In a post related to John Meunier’s, which I linked earlier, Allan Bevere provides some additional form to the question of United Methodist identity.
Category: United Methodist Church
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Seeking Sinless Perfection
- Image via Wikipedia
Because I have some online watches for names of Energion Publications authors, I found the post In Search of Sinless Perfection, which quotes Alden Thompson. This comes from a Seventh-day Adventist background, but I must mention that I have been surprised by how much from my own SDA background simply translates into Methodism. One may easily underestimate the impact of the fact that Ellen White, early SDA leader viewed as having the prophetic gift, was a Methodist before she joined the Adventist movement.
In any case, Ellen White quotes aside, Loren Seibold, author of the article gives a number of the reasons I have for questioning the idea of sinless perfection. Certainly the Wesleyan doctrine as actually taught by Wesley (try here
for more, though you may find the account less plain than you imagined) seems less problematic than its various descendants.
I love the introductory story, which ends:
Then the perfect man hung up on me.
Perhaps not the ending one imagined for a conversation with a perfect man!
I too am a believer in sanctification. Where I must get off this particular train, however, is where one gets a personal knowledge that one is perfect. I just can’t see how that would work.
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What is Cutting Edge?
From Pensapedia.com / Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License v. 2.5 The description of the ICON service at my home church, First United Methodist Church in Pensacola, FL, states that the service is:
- Cutting Edge
- Tradition Rich
- Art Embracing
- Christ Centered
This worship service just celebrated its second anniversary, and I was happy today to see that the sanctuary was largely filled. It has been both amazing and gratifying to me to watch the success of this particular worship service as it has been the entry point to church fellowship for a large number of people, especially young couples. I must confess that I often feel a bit old attending.
Today associate minister at First UMC, Geoffrey Lentz, preached on cutting edge. He noted the things that make people think the service is cutting edge–large, high-definition screens, state of the art sound, and the embrace of social media. But he said that wasn’t what makes it really cutting edge. The one genuinely new thing under the sun, with due apologies to Qoheleth, is Jesus Christ. He told us that the most cutting edge thing we could possibly do is to follow Jesus Christ.
Now I like many of the elements of worship in ICON. I think many of those elements, and the way they are blended, has helped make the service successful. But if you had asked me before this service why I think First UMC is growing, I would tell you it is because the pastors are preaching the gospel and making every effort to put it in practice. If you attend First UMC, you’re going to hear a gospel message.
I don’t say this to belittle any other accomplishments. I just don’t think those are the key things. Large, high-definition screens showing well-produced videos can help bring people into the room. Well-done contemporary music can catch their attention. But if the message behind those things is not Jesus Christ and him crucified, there will be nothing to keep people in church. And if you don’t get there, you also don’t get them into ministry, and I would say that if one doesn’t get into ministry (or more directly stated mission), then one hasn’t really brought that person to Christ.
I was glad to hear Geoffrey make that point. While I have just argued that the worship service is worship, even though everything we do is to be worship, I also believe that a major test of the success of a worship service is whether or not it gets us engaged in those acts of service–and worship–that are to go on all week.
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Converts to Orthodox Churches
… are increasing.
I don’t find this all that hard to understand. I personally have been enjoying more reading of the eastern church fathers, and have found much good material in the theology and liturgy of the Orthodox churches.
Chron – Houston and Texas News reports on some churches in that area which are largely made up of converts and are often pastored by converts to that tradition. People come, amongst other reasons, because they are looking for stability. When the church changes as fast as the culture, one can easily wonder just what the church is for.
While I am attracted to some of the theology, I can’t say that I am much attracted to the ecclesiology or the church structure. In fact, I find even the structure of the United Methodist Church a bit annoying. At the same time, I think I see similar ideas and attitudes in action in the ICON service at my home church, First United Methodist Church in Pensacola. Many people wondered about the traditional elements of the liturgy. There’s a tendency in many of our churches in this area toward worship services that are just contemporary. Would people want a service with the more traditional elements?
The answer appears to be “yes.” Most of the new members of the church are coming in through that service. People are attending who haven’t attended church in years. People love the service. It combines technology, contemporary music and a traditional structure for the liturgy.
