Sorry, but another article on the United Methodist General Confrence caught my eye as I was looking over my usual websites before bed. You can check it out at the link below.
http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=17&mid=4686
Basically it is about the church splitting over the homosexuality issue, and how it isn’t going to happen yet, but some people have been holding “unofficial” meetings to talk about it. The kicker though, is that it isn’t the liberal (theology, not necessarily ideology) people who are talking about this. I mean, I imagine some of the talk about it, but it is the strong conservative leaders pushing this. How weird is that. It almost seems typical for a hard-core conservative group to press separation versus settlement, but given that the conservative side of this has won every vote on it, it seems a bit extreme. Mainly the article talks about how the people in favor of this idea cite the fact that this debate has gone on for 30 years, and it is limiting the churches ability to minister to people because they spend to much time debating it and what not. But then it talks about the people who are for church unity who cite the steadily improving missions programs in Africa. One guy even goes as far as to say that the UMC’s missions program in Africa is the envy of all Protestantism, which might be true because they do have pretty kick-ass missions over there, but still, seemed sorta funny to me.
My biggest concern is that I don’t know what to think about all that. One part of me says “You are being held back by this liberal theology, and it is slowly eroding the work that Wesley set out to do, and did accomplish for a time” and then another part says “The Church is already far to split, and has been torn apart at every seam, stop it from continuing, learn to get along.” But I know that a split is basically inevitable, I think that the biggest problem in the denomination isn’t liberal theology itself, but what it has caused in the minds of the more moderate people. The quote that really rubbed me the wrong way was:
“It is not only a foolish idea, it is really a very hurtful and destructive idea,” said retired Bishop C. Dale White. “Why should we destroy a great church on the basis of peripheral issues? On the core issues of ministry and theology, the whole church agrees, even if we articulate them differently.”
If you ask yourself why this statement rubs me the wrong way, then you have already know why it rubs me the wrong way. Sounds terribly recursive doesn’t it 🙂 But in all honesty, look at the part that says “On the core issues of ministry and theology, the whole church agrees, even if we articulate them differently.” Man, I wish that was true, I wish that was true of the whole Church, but it isn’t even true of this denomination. They agree on areas of ministry, but all evangelicals and conservative interpretationists have a major difference in the core of their theology from the liberal theologians. Liberal theology is difficult to completely pin down. Look it up sometime on google you will see a whole array of different theories on different things that are somewhat important to the church. But the main theme you will see is that the Bible is not an absolute source of the word of God. To people who subscribe to a liberal intrupretation of the Bible, it is a set of guidlines handed down to a specific people in a specific time. Conservative interpretationists say that the Bible is the inerrent word of God handed down through a men by the Holy Spirit.
Now, the first thing that comes to mind here is that the liberal argument actually sounds like a protestant argument against Catholicisms reliance on tradition. I would say that your are right, except two differences. The primary argument is that the Bible has stood the test of time, while Catholic dogma has not always held even within itself. Vatican 2 is a good example. The church couldn’t keep up with the times because no one knows Latin anymore. There were other changes that were major, and some that were minor from Vatican 2, but the Latin mass is a good example. The other argument is……crap, ….I forgot it, maybe I’ll fix this later, but the second one wasn’t that big of a deal so whatever….I’ve completely sidetracked myself now.
Back to point. For the conservative / evangelical (or as this Methodist pastor put it ‘orthodox’ which is another decent way to say it) this is a major difference in the fundamentals of their theology. So to say that we agree on blah blah blah, core values blah blah blah, is so totally crap. My parents don’t have the same core values in their theology as your average west-coast liberal pastor, don’t they count for something? I think the man who headed this idea up has some wonderful things to say about this issue hurting the Methodist church, but what he says in a lot of ways embodies a large portion of the denominational splits that have happened throughout Church history.
One more quote that concerned me, and brings me back to a point I lost site of earlier….man, this is a poorly organized blog…..glad it’s a blog and not a paper for school. The quote is “It?s not the United Methodist way. Our polity holds us together. Our Book of Discipline holds us together.?
