Bishop Kristin Stoneking recently succeeded Bishop Karen Oliveto to oversee the United Methodist Church Mountain Sky Conference. Equally progressive, the transition between the two women will have limited practical change for the denomination’s liberal Western Jurisdiction. Importantly, Stoneking decided to make a statement after General Conference celebrating the change in the denomination’s position on Christian marriage, and one quote deserves comment.
Stoneking referred to the UMC as “a large non-governmental organization” in her celebratory article. The sentiment is disappointing, but I’m simultaneously glad that it was acknowledged. I have often thought that this was the feeling of much of UMC leadership: the denomination has shifted to function more as an NGO than a church. This is why much of UMC leadership seems surprisingly content with failing churches and declining attendance.
Rather than something to be celebrated, this view is tragic. No one is the beneficiary, not the UMC, not the gospel, and not the thousands who would benefit far more from coming into contact with Wesleyanism than another impersonal NGO.
There are 1.5 million NGOs in the United States. If the UMC wants to be a third tier one, then it can do so. It can be just one more entry in the 1.5 million statistic. And for a time it can earn the strange new respect that its leadership so desperately seems to desire. But this is a limited vision for which to aim.
Anyone can start an NGO; there is nothing special about that. And nothing about the UMC is conducive to being a successful one. It is bloated and bureaucratic. Its social concerns are already worked on by many NGOs, and frankly, it’s just not hip. In fact, I think its less-than-trendiness is part of its charm as a church. But this is not conducive to a successful NGO. Look at any cheesy United Methodist conference graphic (an example is pictured above) and consider if they can run a successful brand campaign.
But, there is something endearing about cheesiness when it is your local church doing its best to make disciples.
This lack of success will also be felt as the laity continue to leave. UMC membership has faced decline for decades, and most of its ministry is done by its laity. Yet, the new United Methodist NGO seems stunningly disinterested in those who actually fill its pews. They receive little pastoral attention from United Methodist officials. Perhaps this highlights an important difference between an NGO and the church.
It is possible to be an NGO and never directly engage with the people in your care, but the Christian life is more incarnational, and so it is important to actually love the people whom are entrusted to you, or, as John Wesley emphasized, “have the love of God shed abroad in [your] heart.”
And if United Methodist leadership is truly concerned with social reform, it doesn’t have to look beyond its own historical context to see how that can be achieved while functioning first and foremost as a church. What the UMC leadership has forgotten is that Methodism was called “to spread scriptural holiness.” This is not a mission statement that makes one popular, and yet early Methodism experienced tremendous growth.
Holy means to be set apart, and this apartness is for the purposes of “dedication or consecration”. It is an apartness that inspires reverence in those who observe it. Scriptural holiness then is an apartness from the world all the while contending with the world for the sake of the gospel.
Methodist holiness was never sheltered away from the concerns of the society; rather, it was fiercely evangelistic even when this made its adherents look peculiar or out of step. It was this apartness that led to open air preaching and circuit riding so that all people could be invited to hear the gospel. It was also an exacting apartness that required commitment to growth in sanctification. And this apartness, both invitational and exacting, was essential to methodist evangelism and expansion.
We should also remind our more liberal clergy that we will all experience some form of apartness; whether it is being apart from God or the world is our decision. But it is essential to have a church that can actually present those options to the unevangelized.
If the UMC wants to be just one more NGO, it will be settling for a small, secular vision, one much smaller vision than what Wesleyanism originally sought for people.
This vision is encapsulated in Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Adam’s likeness now efface, Stamp Thine image in its place: Final Adam from above, Reinstate us in Thy love.”
This is what people need: the image of Christ stamped upon them, and only the church is uniquely empowered to offer it. The UMC’s vision should be far grander, but they are, like the child C.S. Lewis described, “continent to make mud pies.” And as long as they settle for this limited vision they will be, as Wesley feared, “having the form of religion without the power.”
Comment by Tim Mc on September 19, 2024 at 8:21 am
Amen!
