My former bishop used to say United Methodists are people of five books: the Bible, the United Methodist Hymnal, The Book of Worship, the Book of Discipline, and the Book of Resolutions.
Dan Dick may not agree with that, but he does call on UMs to dig out our Book of Resolutions to understand who we truly are:
And this is why our church is in the state it is in. At least for United Methodists, we lost our way when we jumped the mission and social justice ship for the church growth cruiser. We denied our core identity (read the 100 paragraphs in the 2008 Book of Discipline — YES, including the Social Principles. Then see if you can hunt up a copy of the 2008 Book of Resolutions. While not a codifier of individual beliefs, these documents do define what it means to be “United Methodist,” — though, because we stopped teaching these things in our churches, most people don’t know that this is what the UMC is all about…) and drifted off course to look more and more like independent, non-denominational, congregational churches and less and less like a connectional church committed to being Christ for the world. Oops.
Dan’s post makes me wonder if you can group United Methodists in part by where we look in history when trying to define who and what we are. Some of us keep going back to Wesley. Dan appears to be reaching for the early to mid-20th century. Some folks say there is no answer to “who we are” and look to the future for us to create it.
I don’t know if this kind of historical geography is helpful, but it might at least help us understand our disagreements.
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
In my experience many (at times myself included) do not want to understand why we have disagreements, we just want people to be convinced that our perspective is the right one. It is my biggest struggle with the idea of unity. How do I embrace my colleagues in leadership when their point of view is so different from mine – and based on a premise or framework so different from mine? Likewise, i wish others would seek the same in their disagreements with me, but I can only begin with me.
“Some folks say there is no answer to ‘who we are’”
I am not sure there is an answer here because I am not sure there is a “we” in the sense it is meant here; the concept of “we” as a denomination implies to me a degree of commonality that does not currently exist. On the other hand, there is a very strong culture in the UMC of “us” and “them” when thinking and talking about one another.