NY Methodist distressed by UMC

A Methodist from New York has written a lament over what he sees as the rightward shift in the United Methodist Church.

“Theological pluralism”, or the “inclusive church”, or the denomination that practiced Mr. Wesley’s “If your heart is as my heart, then give me your hand”, are vanishing. They are being replaced by an exclusivity – and by a surprising and unfortunate overlooking of reason and of experience from the Quadrilateral – and by a narrow theological literalism that is contrary to the basic Protestant Christian teaching of the individual’s relationship directly to/with God.

The author makes use of a popular quote from John Wesley’s sermon “Catholic Spirit.” That sermon certainly rewards reading. I’m not sure Wesley would use it to advance the argument this author makes, but that would be an interesting conversation.

Watson: What we mean by experience

Kevin Watson has an excellent post discussing the meaning of “Experience” in Wesleyan theology.

Of course, saying Kevin Watson has an excellent post is a bit redundant.

Here it is for your edification and reading pleasure.

Standing on the tomb

John Wesley once said he did more good preaching one day while standing on his father’s tomb than he did for all the many days he preached from a church pulpit. (See picture in blog header for an illustration of this.

He’d been denied preaching from a pulpit because of the doctrines he insisted on preaching with great energy. So, he climbed on top of his father’s tomb in the church yard and preached to the crowds.

Last week, I heard an early Pentecost sermon that emphasized the message that the church became the church when it was gifted with the ability to preach in the languages that people could hear. When I reflect on this story about Wesley, I think 18th century field preaching was a kind of Pentecost preaching. The language was not changed, but the mode was. Preaching was made audible to the people so that it might be heard.

I’m often not creative enough to figure out how to carry the examples of the early Methodists into our own context. I am too wooden and literal in my attempt to think about applications. But as Pentecost approaches, I am convinced this kind of pentecostal preaching is needed among us. We need to preach in the languages people can hear. We need to find modes and places of preaching where it can be heard.

In all this, we must not abandon the gospel and our convictions about it. We don’t want to confuse speaking in a language that people can hear with preaching “peace, peace” when there is no peace.

But how do we find the boldness to follow John Wesley’s example to climb upon the tomb’s of our fathers and preach the gospel in languages and ways that allow it to be heard to the millions among us who do not hear it today?

A true Church-of-England man

In 1745 and thereafter, John Wesley exchanged a series of letters with a Mr. John Smith, who the editor of my copy of the works of Wesley notes is generally presumed to have been the Bishop of Oxford writing anonymously.

In one of the letters, the bishop accuses Wesley of deviating from the teachings of the Church of England. Smith criticizes Wesley for always appealing to the official doctrinal standards of the church in defending himself from such charges. The Articles of Religion of the Church of England and the Homilies were adopted in the 16th century. Smith writes that he is accusing Wesley not of deviating from those, but of deviating from the doctrines as actually preached in the 18th century Church of England, which presumably did not reflect the official doctrinal standards.

Wesley replies:

Well, how blind was I! I always supposed, till the very hour I read these words, that when I was charged with differing from the Church, I was charged with differing from the Articles and Homilies. And for the compilers of these, I can sincerely profess great deference and veneration. But I cannot honestly profess any veneration at all for those Pastors of the present age, who solemnly subscribe to those Articles and Homilies which they do not believe in their hearts. Nay, I think, unless I differ from these men (be they Bishops, Priests, or Deacons) just as widely as they do from the Articles and Homilies, I am no true Church-of-England man.

This exchange struck me as quite similar to our situation in the United Methodist Church. We have our doctrinal standards that were established a 200 years ago. By every official word, they are the standard of teaching in our churches. But they bear little actual influence throughout a great number of our churches.

To be a true United Methodist, then, should we reflect the preaching and teaching of our day or — if it differs — the doctrinal standards set out in our Book of Discipline?

Wesley: It all comes from God

All the blessings which God hath bestowed upon man are of his mere grace, bounty, or favour; his free, undeserved favour; favour altogether undeserved; man having no claim to the least of his mercies. It was free grace that “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him a living soul,” and stamped on that soul the image of God, and “put all things under his feet.” The same free grace continues to us, at this day, life, and breath, and all things. For there is nothing we are, or have, or do, which can deserve the least thing at God’s hand. “All our works, Thou, O God, hast wrought in us.”

The opening words of the first standard sermon of John Wesley are the simple claim that all we are and all we have come not from ourselves, but God. This is not, so far as I know, a controversial Christian claim. It is not unique to Wesley or Methodism.