?The Spirit also keeps up together,? added Minor.” This is a contradiction in terms right here. It is so obvious that not only do the people within the Methodist church disagree on the issue of homosexuality, but they are willing to break the church law as recorded in the “Book of Discipline” so it really isn’t functioning that well to hold the church together. One of the best lies you can use (read that Satan will use against us) is to make us think that there isn’t a problem when there is. It is so obvious that these people will say “Yeah there is a problem here, and the key to solving it is dialog.” But they are completely unwilling to say “hey, some people don’t care what the Bible says, that is a pretty big deal, do we wasn’t to be associated with them if we can’t agree on that?” If you can’t agree on what the Bible says then how will you ever establish any kind of denominational law. So maybe a split is in order. Maybe God wants to witness to people with this liberal faction of the church, who am I to say. But this idea of liberal theology in America today borders on heresy, and I know there are out-lying liberal theologies that are straight heresy, and not many sound-minded Christians would agree. It just seems like these people are to eager to re-write the foundational principals of Christianity to meet their personal views, instead of asking if God wants them to change their views. It boggles my mind that there is a bishop in the northern Illinois conference right now that doesn’t believe in a virgin birth or in the full body resurrection. That to me is heresy, and if that isn’t a foundational and fundamental difference in theology then I don’t know what is. I feel bad for people like my parents who try to hold on to the true spirit of Wesleyan theology and his ideologies and want more than anything to hold this group together, but can see the writing on the wall. I told my Dad once last fall that I thought the United Methodist church had less then 25 years left in it to be the ‘United’ Methodist, and he said probably less. But when I tell him he needs to leave and become a Vineyard pastor (his personal theology has no beefs with Vineyards if you were wondering) he says something about working in the system until he absolutely can’t, and then references his heart disease and how he couldn’t get any insurance anywhere if he left now. After that he says something about God not releasing him from the Methodist system yet, and about how besides not being released he has no calling from God to leave to do something else. (sounds the same, but sorta different)
So I wish the best for those people who have to make this decision. No church split (read seperation….because it sounds better according to the article) is easy on the people going through it. But maybe this is what the UMC needs. It’s attendance is shrinking right now, and it is shrinking drastically in both membership and attendance. Our conference shrunk the most in the last four years in the whole country, but that is more due to the fact that people are moving out of the rural areas and going to the city where there are more church choices (and hopefully attending a Vineyard….just kidding…I wouldn’t care where they went). The coasts are also shrinking fast. But the funny part is that the south (probably the whole southern Bible belt, including Texas), where there is much more of a conservative stronghold, the church is growing. And all the other conservative denominations are growing, while the more liberal ones are all shrinking. So maybe a church split would allow the people focus on who they are ministering to instead of arguing over politics….then the attendance numbers will sort the debate out on its own.
In other news, I had a good birthday. Lauren got me the Smallville season 1 DVD box set, and she got a cake and some ice cream, which is totally cool. I grilled steak that I marinaded for two days. That was totally delicious. And I drank Sam Adams Light, which is excellent, and even more excellent with marinaded rib eye. Tomorrow I study my butt off. So,
Thank you, and Goodnight.
harambee78 says
Just a note about the question “what is liberal theology?” First, it is a specific term “liberal theology” and not a general term just referring to someone who isn’t conservative. Liberal theology is something that came about in the 1920s and really died after its optimistic premises were shattered by WWII. No theologian can be said to practice “liberal theology” these days. But its influences are widespread. Two topics have had more influence than others. One is the historical-critical method of Biblical interpretation. This is the method that says we need to understand the historical context in order to properly understand the biblical narrative. The second, related, topic was the search for the historical Jesus. This goes on today in the form of the Jesus Seminar started in 1985 by Robert Funk. Of course, neither of these topics are destructive in and of themselves. But along with them went the premise that if something can be historically understood, then it is not supernatural. An emphasis on the Bible’s fallibility severely subtracted from people’s willingness to subject themselves to its teachings. Emphasizing Jesus’ finite existence on earth made it possible to deny his miracles (including his miraculous resurrection). Churches became less Bible-centered and more Jesus-centered (but less Christ-centered). Jesus became more of a man in a social context – a prophet and teaching and perhaps even healer, but a messiah? As a result, churches focused more on Jesus’ teachings rather than his miraculous acts or death on the cross. Social justice became more important than saving souls.
Again, this all happened in the 20s-40s, and WWII dealt it a great blow, but then came the late 50s and 60s and 70s and the free love generation. Liberal theology allowed the church in those decades to actually be in tune with culture (for the first time in a long time) and lots of churches went with it. I’d say that was the time when liberal theology stopped being a tendency or influence and when churches started actually redefining themselves that way.
One book on the topic I’d recommend is “The End of Liberal Theology” by Peter Toon. Think I have a copy somewhere.
Anyway, cool post!
James says
Surprisingly, I don’t have much to say.
I would just advise you against liberalism. Frankly, I don’t think you’d have much grounds to believe that your mother or future wife can do ministry without it. Which would account for fully 50% of the ministry you’ll see modelled closely to you over your lifetime.
