time they’ll vote to stay UMC (in alignment with their party’s platform, if not GOD’s).

    >> do you let them be fully a part of your congregational life?
    They are first-class members of the congregation in every way. I don’t count any of them among my closest friends, but we are genuinely cordial and I genuinely care about them as my brothers and sisters (and they, me). I can’t speak for the congregation, but I believe that statement defines many (on BOTH sides of the divide).

    >> Are they allowed to teach Sunday school?
    That is up to the pastor. I know of only one case — previous pastor, before I was a member — where a homosexual couple began to worship in the congregation (which was OK) and then insisted to teach a sunday school class to children (which the pastor denied). IIRC the pastor asked them not to take communion also. The couple left at that point. I heard about this but did not witness it. More than one of the sunday school teachers — both adult and children SS — are individuals that I would call prog/lib and am fairly certain will vote against disaffiliation when the time comes.

    >> Can they serve on committees?
    Yes, and at least two of the members of the church board are the most left leaning among the progressives. Many many instances of “committee” members who are left leaning and I presume will vote against disaffiliation.

    BY THE WAY, PHIL, WE DON’T WEAR FREAKING BADGES WITH OUR TRAD/PROG LEANINGS DESIGNATED THEREON. YOU GET THAT, DON’T YOU? Sheesh.

    >> Would they receive support from you if they share with you that they had a calling to ministry?
    From me personally? Some might, after an appropriate discussion, others probably not. From others who might have a say in it? How the hell would I know.

    >> Have you told them that you don’t consider their faith Christianity at all?
    Well, I don’t hunt them down in the hallway and jab my finger in their chest and announce it, out of the blue… but in the context of a discussion on the subject I would not be at all shy about pointing that out. I might even offer them my copy of J Grisham Meachen’s “Christianity & Liberalism” to read, he says it a lot better than I do. And by the way — it’s a RARE prog/lib that will stay in that sort of discussion, and “reason together”, without getting all triggered and/or just “well I never” and walking away in a huff. In the lib/prog soul, feelings trump facts, and biblical facts that go against prog feelings are just “torn out of the book”, Adam-Hamilton style.

    >> Do they know you think they follow the antichrist?
    I have taught some fairly explicit sunday school lessons on the two “apex deities” (that’s GOD and satan, if you couldn’t guess) and how if it ain’t Christ and denies Christ it’s antichrist. I didn’t make that up, it’s right out of 1 John. So my views are knowable, and I’m confident many of the progs DO know them. Interestingly, none of the progs and very few of the libs came to our sunday school class — because THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM DON’T GO TO ANY SUNDAY SCHOOL OR BIBLE STUDY AT ALL. Hmmm…

    There you go.

    The point here, Phil, is this: if the congregation votes GMC, as expected, these individuals will NOT be shunned or given the cold shoulder — but neither will we deny Christ’s deity or the Bible’s inerrancy , hang the queer pride banner from the communion table, or preach unlimited abortion, just to soothe their feelings. They can stay on the board, stay in the choir/band, teach sunday school (but not subversively)… Get it?

  15. Comment by robert benne on January 17, 2023 at 1:21 pm

    To get a clue what might be in store for traditionalist Methodists left behind in the liberal church, you should take a look at what has happened to Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterians that have stayed behind after many of their friends left for new churches formed by those who left after the disastrous decisions of about 2010. You might also look at how those new churches have been treated by the revisionists.

  16. Comment by Phil on January 17, 2023 at 5:18 pm

    Jeff,

    Thank you for answering my questions. I hope the fact that I’ve continued the conversation if nothing else will cause you to rethink at least one of your preconceptions of liberals/progressives.

    I wasn’t under the assumption people worn badges telling you their beliefs in the congregation, however, I thought since you felt comfortable claiming there were liberals/progressives in your congregation who were perfectly welcome that you were at least familiar enough with some of them to know where they stood and how they fit in (or don’t) at your church. If my questions came off as gotcha I’m sorry. I do, however, believe each of us should have the courage/decency to speak the same to someone if we should meet in them face-to-face in-person v. encountering them anonymously. It’s disingenuous to show one face in public and another online. That’s not meant as an attack on you specifically, just a general issue I have with the world today. That’s why I asked if you were as direct and forceful in expressing your views over coffee before service as you are here online.

