An Eighteenth Century Worldview and Our Theological Task

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
II Corinthians 3:4-6

The United Methodist Church is on the brink of schism because of disagreements about the nature of human sexuality.

The practical issue that divides us is the question of whether our LGBTQ siblings are to be included in, or excluded from, full participation in the life of the church. 

Within and beneath those highly contentious issues there is a foundational question about who we are as a church.

John Scott Lomperis, the United Methodist Director for the Institute on Religion and Democracy posted an essay on the Juicy Ecumenism blog of the IRD titled, “Case Closed: Affirming Homosexual Practice is Irreconcilably Contrary to Core United Methodist Doctrine.”

His contention is that “within the specific context of United Methodism, our denomination’s core doctrine leaves no room for directly and explicitly affirming homosexual practice.” And for emphasis he asserts that “Acknowledging this is not a matter of opinion or faction, but rather of basic intellectual honesty.”

Before I give you the link to his essay I need to warn you that it is long and ponderous, and as you read it you may find yourself losing the will to live. So be careful. But here is the link: Case Closed.

Lomperis observes that John Wesley’s sermons and his notes on the New Testament are part of our “Doctrinal Standards.” And he cites several instances in the sermons and in the notes where Wesley condemns “sodomites” as proof of his thesis that the condemnation of “homosexual practice” is part of our core doctrine.

He cites a passage from Sermon #38, “A Caution Against Bigotry” as an example:

“In Section I.11 of this part of our Doctrinal Standards, Wesley classifies ‘sodomites’ as part of a list of different types of sinners, listing ‘sodomites’ immediately after robbers and immediately before murderers! Specifically, Wesley judged that the fact that ‘common swearers, drunkards, whoremongers, adulterers, thieves, robbers, sodomites, murderers, are still found in every part of our land’ to be proof of the devil’s power.”

“I am uncomfortable with the word ‘sodomite.’”, writes Lomperis, “But we have no power to change eighteenth-century English language usage.  The fact remains that in Wesley’s day this was a very negative term applied to individuals who engaged in homosexual practice.” 

Note the exact wording he uses. It is instructive.

Lomperis speaks of “eighteenth-century English language usage.” He notes that this language usage was common “in Wesley’s day,” and that the language conveyed a very negative perception of same sex relationships.

Wesley used the language of his day to convey the viewpoint of his day.

It should not surprise us that an eighteenth century man, even a well-educated and enlightened eighteenth century man, would not have a twenty-first century view of human sexuality.

John Wesley was a brilliant man, but he was still a man of his times.

Our Book of Discipline speaks of “Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task.” The Doctrinal Standards are part of our history and they shape our present, but Our Theological Task calls us into the future.

The Doctrinal Standards are meant to be a foundation, not a ceiling. 

Our Theological Task is not limited to looking for quotations from the writings of John Wesley and applying them to the twenty-first century.

We are not called to be religious archaeologists excavating an historical crypt, or curators of a Methodist museum. Our task is to use the wisdom of the past to guide us into the future.

As Paul told the Christians in Corinth, we are called “to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Why the Quadrilateral Matters

Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
I Corinthians 13:5-6

Writing in “Juicy Ecumenism.com,” the blog of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Scott Lomperis announced the recent decision by the United Methodist Judicial Council to reject the appeal by the active and retired bishops of the Western Jurisdiction for a reversal of the decision earlier this spring against the election and consecration of Bishop Karen Oliveto. But a large part of the post is a series of half-truths and snarky comments about Bishop Oliveto.

I want to focus on my favorite. He writes:

“Oliveto has used her office to launch a totalitarian intimidation tour of seeking out and taking names of any remaining orthodox congregations in the Mountain Sky Area of UMC.”

As a factual matter, people who were there say that she encountered those who opposed her election with grace and openness.

But if we click on the link he uses to support his description of her get acquainted tour of the churches in her Episcopal area, we come to another Lomperis post. And within that report on her tour we come to this:

“While Oliveto repeatedly suggested that Wesleyan theology was somehow a resource for her cause, she relied on rather shallow and long-discredited ideas about Outler’s so-called “Wesleyan quadrilateral” to suggest that “experience” (as she broadly defined it) could somehow nullify the clear teachings of Scripture, without being able to cite any instance of Wesley actually doing that.”

The link to the “so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral” (Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience) brings us to an article in Good News magazine by Paul Wesley Chilcote, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary. He begins is article this way:

“I will never forget a conversation I had one August afternoon in 1982 at Oxford University with Professor Albert Outler. We were talking about the many terms he had coined over the years. He said rather abruptly, ‘There is one phrase I wish I had never used: the 'Wesleyan Quadrilateral.' It has created the wrong image in the minds of so many people and, I am sure, will lead to all kinds of controversy.’”

