All is not what it seems when the phrase “historic Christian teaching” is used in United Methodist circles.
Faithfulness to the Standards
Earlier this year, we looked at the buzzword “historic Christian teaching” and how the phrase was re-defined beyond its roots (theological affirmations about the Trinity) to be used to exclude LGBT persons from various churches. Read it here. Now we turn our attention to the United Methodist Church and the special meaning a similar buzzword has within our church culture.
“Historic Christian Teaching” in the UMC is referred to as “The Standards“: the primary extra-biblical documents of the people called Methodists. The Standards include the Articles of Religion, Confession of Faith, John Wesley’s sermons, Wesley’s notes, and Wesley’s journals. They do not include the Creeds: Wesley removed the Creeds from the Articles of Religion that he edited to begin the Methodist movement in the American colonies…even though Wesley likely assumed their influence.
Being faithful to the Standards means two things:
- Methodists reflect the originating theology from our founder.
- Methodists uphold the merger-approved primary sections of our Book of Discipline.
But what happens when people say The Standards aren’t being upheld? Like “historic Christian teaching” becoming used as a weapon, I believe there are two ways how it is being used as a lever for schism in the United Methodist Church.
A Rally Cry for Schism
First, “The Standards” are being used as a rally cry to split the United Methodist Church, even though no violation is on the horizon.
Rev. Tom Lambrecht of The Good News Movement, a conservative renewal group in the United Methodist Church, has claimed that there are two scenarios when their organization would advocate for separation:
Good News has added two rationales for separation to the two adduced by Wesley and mentioned by Oden. First, the official acceptance (by vote of a General, Jurisdictional, or Annual Conference or Judicial Council decision) of false doctrine by the church (contrary to our established doctrinal standards). Second, the persistent and systemic failure of the church to uphold or enforce the doctrinal or ethical standards of The Book of Discipline. This failure would also include the widespread persecution and/or oppression of those who hold to an historic confession of the Christian faith within The United Methodist Church.
It obviously makes sense that if the Church said the Trinity was dumb, that would call for separation. However, the phrase is most often used in the LGBT debate: “if the church affirms LGBT ordination or marriage equality, they are in violation of The Standards.”
However, The Standards don’t refer at all to the debate over LGBT inclusion. Nowhere. So why would an appeal be made to primary documents when the UMC can affirm LGBT inclusion and still be 100% in congruity with The Standards documents?
There’s something else going on here.
Seizing church property…
Second, “The Standards” may one day be used to allow churches to seize millions of dollars and property from ownership by the United Methodist Church.
The Rev. Dr. Tom Oden (see previous article) is a key intellectual force in the conservative renewal groups. Oden has served on the board of the Confessing Movement, the IRD, and was a contributing editor to the Good News Magazine for 15 years. He dedicated 45 pages of his 2006 book Turning Around the Mainline to this argument: if it could be argued in secular court that the UMC had violated The Standards, then local churches could break the trust clause (which says the global UMC has ownership over the local church property, which they maintain “in trust”):
It is erroneously assumed by some that denominational officials, whether faithful or unfaithful to the doctrinal standards, have a right to direct the use of Methodist church property. The evidence proves the opposite. It is only on the basis of faithfulness to the Standards that one has a right to the use of the property. One who abandons faithfulness to the Standards has no right to the property…
Those who preach Methodist doctrine have a right to use Methodist property. Those who choose to dissent from or inveigh against Methodist doctrine have no such obvious legal right, prima facie, for they have chosen to work apart from the connection with Mr. Wesley and his teaching, and contrary to Methodist doctrine and discipline
T. Oden, Turning Around the Mainline, 237-238
The argument is if the global UMC adopts doctrine that could be argued is contrary to The Standards, then the local church can seize the property as the “true owners.” If schismatic churches can convince the court of this religious claim, then the local church can seize the property from the UMC instead of buying it or having to move off of it.
Since local judges are not theologians, it is possible they could be successful in this strategy, or have it be successful in a state-by-state patchwork fashion, much like the Episcopal Church’s struggles with the ACNA schismatic churches.
…and a lot of money.
Based on the CUP plan and on the Confessing Movement’s 12/17/2015 “Happenings” email, there’s a number of Methodists who are opposed to LGBT inclusion and want to break the United Methodist Church. Why do this?
For one reason, breaking from the UMC has serious financial benefits:
- Escaping the trust clause and forming or allying with another Methodist denomination means the local church can seize the church property from the national church.
- They no longer have to give a church tithe (apportionment) to support district, national, and global efforts. Some megachurches pay over $1 million dollars in church tithes a year! There’s been attempts to divest or redirect apportionments in the past and present. Disaffiliating means they no longer have to pay the tithe and can instead designate those funds elsewhere or keep them in-house.
