Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Methodist

  • Are Seventh-day Adventists Christians?

    This question, which I’ve written about before, was brought to my attention again both through reading and through some conversations. As an ex-Seventh-day Adventist, I’m often asked whether I believe my former denomination is truly Christian, or whether it is some sort of cult. Ignoring what I consider the hopeless muddle in the usage of the term “cult,” I suppose I could divide this question into two, neither of which I actually like. I’m going to use Methodists throughout as the foil for this discussion, because I am a member of a United Methodist congregation. Note that I prefer to call myself a Christian who is a member of a United Methodist congregation rather than a “Methodist” or “United Methodist.”

    The first would be to ask whether the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Christian denomination. I dislike this question, because I think “denomination” is largely an extra-Christian idea. I’m not going to throw out all concepts of denominations simply because they can provide accountability to congregations, something lacking amongst independent churches. Both independent churches and denominational churches have their share of problems, but neither reflects the kind of connections that I believe a Christian congregation or assembly should have. I would like to be held accountable by my brethren in Baptist churches as well as in the United Church of Christ. As for Seventh-day Adventists, I would say the same thing. They suffer from all the problems of being a denomination, but they also are brethren to which I would like to be connected, and in a sense, accountable.

    The second option would be to ask if members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church are Christian. I think this is worse. It identifies membership in the body of Christ with membership in a particular human organization. However, my answer would be that it is about as likely for a Seventh-day Adventist church member to be a Christian as a United Methodist church member. Probably a bunch of people in each are not.

    That leads me to a question I was asked regarding evangelism. If I was discussing Jesus with people, and this led to the idea of getting involved in a local assembly of believers, would I be willing to refer someone to a Seventh-day Adventist congregation? Hmmm! Now the rubber meets the road. Do I really mean it when I call SDAs Christian brethren? The answer here is that I’d do so on the same basis as I would refer someone to a Methodist congregation, with the additional note that I’d be specific about SDA distinctives. In other words, it would depend on the congregation. I know plenty of Methodist churches to which I would not refer a seeker. I know quite I number to which I would. The same issues would be in play. Where I think I might have more questions about an SDA congregation would be in whether the distinctives of the denomination got ahead of the gospel. But that is not a problem that is exclusive to SDAs. Any denomination, in fact, any independent church, is quite susceptible to replacing the gospel with its own distinctives, and even viewing the gospel as synonymous with its traditions.

    Now there’s a certain arrogance to this post. Who am I to decide who is a Christian and who is not? Nobody. Absolutely nobody. It’s not my job. What I do have to decide, what I think I have scriptural warrant to decide, is how I will help connect others to the body of Christ, and to do that I must discern. If I believe that I am referring someone to a place where they will be torn apart by judgment rather than led to join fellow overcomers, then I must choose some place else. But God is the only one who knows what’s on the inside, i.e. who is a “true” believer.

  • Community vs Supporting the Organization

    Miguel Angel Nuñez, in a post on Facebook, discusses what he would like to see in a church. Here’s an extract:

    Deseo formar parte de una comunidad cristiana que base su relación en la igualdad y no en la jerarquía, en la sinceridad y no en medias verdades, en la intimidad y no en un vínculo fingido, en la aceptación y no en la aplicación de etiquetas y partidos, en el poder curativo de un Dios de amor y no en la toxicidad de un dios que atemoriza, que culpa, que persigue y que manipula.

    For those who don’t read Spanish, let me provide a quick translation:

    I want to be part of a Christian community that is bases its social structure in equality and not in hierarchy, in sincerity and not in half-truths, in intimacy and not in fake ties, in acceptance and not in applying labels and parties, in the healing power of God’s love and not in the toxic nature of a god who frightens, blames, drives away, and manipulates.

    I like the kind of community we’re talking about, but I wonder just how it is that we can achieve it. I have experienced many different Christianity communities, either through membership or as a visitor. I have tried connecting with groups that claimed to be non-hierarchical, and in general I find that they are very hierarchical. In fact, the less explicit they are about their hierarchy, the more manipulative they become. There is nothing quite like the manipulation that takes place in a group where the lines of authority and the social connections are poorly defined.

    On the other hand, manipulation does not disappear in highly structured organizations. It may be easier for the newcomer to navigate the structure, but the more subtle manipulation of the group with an undefined structure is replaced by an inflexibility of the fixed structures. Methodist churches often fall into this second category.

    But I have observed something else. Often the structure that is claimed, either in writing or reported by members, is not the same as the real structure. If the claimed structure is not being followed in reality, the result can be even more manipulative than one that is completely undefined.