Honestly, I can’t really blame the liberals for doing what they are, so much. I don’t agree with them, but at least it appears that they love their people. Are conservatives doing as good a job at loving their people? It doesn’t really seem like it to me.
Practically speaking, it’s kinda like “accept the sin, accept the sinner” vs. “hate the sin, love the sinner.” But 90% of the time, we’ve trained ourselves in conservatism to be so adamant about sin that we shy away from reaching down into people’s pain and experiences and sin to help them get out. So we might as well hate the sinners.
So yeah. At least the liberals seem to love their people.
James says
That second line was supposed to read “advise you against lambasting liberalism”. Oops.
BigCat says
I would love to say all the positives that come out of this kind of theology. Woman in ministry is obviously one of them, and there are a few others. But when you take it so far that you try to use history to destroy every single mention of what is sin and what isn’t so that you can create a personal rather then Godly defnition you miss out on a whole lot of what good God intends for your life.
Also, I don’t think the liberals do all that well at loving their people. If they really loved their people they would tell them the hard truth of the Bible in love and attempt to help them overcome their problems. Just like we do in accountability groups. And if conservatives don’t do a good job loving their people why are their churches growing? And why are the more liberal parts of this denomination shrinking. Why is the very conservative Southern Baptist denomination the largest in the US and still growing while the second largest (Methodist) is only growing in the strong conservative areas, and rapidly declining in attendance in the more liberal.
I know a lot of people who are fundamentalist conservative are incapable of letting go of the “hate the sin, hate the sinner” problem you mentioned, but that is less of a conservative issue and more of an issue that surrounds intollerance caused by ignorance. The more people know about the kinds of struggles that one can go through, the more likely they are to reach down and help someone out of their hole of pain, experiences, and sin.
Anyway, that is what I think…like I said, I would like to list off all the good things that came from the idea of historically contecuatlizing scripture, but just too many people these days are willing to proclaim that Jesus was a great guy, just not necessarily a bodily resurrected messiah, and any theology that allows that isn’t worth speaking highly of IMO.
BigCat says
While I’m thinking about it, I’m reading this big thing about the church making some unity statement or something like that, and I wanted to point out that this problem isn’t just a liberal problem. Liberal theology opened this door that will eventually lead to seperation of that denomination. But the moderates are the ones who now can take the brunt of this problem on their shoulders. Responsibility to see past the idea of unity in the UMC to an actuall solution now falls on them. The moderates and the liberals are heavily calling for unity, but the conservatives don’t want a church split, but the realize that it doesn’t seem like anyone wants to go anywhere. The liberals plan on waiting out the conservatives (probably until most of them die, they assume) and just causing a ruckas every General Confrence until they hold the majority. But this is stalling the church, making in ineffective, and now the people in the middle have to stand up and realize that (quote from the article) “if you sacrifice truth on the altar of unity you lose both.”
Maybe a church split isn’t in order, and I wish there were a way for all denominations to be united in the common bond of love for Jesus Christ. But to many cheifs and not enough indians creates a situation where a certain group of people will always be looking for the next overlooked minority to champion, either politically or spiritually. And if they are willing to sacrfice the truth of scripture, then so be it. Like I said in the post, maybe it is best if they split and if the numbers grow for the liberal faction that wishes homosexual lifestyles to be accepted into the church and not labled as sinful, then God is in that, and I could say that I was wrong and maybe a more liberal theology is right. But as long as the numbers show that God works through the people who are less willing to compromise the integrity of the Bible for their own ideals, I’m sticking with a more conservative inturpretation of the Bible.
James says
I suppose it’s easier for us to attack other people’s beliefs than to consider the flaws in our own. It just seems to me like we’re really good at pointing at liberals and blaming them for their apparent lack of fidelity to truth than to look at our own failings to express our love for the “unlovely”.
It seems like there’s this approach to the truth/love debate that goes something like: “well, sometimes you have to speak the truth in love,” which is sort of this caveat stating that truth is more important than love in God’s thinking. Aside from the fact that those same people don’t limit that behavior to “sometimes”, I think Jesus would look at a person making the “truth in love” argument with a puzzled face. And he’d say, “So you’re a pharisee?”
To which the person might reply, “No! I did blah blah blah and I loved blah blah blah…”
I can’t help but think that Jesus might reply, “I never knew you.”
BigCat says
This is easily the most ignorant and judgemental post you have ever written.
And by the way, saying that Jesus would probably call someone a “pharisee” is so stupid. I mean could we be any more net nerd flame war…that is like the christian equivalent to calling someone a Nazi on Usenet. I just makes whoever says it look dumb. (judgemental and arrogant too in this case)
Your better and smarter then that, come back when you have something good to say that adds to the conversation.