I do like this liturgy that tends to provide stability, but perhaps we could do even more if we recovered the counter-cultural nature of the Christian message and really became God’s upside-down kingdom.
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Putting up Barriers to Ministry
I empathize with Alan Knox’s post today, Help or Get Out of the Way. He relates two experiences of church leadership standing in the way because they required people to go through existing church programs. This is not the way to go about Christian ministry. Come to think of it, it’s not even the way to go about secular business.
How about this as a rule of thumb: If you find yourself telling people that they cannot serve people because of program X, then program X needs to get out of the way. If you can say, “Yes, we can help you with program X, then maybe, just maybe, program X is something useful.
Let me illustrate. When I first came to a United Methodist congregation, I had been out of the church–any church–for nearly 12 years. I had a strong work background and my education and experience–an MA degree in Biblical and Cognate Languages. It didn’t take long after I joined the church for them to put me to work. I was soon teaching Sunday School classes and various events for the youth. Now I don’t have a problem with a church being careful about who they have teaching. They should, and they did. I talked with various people in leadership about my experience, my beliefs, and what I would be teaching.
Then the pastor invited me to preach one Sunday. An individual in the church, heavily involved in our United Methodist lay speaking program, was quite irate. I had not gone through the lay speaker training program, and thus shouldn’t be speaking in the church. The pastor ignored him.
After this event I did go attend the lay speaker training, and while I have any number of problems with the content, I was glad to have the experience. I didn’t really learn new theology, and some of what I did hear was incorrect (John Wesley influenced by the writings of Karl Marx?), but I did get to know other United Methodists and how they worked, and that was helpful.
My point here is that the program–lay speaking–can be a tremendous help, but when it becomes a means whereby “leaders” control the church members it can be a hindrance. To carry forward that thought, after I had become a Certified Lay Speaker, I was again approached because I was speaking at various places without coordinating with the lay speaker program. This individual thought that now that I was a lay speaker, any time I spoke anywhere I needed permission from the church’s coordinator and needed to report to him after I did, even when those events had nothing to do with the United Methodist Church at all. Again, something potentially helpful was being used as a barrier.
What I’ve noticed in Methodist churches is a strong tendency to multiply programs. This results in overlapping and redundant people managing the programs, and often in a great deal of discouragement because people with good ideas find that there are nearly dead programs in the way. In one church people were tracked by three different programs with pastoral care looking at church attendance, Sunday School classes tracking one’s presence, and then a lay pastoral care ministry. About this time someone wanted to start a Stephen’s ministry. Each of these things would demand weekend training events (or longer), social events so that everyone could get together, statistics reported to the appropriate leadership or committee, and so forth. And you know what? People would still fall through the cracks while others were exhausted trying to get to all the events that allowed boxes to be checked off.
Well, this is a longer rant than I intended. Head on over to Alan’s blog and check out the discussion.
(HT: Dave Black Online)
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Greetings from the Religious Arm of Socialism
In a blog post My Dream: No More Methodist Church, Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation fame says that his dream is that there be no more Methodist church. What set him off was a church sign (on a Methodist church, of course) urging passage of the DREAM act. He says that the church is nothing more than the “‘religious’ arm of socialism.”
My response? Check the title!
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Wesleyan-Arminian vs Calvinist Self-Identification
I found this interesting article at Baptist Press via the Methoblog’s Twitter feed. The article discusses an apparent divide between the Southern Baptist Convention and other denominations on how many pastors, particularly young pastors, are identifying themselves as Calvinists. One interesting note is that while identification as Calvinist outside the SBC is not increasing, identification as Wesleyan or Arminian is decreasing over this same time period.
Now I have to confess that my first question regarding such a report is just what the methodology was. Usually when you dig down to the actual questions, you find out that a survey doesn’t produce quite as much information, or at least the type of information that reports indicate.
In this case the human tendency is to say that this indicates there are more Calvinists and less Wesleyans or Arminians around today. And that may indeed be true, especially including all denominations. But it’s important to realize that this report didn’t define any of its terms; it simply asked about self-identification.
