Over the next ten days (late February 2019), two important church synods will take place: one in Rome and one in St. Louis. Guess what they will be about: sex and church order! Not to be outdone, the Church of England General Synod is also meeting, with topics like “safeguarding,” transgender baptism, and “gay conversion therapy.”
In this post I shall address the “special General Conference” of United Methodists in St. Louis. Here is a brief preview of the agenda:
Last July, the Council of Bishops offered three possible plans for moving forward: the One Church Plan, the Connectional Conference Plan, and the Traditional Plan. The One Church Plan calls for removing language from the Book of Discipline that upholds traditional teaching on sexuality, and allowing individual churches and conferences to decide on the basis of conscience whether they will permit same-sex unions or homosexual bishops. The Connectional Conference Plan calls for completely reorganizing the regional conferences around shared beliefs rather than geography—in other words, creating traditionalist and progressive conferences and trying to hold them together. The Modified Traditional Plan calls for upholding the traditional teaching on sexuality and then offering an exit path for any local churches or conferences that disagree.
One might wonder why the Methodists are the last mainline church in North America to hold the line on biblical teaching on marriage and homosexuality. The reason is that, unlike the Anglican Communion, which granted autonomy to its missionary churches, the Methodists kept them together in one body – the General Conference. And the African churches have voted with conservatives in North America to uphold the Book of Discipline, which states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” (sound familiar – see Lambeth Resolution I.10, clause d).
The revisionists, who hold the money and influence in the North American Methodist bureaucracy, have employed the usual Alinskyite tactics of “civil disobedience” to challenge the norm by ordaining gay pastors and now a lesbian bishop. They are now calling for “good disagreement” under the One Church Plan, which would maintain formal unity while permitting radically different practices regarding marriage and ordination.
One proponent of the Modified Traditional Plan is Dr. William Abraham, a senior theologian from Southern Methodist University, who has written a paper titled; “In Defense of Mexit: Disagreement and Disunity in United Methodism.” Abraham proposes that the progressive minority be authorized to exit the Church (hence “Mexit”) with their property and to affiliate with another church or form their own “Progressive United Methodist Church” (Abraham suggests then renaming the majority body the “Evangelical United Methodist Church”).
What is interesting to me as an Anglican is how the Anglican experience figures into the theological discussion among conservative Methodists. Abraham devotes a major excursus on Anglican ethicist Oliver O’Donovan’s lectures in Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion. O’Donovan, who is also widely respected as a conservative theologian, thinks that the contemporary experience of gay identity is historically unprecedented and argues that any break in koinonia would be premature at best until both sides have listened carefully to one another.
O’Donovan gave the lectures from June 2006 to January 2007, just as the Windsor Report had appeared and before the Dar es Salaam Primates’ Communique, in other words, before the entire Windsor process collapsed, which led to the Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008 and the expulsion of traditionalists from the Episcopal Church and the formation of the Anglican Church in North America. O’Donovan warns: “Schisms may come, but woe to that church through whom they come!” Surely he knows that the Church of England rests its claim over against Rome on being in continuity with the true catholic and apostolic church. By the same token, the Gafcon churches, having stated their reasons for separation from those who have taught a false Gospel within the Communion, are claiming to be true heirs of the Anglican way.
Dr. Abraham thinks that Anglican ecclesiology can “muddle along” with divisions because “the Anglican Communion is not a conciliar ecclesial institution.” I think he is mistaking the formal “autonomy” of Anglican churches worldwide with the implicit unity of doctrine, discipline, and worship that has united them, as articulated in its Prayer Book, Articles, and Lambeth Quadrilateral. Of course, the current crisis has revealed the “ecclesial deficit” whereby the “Instruments of Unity” proved unwilling or unable to carry forward the teaching of Lambeth Resolution I.10. But this is not fundamentally different for the Methodist situation today, not surprisingly so, because the rejection of apostolic practice is coming from the same “progressive” factions in each church.
The Mexit proposal, as I see it, is something of a misnomer. He is not really proposing the exit of the progressives from the “United Methodists” but the division of the “United Methodist Church” into two “United Methodist Churches.” While he identifies with the conservative position on sexuality, Professor Abraham concedes:
The issues are for me as substantial as the issues that came to the fore in the Nicene controversies in the fourth centuries (sic), in the division of the East and West in the eleventh century, in the debates about justification and grace in the sixteenth century, and in the rejection of divine revelation in the nineteenth century. However, all this is strictly irrelevant. Our judgments are fallible; I may well be completely wrong; but I think it is time for progressives to be given their own space to follow the will of God as determined by their own judgments rather than mine or by those represented in the decisions of the General Conference.