    In reference to your original post, I don’t see myself as a activist in own church, though I admit there are some things that go on there I disagree with as I’m sure you find in your own church. No church is perfect after all. I advocate the changes I want to see in the church and which I believe are most in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel. I don’t think that makes me an activist, but if so then I’ll wear the “badge” proudly. In any ecclesiology like ours where power is exercised from below rather than above, there will always be voices for change, right and left, for good and for ill. That’s the price we pay for the polity we chose. Certainly there is risk that every time you open your church door to someone that they will change you and your congregation just as you seek to change them, for good or for ill. I’d be suspect of any church (traditionalist or progressive) that saw itself as perfect and did not welcome opinions outside itself. Unless the GMC were to drastically alter their ecclesiology to be more authoritarian, it will face the same risks as the UMC. If liberals and progressives are not to be found among them in this generation, surely some will be born in the next generation of members. There will no doubt also be outliers on other end of the spectrum too, seeking to push the GMC even further to the right. It will be left to you to decide how to respond to them.

    Personally, I think any denomination in which liberals and progressives are allowed through the door, but only as second-class members in which their voices are censored, their ability to take on leadership impaired, and most of all their access to the sacraments denied, is guilty of the very discrimination John Lomperis is The UMC of toward conservatives.

  17. Comment by Phil on January 17, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    Jeff,

    I can honestly say I’ve never attended a Sunday school class in which Satan is referred to as a deity and have to say I’m quite surprised to learn that goes on in traditionalist churches. Sounds more like Manichaeism than orthodox Christianity to me.

  18. Comment by Jeff on January 17, 2023 at 11:50 pm

    Phil,
    Thank you for your two replies.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    As to your first reply, I agree with much of what you said. The crux of the matter of accepting or rejecting influence (in the extreme, activism) to change is whether or not there is an immutable, bedrock STANDARD that defines doctrine.

    Changes that go against the bedrock standard of Christianity — namely, GOD’s Word — cannot be accepted, no matter how persuasive and well-meaning (or, if it applies, how forceful and threatening) the ones clamoring for change.

    Changes to “non essentials” ought to be carefully considered. Let us reason together.

    In all differences, truth in grace, seasoned as it were with salt, should prevail.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    As to your second reply: please know that the phrasing “apex deities” is strictly my own; I have never heard anyone else use that terminology, and it is certainly NOT something that in general “goes on in traditionalist churches” as you suggest. It is metaphorical, and the phrase is in quotes for a reason.

    From the point of view of TRUTH, there is now, always has been, and always will be only ONE deity: GOD the Father, Yahweh, Jehovah, Holy Trinity. satan is of course not a deity and I do not mean to imply Manichaesim or similar heresy.

    But consider: from the point of view of an adherent to a false religion, there exists (to that adherent) a deity or deities distinct fromYahweh. (And ALL other religions that do not worship Yahweh or the Trinity including Yahweh are false religions)

    So, for the muslim the adored “deity” is allah; for the hindu it’s a pantheistic set of “gods”; for the transhumanist it’s “reimagined man”; for the climatist it’s Gaia, “Mother Earth”; and so forth.

    But here’s the thing: none of those deities in the preceeding paragraph actually exist on their own! They are all mere masks for the enemy of our souls, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world”. Without necessarily realizing it, every adherent or disciple of every false religion has been deceived by satan into worshiping satan as the adherent’s “apex deity”. Again, in quotes; although worshiped as one, whether directly or in his masked form, satan is no deity at all.

    And Yahweh, the great I AM (Ex. 3:14, Jn 8:58) is the ONLY TRUE Apex Deity. No quotes there.