That’s important. I’m wondering how many of those questioned are knowledgeable enough to properly classify themselves. I’ve encountered a few United Methodist pastors who couldn’t identify all of the five points of Calvinism, and thus would have a hard time determining whether they were Calvinist or not. And considering that there are five points of Arminianism, which actually predate the five points of Calvinism (as a form of expression, not as theological beliefs), I have to wonder how many pastors (not to mention lay members) could actually tell an interviewer just what it means to be Arminian.
I have found even more in the charismatic and pentecostal streams who don’t acknowledge any connection to their Wesleyan roots, if they are actually aware of them. This results in some interesting theological mixes in charismatic and pentecostal thinking. One that I find most interesting is that eschatology derived from dispensationalism is quite popular, while other views associated with dispensational theology, such as cessationism, are excluded.
I’m not saying one cannot produce a similar eschatology without resort to dispensationalism, but I certainly have not seen it done very well in most Wesleyan, charismatic, or pentecostal writing or teaching. (Caveat: I have not done a thorough survey of the literature. That’s something I’d like to do at some point. This is anecdotal.) It is nonetheless interesting to watch people grab random pieces of Daniel, Isaiah, Joel, and other books, mix them with 1 Thessalonians, Matthew 24/Mark 13/Luke 21, and mix them with Revelation, without any real framework for just how the text should be interpreted in its original context, and what is the proper framework to use in connecting them. While I do not accept classical dispensationalism (more modern progressive dispensationalism seems hard to reject outright–it says so little!) I must admit that it does provide a fairly stable framework on which to hang these various texts.
I recall one class I was teaching on Revelation, in which the students insisted I dedicate a class to teaching about the tribulation. While I do believe there will be troubled times before the end, I do not believe in a “Tribulation” in the sense of a seven year period. In any case, I made my best effort at bringing in the texts while not actually lying about what I thought of the relationship between them, and the class got pretty glassy eyed as we looked at each one. I would note that most of them still accepted the tribulation at the end. They were well steeped in the “Left Behind” series.
But I must reign myself in and return to topic, or at least somewhere in the vicinity of the topic. I’m wondering what others have experienced. Is self-identification accurate in terms of Calvinism and Arminianism? How many people who identify themselves as “neither” might simply not know enough about the roots of their current theology? How many are identifying with more modern movements derived from one or the other? (I think this latter idea would be more likely for Wesleyan-Arminians than for Calvinists.)
Finally, how many think they have transcended this debate in some way? I’d be interested in comments or links to blog posts on the subject.
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UMC Rather than SDA – Again
This was brought to my attention when I read the text of Ted Wilson’s address to the SDA General Conference. (I listened to he first 10 minutes as well, but preferred reading.) Why am I interested in the sermon presented by the new president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists? I am, after all, a member of a United Methodist congregation.
There are three reasons. First, I was raised SDA, and one’s upbringing tends to stay with one. In this case I’m not at all sorry about my background. I received an excellent education in SDA schools and being homeschooled using SDA materials. I had many wonderful experiences as a member of the SDA church. Second, I still have friends and colleagues who are SDA, and I appreciate their friendship and their ministry. Finally, I still hear the question pretty regularly: “Why are you no longer a Seventh-day Adventist?”
I should note that there is another common question that arises in connection with the first, which is to ask just why I’m not an angry ex-SDA. It seems that there are so many of those. I’d simply like to point out that one can disagree with the positions an organization takes and can determine that one should not be a member of that organization without also hating that organization, or even thinking that organization is negative on balance.
From the other side I get the question of why I will not more forcefully distance myself from “that cult.” The reason for that is that while I disagree vigorously with certain positions of the SDA church, I do not believe it is any more or less likely that a member might be a true Christian or not. I could hardly give statistics since I don’t believe it is up to me to judge. What I am concerned with is mission and ministry.
Before I give a brief response to the question of why I am now a member of a United Methodist congregation, rather than still being SDA, I want to look at some quotes from Ted Wilson’s sermon. (You can find the complete text here, so you can put these into context. I provide page numbers.)
As I read this text I felt a concern for my many friends who are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At the same time I feel a concern for what I see as the potential blessing that the SDA church could be to the broader Christian community.