    In any of these churches one will hear calls to community, to give up oneself, to live for others. It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s all about God. But when all is said and done, God seems to support some “me’s” and “you’s” more than others. Those god-favored folks for some reason seem to be the same group that tends to become leaders in any social organization.

    It’s not supposed to be this way with the church.

    In his first letter to the Corinthian church Paul has to address issues of immorality as well as serious errors in theology and in church practice. But he starts out with his surprise that factions have broken out in the church. There’s even a “Christ” faction. I don’t know if the groups precisely match, but this reminds me of myself in a factional dispute. I’m prone to create a “not part of any faction, just following Jesus” position, which quickly become its own faction of holier than thou folks because, well, we’re not a faction! We’re an unfaction. Or something.

    Whether you’re in a home church organization or in a highly structured church organization, this human tendency toward hierarchy and faction can, and probably will, rear its ugly head.

    What can we do?

    The one answer that I have found is more application of the gospel message. When we apply the gospel message, we need to apply it first to ourselves. In other words, I need to get out of my faction, including the faction that says I have the answer, and start pointing to Jesus. No, not pointing to the way in which I’ve got Jesus under control so that my non-faction is the only group in the church that has things right.

    The gospel teaches us that we are all outsiders. We’re not part of any “in” crowd. It is only by grace that we become part of the only community that really matters, the community that belongs to Jesus Christ.

    (You can also follow me on Facebook.)

  • Connectionalism and Dysfunctional Churches

    I have made a few negative comments about conference dashboards keeping statistics on membership, apportionments, and other activities available to anyone who wants to read. I continue to question whether these numbers really tell the story of the health of the churches. There are, I believe, some very large and growing churches that have little or nothing to do with the kingdom of God.

    Nonetheless, I think we have a problem with accountability in the United Methodist Church. When I took my new member class in my first United Methodist congregation, I recall the teacher, who made a number of historical errors, emphasized connectionalism. But if I were to go by his discussion of it, connectionalism means simply that we all go help one another as needed; nothing was said about accountability.

    Those who are pushing the statistical approach are, I believe, responding to a very real problem. Pastors and church congregations in the United Methodist Church can go on indefinitely violating the discipline of the church or refusing to take necessary actions to make their church successful, while expecting that others will take up the slack.

    That is what happens when a church continually fails to pay its apportionments. Now I’m not 100% a fan of apportionments as they are currently implemented, but they do represent a critical element of connectionalism. We put our money together to accomplish things we can’t do separately. Whatever reforms the system might need, the basic concept is sound, and more importantly if you have such a system, and some churches don’t do their share, all suffer.

    This means that we need accountability as part of our connectional system. Churches need to be accountable to those who support them. In a more congregational system, an older church barely hanging on while slowly dying would have a hard time getting people to send money to help. A United Methodist congregation that refuses to take necessary actions, and continues to fail to support the team will nonetheless benefit from the resources of the denomination.

    We should be willing to give money to support the mission of the church. But supporting a church that is willfully imitating a sinking ship sliding under the waves is not mission—it’s bad stewardship.

    In addition, dysfunctional congregations continue to be part of the witness our denomination gives regarding Christ. Our “brand” can be tarnished by the actions of any of our churches. In the case of a denomination, tarnishing the brand also provides a negative witness—tarnishes the brand, so to speak—of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    My problem is that statistics can and generally do fail to get the entire picture. You can have good statistics and still not be building the kingdom of God. I welcome moves to make pastors more accountable. I think more could be done to make churches accountable as well.

    But accountability is going to take more than reading the numbers. It will require people with good discernment who can see the context, make the necessary decisions, and take responsibility for those decisions. It may be difficult. We may prefer to find some objective measure, but it is still necessary. An objective measure of a subjective set of values will, by nature, be deceptive.

    In critical ways, the church is not a business. Thus my call is for accountability carried out by human beings who exercise all their discernment and wisdom and seek to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

     

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • John Meunier Wants to be a Methodist

    Stripped image of John Wesley
    Image via Wikipedia

    No, not just a member of a United Methodist congregation, but a Methodist. He has been reading Scott Kisker, and after his discussion he notes:

    I don’t want something more than they do. “More” is not the right word. I want something real. I want to be part of the movement that started in a fishing village in Galilee and was rekindled in a coal field in England. I want the assurance of the Holy Spirit. I want the power of grace working in me to restore the image of God and the mind that was in Christ. I want to be one of the people called Methodist.

    Read the whole thing.

    Enhanced by Zemanta

  • 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.