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Methodism@Risk
What is an “affectation of unity?” An affectation is a “pretending, a
pretense, an artificial behavior meant to impress others.” So an
affectation of unity is a pretending to be united, a pretense of unity,
or a claim to unity that is really artificial, made simply for the sake
of others watching. So, the scandal greater than division in the church,
says George, is a false unity between “those who do and those who do not
affirm the core doctrines of Christian faith.”
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Good News at General Conference. faithful
disciples—a renewed church, by Scott N. Field,
Nov/Dec 2003 Good News Magazine
Since 1968, the population of the United States has
grown by 91,470,321, or about 45 percent. During the same period the United
Methodist Church has declined by about 3 million members, or approximately
27 percent. Though we regularly vote to affirm our mission to “make
disciples of Jesus Christ,” set a denominational quadrennial budget of $186
million, and claim more than 35,000 congregations, last year (2002) 40
percent of the United Methodist congregations in the U.S. failed to attract
even one new person to the Christian way!
All of the money collected and spent, the widespread
presence of our congregations and institutions, and the time given to the
church in thousands of ways has sadly produced these pitiful outcomes. The
simple arithmetic should arrest our attention. Something is foundationally
wrong with any organization that performs so poorly. Of course not one
United Methodist wants the church to continue in this downward spiral. But
wanting something to change does not make it change. Action is required ...
Certainly, General Conference cannot bring renewal
and revival by majority vote. What it can do is discern and act upon ways to
remove the obstacles. And most importantly, it can give a mandate to the
denomination that it is high time we re-center ourselves in the Apostolic
faith and our Wesleyan doctrinal standards.
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In a poll of more than
7,000 mainline Protestant clergy, 60 percent of United Methodist ministers
asked, said they reject the validity of the Virgin Birth (the highest of any
mainline denomination). If that figure even approximates the truth, we have
a massive crisis of intellectual deceit.
How?
If the men and women who
stand in UM pulpits on Sundays do not believe the church’s great doctrines,
and fail to disclose their beliefs, by that failure they engage in
deception.
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Progressive
Christians,
Commentary by Rev. Wesley Putnam, "We Confess", Vol. 9, Issue 6, Nov/Dec
2003, The Confessing Movement newsletter (scroll down to see article)
They call themselves progressive Christians. Mostly members of "mainline"
denominations, they declare they have found new truth. Seminary
professors, bishops, members of boards and agencies, pastors and more
enlightened laity . . . they are an impressive group.
What they declare is amazing! For centuries, truth has
lain undiscovered and unknown. But now, we can all breathe easier. After
over 2000 years of Christendom, THEY have discovered the truth. Just take
a look at some of what they are teaching.
. . . Man’s knowledge and mastery of the world have
advanced to such an extent through science and technology that it is no
longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the New Testament view of the
world.
-- R. Bultmann
. . . I do not see Jesus as seeing himself in Messianic
terms, and I do not think he saw his death as central to a Messianic
vocation or as in some sense the purpose of his life . . .
. . . I don’t think the gospels are "completely
factual." For me, metaphorical narratives (such as the stories of Jesus’
birth, walking on water, multiplying loaves, the wedding at Cana and
changing water into wine) can be powerfully true, even though I don’t
think they are historically factual.
-- Marcus Borg
I must dissent from Christocentric exclusives, which
hold that Jesus is the only way to God’s gift of salvation. Such an
arrogant claim stands over and against the inclusive Jesus of the
synoptics and limits God in ways that humans cannot and must not.
I believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but I cannot
believe that his resurrection involved the resuscitation of his physical
body.
-- UMC Bishop Joseph Sprague
...How has God’s Kingdom been advanced by their
"new" teachings? Every denomination that has embraced these progressive
doctrines has seen radical decline. The United Methodist Church has lost
the equivalent of a 250-member church every day for the last 30 years. It
seems a lost world isn’t buying what the progressives are trying to sell
in the name of our churches. The shallow, relative truth of the
progressive movement has no power to transform lives, so searching souls
look elsewhere. The old hymn says it well, "On Christ, the Solid Rock, I
stand. All other ground is sinking sand."
Scripture tells us we’re supposed
to be guardians of the "faith once delivered to the saints." (Jude 1:3). I
believe it’s time for the Church to stand and declare the timeless truth
of God’s Word. We must not be intimidated into silence. God’s call to "Go
into all the world and preach the Gospel" has never been taken back. The
methods of going may change, but the message never will.
One word of warning. When you
decide to stand for truth, you will be labeled as "intolerant." This is
the only sin left in a world where all beliefs and all religions are
considered equal. Don’t let the label worry you. Wear it proudly ...
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A
Lamentation Commentary by Raymond
Rooney, Pastor, November 3, 2003
The renewal movement will not
succeed. Too many have lost their focus, become bitter, and are more
interested in retribution and inflicting punishment than they are
concerned about the righteousness of the cause. When Peter exhorted
believers to defend the faith he said to do so “with gentleness and
reverence” (1 Peter 3:15). Paul told Timothy that “the Lord’s
bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach,
patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in
opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance…” (2 Timothy
2:24-25). Like Jonah, the prophet sent to Ninevah, I do not think many
in the renewal movement want to see repentance. I have no doubt
that some are praying for calamity to overcome the enemies of orthodoxy
or would welcome news that some bad thing had happened to any of the
leaders of “progressivism” in the Church.
