The Methodist Church, in which I am a minister, is desperate to maintain unity and avoid a split, especially over homosexuality. Yesterday’s Conference decisions on civil partnerships illustrate this. Evangelicals like me get the decision that we shall not conduct formal blessings of civil partnerships and a reaffirmation of the traditional teaching that requires fidelity within marriage (which can only be between a man and a woman) and chastity without. Liberals get the chance for ministers to pray privately with couples plus reconsidering the resolutions of the 1993 Conference in Derby that have just about held us together so far. Paul Smith of Headway clearly knows the danger that what ministers might pray in private might not reflect the official position, but has to leave it to trust.
This is the same Conference that has received a report from the Faith And Order Committee entitled, ‘Living With Contradictory Convictions’ (Word document downloadable on this page). It is a report that does somersaults to emphasise the ‘contradictions’ in Scripture (e.g., Paul versus James), many of which have been rebuffed by scholars over the years. It makes huge play of how Christians have changed their minds on various issues down the years (e.g., slavery) and is right to a certain extent about the need for humility in holding certain convictions. But the real danger is that we are being asked to be short on conviction and long on unity, without sufficient foundation for that unity.
It is an important question to ask exactly what does unite British Methodists. Some at theological college put it satirically this way: “You can doubt the Virgin Birth, you can doubt the Resurrection, but God help you if you doubt infant baptism or feminism.” (And feminism has of course become the major issue between ourselves and the Church of England in talks regarding the Covenant we agreed.) Others would add matters of ‘connexionalism’ – the idea that we are all connected, and that with the circuit system we endorse a system in which the strong support the weak. Fine – there’s something quite apostolic about that to me. Or John Wesley’s notion of holiness as social holiness – except that seems to be pushed in a direction that sees holiness as no more than social justice.
Now I practice infant baptism (although I tend towards a rigorist position). I hold an egalitarian view of the sexes. I think connexionalism has much to commend itself. And I believe in social justice. But important as these things are, they are surely not foundational Gospel issues, even if they most certainly express the Gospel. What worries me in a nutshell is that we are not seeking to establish unity on a Gospel foundation. Where is the Christology, for example? Where is the soteriology? The civil partnerships resolutions and the Faith And Order report both suggest to me that the dubious path of ‘unity at any price’ is being trod by some.
Technorati Tags: Methodist+Conference, civil+partnerships, Headway, unity
Big Circumstance 
I agree with you. Core issues of doctrine and the gospel are ignored and the church is trying not to fight over social issues. You can take any theological stance you want, and you will be accepted, but take a stance one way or another on current social issues and you are labeled and placed on a team.
LikeLike
I would like to see more discussion of Christology and sotierology in churches. I would like to see much more education on Methodist and Christian theology in our churches. I think that discipleship is nourished by both praxis and knowledge, which are inextricably linked. We’ve probably fallen down on the ‘knowledge’ part in the last decades, but we must not err in the direction of ‘all doctrine, no praxis’ either. (In my view.)
All that said, as someone who is admittedly for permanent partnerships between homosexual people with the same requirements of fidelity and commitment as for heterosexual people, I don’t see this issue as a ‘core gospel issue’. I would see heterosexual or homosexual promiscuity or deliberate serial monogomy and failure to commit as a serious discipleship issue. But it is not, in my view, a gospel issue.
LikeLike
If social justice is not a foundational gospel issue, I don’t know what would be. All our theology – soteriology, Christology and all the rest – is rooted in the Christian understanding of God as Trinity, a belief which surely shapes our human relationships and carries an implicit demand for justice within it.
LikeLike
Richard, remembering that I favour permanent covenant relationships between people of the same sex….
I’ve spent about 40 of my 49 years in conservative denominations (much more conservative than the conservative end of Methodism) so I understand the thinking behind the view that homosexual acts are sinful. I understand that thinking; I don’t agree with it.
Maybe you would consider the following remark to still mark me out as a conservative, I don’t know. But I believe that cosmic salvation is/was effected by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. Social justice ought to be an outcome of that salvation, but Social Justice is not That Which Saves. In my opinion.
What I would put to you would be the following question: If we take a ‘Fiddes-esque’ view of the Trinity, how would you justify kicking conservative Christians out of British Methodism? (Some may want to kick us out, but I’d want to put the question in stark terms to anyone who thinks that schism might be a useful option.)
Possibly in disagreement with you and David, I actually think that if we can keep together as a denomination in a civil manner – something the United Methodist Church in the US looks like it might not be able to achieve – that we will be acting as Christian disciples operating in a community of faith.
I am a saved sinner. You are a saved sinner. And at the end of the day that is really the only claim we have before the throne of God. That, to me, is at the heart of the gospel. Some may think that Social Justice is a necessary fruit for anyone who has experienced New Birth (if I may use a Wesleyan term). Some may think that adherence to traditional sexual behaviour only within a heterosexual context is a necessary fruit for anyone who has experienced New Birth. But, in my view, neither one of those things effects salvation. Neither one of those things is a gospel issue.
