DECISION #8
Reclaiming Our Scriptural and Theological Base
Focus
Recovering the importance of what we believe and
teach as United Methodists
Scriptures: John 7:16; 1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 3:10-4:4
John Wesley
Our main doctrines, which
include all the rest are three, that of Repentance, Faith and of Holiness.
Our fundamental doctrine of
the people called Methodists is, Whosoever will be saved, before all things it
is necessary that he hold the true faith; the faith which works by love; which
by means of the love of God and our neighbor produces inward and outward
holiness.
The authors note the absence of doctrinal consensus in the
UM Church today and ask if this is a major contributor to the Church
destabilization. [40]
MEM: We do not have consensus
within our denomination nor do we find consensus on these matters across
denominational lines. Of course
this is a factor in our destabilization.
If we count independent non-denominational churches as “denominations”
you discover we have something like 7,000 different Christian groups in
America. Reaching some consensus
within Methodism would at the very least help us to identify our “target
audience.”
Critical Questions: (1) WHAT shall we
TEACH?; (2) HOW shall we TEACH?; (3) WHAT shall we DO to regulate our doctrine, discipline, and
practice?
What would we have to agree on to have doctrinal
consensus? [41]
1. Scripture
2. History and Tradition of the Church
3. Wesleyan roots
4. Wesleyan essentials
We would do well to teach or reteach the essentials to our
people so that they might have a framework to know what to believe and what not
to believe. It is specially important
to teach this framework now due to all the synchronistic teaching that is
abundant in our culture and misleading to our people. Let us move past this
unfortunate era in which we hear people say “I love being a Methodist because
you can believe anything you want.”
[44]
The authors suggest there are a “multitude of procedures we
could utilize to teach and retrench the members the value and necessity of a
sound biblical, theological framework using these four elements. They offer one suggestion: Require new member candidates to answer
questions regarding the four elements of Scripture, History and Tradition of
the Church, Wesleyan roots, and Wesleyan essential.
They go on to say . . . “We have consistently found in our
teaching of both the clergy and laity that presenting the four basis elements
initiates a new excitement energy, appreciation, and power . . . . We should neither be ignorant
of our biblical and doctrinal roots, nor should we ignore them. We should understand their essentiality
to producing disciples, and we should not be timid about demanding our
congregants to understand them.”
[44-45]
Decision #8
To preach, teach, and hold
clergy and laity accountable to the biblical, theological, Wesleyan roots and
essentials as reflected in the Standard Sermons of John Wesley, The Explanatory
Notes upon the New Testament, the Articles of Religion, the General Rules, and
the Confessions of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren.
MEM COMMENTS
Certainly we
need to reach consensus on what we believe to be the essentials. However, a number of issues emerge in the study of
Wesley. Scholars who have spent
much of their life studying Wesley
find contradictory statements in
his writings. I believe we can
mine from the writings listed about some basic essentials but the process might
be far more difficult that the authors envision. Those who want to blow
up the bus, a phrase the authors use, are
fighting over what they deem to be essential and many of them leaving or
calling for a denominational
split. Other denominations
have already split over such issues.
We are deeply polarized at every level of this culture and
this polarization exists in our pews as well. We are polarized over the issue of homosexuality and
abortion to mention only two major wedge issues in our day. Some suggest that homosexuals should be
denied basic civil rights and deem this understanding to be biblical and
essential. Other Christians
suggest just the opposite. We have
no remaining fragments of the much more authoritarian culture that existed in
Wesley's day and they had plenty of trouble maintaining order then. The revolution then was in many ways
anti-religious as the realities of the Enlightenment began to dawn. This post-enlightenment era offers hope
for creating meaningful religious experience today but given the radical
individualism of the culture how this will turn out is far from certain.
We are polarized as well over very basic economic
issues. We don't even agree on the
term “social justice.” How can we
talk about “God” when we can't agree on how we should treat persons who are
“different” from the majority?
For more on the theological issues related to our understand
of God, read “In Face of Mystery”
written by Gordon D. Kaufman.
Regarding the concept of “God” he writes “Within each tradition of
commonly accepted symbols, rituals, and meanings, there is, of course, much
disagreement and argument. Within
our own western and Christian traditions the questions of who or what God is,
what can be known of God, and how God is related to us and our lives, are all
subject to dispute: God is by no
means a clear-cut well-known reality.
Indeed, the symbol “God” (as I suggested) point to the great mystery of
life, the deepest and most profound issues about which we do not know what to
say. (p. 29, In Face of Mystery - A Constructive Theology; Gordan D. Kaufman; (1993, the
President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Now let me offer an example of how difficult it is for
United Methodists to reach consensus on a very basic and essential issue of
faith. It is clear that we still
have some very basic differences in understanding among our members regarding believers
baptism versus infant baptism imported into our denomination with the merger of
the Evangelical United Brethren and the former Methodists Church in 1968. It took us 18 years to come up with a
position statement on the the Sacrament on Holy Baptism. Still, differences as acknowledged in
the introduction to Appendix to By Water and the Spirit: Making Connections for Identity and
Ministry by
Gayle Carlton Felton.
Please take the time to read this
article posted at:
For our official statement on
Baptism go to:
A serious study of our “roots” would uncover more
fundamental differences in our understand of our roots and our basic beliefs
and practices. The point I am
making here is this. We may in fact, be able to reach “unity in
essentials” but the road will be long and hard and we have so little time.
Historically, the Church has always had trouble reaching
consensus. Paul and Peter did not
agree. The delegates who gathered at
the first councils to determine our cannon and basic beliefs did not
agree. The Roman Church did not
agree with the Scott-Irish Celtic Christians understanding of some very basis
faith issues and choose to crush their thinking at the Council of Whitby. Celtic Christians continued to hold on
to their own understanding of the faith in the face of this authoritarian
assault on their views.
In recent years, I have witnessed Sunday School classes
split and ultimately dissolve over controversial issues driven more by
political concerns than doctrinal.
None of this even addresses the issue of how to create meaningful
inter-faith dialogues and unity
across inter-faith lines. The little city of Roanoke has 104 different ethnic
groups living here. How can we
relate to folks of other faith backgrounds in a way that is faithful to the
witness and teachings of Jesus? I
would suggest that we will have to begin
with issues of economic, and racial bigotry as we seek to find a way to
bring secure true social justice for folks of all backgrounds. Perhaps we can find unity at this level
of inter-action.
I agree with the basic concept presented by the
authors. However, I believe
the authors have failed to address the reality of just how hard it will be to
reach consensus on “essentials” in our understanding of the Christian faith
especially when applied to social issues.
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