Series Overview
In Wesleyan theology, there’s an emphasis on both orthodoxy (right thinking) and orthopraxy (right practices). The newest umbrella caucus group in The United Methodist Church appears to be, by their beliefs, a version of orthodoxy, but controversy emerges when we look into their practices. By examining their literature, 2016 inaugural event presentations, and the makeup of their leadership, we can better understand that while their beliefs may be biblically-grounded, their practices are more deeply shaped by negative trends in American culture.
- 01: Partisanship
- 02: Anti-Institutionalism
- 03: Revisionist Orthodoxy
A Partisan America
Reams of paper have been printed and billions of pixels have been lit up to examine how American political culture has become more polarized.
In 2012, the Pew Research Center updated its 25-year study of the public’s political values, finding that the partisan gap in opinions on more than 40 separate political values had nearly doubled over the previous quarter century…the median (middle) Republican is now more conservative than nearly all Democrats (94%), and the median Democrat is more liberal than 92% of Republicans.
In American politics, the Center is an increasingly narrow slice of the population as the expressed beliefs of the party leadership and rank-and-file find less and less in common with “the other side.” Here’s a 60 second video that illustrates that divide well. We see this in the inability of Congress to effectively govern as the dominant party refuses to compromise, and we see that it may be because they cannot find enough in common anymore to seek compromise on.
American culture is to segregate. As Bill Bishop presciently wrote in in 2008:
We’ve built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood and church and news show — most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation.
As American culture becomes more divided, who in the Church will reach across the aisle in testimony to unity and working together, and who will stand apart? Who will be the Big Tent, and who will set up a pop-up trailer in the parking lot, saying the Big Tent is folly?
![By Andrewrabbott (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons](https://aws.hackingchristianity.net/wp-content/files/john-wesley-stainedglass-cc-wikimedia.jpg)
The Culture: The Wesleyan Covenant Association
It is from this perspective of partisanship in American Culture that we see the Wesleyan Covenant Association is not what they present to be. Now that the inaugural event has taken place, the obfuscating of objectives of the Wesleyan Covenant Association shows that some narratives have fallen short.
First, the WCA was not formed in response to General Conference 2016, or to the acts of non-conformity, or the Bishop’s Commission, or to the election of Bishop Karen Oliveto. Rather, as Convener Rev. Carolyn Moore states, this group has been in the works for a year (and their website was registered 05/02/2016, weeks before any of the above happened). Far from being inciting events, the named events were useful scapegoats for a group that began long ago as a result of the growing partisan divide.
Just as housing, politics, television programming, online news sources, and individual churches become more divided and polarized, we see the WCA’s conveners, elected leadership, and supporters come heavily from the anti-gay culture warriors of the past 40 years. And yet their branding and speeches try to position themselves as a broader coalition (even claiming to be “centrist“–an interesting strategy which we’ll examine later!) Speaker after Speaker at the WCA inaugural event used phrases like “biblical standards” and “orthodoxy” and “rejection of culture” instead of just saying “exclusion of LGBTQ people from full participation in The UMC.” As I predicted, they didn’t even say the word “gay” from the pulpit, except for a reference by Dean Jerry Kulah of Gbarnga School of Theology in Liberia.
In rhetoric and from the pulpit, the WCA claims to be broad and inclusive of conservative evangelicals who have not previously participated in partisan politics in The UMC. But in practice and in composition, the WCA continues the dividing and the eroding of the (actual) centrist qualities of The United Methodist Church and reflects the culture around us more than the biblical call to unity.
The Counter-Culture: The United Methodist Church
Far from the ideological narrowing of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, we see that United Methodism is built to resist this partisan culture and is more necessary now than ever.
The United Methodist Church’s predecessor bodies were founded at the birth of the American experiment, so its beliefs and practices are strongly influenced by American culture–and some pockets were more influenced than others. In every great social issue of concern, American Methodism has been both part of culture and standing against it. Women’s equality, racial equality, slavery, and temperance movements have found faithful Methodists on either side, though only one side ultimately yielded the Spirit’s presence over the test of time, and will do the same with LGBTQ inclusion today.