Fortunately, Dr. Outler gave a much more complete and nuanced explanation of his “regret” in a 1985 essay in the Wesleyan Theological Journal:

The term “quadrilateral” does not occur in the Wesley corpus—and more than once, I have regretted having coined it for contemporary use, since it has been so widely misconstrued. But if we are to accept our responsibility for seeking intellecta for our faith, in any other fashion than a “theological system” or, alternatively, a juridical statement of “doctrinal standards,” then this method of a conjoint recourse to the fourfold guidelines of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience, may hold more promise for an evangelical and ecumenical future than we have realized as yet—by comparison, for example, with biblicism, or traditionalism, or, rationalism, or empiricism. It is far more valid than the reduction of Christian authority to the dyad of “Scripture” and “experience” (so common in Methodist ranks today). The “quadrilateral” requires of a theologian no more than what he or she might reasonably be held accountable for: which is to say, a familiarity with Scripture that is both critical and faithful; plus, an acquaintance with the wisdom of the Christian past; plus, a taste for logical analysis as something more than a debater’s weapon; plus, a vital, inward faith that is upheld by the assurance of grace and its prospective triumphs, in this life.

At the time he gave us the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Dr. Outler was the foremost Wesleyan scholar and theologian. And the Quadrilateral came to us in a time when Methodists believed deeply in theological pluralism and embraced Reason and Experience as the necessary companions of Scripture and Tradition. We were proud to say that in the United Methodist Church, “you don’t have to park your mind at the door when you come to worship.”

But the Quadrilateral does not rest on Dr. Outler’s imprimatur alone. 

Although Wesley himself never used the phrase it is easy to see the quadrilateral in his writing. Scripture, Reason, and Tradition were (and are) the foundational interpretive elements of the Anglican theology in which Wesley was nurtured, and even a cursory glance at his writing shows the importance of experience as a key element in his thought.

There may be many reasons why the traditionalists despise the Quadrilateral, but two of them are critical.

First, if we apply the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to questions of LGBTQ inclusion in the full life of the church, we come down on the side of inclusion. Both scientific reason and personal experience weigh in heavily for openness.

Second, in this dispute and in wider context, the traditionalists want to assert a more literal interpretation of Scripture, believing that this has conservative theological and political implications.

On this second point we can easily go back to Wesley himself to observe how he approached Scripture.

In a sermon “On Charity,” based on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, he begins this way:

We know, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and is therefore true and right concerning all things. But we know, likewise, that there are some Scriptures which more immediately commend themselves to every man's conscience. In this rank we may place the passage before us; there are scarce any that object to it. On the contrary, the generality of men very readily appeal to it. Nothing is more common than to find even those who deny the authority of the Holy Scriptures, yet affirming, "This is my religion; that which is described in the thirteenth chapter of the Corinthians." Nay, even a Jew, Dr. Nunes, a Spanish physician, then settled at Savannah, in Georgia, used to say with great earnestness, "That Paul of Tarsus was one of the finest writers I have ever read. I wish the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians were wrote in letters of gold. And I wish every Jew were to carry it with him wherever he went." He judged, (and herein he certainly judged right) that this single chapter contained the whole of true religion. It contains "whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely: If there be any virtue, if there be any praise," it is all contained in this. 

Wesley does not believe, as many literalists do, that all Scripture is of equal value. And for Wesley, the importance of a passage is judged in part by reason and experience, even the reason and experience of non-Christians.

An even more telling example is found in his sermon on “Free Grace.” 

With a theological position firmly rooted in Reason and Experience, he declares that the “blasphemous” lie of Predestination is false and it does not matter to him how many passages of Scripture the Calvinists can cite. 

“No scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works.”

Here is the full paragraph from “Free Grace:”

This is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination! And here I fix my foot. On this I join issue with every assertor of it. You represent God as worse than the devil; more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say you will prove it by scripture. Hold! What will you prove by Scripture that God is worse than the devil I cannot be. Whatever that Scripture proves, it never an prove this; whatever its true meaning be. This cannot be its true meaning. Do you ask, "What is its true meaning then" If I say, " I know not," you have gained nothing; for there are many scriptures the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know till death is swallowed up in victory. But this I know, better it were to say it had no sense, than to say it had such a sense as this. It cannot mean, whatever it mean besides, that the God of truth is a liar. Let it mean what it will it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust. No scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works; that is, whatever it prove beside, no scripture can prove predestination.

For Wesley, Reason and Experience are not the end he seeks. They are the means. They are tools to be used in the understanding of scripture and of the world. But the fundamental theological affirmation on which everything rests, is grace. Wesleyan theology is always about grace.

In 1984, the bicentennial year of American Methodism, Martin E. Marty interviewed Dr. Outler for an article in The Christian Century.