The renewal groups stand to be the biggest beneficiaries of schismatic Methodists’ freed-up apportionment dollars. As well, two of the more conservative seminaries (Asbury Theological Seminary and United Theological Seminary) stand to be key beneficiaries of churches that turn their church tithe into designated donations. Little wonder the paid staff from renewal groups and conservative institutions use these buzzwords with reckless abandon.
In the end…it’s all about the Gay
Let’s be clear: the issues being discussed in “Historic Christian Teaching” and “The Standards” aren’t about the Trinity, the nature of God, the divinity of Jesus, or the validity of Wesleyan Grace–topics that are actually in historic Christian teaching and United Methodist Standards. The only contexts where these buzzwords come up are to exclude LGBT persons in the life of the Church. That’s it.
By redefining these terms, conservative evangelical caucus groups and seminaries create a rally cry to leave the United Methodist Church, and a legal line of argument (however questionable) for schismatic churches to seize church property in a dispute. Such funds and property would be the basis of a new network of anti-gay churches, of which both groups would be leaders in. Hmmm…
To our peril, there will be many efforts to relax or do away with the Trust Clause at General Conference 2016. Our current polity keeps cooler heads to prevail amidst hot topics, and it’s important that efforts to relax the trust clause be opposed.
I pray that a sense that we are better together will prevail once more. I hope you pray with me too.
Thoughts?
Wesley included the Apostles Creed in the baptismal liturgy he gave us. His reasoning for not including the creeds in the Articles isn’t known. It is wrongheaded, though, to argue that Mr. Wesley was not in favor of maintaining the creeds, as his personal thoughts on the issue are known, and as he considered himself a part of a denomination that did affirm the creeds.
That’s beside the point, though. The question is what “historic Christian teaching” means and how it doesn’t mean how it’s used. You conflate the term with our binding theology, but that isn’t how it is intended to be used. Rather, it is meant to convey that there is a solid and consistent body of teaching throughout the previous two millennia that make a statement on human sexuality. In that respect, those who use the term are on solid ground.
Moreover, of those binding theological dictates are those dealing with original sin, atonement, and salvation, all of which have sexual implications. Those who divide on this issue also divide on their approaches to these articles of faith, which is why you have written deconstructive pieces on them in the past. The truth is that your enemies are highlighting something legitimate. It might be good to meet them head on rather than mockingly playing the semantics game with a cute meme.
I disagree that an understanding of human sexuality that emerges as a psychological reality in the 1960’s-70’s can be conflated with anything from a “solid and consistent body of teaching throughout the previous two millennia that make a statement on human sexuality.” Therefore, I disagree also that any reference to “being homosexual” today has anything to do with a “solid and consistent body of teaching” (a very brave assertion to make, by the way).
I also would love to hear you flesh out your argument on how soteriology has such direct sexual implications.
Sounds like a fun essay to write.
Long time reader, first time commenter. I’m a millenial layperson who is firmly on the fence on all this as I watch the clergy and others go back and forth (mostly in an informative way), yourself delightfully included. I would agree that words and phrases like “historic Christian teaching” and “orthodox” get thrown around a lot without a clear definition. However, it would appear there is an argument for the “incompatibility” school based on the “Standards” under the Articles of Religion. Namely, Article IV, which states in pertinent part: “Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.” If one categorizes OT verses regarding homosexual acts as part of the “moral law,” does it not fit within the so-called Standards? I’ve asked (unsuccessfully) for someone with an M.Div to enlighten me on either the exact categorization or at least a methodology for separating civil/ritual/moral in the OT. I’ve not got much in response, however. Thoughts?
I think this is an excellent question. I have my own thoughts, but I am not a biblical scholar. It would seem to me, however, that the Decalogue might have been seen as moral law by the writers of the articles. The language surrounding “man lieth with man,” by my knowledge atleast, is never included in any other context save the civil/ritual in the Torah. Though I have to admit I have never come across a “moral” category in reference to the Torah.
And there’s where the scholarly perspective would be helpful. The message I had growing up in the UMC was that sexual behavior/actions was placed within the context of morality. I am open to that teaching being incorrect (in general or within this context) given a convincing argument. But, at least for me, it’s one of the reasons I remain sitting here on this metaphorical fence.
Ted Grimsund in “Reasoning Together” does a great job treating the Leviticus passage on this. In essence, the underlying principle in the Leviticus sexual prohibitions is not the goodness of a one-man-one-woman marriage. Rather, the underlying principle is the sanctity of sperm and it’s connection to the man it comes from. For this reason, a man should not have sex with a woman belonging to another man (his mother, sister, relatives, etc.), a man should not have sex with animals (the sperm is wasted), a man should not have sex with his wife during menstruation (the sperm is wasted), and a man should not have sex with a man (the sperm is wasted). Notice there is not a prohibition against woman-to-woman sexual contact here. It is precisely because this passage is not concerned with the definition of marriage, only the right usage of sperm.
