John Meunier

And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” (MT 26:39)

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

It has long been said that Methodists learned their theology from their hymn books. In many contemporary United Methodist churches, Charles Wesley’s hymns are not well known or – in some cases – even sung. In the absence of these sources of Wesleyan theology, how careful are we in selecting other hymns?

Below is a classic Wesleyan hymn. Five of the six verses are probably not that unique in their theological claims. But what about the fifth verse? Do we not hear the distinctive voice of Wesleyan theology there?

1.
And are we yet alive,
and see each other’s face?
Glory and thanks to Jesus give
for his almighty grace!

2.
Preserved by power divine
to full salvation here,
again in Jesus’ praise we join,
and in his sight appear.

3.
What troubles have we seen,
what mighty conflicts past,
fightings without, and fears within,
since we assembled last!

4.
Yet out of all the Lord
hath brought us by his love;
and still he doth his help afford,
and hides our life above.

5.
Then let us make our boast
of his redeeming power,
which saves us to the uttermost,
till we can sin no more.

6.
Let us take up the cross
till we the crown obtain,
and gladly reckon all things loss
so we may Jesus gain.

(Open new window with music.)

Is the notion that God saves us to “the uttermost,” which I hear as entire sanctification, common in non-Wesleyan hymns, gospel songs, and praise music? Is the notion that we sin no more?

Read the rest of this entry »

My daughter and I are reading Kenda Creasy Dean’s book Almost Christian together and blogging about it. This is my first post in what will be a series.

Chapter 1: Becoming Christian-ish
In the first chapter, Dean presents her summary argument. Teens have a thin and shallow faith because that is what adults have modeled to them and taught them. Many parts of this chapter catch my eye, but here is the one I’m going to focus on in this post.

we “teach” young people baseball, but we “expose” them to faith. We provide coaching and opportunities for youth to develop and improve their pitches and their SAT scores, but we blithely assume that religious identity will happen by osmosis, emerging “when youth are ready” (a confidence we generally lack when it comes to, say, algebra).

Did you ever argue with your parents that trigonometry was a waste of time? Did you ever ask a teacher, “When am I going to ever use this stuff?” For the most part, parents and teachers don’t accept these arguments. Often, they don’t even humor them. “Shut up and do your homework!”

Oh sure, kids dropping over in a stupor during math class might lead us to revise teaching methods, but only a few crackpots suggest teaching people math should be left to chance or the natural interest and inclination of young people.

The simple contrast between the things in life we take seriously enough to “teach” to children and youth and those that we merely desire to “expose” our children tells us a great deal about how important faith is to us.

Dean’s point is not that we need to beat teens to death with the catechism. It is that adults who are not well formed in faith will not form their own children in faith. They will fail to justify – even to themselves – why anyone should take Christian formation seriously.

So, the solution is not to hire new youth ministers and come up with zippy new programs. It is to have all Christians take faith seriously. It is to have us all act as if there is something at stake – something that matters – in this thing we call Christianity.

The downside of this prescription is that it takes massive change within the entire church. We can’t buy a packaged, off-the-shelf teen ministry program. We can’t follow the latest youth ministry guru. We have to start living as Christians and learning our own faith.

I took the executive summary from the steering committee’s Call to Action report and stuck it into Wordle. Here’s what came up. Click on the little image to get a big version.

And here’s the Wordle for the Key Recommendations section.

Probably a bad comparison, but here is John Wesley’s pamphlet “The Character of a Methodist.”

Jim Collins’ article “Aligning Action and Values” raises some interesting thoughts that may be relevant to the United Methodist Church as it ponders its future and structural changes it might make to achieve that future.

Among many of the interesting bits were these two paragraphs:

Every institution—whether for-profit or not—has to wrestle with a vexing question: What should change and what should never change? It’s a matter of distinguishing timeless core values from operating practices and cultural norms. Timeless core values should never change; operating practices and cultural norms should never stop changing. A timeless core value in an academic institution, for instance, is freedom of intellectual inquiry. A practice adopted to support that core value is academic tenure. But there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that the practice of tenure probably needs to be changed or discarded because it no longer serves the purposes for which it was created.

But if I suggest that academic institutions should seriously think about changing the tenure system, the average academic is likely to say, “Never! You’re violating our core values.” But that protest arises from a failure to distinguish between values and practices. The core value is freedom of inquiry; tenure is a practice. Frequently institutions cling doggedly to practices that are in truth nothing more than familiar habits. As a result, they fail to change things that ought to change. And by defending outmoded practices under the banner of core values, they might actually be betraying their true core values.

As I read this, I thought of our debates over itinerancy and guaranteed appointment. What I often do not hear or read in those debates is any in-depth conversation about the core values that gave rise to those practices in the first place. What we tend to do is note that “something is broken” and argue for a need to get rid of these relics.

What would be more helpful would be to start with a new look at those core values – missional outreach and commitment to the notion that God gifts all ages, races, classes, and sexes for ministry – and decide what practices are necessary today to put those values into action.

Maybe some of that conversation is going on behind the public rhetoric over getting rid of guaranteed appointment and itinerancy, but my experience suggests the United Methodist Church has a hard time articulating a shared set of core values, so it is easier to focus on practices than to talk about values that we do not, in fact, share.