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Every so often, something happens to illustrate the widening doctrinal
chasm that still exists within the United Methodist Church. Perhaps the most
recent example of this divide is the recent publication of United Methodism
@ Risk: A Wake-Up Call. The book is an attack on all the United Methodist
evangelical renewal ministries, including of course, Good News (see news
article on p. 40). Because of these various evangelical groups, the church
is supposedly “at risk.”
The book comes from the Information Project for United Methodists, an ad
hoc group of liberal leaders and long-time church activists. Retired Bishop
Dale White heads the project, others involved include well-known names such
as Bishop Roy Sano, Ms. Peggy Billings, Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, and Dr.
Tex Sample...
The book claims, rather, that we Methodists have “reached across
significant theological disagreements to declare to one another Wesley’s
words: ‘If your heart be as my heart, then give me your hand.’” This
notoriously misquoted phrase, of course, comes from Wesley’s sermon,
“Catholic Spirit.” It’s the popular trump card played to justify our long
neglect of theology. “Let’s just shake hands and not fret about doctrine.”
But what did Wesley mean by the heart and hand quotation? Much more than
most think. He spends no less than seven lengthy paragraphs explaining it.
He asks: “Do you believe…, Do you believe…, Have you the divine evidence…?”
Clearly, for Wesley, right doctrine—including Christ’s deity and atoning
death—was a vital ingredient for a right heart. Wesley would never extend a
conciliatory hand to one who denied the authority of Scripture or the deity
of Jesus Christ, as if those doctrines didn’t matter. Wesley even goes on to
describe “this unsettledness of thought,” “this being…‘tossed about with
every wind of doctrine,’” as “a great curse, not a blessing.” He then says
boldly: “A man of a truly catholic spirit has not now his religion to seek.
He is fixed as the sun in his judgment concerning the main branches of
Christian doctrine.”
For those of us involved in evangelical renewal, what really is @ risk
today is our Wesleyan doctrinal heritage.
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 Letters
to the Editor - Reporter Interactive June 25, 2003
Renewal groups ‘only hope?’
I couldn’t help commenting on the
article “Group alleges Wesleyan ‘think and let’ think perspective’
endangered” (see Reporter, May 30.) That piece goes on to play up the
book, United Methodism@Risk and criticize all of the organizations and
movements within the church that support a move back to the denomination’s
historical foundations.
I agree wholeheartedly
that United Methodism is at risk: one needs only to look at the
precipitous decline in membership to see that. I fear that if the present
trends toward disbelief in Scripture and “anything goes” continue, The
United Methodist Church will become an interesting historic relic.
Perhaps those
organizations criticized in the book are the only hope for us to once
again become an active, growing denomination.
Richard J. Lane, Palos Heights, Illinois
Retired
Bishop Blasts Renewal Groups
Retired Bishop Dale White
made a blistering attack on renewal groups within United Methodism,
alleging that they have a “polarizing style” and “intimidating tactics”
that are “calculated to spread fear” and “impugn the motives of others.”
He warned against their “dirty tricks politics” and “right-wing
ideology.” White made his remarks a First United Methodist Church in
Schenectady, New York on October 26 as part of its Carl Lecture Series.
Read
More
Do
renewal groups threaten the health of United Methodism? by Riley B. Case
According to a new book, United Methodism @
Risk: A Wake-Up Call, produced by a group called The Information Project
for United Methodists, and introduced with great fan-fare to the press and
to the Council of Bishops, Methodism is in danger of being “taken over”
…The book is an attack on evangelical renewal groups—but it is more. It
is an attack on the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church and
upon many of the most loyal of the church’s members. The alarm is sounded
not against people in power who oversaw the monumental decline of
membership within the last 25 years, but upon the people who believe that
the people who are in power (bishops, seminaries, and boards and agencies)
are not serving them well.
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The
New Creed -
Commentary by
Raymond Rooney, Pastor, September 23, 2003
"I believe in the
connection.” That is the new creed of the United Methodist Church. I
have found that if you do not believe and confess this creed you do not
belong in this denomination. You do not have to believe that the blood of
Jesus atones for sin. You do not have to abide by The Discipline’s
instructions not to participate in homosexual unions or use the
denomination’s funds to promote homosexuality. But you had better accept
and profess that you believe in the connection or you will be humiliated,
ostracized, and punished (if not asked to leave). So what is “the
connection?” What is the new tie that binds us together in the UMC?
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United
Methodism @ Risk:
New book, old diatribes, September 2003 LifeWatch, A quarterly news
letter for United Methodists
TO PROPOSE
United Methodism @ Risk:
A Wake-Up Call*
(Information Project for United Methodists, Kingston, NY), by Leon Howell,
has just been released. Written from a decidedly left-of-center
perspective, this book offers a review and critique of various
"conservative renewal groups" within The United Methodist Church—including
the Confessing Movement, Good News, the Institute on Religion and
Democracy, Lifewatch, and others.