Let’s look at some quotes:
This church is not just another denomination; it is a unique, heaven-initiated movement with a mission of salvation to the world that must continually go forward in the humility of Jesus. pp. 3-4
In my view, the “unique, heaven-initiated movement with a mission of salvation to the world” is not the SDA church but the universal Christian church. This is a critical point for me. If Seventh-day Adventists believe they have a message for the rest of Christianity, I think that is a positive thing, and they should be heard, not relegated to the status of a “cult.” But that line puts a single denomination in the position in which the church universal should be placed. I think it would be difficult to find a scriptural warrant for such a thing. This quote figures in the most critical reason I’m not SDA.
Go forward, not backward…….Do not succumb to the mistaken idea, gaining support even in the
Seventh-day Adventist Church, of accepting worship or evangelistic outreach methods merely because
they are new and “trendy.” We must be vigilant to test all things according to the supreme authority of
God’s Word and the council with which we have been blessed in the writings of Ellen G. White. Don’t
reach out to movements or megachurch centers outside the Seventh-day Adventist Church which promise
you spiritual success based on faulty theology. Stay away from non-biblical spiritual disciplines or
methods of spiritual formation that are rooted in mysticism such as contemplative prayer, centering
prayer, and the emerging church movement in which they are promoted. Look WITHIN the Seventh-day
Adventist Church to humble pastors, evangelists, Biblical scholars, leaders, and departmental directors
who can provide evangelistic methods and programs that are based on solid Biblical principles and “The
Great Controversy Theme.” p. 7That’s a longer quote, even though it carries a great deal of baggage. It is, I believe, a call to look inward. I would point out that this impulse is not exclusive to Seventh-day Adventists. My wife was in a curriculum meeting in a United Methodist church in which a piece of curriculum was criticized for being “too Baptist” and having “too much Jesus.”
If you have to look only within your own denomination in order to keep people on the road to truth, I have to question whether it is truth you are protecting. In both Wilson’s paragraph, and the remarks made in that curriculum committee, what is being protected is power, not truth. Truth can withstand examination.
Go forward, not backward! Stand firm for God’s Word as it is literally read and understood. p. 8
All I can say is that this statement and its many variants is probably the worst advice on Bible study that is commonly given–and unfortunately believed by many. Even in reading a vision, such as the book of Revelation, people are told to think literally. Bad advice! Very bad advice!
This unbiblical approach of “higher criticism” is a deadly enemy of our theology and mission. This approach puts a scholar or individual above the plain approach of the scriptures and gives inappropriate license to decide what he or she perceives as truth based on the resources and education of the critic. p. 9
Yet whenever we read scripture we interpret. This criticism of higher criticism does nothing more than reject it because one disagrees with the results. There are problems with higher criticism, just as there are problems with reading everything literally. These are problems that require thoughtful responses. I would reject a version of higher criticism that stands on purely naturalistic assumptions. But such a foundation is unnecessary to find value in many of the tools provided.
While the Bible is paramount in our estimation as the ultimate authority and final arbiter of truth, the Spirit of Prophecy provides clear, inspired council to aid our application of Bible truth. It is a heaven-sent guide to instruct the church in how to carry out its mission. It is a reliable theological expositor of the Scriptures. p. 9
I would simply point out that this issue stands out as one of the milestones on my own departure from the SDA church. If you treat Ellen White as a definitive interpreter of scripture, you are placing her above scripture, whether you like it or not. I recognize that Wilson didn’t use the word “definitive,” but I think the intentions are clear. As a Christian, I do not reject the idea of a modern prophet, but I do reject he idea that any person can be the definitive interpreter, denying me the opportunity of full examination, discussion, and disagreement.
So having responded to some key points in the sermon, what does this have to do with my own departure from the SDA church?
I think it highlights it rather well. Let me begin by noting that my key issues with Adventism were not the standards of the seventh day Sabbath, legalism, or the state of the dead, which seem to stir people up so much. Let me be clear: I disagree with SDA positions on the Sabbath and somewhat on the state of the dead. They just are the critical issues for me.
The state of the dead doctrine is trivial in my view. I really don’t care how much time elapses between death and going to be with Jesus–eternally. There is no time lapse which will matter, in my view. I think there are some scriptural arguments on both sides, but I don’t care that much about the answer.