In his pamphlet “An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion” John Wesley described the religion he tried to help spread in England.

This religion we long to see established in the world, a religion of love, and joy, and peace, having its seat in the inmost soul, but ever showing itself by its fruits, continually springing forth, not only in all innocence (for love worketh no ill to his neighbor,) but likewise in every kind of beneficence, spreading virtue and happiness all around it.

What Christian could reject that religion? What dispute over liberal or conservative theology could fail to find common ground on this? I cannot imagine it.

The conflicts, of course, arise not over the goals but over the means of arriving at the goal. Wesley himself struggled mightily to find his way to this religion.

This religion have we been following after for many years, as many know, if they would testify: But all this time, seeking wisdom, we found it not; we were spending our strength in vain. And being now under full conviction of this, we declare it to all mankind; for we desire not that others should wander out of the way as we have done before them: But rather that they may profit by our loss, that they may go (though we did not, having then no man to guide us) the straight way to the religion of love, even by faith.

I admire Wesley’s honesty here. He found he did not have the passionate religion of love that he desired. He knew what true religion looked like. He knew he did not have it. He did not let that admission change his goal.

Many of us, in contrast, use our failure to find the religion of love, peace, and joy as a justification to change our understanding of true religion. “I do not have peace and joy,” we say. “It must be that men and women are not meant to have real peace in this life.”

That was not Wesley’s way. He remained unsettled in himself rather than abandon his understanding of true religion.

It was a source of great liberation to Wesley to discover that all his striving was beside the point. It was faith, not effort, that were the way to religion. But that realization itself raised another important question.

If you ask, “Why then have not all men this faith? all, at least, who conceive it to be so happy a thing? Why do they not believe immediately?”

We answer, (on the Scripture hypothesis,) “It is the gift of God.” No man is able to work it in himself. It is a work of omnipotence. It requires no less power thus to quicken a dead soul, than to raise a body that lies in the grave. It is a new creation; and none can create a soul anew, but He who at first created the heavens and the earth.

Here is Wesley’s much-debated use of experience in his theology. The young, works driven Wesley was forced by his failure to find love, peace, and joy to change his theology. Works righteousness gave way to evangelical faith.

How many of us if asked by a “seeker” would be able to share a similar account of the religion we are inviting them to join us in seeking?

Ron Goetz is a United Methodist lay leader who blogs at Bible-Thumping Liberal.

He has a whole slew of posts about the Call to Action report. You can get a sense of his general take by reading the titles of the posts, listed from first to last below.

Acknowledging Decades of Decline

Underperforming Congregations and Clergy

The Meaning of Trust

Experience Talks Back to Power

Blueprint for the Takeover of the UMC

The Likelihood of UMC Structural Reforms

UMC’s Democratic Process Dismissed as ‘Rigamarole’

“So Where Do We Begin?”

I suspect more posts are coming. Check Brother Goetz’s blog for more.

Stanley Fish has an insightful reflection on the two versions of the movie “True Grit” and the diverse meanings of the term “free grace.”

As with everything Fish writes, it is thoughtful, learned, and interesting to read.

Craig Adams dips into his storehouse of historical Methodist documents to suggest there might still be hope for Methodism.

Let there be a universal return to the Wesleyan definition of saving faith on the part of a soul truly penitent and submissive to God. It is the laying hold of his Son as able and willing to save now without the seeker’s doing or suffering anything more. … In this attitude of assent to Christian truth and consent to Christ’s enthronement over the heart, and of reliance on him alone to save, let the penitent seeker continue to seek till he has notification direct from God of his adoption into his family. Let this be the advice given at all our altars: Through faith in our Lord Jesus seek to be saved till you know that you are saved.

As Craig writes in his header to the post, the advice published in 1896 may have much to say to us today.

One of the books I bought when trying to discern my call to pastoral ministry was Will Willimon’s Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. In the introduction of the book, Willimon wrote something that I underlined the very first time I read the book.

Damage is done to the unique quality of pastoral vocation when it is conflated with the vocation of all Christians to follow Jesus. Thus we have those who come to seminary not because they are called there to train to be pastors, but rather because they have received a call to be a more thoroughly committed Christian. Sadly, the church often does such a poor job of fostering the ministry of all Christians that there is nowhere to take a sense of vocation except seminary. This is a judgment upon a church that seems not to know what to do with those who desire more faithful commitment to their baptism.

This quote has been jangling about in my head for some time. I think I remember it because over these last years I have had a nagging question about whether that was a good description of my foray into pastoral ministry. I did have a strong experience of call, so I know the idea was not all mine, but I have been struck by the fact that call in United Methodism – and I suspect other mainline churches – almost by default means call to be a pastor or other worker within the institutional church itself.

And so, I find myself considering what options other than seminary might be possible and might be necessary for me to more fully live out my baptism. I wonder if the wider denomination understands what it should do if the United Methodist Church is going to nurture, sustain, and shepherd those who seek to live a Christian life in the context of secular work and other commitments.

All I have are questions at the moment, but they are – I think – good questions.