Abraham’s is a kind of counsel of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-39): let them try out their ideas and see what happens. Or perhaps the counsel of Pope Francis: “Who am I to judge?” It is hard to think that Athanasius or Martin Luther or John Wesley would be so casual in saying to heretics: “Let’s agree to disagree!” Given the relative weight of the patristic, Reformation and Wesleyan position on Christian doctrine and practice and what I call “the lightness of being progressive,” I suspect what Dr. Abraham is really saying is: “Let’s get this albatross from around our neck so we can get on with spreading the Gospel.”
In terms of church polity, the situation of the Methodists and Anglicans is not that different. If the Methodists were to divide, the “Evangelicals” in North America would be allied with Evangelicals in the Global South in a united “Province,” just as the ACNA has joined the Gafcon/Global South Anglican alliance. Orthodox Anglicans will have forfeited their property and probably their historic roots in England, which is a loss to be sure (Methodists forfeited the same two centuries ago).
One wonders whether when the dust settles from the current church battles, there might be a genuine ecumenical koinonia, if not formal union, of Methodists and Anglicans – and, for that matter, Presbyterians and Lutherans, as a part of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. By that time (who knows?) perhaps Roman Catholicism will have gone through the refiner’s fire and be looking quite different. Maybe, just maybe, as C.S. Lewis imagined, Aslan is on the move.
Discussion question: what are the chances of a significant Wesleyan “sub-province” (like CANA or REC) being formed within ACNA?
I thought that this might happen when the ELCA split, but the Lutherans formed their own NALC.
Wesleyans have an Anglican heritage. My understanding is that the invitation has been proffered, or discussed at some point, maybe over some adult beverages.
What are the chances? I don’t know, but I’d say greater than gaining disaffected Lutherans was.
I agree that the odds are greater.
I myself have a more Calvinistic approach to things, and respect Classical Arminianism greatly. I’ve always seen Wesleyanism as theologically mushy. That said, I’d love to see a place made for them in ACNA.
Given that the “conservative wing” of UMC includes millions of Africans, and still includes millions in the US (although not much of the leadership), it would be more a case of the Methodists making room for ACNA than the other way around.
Perhaps they could work out something with the GAFCON provinces to bring Methodist orders into the apostolic succession.
That’s a good point. I suppose I am cynical and doubt that many American conservatives will leave the UMC whatever the decision is, just as we saw few leaving the ELCA. But with the UMC, there is the African factor.
The ELCA did lose a significant percentage of its membership (maybe 20%), but it was to several other Lutheran churches, not just one. Most went to Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, and NALC, but others went to the Missouri Synod or other smaller synods. My point is that it’s hard to say exactly how many went where. Congregations are still leaving, by the way, just no longer in great numbers.
Thanks for the correction and information.
The East African Revival was strongly influenced by the Keswick movement, which had roots in “holiness” theology, as well as later influence from Billy Graham. Having said that, I don’t think there are many Methodists in East Africa.
[…] Read it all. print […]
Followers of Wesley…. come to the ACNA. You are welcome.
As it might turn out, Methodist followers of The Church of What’s Happening Now may find a home in TEC. We’ll see.
On second thought, the Progressives will never give up until the institution is destroyed. It’s inherent in the ideology.
Brilliant speech this morning by Dr. Jerry Kulah, who is a Methodist seminary Dean from Liberia, at the UMC conference. And I say that as a dyed in the wool Anglo Catholic. Hopefully, Justin Welby is hearing the same from the Global South churches.
According to Mark Tooley at Juicy Ecunemism, the traditional side won the first vote 56-44. The second vote is tomorrow. Prayers up!
Thank you for that reference.
First off, as a Moderator, thank you for not putting an actual LINK in your comment, which violates our Comment Policy, which is most of what I respond to.
Second, that is an amazing story. I recommend anyone put “Juicy Ecumenism” in their search engine, and one of the very first articles (if not THE) first is on this subject.