I envy Seventh-day Adventists the doctrine of the Sabbath, even though I don’t accept it. What it did for many SDAs of my acquaintance–and still does–is give them a much stronger sense of sacred time than I find in other churches. Time stewardship in Christianity is in poor shape, and this is something the broader community could learn from SDAs.
But at the same time we see legalism. Those in the SDA church who worship on Saturday for legalistic reasons also often miss the valuable blessings it can have. I don’t think such legalists are in the majority; my experience was of many Adventists truly refreshed by the Sabbath rest.
The critical element for me was eschatology. I find the SDA approach to Daniel and Revelation almost completely wrong. The interpretation of Daniel 8:14 is completely unjustified by the text. The doctrine of the investigative judgment also runs contrary to any number of other orthodox Christian doctrines. But I’ve written about that before.
Even that disagreement is not necessarily a deal breaker. I know any number of United Methodists who believe things about eschatology that I find profoundly troubling, yet I can be a Methodist.
The problem comes in the doctrine of the remnant. Again, I must specify that I do see a doctrine of the remnant in scripture, but it’s specifically the identification of the remnant with an organization that I would call the critical deal breaker.
When SDAs ask me why I left the church they often respond to my early, brief remarks by noting that the United Methodist Church also has problems. Their assumption seems to be that I left the SDA church because it was imperfect and have found the church in the UMC. But that isn’t the case.
The SDA church is imperfect. So is the UMC. But nobody (that I know of) in the UMC expects me to equate my membership in that organization with my Christianity or my salvation. It doesn’t make me part of a special remnant. That membership means that I choose to find fellowship in my UMC congregation, to find accountability there, and to serve as part of the body of Christ there, i.e. to find my place of ministry there.
When I said I would uphold the UMC with my prayers, presence, gifts, and service, I did not also affirm that I would regard the UMC as better than all other churches, much less as the one organization representing what Christianity ought to be.
I believe that my disagreement with the SDA church on a number of doctrinal issues means that I do better not to be a member. But combining those doctrines into a core set of beliefs defining the one true organization out there is the most critical element.
Love, appreciate, enjoy, yes. Join, no.
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Looking for a UMC Pastor in the West or Northwest
My wife Jody is looking for a pastor in the west or northwest to answer about 5 questions regarding ministry in the UMC, with the interview to be published in the Bible Study Paths WebZine. She’s looking for someone who is currently pastoring a church. Your interview responses will be published in September alongside those from one pastor in the southeast and one in the midwest.
No, there’s no money in it, and Bible Study Paths is new and small, but we hope the answers to these questions will help others in ministry.
Please respond by comment to this post. She’ll e-mail you with the questions.
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Christian Perfection – Not So Plain to Me!
One of my early experiences teaching in a United Methodist Church involved giving a series on the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection. That may seem surprising for a new member of a United Methodist congregation, but my background in the Seventh-day Adventist Church involved a good deal of Wesleyan talk (though not the doctrine of Christian perfection), and the pastor was also well aware that I had borrowed the United Methodist Discipline before joining his church, and had read all the doctrinal sections. Further, I’d read Wesley’s compilation, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
To make a long story short–and I intend this to be short!–I discovered that of the group of 30 or so people who arrived for the first class, only the pastor and I were aware that there actually was any such doctrine.
To be honest, I still wasn’t the best one to teach such a doctrine. I suspect that if I were trying to be a United Methodist pastor, rather than a theologically educated layman, I would choke on the “going on toward perfection” question. And yes, I know that the words come from the book of Hebrews, one of my favorites. (I’ve even written a study guide!) Nonetheless, I think I’d want to nuance my answer, perhaps to such an extent that it wouldn’t be an answer at all.
In any case, I like short descriptions of this doctrine so that United Methodists, and others who are curious about it, can get a good idea of what John Wesley was teaching. (Hint–he wasn’t teaching what most people think when they first here the phrase “Christian perfection.”)
So all this verbiage (never use one word where 1,000 will do!) is to introduce a good link on the subject, from Craig Adams’ web site Commonplace Holiness. He is presenting a public domain book, and the whole thing is there, but section 2 provides a good definition. If you are interested, you can follow this further by going to the table of contents and finding more.
In any discussion of a controversial topic, it’s a good idea to get the definitions straight, and this topic certainly qualifies.