However, in the practices of The United Methodist Church, we see that The UMC resists the partisan divide through our connectional nature, our global polity, and our forcing of the ideological echo-chambers of megachurches to support smaller churches. Even the most progressive churches in the most progressive conferences have significant diversity, and likewise across the aisle. At meta-church levels, people work together in mission and ministry even though they do not often claim similar persuasions. And bringing the international perspective to the table is both fruitful and a condemnation of efforts to divide and conquer.
Proponents of the WCA point to the Reconciling Ministries Network as being a divisive group that they have modeled their congregational affiliation polity on. That’s not the case: the RMN churches are named that way as safe havens for LGBTQ folks who want to attend church without being beaten up for their identities. It’s about protection of people’s safety, not hyper-partisanship divide. The same claim cannot be made by conservative evangelicals, who are the majority of The UMC across the board.
It is this witness of unity that is messy and falls short, but it is ultimately a necessary witness against a culture that wants to divide, segment out, dissolve connections, and to live like the marketing segments we are treated like. We are called as a people to examine what is dividing us without cause, and how we can resist the culture of partisanship in better ways than the Wesleyan Covenant Association regurgitates it.
Your turn
Thank you for your comments and your shares on social media.
To go further in differentiating RMN from WCA: RMN does not have membership dues. Does not have a list of standards by which one must “confess” to in order to be a part of RMN, and RMN does not have an official body that meets to determine its policies. RMN does not encourage Methodists and Methodist congregations to adhere to standards that go above and beyond what are established doctrines of the church.
RMN does not need the money of United Methodists. It has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from secular sources in order to influence the direction of The United Methodist Church. The partisan forces behind this realize that traditional Christianity is one of the major obstacles to their agenda. But I don’t think we are supposed to be peaking behind that curtain. Methodists who believe in Methodism are obviously the problem here.
What sources can you cite with reference to secular donors systematically giving to the RMN?
The Arcus Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund (heirs of the Levi Strauss fortune) and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation are the major three to date. you can read more here: http://goodnewsmag.org/2012/01/outsider-influence-over-homosexuality-at-general-conference/
Your statement about “standards that go above beyond what are the established doctrines of the church” baffles me. The core doctrines of the WCA are the exact same as the UMC with the exception that the Nicene Creed has been added. The Nicene Creed is in our book of worship and has been recited in our churches since the beginning of Methodism. That is far from “above and beyond” our normal doctrine. That is simply affirming doctrine we already believe. Unless you’ve uncovered something that those present at the WCA meeting did not see, I can’t find any basis for your statement.
In order to understand what is happening, my brother Brad, it can be helpful to look not at the content of the “core doctrines” of the WCA vs. the UMC, but the PROCESS by which it was deemed necessary on the part of the WCA, and unnecessary for the UMC, to include such credal adherence (dogma). The process of requiring credal adherence is above and beyond our normal practice. The “need” for doctrinal adherence, in ages past, preceded all manner of harm done in the name of the One who suffered harm, but inflicted none.
I do not need leaders who tell me what to think. How to think, yes. What to think? No. And, I do not need leaders who tell me what I must do with my genitals, in order to follow Jesus. Unless, in their orthodoxy, they want to insist on a male celibate circumcised Petrine priesthood, they could lay off the presumptive claims to orthodoxy, until they can claim orthopraxy, that is, perfection in humility, mercy and justice. I am seeking such, with my tongue, my money, my time, and my genitals. I don’t answer to anyone but the One who made them all, and who judges all. We do not need to think alike. We must seek to love alike. And understanding and undertaking what love means, is the crux of the matter.
Wonderfully put, Melinda.