I realise that there are huge huge problems of pain on both sides of the argument and it seems wiser to perhaps not use words to address that pain but rather to bow my head before it.
LikeLike
Dear Brett, Pam and Richard,
Rather belatedly, just to say thank you to all of you for your thoughtful comments. I want to stay with the heart of what I said but realise that maybe writing a frustrated post last thing at night before bed may not be the best time!
Theologically I would not only adduce the doctrine of the Trinity but also the Incarnation and Eschatology (especially the resurrection of the body and the new heaven and new earth) as reasons for social justice. I am, in fact, a former trade union activist!
I think the purpose of my post was not even to discuss human sexuality, but perhaps I should have realised that even to mention such a sensitive subject will produce responses. It is a sensitive issue for me. Had Conference agreed to blessing civil partnerships I would have faced personal agonies as to whether I could have continued to uphold Methodist discipline as a minister. I wish I didn’t feel like that, but I do. I wish I didn’t believe that homosexual relationships were incompatible with Christian discipleship – it would make life easier for me in today’s culture – but I can’t find my way around the fact that every reference in Old and New Testaments to the subject is negative (and yes, I know the arguments about the intermingling with ritual law in the OT and whether the Greek words Paul uses in 1 Corinthians apply to faithful relationships). Neither do I want to do what someone from the local Strict Baptist Church did in our local paper last week and describe homosexual people as a ‘scourge’ on society. I have had gay friends and I believe God’s love is for all.
But having got all that off my chest I think perhaps what my intentions for the post were really to raise the epistemological issue. How do we know what we know as Christians? This seems to me to be where Methodism and other Christian traditions are tearing themselves apart. In UK Methodist terms a lot of this goes back to the painful 1993 Derby Conference, when six key resolutions regarding human sexuality were passed. In the wake of that debate a commission was set up to look at Methodist understandings of Scripture. There are a number of ways in which our Deed of Union’s statement can be interpreted in terms of our belief about Scripture, but the commission produced a report which listed seven different common approaches in contemporary British Methodism. But as a friend of mine who served on the commission noted, a few of those seven clearly ran contrary to the Deed of Union. So the report just became a study and discussion document and Conference side-stepped the issue. I see the debate this week and the Faith and Order report as part of that same trend. What does unite us? What do we hold in common? We need to be clear (and, I think, unambiguous rather than woolly) about these questions before we dare to look at some of the painfully divisive issues before us.
LikeLike
Dave:
I think you raise an interesting theological (or perhaps it is philosophical) question here in raising the question of epistemology.
I’m relatively new to British Methodism and have been trying very diligently over the last several years to understand how our theology has progressed since the time of Wesley. I confess that the history of our theological evolution is actually quite difficult to grasp.
At any rate, my point is that I suspect that the epistemological question has been there for at least a century, if not more than that. Perhaps it has only made itself known because of this one particular, highly emotive subject. If you look at someone like C.F.D. Moule, for example, I suspect you’d find that you’d disagree with his approach to theology (I admit that that’s me making some assumptions about you.)
Personally, as someone who likes to consider myself an orthodox liberal, what I actually think is most important is what you call ‘the fudge’. To me, the paradigmatic outworking of Original Sin is the demonisation of those with whom we do not agree. If we can manage not to schism over this issue then I think we will have evidenced the power of the Holy Spirit.
I do appreciate your position, David. As someone about to be a probationer minister, I also thought about what I’d do if Conference had absolutely forbidden ministers to take part in private prayer. (Enter semi-serious thoughts about whether the Metropolitan Community Church wanted any married heterosexual ministers.) Personally, I’d much rather that ‘people like you’ and ‘people like me’ were able to stay together, pray together and spread God’s love together.
I’ve written a post entitled Blessing Civil Partnerships? although it’s pretty much an expansion of my last comment here.
LikeLike
Sorry for a ‘double post’ as it were.
I’m wondering if you could articulate what you suspect are the epistemological differences? I guess I tend to think of it more as a hermeneutical problem, but then I accept that behind hermeneutical differences probably lurk epistemological ones.
By the way, just to throw out a comment re eschatology, I believe in a New Creation and the resurrection of the body.
LikeLike
Pam,
You don’t need to apologise for a double post. I believe you are right that a lot of these issues have been lurking for decades, maybe a century. I’m certainly convinced it was around at the time the Deed of Union was drafted. I recall being taught at college that A S Peake was used in this respect to word parts of the Deed in a suitably ambiguous way.
As to the epistemology and hermeneutics matters, yes, I think both are involved. I think epistemology is key in the sense that it asks the question, “How do we know that we know?” And that seems to be central to what we are struggling with here. But yes, hermeneutics are connected with that. Let’s say, for example, that we resolved the epistemological question in terms of some stated relationship between the four elements of the ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’ of scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Then when we examine one of them and try to interpret them (let alone get to the point of relating to the other three) we are into hermeneutical issues. To take scripture as an example we are into matters of how far the grammatico-historial method can take us (a long way, but maybe not as far as we have tended to think for the last hundred or so years – the New Testament use of the Old legitimises at least in part some of the insights from reader-response theory). And none of this is done as neutrally as we would like to kid ourselves. As Bultmann (yes, someone of my convictions is going to quote him positively!) said, “There is no such thing as presuppostionless theology.”