The traditional side won yesterday’s vote, all right. AND they voted that a church can leave the denomination and take their church property with them. Ironically, in this case, the expectation is some LIBERAL churches may leave the denomination, and they’ll be able to take their church property with them. Talk about high irony…
Finally, once again I read that it’s the African churches that push the conservatives over the top to victory. That liberals are surprises there’s so much support for the conservative position around the world. And that the demographic trend within the denomination is for the African/conservative influence to INCREASE going forward. God bless Africa.
So, thank you, Dr.! This was a dose of good medicine this morning!
Thats really great news, not that much surprising, since the UMC conservatives and the African conservatives (30% of the denomination) were able to reach the majority.
It appears that the UMC has solidified on the Tradition Plan, according to the folks at Juicy Ecunemism.
This is a major slapdown to UMC bishops.
And yet, those bishops are still bishops.
Will they simply ignore this vote?
From what happened at the end of the meeting, I think the whole package now goes to their Judicial Council for a ruling on its constitutionality. No doubt the bishops and revisionists will now go into full court press (pun was an accident, but I think I will leave it be) to get it overturned on Constitutional grounds. However, as I think is pointed out in another of the articles on UMC on the Juicy Ecumenism site, the African part of the church is growing by 200,000 per year, while the US part of the church is declining by 100,000 per year- so there will be more conservatives next time around – so even if the Council were to overturn parts of it, it could be reinstated with constitutional fixes at the next GC in a couple years.
Still, a major victory.
The Methodists sure do meetings better than TEC or CoE. Polite (well, until the demonstrations broke out this afternoon), lots of prayer throughout, and some credit should go to the various chairs who kept business moving throughout the day, even though the revisionist wing of their church did everything it could to stall the process in an attempt to thwart the majority.
The most amusing part of this whole thing was the liberals who tried to disenfranchise the African vote.
A great irony was the liberal churches turning on a dime and SUPPORTING the idea that a church can leave the denomination WITH it’s property. They were against that when they thought it would be conservatives leaving.
All in all, my heart is warmed greatly by this outcome.
I agree, it was a wonderful moment when the Traditional Plan came to a vote. And as you note, the sudden reversal of the revisionists on the various plans dealing with separation. And their sudden concern with divorce, remarriage and polygamy. You could actually see the difference between the “liberals” and the “progressives”. The liberals winced every time the revisionists went in the openly racist direction of suggesting that there were some large number of polygamous African bishops and clergy. I began to wonder if they imported their progressive activists from TEC, since they used the same racist slurs.
We do need to pray for our Methodist brethren that they do not fall into the same traps we Anglicans did after Lambeth 1998 and Dar es Salaam in 2007. Which is to say, they must remain vigilant that the victory they gained yesterday is not mitigated or reversed by the US bureaucracy, Judicial Council proceedings, or just ignored by the US revisionist bishops and clergy. Hopefully, future General Conferences will continue to build on yesterday’s movement for the Gospel. And that future Conferences will begin to reverse the obvious revisionist bias at Methodist seminaries in the USA.
The most amusing part of this whole thing was the liberals who tried to disenfranchise the African vote.
A great irony was the liberal churches turning on a dime and SUPPORTING the idea that a church can leave the denomination WITH it’s property. They were against that when they thought it would be conservatives leaving.
All in all, my heart is warmed greatly by this outcome.
Glad to see this story on Anglican Ink. I was raised and baptized in and worked for the United Methodist Church (I was a diocesan-equivalent level employee). From birth, I spent 28 years in it. My home congregation was as biblically sound as they come. Finding a similar UM church in and after college was impossible. Frustrated with the continual innovation (worship style, trying to be relevant, etc) and progressive leadership, I left in 2015. I prayed for years before making the decision, and did not leave until I had a solid church to go to. When I began my journey, I was unaware of ACNA. I was looking for something grounded that wouldn’t change based on cultural trends. I’m happy to have landed in the Anglican Church and was finally confirmed last October.
I followed the UMC General Conference closely this week and I’ll attend a prayer meeting this evening with one of the African delegates. The Africans have shown extraordinary leadership. I believe the history books (church history books) will have chapters dedicated to how the Global South saved orthodox christianity. Not just for the Methodists, but for us Anglicans, too (I’m well aware as my local congregation is in CANA).
“One Church Plan”? Really?
It had all the provisions that a bishop could want- combined “good disagreement” with the Dennis Canon and gay marriage and enhanced episcopal power. Modeled after another denomination’s polity.
Frankly, the best outcome might be for the progressive Methodists to form a separate denomination that could merge as a province of TEC, and bring “gracious exit” with them.