It does gall us, though. We don’t like the tone of it. We don’t like the implication. We share Lucifer’s desire to get the recognition we believe we deserve. We reduce God to a cosmic butler who exists only to make us happy and serve our needs.

Stanley Hauerwas has written before that one of the great challenges of Christianity is forming people who can hear the truths of Scripture and faith without outrage. I think the doctrine of Creation is one of those cases. We talk a good deal about Creation theology these days, but it is quite often miscast as a warmed over Earth Day celebration. What Creation reminds us of is that we are created. We are recipients of tremendous gifts. Our existence itself is not necessary. It is the choice of God.

We are God’s creation. We are invited to live into that truth, to embrace it with joy. To object when told or convinced to accept less.

Take thou authority?

In an age without authority and a church in which leaders have great anxiety about claiming authority, how do we read Hebrews 13:17?

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

The text is an exhortation to the people to follow the leaders of their church community because those leaders will be held to account by God for how they led the people.

This sense of accountability was part of what drove John Wesley to do what he did. He read passages like this and Ezekiel 33 as removing from him the choice of whether to lead and confront the people when their ways strayed from Scripture’s description of a holy and God-pleasing life.

You could say, in a sense, that Wesley was acting out of self-interest. He was taking up his cross mindful that if he failed to do so, he would fall under the grave condemnation reserved for leaders who shirk their duty to God’s people.

Now, some will read this and find it displeasing. What? Should we not do everything we do out of love only and never fear or a sense of duty and obligation? In the perfected heart that would be the case. But we are not perfect. Our flesh still rebels and tempts us to turn aside. It is the very example of love to endure that which is not pleasing to us for the sake of others.

But we live in an age in which “authority” is a dirty word. Our democratic impulses argue against authority. The very spirit of modernity and post-modernity is an assault on the idea of authority. Our exegesis and theology remove the threat from the passages of Scripture that speak of authority and accountability to God.

Does a verse such as Hebrews 13:17 have anything to do with the church today?

Do you visit house to house?

Do you visit house to house? How does that work? How do you do it?

It was from the first a challenge for Methodists and something that they urged on all preachers. Our order of ordination includes questions still about such visitation. The purpose, at first, was not simply to exchange nice words but to teach and instruct. And, yes, people did not take to it then either. Richard Baxter — who was urged as a model for Methodist preachers — wrote at length about how to deal with the fact that people in the parish do not want the preacher to come around quizzing them on the faith.

In the minutes of the early Methodist conferences, the issue is joined this way:

For what avails public preaching alone, though we could preach like angels? We must, yea, every travelling Preacher must, instruct them from house to house. Till this is done, and that in good earnest, the Methodists will be little better than other people. Our religion is not deep, universal uniform; but superficial, partial, uneven. It will be so, till we spend half as much time in this visiting, as we now d in talking uselessly.

What do we have to offer?

I have been wrestling recently with the meaning of being a pastor. Some of my recent posts reflect some of the questions and tensions. Often in times like these, I pull out well-worn books on my shelf: Will Willimon, Eugene Peterson, Henri Nouwen.

Here is one passage from Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus:

I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. … The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.

This is Nouwen’s deep conviction. I want to ask if he is correct, but I fear this is part of my recent struggle — the search for certain answers to uncertain questions. So, I will respond without attempting to pretend I know enough to judge him.

I hear in the call to “irrelevance” a different voice than the ones that animate my denomination. And so, I fear that listening to Henri Nouwen will make me an unfit United Methodist.

I see he ends with the “source of all human life,” and so I wonder if he is unconcerned with eternal questions. Is the pastor concerned finally with this life only? Or is eternity assumed by Nouwen and so unstated? Any true human life will extend beyond the grave, he might say. I do not know.

He says we offer our own vulnerable self. But is that true? I recall the painting on the seminary wall of Methodist preachers climbing into a ship with the words “Offer them Christ.” In addition to proclaiming Christ, do we not also offer Christ? And is this not something more important than our vulnerable selves?

Nouwen may have part of an answer to my questions:

The Christian leader of the future is the one who truly knows the heart of God as it has become flesh, “a heart of flesh,” in Jesus. Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation, or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from God. This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without any condition or limits.

Would John Wesley let Nouwen preach to a Methodist society? Or is such a question pointless given the change in time and place between the men? Would the Board of Ordained Ministry approve Nouwen’s candidacy? Would he lead people to Christ?

I am full of questions this week and few answers.