So those are just some of the untidy thoughts jumbling around in my mind on this and other matters in Methodism.
And in case I don’t remember to say this on another occasion, every blessing when you begin circuit life as a probationer. It’s a strange ‘time between the times’ from probation to ordination.
LikeLike
Dave, I’m not sure what question you answered with respect to epistemology. It sounds like you gave a defence as to why epistemology affects one’s hermeneutic (unless I misunderstood you). I already agree that it does.
My question is more along the lines of what you think your epistemological issues may be with respect to British Methodism? What sort of epistemology would alienate you, for instance?
By the way, I do not like to make assumptions about what people think or believe (re your Bultmann quote). In my experience, most intelligent people give time to think things through and often have a complex set of ideas. I’d be surprised if you’d got through years of ministry and hadn’t done a lot of hard thinking.
Thanks for your good wishes and the warning about being a probationer. Oh no, not another liminal status! 😉
LikeLike
Dave, as a former Methodist minister, and very definitely a saved sinner, whilst I very much appreciate the value of discussion and even argument, I cannot help thinking that much of the discussion following your thoughts on ‘fudge’ seems like people trying to decide which particular bit of the Titanic they prefer to try and bail out. Commendable perhaps, but I fear almost certainly futile. Helping people onto an appropriate lifeboat or even a piece of floating flotsom may be the better course of action.
LikeLike
Adrian,
Would you like to expand more on what is behind your Titanic/lifeboats metaphor? In what way do you see Methodism as hopelessly doomed? What do you consider viable lifeboats, if that is true?
Thanks.
LikeLike
Adrian,
Would you like to expand more on what is behind your Titanic/lifeboats metaphor? In what way do you see Methodism as hopelessly doomed? What do you consider viable lifeboats, if that is true?
Thanks.
LikeLike
Dave
I believe that the Methodist ‘institution’ is now so bound up in double speak, semantics and theological gymnastics – mainly in an attempt to appease the increasingly diverse ‘factions’ of our broad church – that there will not be (probably cannot be) anything resembling biblical, spirit inspired, leadership and vision from those appointed to lead. We appear to be in some perverse ‘reverse re-branding’ exercise. Let me try and explain:
In the world of commerce (the world I now inhabit) we often hear of companies, when faced with a poor performing product, engage in a re-branding exercise. This can take place for a variety of reasons, the two main ones being:
1. They believe they have an essentially sound product but need to revive interest in it and draw attention to it in a different way or want to make it more accessible across a wider range of markets.
2. They are making what they consider to be some significant changes to the product and believe that a re-branding (change of name and marketing strategy) is the best way to highlight these changes and increase consumer interest.
The Methodist Church, however,seems to be taking this concept but reversing it for its own purposes. In effect they have ‘said’ that Methodism is a trusted brand with a considerable amount of brand loyalty (look how few of us leave despite what we have to put up with!) BUT the content of the product needs to be changed substantially (see the numerous comments from those involved in Outcome or Sustsaining Six or indeed many theological college tutors)
The problem for the Church is how this can be done without too much damage being inflicted upon the essential brand. The answer has been to gradually change the meanings of important concepts and phrases or to extend the boundaries of meaning allowing a far greater number of people to subscribe to something, each taking their own desired meaning from it (some having first put their new meaning into it). The beauty of this, if successful, is that any two people can subscribe to the same ‘wording’ whilst actually holding mutually exclusive views regarding the actual subject of those same words. A house divided against itself will fall – no matter how many clever words or how much semantic trickery is employed in the increasingly desperate maintenance of it.
However, the fact that the ‘top’ has lost its way so thoroughly does not necessarily imply that faithful local Methodist fellowships, with Jesus centred and focussed leadership, cannot prosper -it’s just very difficult for many carrying on business as usual in such a spiritually weak and confused institution.
LikeLike
Adrian,
Many thanks for your passionate clarification. You touch on some general issues which will relate to the next thing I am about to post on, which is the current process in Methodism entitled ‘Team Focus’, the reshaping of our ‘Connexional Team’ in the light of decline and reduced income.
In the meantime, let me just observe that I think your comment about extending the boundaries of meanings is spot on. I think the classic example is the word ‘inclusiveness’. To my mind this has been stretched from the Arminian/Wesleyan view of the universal offer of salvation in the direction of its secular political use. It ends up not only offering the Gospel to all, but including regardless of repentance and sometimes dispensing with the need for repentance, thus taking the Gospel out of Gospel. Just as I relied on Lewis Carroll for the title of this post, so there is something in the Alice stories that relates to this: ‘A word can mean just what I want it to mean’ (I may not have the quote precisely, but it’s something like that).
LikeLike
Dave, i think the Lewis Carroll quote is:
‘When I use a word, … it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
Here is another quote – quite pertinent i think:
“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” (John Wesley)
Adrian
LikeLike