Melinda, You seem to assume that adherence to the Nicene Creed is somehow a greater calling than adherence to the other doctrines we promise to uphold and follow in the UMC. There is no disagreement between Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament, the Bible, and the BoD, and the Nicene Creed. Affirming the Nicene Creed aligns the WCA with strong historical Methodist theology. This would mean that adherence to the Nicene Creed would be the same as adherence to our usual doctrine, thus your argument that adherence is beyond our normal practice is really a moot point. Second, you state, “I don’t answer to anyone but the One who made them all, and who judges all.” Of course God is our Judge. Yet your statement does not reflect the practice of the Methodist church from any point in its history. We are not independent churches that answer only to God alone and no one else. We are in covenant together as clergy, agreeing in doctrine to follow the same Discipline. We are accountable not only to God but to each other, just as the apostles corrected and directed each other, so are we directed and corrected by each other. Iron sharpens iron. So I do answer to others. I answer first and always to God, yet I also answer to my bishop, district superintendent, Board of Ordained Ministry, Administrative Church Council, and SPRC. I want them to question me because I am not a lone ranger Christian able to singly choose what I need to do. Instead I need accountability, something I think your statement lacks entirely. That is why the Nicene Creed is important. If we stray from the very core foundation of what it means to be Christian, essentially captured in that Creed that has been affirmed by most every Christian church since its creation, then we must ask what is it that makes us Christian.
Brad: I believe you missed my point entirely. I also happen to believe the Nicene Creed is a fine creed, as far as creeds go. I am convinced all the demons in Hell believe in it, too. I wrote, in my initial reply, not a jot nor tittle to argue about the merits of the Nicene Creed, straying from it or adherence to it. Nor did i eschew accountability. In fact, I wrote that I need leaders who can tell me how to think.
I do Not, however, need leaders who make claims to certitude and orthodoxy, and tell me what I must think, who insist I think the same way they do. Iron sharpens iron, yes; only when one blade is at odds with and grates on the other! To me, that means our disagreement here is beneficial. I do not need you to agree, for example, to my understanding of what it means for Jesus to have been begotten, not made. I ask that we remain in fellowship and be given shared sacred space and intellectual freedom to reason and disagree, and act accordingly, as one church, who pray together that “the Spirit will further instruct us (both) in the matter”.
Your reply once again engages our system’s content, whereas I attempt to discuss our PROCESS. The process of requiring us to all agree in our brilliant dim ideas of doctrine has not been our historical METHOD. Our method is much more LOVELY than that. And, while I was aware that the symbols of our denominational faith were not just the cross and flame, but the casserole and fork, my firm belief was that the fork is a dessert fork, as in pie– not as in our ‘just desserts’; it is not a winnowing fork…. I do not need you (or anyone else) to presume that you could know what — doctrine or action– makes me a Christian, any more than i know what criterion prompted the folks in Antioch to first use the term. (Martyrdom, perhaps?) I believe that question and answer belongs to Jesus. And so, with “fear and trembling”, I endeavor to “show you my faith/doctrine by my works”, and “work out my salvation.” i hope we continue to work it out in the Spirit of unity, and the bond of peace.
I am intrigued by the premise of this piece but a bit disappointed that it doesn’t go on to ask the questions that beg to be asked and answered. For example, Is the WCA more contemporary evangelical than Methodist? What do they mean by “orthodoxy”? Is it the Nicene Creed over the Apostle’s Creed or is it a matter of Disciplinary Fundamentalism? Or is it both? Are there cultural under-currents that reach back to the divisions in Methodism regarding slavery? Or is the WCA a way of slamming the door shut on social change within the United Methodist Church (the answer being, “Of course”). Does the WCA try to separate from contemporary culture not realizing that is impossible? Does “orthodox” refer to their definition of the word? These are but a few of the questions that come to me (and in no order than other than that in which they erupted from the caverns of my mind). In other words, I would love to see a follow-up to this article.
1. Jeremy, can you offer a response to Chris Ritter’s claim that RMN receives “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of funding from “secular sources”? What about the IRD funding of Good News? How do these caucus groups compare in terms of accepting contributions from outside the UMC? Perhaps this is a topic for another post.