A paragraph from the book’s preface cuts to
the chase and claims: "The ultimate goal of these groups is to control The
United Methodist Church. Their strategy is to attain top leadership
positions in the denomination. One tactic they use is spreading misleading
and inflammatory charges about groups and individuals to United Methodists
across the country. They indulge in character assassination and seek to
drive the church apart by the use of wedge issues, calculated to cause
dissension and division. Their desire is to impose not to dialogue"
(p. 4, emphasis added). Not surprisingly, the aim of the book is to deny
the renewal groups their alleged goal of taking over the church.
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Politicizing Holiness, Rev.Raymond Rooney, Pastor Verona-Palmetto
United Methodist Charge - August 7, 2003
Criticism from the upper echelons of the
Church hierarchy is steadily streaming downward concerning the “dangers”
of evangelicals in the Methodist Church and the awareness they are raising
and the steps being taken to halt the march towards leftist political
ideologies and liberal progressive theologies. Like the book written by
Bishop Dale White and others called United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake-Up
Call. The book warns that Methodism as we know it will cease to exist if
the diabolical evangelicals have their way. Since there are few (if any)
unapologetic and unafraid evangelicals in the Church hierarchy this is
hardly surprising. However, their lament about the continued
organizational successes and growing effectiveness of the renewal movement
as a whole is very telling.
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What
is the Fight Really About? by Mark Tooley, UM Action,
The Institute on Religion and Democracy
In his July 10 article
(“The Fighting Methodists”),
Andrew Weaver uncritically accepts the hyperbolic claims of United
Methodism @ Risk, a self-published
outcry against conservative influence within the United Methodist Church.
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"Risking
Methodism", by D. Stephen Long, Associate Professor of Systematic
Theology, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
“At this point some persons will clearly think that Methodism@Risk is
correct; people like me “threaten” John Wesley’s “think and let think.”
But of course Wesley never thought one could think and let think about the
heart of Christian doctrine – the Incarnation, Trinity, Virgin Birth,
Bodily Resurrection – or a common quest for Christian holiness, which
includes specific worship practices. That is why he gave us the gift of
something called a “discipline,” Articles of Religion and a sermon called
“the duty of constant communion.” He urged the Methodist people – out of
“duty” – to frequent the Lord’s table as much as possible. If we have no
common vision, doctrine, moral practice or worship life then we may as
well become a confederation of independent churches. That is not
Methodism, but recent Annual Conference actions tend in this direction.”
“ If anything is under threat in the Methodist Church today it is this
sense of a common teaching, practice and worship that comes from our own
tradition, and it is under threat by both the so-called “progressivists”
and the church-growth gurus who came up with the “open hearts, minds and
doors” campaign. Can we take the risk of Methodism and recover a common
life?”
Here I Stand
For God's Sake -- Literally -- Let's Stop Battling. By Rev. Kathryn
Johnson, Executive Director, Methodists for Social Action (MFSA) - June
23, 2003
"Rather than battling over doctrine, I pray for the day when we can
recognize God speaking through those who hold different perspectives. I
sincerely believe that the church needs the gifts offered by all within
our church family. It is entirely natural, and I believe healthy, for the
church to live within the tension of conservatives who point us to ancient
truths and progressives who point us to God's ongoing and ever-new
revelation."
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Get
The Facts Straight Before You Write the Book,
by Dr. Bill Hinson, President, Board of
Directors,
The Confessing Movement
- July/August 2003
"... I believe the note of shrillness detected in the pages of
United Methodism @ Risk can be traced to the seismic shift occurring
in our denomination. More and more of our people are resonating with the
call to biblical renewal. For all of us who are committed to Jesus as the
Son of God, the Savior of the World, and the Lord of History, the word is
not "progressive." The word is faithful."
Good News editor denies
'extremist' designation in editorial - July 16, 2003
Dr. James V. Heidinger II, President and Publisher, Good News Magazine,
Wilmore, Kentucky in a Letter to the Editor, United Methodist Reporter,
July 16, 2003, notes that, "Good News' constituency represents praying,
loyal, tithing, committed Christians who are the heart and soul of our
denomination. It is a disservice to us and to our constituency to label us
as "extremists." That looks like a ploy to caricature and then dismiss
us."
Read
More
Bishops at fault
- July 9, 2003 John N. Grenfell, Jr.. Fort Gratiot, Michigan, in a
Letter to the Editor, United Methodist Reporter, July 9, 2003,
regarding a proposed solution to fragmentation in the UMC by Cynthia
Astile, UMR Editor, "I believe that much of the blame lies with the
Council of Bishops for ignoring church polity and refusing to own its
responsibility for the "whole church" ...The council's failure to follow
the polity of General Conference "to plan for carrying into effect the
rules, regulations and responsibilities prescribed and enjoined by General
Conference" is at the heart of our fragmentation and drifting into
factions."
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