    Again, ANY and ALL false religions are in reality worshiping satan as though he is a deity. And, when men pervert Christianity, it becomes not a “different kind of Christianity”, but rather “not Christianity at all” — i.e. yet another false religion worshiping not GOD but a masked satan as its “apex deity”.

    I hope that clarifies my use of the term.

    Blessings
    Jeff

  19. Comment by Phil on January 18, 2023 at 4:12 pm

    Jeff,

    You speak of essentials and non-essentials in doctrine, but what I’m seeing in many conservative churches is the declaration of certain beliefs as essentials that never have been within the UMC. One of your previous posts for instance mentions scriptural inerrancy. This is not an essential doctrine of the UMC, nor has it ever been. The sufficiency of scripture to salvation is an essential doctrine as outlined our Articles of Religion (which by the way none of us, including General Conference have the power to change), but that does not mean the definition of inerrancy. I recently had another encounter with a professed United Methodist who thought the Rapture was an essential doctrine. It must certainly is not! These are opinions being dressed up as doctrine.

    If the GMC wants to make scriptural inerrancy or the Rapture, or even something like adult-only baptism their own doctrine that is their business, not mine, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. You see how easy it is for opinions to be construed as doctrine even among people who think they are being strictly faithful to the teachings of the denomination. The fact that this confusion occurs in many churches (both right and left) is a failure on the part of all us to better educate our members on tradition.

    Here’s the final point. What you consider essential doctrine and what your neighbor does will never be one and the same unless they are clearly spelled out somewhere as such. There are countless sects and denominations out there that all claim to follow nothing but the word of scripture and arrive at completely different conclusions of what that looks like. If we all did read the Bible the same way surely we would not have so many churches already.

  20. Comment by Jeff on January 22, 2023 at 1:18 am

    Phil,
    >> scriptural inerrancy… is not an essential doctrine of the UMC, nor has it ever been

    Of course it isn’t… when formed in 1968 the UMC officially stood for open-minded nothingness, and that fact is well-known and well-documented. Although you overstate the case: in reality the current BoD has quite a lot to say about the primacy of Holy Scripture. Here it is, for the interested reader: https://www.umc.org/en/content/theological-guidelines-scripture

    Here’s the interesting thing: once a heresy like psUMC decides to hold in abeyance any part of scripture — because not inerrant, right? — it stakes a claim to hold in abeyance ANY and ALL Holy Scripture. And proggy UMC “elders”, “bishops”, and lay people DO disregard ALL Holy Scripture that is not convenient to their worldly agenda. You know this as well as I do, although you’d be hard pressed to admit it.

    The GMC will reverse this heresy I pray, and that is to their credit.

    I don’t much care though, as I have moved on to assemble and worship with real Christians who know and revere GOD’s Word as sacred, immutable, and perfect. You do you, Phil; in your esteemed view, your own understanding is paramount, far above any silly idea of a GOD Whose ways are higher than yours. Someday you and I will both stand before the Righteous Judge and explain our positions.

    Anyway, so says Holy Scripture. Do you believe it?

  21. Comment by Phil on January 26, 2023 at 8:05 pm

    Jeff,

    Something I’ve always found interesting about our exchanges is how you seem to respond more negatively to a reasoned argument than to an irrational and angry one. If I had called you a heretic and told you were going to hell with the rest of The GMC in a handbasket, I think you would have actually been pleased. Certainly you would have felt justified in your own position. Does it upset you that don’t say such things? What if I told you there are people I love dearly joining The GMC? Perhaps you don’t believe me. But if you’re waiting for me to dust the soles of my feet off, then you’ll be waiting a long time.

    Going back a minute to place of scripture, you say you hope “The GMC will reverse this heresy I pray, and that is to their credit” referring to the question of scriptural inerrancy that has never been affirmed in The UMC, as we both agree. If The GMC were to alter or revise Article V — Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation to include any wording on inerrancy, they would be altering the words of Wesley himself. Do you consider the founder of Methodism himself to be a heretic? If so, why still call yourselves Methodists?

  22. Comment by Jeff on January 26, 2023 at 10:07 pm

    Bye, Phil. Have a nice life.

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