So, for your question, we have to ask if this sanctity of sperm is a universal moral presented for all God’s people. If we say it is, then we have to come down just as hard on heterosexual activity that is not procreative—which I don’t think many on the conservative side want to do.
Hope that’s helpful.
Another aspect to consider about OT Law is that the distinctions between “ritual, civil and moral” isn’t one found in the Bible itself. This division of the law developed during the Reformation to try to clarify the contrast between Law and Grace, without lapsing into antinomism.
Both for OT Jews “Law” was a unified way of life. In it’s original context, as “Holiness Code” (ie what sets Israel apart from the nations) it boiled down to, in many ways, “If the Canaanites do it, you shouldn’t, so you don’t associate with them and get absorbed into their larger and stronger culture and lose the worship of Yahweh.” That’s why, when you read Leviticus, you get what looks to us like a mish-mash of things that are morally true for all times and places (no infant sacrifice to Molech) and fundamentally irrelevant (interplanting your fields with two sorts of seed). If you can’t farm, weave, cook, develop family structures or worship like the Canaanites, your children won’t intermarry with them, and you’ll (more likely) keep separate and pure. So things listed in these texts may be universal, or may be culturally specific (including questions of men treating men sexually as if they were a woman, in a culture that exalted men and devalued women), but you can’t draw any necessary conclusion just from these texts.
Similarly, in the NT, Paul treats “Law” as a unified religious principle, and does not try to distinguish between different “types” of Law. In my reading (which some will charge as antinomian), he sets aside the principle of Law in favor of the principle of Grace, with the ethical danger of behavior being shaped not by rules but by broad principles of Love and Justice as led by the Spirit. Not so cut and dried, definitely dangerous, but more flexible, nuanced, and contextual than 300ish laws and a zillion corollaries that makes ethics look like the IRS code.
Thanks gentlemen. All good points. I’m now reflecting (while trying really hard not to sing Python’s “Every Sperm Is Sacred” in my head).
Mark – good points on OT and problem of making these distinctions post hoc. A couple pastors I’ve spoken to raised the same point. Where I’m left unsatisfied (in general, not with the individuals or their responses) is that – manufactured after the fact or not – this is still UMC doctrine. If we’re supposed to follow OT moral law, what is it? I know I can interpret for myself, but being human, I have a tendency to minimize things I don’t like and maximize the things I do. Therefore, I’d like to find an answer outside of myself. If that’s possible. Otherwise, I feel like I’m cherry-picking. I think people sitting on the fence would be less suspicious of folks (on both sides) doing their own cherry-picking if we talked about the broader question(s) more. If our way of interpreting scripture through our doctrine leads us to X, then I’m a lot more comfortable than if we’re saying “I think X is correct” and then retrofitting. But again, I can’t read everything out there and I’m just a dude from Holston (with no M.Div)
^ Oops, typo. Make that Article VI. (What have Roman numerals ever done for us?)
Everyone assumes it’s the traditionalists who want to break the trust clause. While I agree that is true for the most part (as quoted above), there are also liberal churches who want to break away if things don’t change as well.
Matt,
if current wording doesn’t change, which it isn’t expected to, then it would be those who are for LGBTQI inclusion who would leave with property in tact under the CUP. I will divulge that I am a CUP endorser. General Conference in 2016 is not expected to significantly change any BOD language regarding human sexuality. So this entire post seems a bit baffling to me. It seems Jeremy that you are not only hoping for a vote for full inclusion of LGBTQI persons, but an anticipation of it. The demographics of the delegates make such a change a near impossibility. Even more moderate members of the delegation from our conference, I believe, see that a change will cause the UMC to cease to exist. It would be nuclear, and they aren’t willing to go there.
Given the choice of a slow radiation poisoning death by attrition and a faster possibility of death with integrity of God’s love for LGBT persons, I choose the latter
I understand your desire and choice. I am not a delegate for GC or JC so I don’t really have a vote. But it seems that those in the know are saying that there will be no real changes to the UMC position and language on human sexuality. So how will the response be of those who do not like that outcome? I am honestly asking the question. It is one reason I have endorsed the CUP. I believe that churches and pastor that no longer want to affirm the current (and presumably future) position of the UMC should be allowed to leave with credentials and property intact. How do you see that option IF the language stays relatively the same?
I would be profoundly concerned if my annual conference used apportionments faithfully contributed by my church to sue another church that wanted to go its own way, for whatever reason.
In Christ,
the enemy hates clarity
Agreed. Once we start taking each other to court that will be the beginning of the end.