Comment by Tim Ware on September 19, 2024 at 11:03 am
Once you have categorized most of what the New Testament reports as myth; i. e., the Virgin Birth, the miracles of Jesus, the bodily resurrection and bodily ascension, and once you question the very existence of Jesus Christ and instead talk about how some man “became” Christ, you don’t have very much left. So you might as well refer to yourself as an NGO.
That moniker may not reflect the way things should be, but it seems very accurate in reflecting the way things actually are with much of organized Christianity.
Comment by Skipper on September 19, 2024 at 11:47 am
So sad what has happened to United Methodism. They totally ignore the Bible, pleased with their own rules which make people happy in their sins. J Vernon McGee said “If they don’t teach what the church teaches, the’re not a church.”
Comment by Sigmagoose on September 20, 2024 at 8:07 am
This is a perfect and well done response to the reality in the Mainline. It’s a shame that most people will not listen to this words of wisdom.
Comment by MikeB on September 20, 2024 at 4:36 pm
The numbers must be worse than we thought.
They are quickly moving to an NGO, that means they can shut down all but some urban churches and sell off the buildings.
It’s been clear from comments here on churches being shut down, that they are picking out rural churches for closure.
NGOs don’t need people in pews, they need money and volunteers for political events…
Comment by Tim on September 20, 2024 at 7:40 pm
Don’t you GMC people have anything better to do at this point?
Like isn’t there a General Conference or something happening? Here’s your chance to create a church you think God will be proud of.
Instead you seem obsessed about lying about the vast majority of Methodists who disagree with you and chose to remain in the UMC.
Seriously. Go build a GMC whose works match the grandiosity of the faith you claim to have. Those of us in the UMC will celebrate your success if you actually bear good fruit.
But to hear the 25% claim that the 75% lack a grand enough vision… give it a rest.
Comment by David Gingrich on September 21, 2024 at 7:57 am
The UMC is more a social club than an NGO. Perhaps calling themselves an NGO is aspirational. But it will surely fail as hard as their attempts to be a church without humbling themselves before the Word of God.
Comment by MikeB on September 21, 2024 at 1:24 pm
Tim,
I find it curious that you, someone who admits that they abandoned the UMC, comes on a cross Wesleyan site to both complain about things the GMC does and believes, and that this cross Wesleyan site still pays attention to the moral/fiscal chaos of the UMC.
Comment by Carl Murphy on September 21, 2024 at 2:22 pm
As a former UMC pastor, who along with my church disaffiliated, I pray for them. I especially pray for the leader, they need to read James 3:1 and following about the responsibilities of a leader of God’s people. Having spent time with other ministers and D.S’s that teach that you don’t know when you gave your heart to the Lord makes me wonder if they ever did. I preach Jesus Christ, His Death, His resurrection and His blood are the only way to Heaven. I had a UMC pastor ask me in June if I would say the Lord’s Prayer at a funeral of a mutual friend. It was then I realized, they don’t acknowledge the Father. Pray for them.
Comment by Tim on September 21, 2024 at 5:06 pm
Carl, this is the kind of lying that has to stop. The United Methodist church has a doctrinal belief in the Trinity. It’s Article I of our Articles of Religion. If someone asked you to read the Lord’s Prayer at a funeral it was out of respect and I hope you weren’t a jerk about it.
But seriously. Every week there’s people here lecturing us about “orthodox Christianity” and then bearing false witness.
Comment by MikeB on September 21, 2024 at 5:32 pm
Tim,
Can you say here and now that any who deny the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are indeed heretical?
Specifically those who say God is a woman or mother spirit?
Comment by Tim on September 21, 2024 at 6:35 pm
Mike I’ll tell you that I believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost. As per Jesus’s explicit orders, I don’t judge other people.
But the statement that the UMC does not believe in the father is a lie.
Comment by MikeB on September 21, 2024 at 6:51 pm
Tim,
You called Carl a liar… To call someone a liar you must judge them to be a liar.
You indeed decided that Carl was not just wrong about that UMC pastor and his church, but you judged that he was not just wrong, but intended to deceive.
Indeed, you have repeatedly been caught saying things that were not correct, you by far are near the peak of judgemental commentators on this site.
So based on your own words in your last two comments, your statement of “I don’t judge other people” Is not just wrong but a lie, an intentional misleading.