2. I say this in love as a reconciling UMist, but RMN is not only “about protection of people’s safety, not hyper-partisanship divide.” RMN’s members have for years staged protests and sent messages that position the movement in such a way as to be unacceptable to the conservatives who are willing to compromise. Conservatives can’t be seen with us anymore. RMN might have started as a safe place, but its leaders are publicly participating in events and promoting messages that make compromise impossible. The ideological divide, at least in recent years, has been at least 33% our fault.
Re: #1 Please see my response to LM Jarrell above.
IRD does not fund Good News. They are separate organizations who sometimes share resources for specific projects — General Conference, for example. Do some of the same donors fund both organizations? Yes, I’m aware of several. Are any of them non-Methodist. Possibly, but I don’t know for sure.
Re: #2 RMN’s actions of protest and disobedience are unacceptable to conservatives (and others) who are UNWILLING to compromise, too.
REVIEW
**** (4/5)
This is one of the better pieces of conspiracy theory fan fiction I’ve read on the web. It nicely manages to include both the gently humorous absurdity of “Welcome to Night Vale” and the ham-fisted horrifying stereotypes of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.
Interesting that you chose to serialize it online rather than trying to publish it as a full novel. I hope the next installment will be as entertaining as this one.
Hello, Jeremy. Thank you for this blog post.
You state that the RMN is not comparable to the WCA because the RMN is ‘about protection of people’s safety, not hyper-partisanship divide.’ This does not seem to be an entirely honest assessment of the similarities between these two groups. On the RMN’s website, under their mission and related literature, the goal is clearly stated: to transform the church’s present teachings on sexuality. A group arises with a mission of changing the UMC’s current theological position on human sexuality. As a matter of course, a group will arise to preserve this position. One is active, the other reactive – both partisan. Regardless, this is not a particularly relevant point in my mind, as the Council of Jerusalem shows us that partisanship is simply a feature of human nature and that it has been something the Church has struggled with since its founding. We are still grappling with something more fundamental here, as much as we might try to skirt around the issue, and that is: what it means to be a United Methodist.
You did a good thing attending the WCA meeting. It is only natural that you figured out a way that they are being influenced by culture since that is the charge constantly lodged against progressives. However, you missed what you have in common with them. Just like you they love the UMC and want to see it survive. The rub is they have a completely different understanding of what it means to be a faithful United Methodist than you do. And whether or not they are stuck on “right belief” to the exclusion of “right practice”, it is too soon to tell but probably not. Reality is it does not matter because chances are great that their version of “right beliefs” and “right practice” will be seriously out of line with yours. The problem besetting the United Methodist Church is there are too many conflicting and even contradictory understandings of what it means to be a faithful United Methodist. Big Tent Methodism is incapable of following through on what was always John Wesley’s Priority #1: a “practical religion for a plain people”. I have my own questions re the WCA but where I am absolutely in agreement with them is it is beyond time to get off the insane sexuality and marriage merry-go-round and it is time to address the issue that we are more than one church trying to masquerade as one. Until those two issues are addressed The United Methodist Church will have absolutely nothing to offer. It is absolutely no surprise that people are choosing NOT to become or stay United Methodists. After being a good, loyal Methodist and then United Methodist for 60 years, I am in my own period of discernment as to whether or not I am done with this mess.
I understand that at least one UMC pastor in Georgia is requiring that new church members take an oath affirming their support of the Wesleyan Covenant beliefs as a condition of membership. Unbelievable. The sooner the split occurs, the better. I am not enjoying watching my church being hijacked.
I’m assuming that you object to that pastor asking that new members say they can uphold what’s in the Nicene Creed. Because everything else the Wesleyan Covenant Association affirms is what the United Methodist Church already affirms in its Doctrinal Standards and Book of Discipline. The Nicene Creed is all that’s been added by the WCA. What’s truly unbelievable is that UMs who actually believe what the UMC teaches are the ones who get painted as being out of step. At least those who’ve put forth resolutions of “nonconformity” acknowledge that they’re the ones outside of the church’s teachings.