You should sit down with yourself and ask how you came to such a spiteful state.
Comment by Tim on September 21, 2024 at 10:20 pm
Carl told a demonstrable lie. I pointed it out. No judgement, I just want him to stop. Just like I’d appreciate it if you’d stop personally attacking people every time you can’t think of a coherent argument.
Comment by MikeB on September 22, 2024 at 1:28 am
Tim,
No, you absolutely judged him and now you are continuing to lie as usual to pretend to weasel your way out before you scurry off.
I’d like you to stop pushing un-biblical heresy that again and again matches only with the church of Tim. You yourself have admitted that you have no use for a Christianity that does not put people first. You demonstrate again and again that a God who does not agree with you holds no interest for you.
You define judgement as anytime people hold the bible as the Word of God and push back on your evil theology. You have no shame for your sheer hypocrisy, both attacking people for pointing out UM flaws while no longer being connected to UM, while you attempt to point out flaws in the GMC while being totally unconnected to GMC.
Your history of repeated lying and heresy has shown itself in full, your own words have luckily destroyed any credibility, as your repeated attempts to sow doubt have only been cheered on by others of ill theological repute.
Comment by Tim on September 22, 2024 at 8:35 am
No Mike. I don’t scurry off. If you’d care to reread most of our conversations, they all go like this:
1.) I make a comment on an anti-UMC article
2.) You personally attack me, usually with some scripture which I really do consider.
3.) I point out the basis in Scripture for why I think I’m right (I don’t claim to be God, I only say what I think the Holy Ghost compels me to.)
4.) You continue to personally attack me, with less and less theology and more and more cruelty
5.) I stop responding, because arguing with someone who is just foaming insults isa waste of time.
I get that you think you’re defending Christianity. I think I’m doing that too. But I think what you’ve missed is 1 Corinthians 13:1: “If I speak in the tounges of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
So unless you have something to say about the fact I pointed out, that the United Methodist Church accepts the entire Trinity as an Article of Faith, please don’t expect a response from me. I’m not scurrying off. I just want to spend my Sunday doing better things than fighting.
Comment by MikeB on September 22, 2024 at 9:36 am
Tim,
Prior to you stopping responding you always trip up your words and reveal something you can no longer coherently defend, much like your insistence that America follow the laws of Israel on immigration.
When someone walks into a room and announces that they love Hitler it is not cruelty to call them a Nazi. Indeed, you have said how if it is not in the Gospels you don’t believe you need to follow it.
Peter was not cruel in 2 Peter:
1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
He ends it with:
22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”[g] and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”
Is that indeed cruel or accurate?
Is Paul in Galatians 1?
8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Or John in 2 John?
10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
Again, Paul commands in 1 Timothy 5
19 Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. 20 But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning. 21 I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism.
Indeed, more than three people here have accused you.
Indeed Christ tells us to judge wisely in John 7:24
Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”
Indeed he tells us to judge ourselves first in your favorite verse for he follows with how we must take the beam out of our eye and then we must help our brother.
This is not a we can agree to disagree, you are indeed someone who denies the divine authority of God, denies Paul’s epistles in your own words. I cannot nor am I allowed to just let you continue to spout your filth unchallenged.
I am commanded to confront your evil, and what you do not understand that it is in love, because you do not understand love. I pity the state you have fallen into and God is still reaching out to you as you reject his authority over your life, even now as you harden your heart, his gift is open to you. Making Christ Lord means shedding your human first worldview. It means acknowledging that ALL scripture is from God.
I do hope you come to Christ in earnest and not in the cheap knockoff that you call Christianity. But until then I will continue to confront you, because Christians must defend scripture and doctrine.
Comment by Doug Roe on September 23, 2024 at 7:19 pm
Sad to be watching from sideline how the UMC has been torn apart. Was so instrumental in my life from birth thru marriage, till I walked away. Now having turned back and attempted a return to church 30yrs later, I find my church unrecognizable, both the UMC and my home church that originally discipled me. Good article but sad.
Comment by RoyH on September 24, 2024 at 10:16 pm
But Stoneking said it. UMC is a NGO. The discussion is over on that. It’s what they want to be. Done.