Marty asked him what he has learned about how one translates the insights of Christian history and theology into a sermon for everyday people. The answer says a lot about Albert Outler and about Methodist theology:

“Three things. Somehow you have to be gracious. Then you have to show graciousness, and talk about it. It can be talked about. Finally, you call forth from people some sort of response to grace as unmerited favor, to the fact that our lives are gifted.” (Pounce: the mind triggers, “This really is a Methodist!”) Life, Outler goes on, “is not merely fortune or luck, good or bad. When we preach, we tell people that God loves them -- and then we let them go.”

And then he concluded, “The preacher has to say, ‘I live by grace. You live by grace. We can therefore be thankful. We can love.”’ 

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Georgia on My Mind

Dr. Georgia E. Harkness

“Religion is perhaps its own worst enemy. For religion, masquerading under the guise of archaic creeds, and impossible literalisms, and ecclesiasticism indifferent to human needs, has brought about an inevitable and in many respects wholesome revulsion.”

Georgia Harkness

I think I first heard the name of Georgia Harkness when I was in elementary Sunday School. Maybe it came up because we were singing her hymn, “Hope of the World.” Maybe we were looking at contemporary Methodism. Maybe I saw a book that my mother was reading. I knew about Georgia Harkness before I knew anything about Tillich or Barth or Bonhoeffer or the Niebuhrs.

But the truth is that her name was almost all I knew, and across the years I did not pay much attention. She was one of the lesser lights of twentieth century theology and I was focused on the stars.

She is on my mind now because I referenced her in a blog post about covenant. I listed her as a part of the church I was joining when I was ordained. In truth, I listed her because she was the only female Methodist theologian I could think of.

Georgia Harkness.

Just saying her name brings me a certain comfort.

In our current precipitous and disastrous tilt toward literalism, doctrinal Puritanism, and worship of the Book of Discipline, I find it comforting to remember a time when we were not like that.

Georgia Harkness reminds me of my Methodist home, a place of openness, hope and grace. She reminds me of the family, the faith, and the church in which I grew up.

In her 1957 book, “Understanding the Christian Faith,” her chapter on “Understanding the Bible” lays out the perspective I grew up with, that the Bible is a sacred book, written over a period of about a thousand years. It is “heavenly treasure in earthen vessels.” It was not written for scientific or historical accuracy, but to convey the timeless message of God’s love and care. Some of it is time bound by the culture in which it was written, but at its heart it holds timeless truths about God and humanity. It is up to us, as we read the Bible, to separate the heavenly treasure from the earthen vessels.

Writing about “Jesus Christ Our Lord,” she states, “The question as to whether Jesus was born of a virgin is one on which the opinion of Christians differ, and the biblical accounts do not throw clear light upon it.” And on the resurrection, she declares, “We cannot be sure of the details of what happened that first Easter morning, but the central fact is certain. To the disciples . . . their Leader was not dead but present with them.” 

If she were alive today, we might call her a Progressive Christian. But in her own time, for a Methodist, her theology was predictably orthodox.

After forty years of relentless attacks by the IRD (Institute on Religion and Democracy) and Good News, and their allies, the United Methodist Church has become an institution that Georgia Harkness would barely recognize. We have become “our own worst enemy.” Although she passed away more than forty years ago, her description of the direction in which we are heading is prophetic in the biblical sense of that word. 

"Under the guise of following archaic creeds and impossible literalisms," we have engaged in an "ecclesiasticism" that is "indifferent to human needs." And there are consequences. This has brought about “an inevitable and in many respects wholesome revulsion.”

We have replaced the hope of the world with a rigid religiosity that values creeds over human beings. And on the fundamental issue that divides us as a church, the inclusion of LGBTQ persons, we have chosen ecclesiasticism over human needs.

Though I believe that the church today needs to hear her voice, her time was hardly a golden age. It is important to recognize that she grew up in an age of intense racial and gender discrimination. 

After graduating from Cornell in 1912 she was not able to attend seminary and train for the ministry. She taught high school for six years but that was not her calling. She wanted to pursue a theological education and enrolled at Boston University. She was denied entrance to the School of Theology because she was a woman, but she was accepted in the School of Religious Education and eventually in Department of Religion of the Graduate School, where she studied with Edgar Brightman and earned a Ph.D.

She taught religion and philosophy at Elmira College (which was a women’s college at the time) and then was Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Mount Holyoke. In 1940 she was appointed Professor of Applied Theology at what is now Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, becoming the first woman to teach theology at any seminary in the U.S. Today Garrett honors her with the Georgia Harkness Chair of Applied Theology. She retired in 1960 from The Pacific School of Religion.

In 1948 she attended a meeting of the World Council of Churches where she had an iconic interchange with Karl Barth.

Barth, along with a few other men, participated in a section on the “Life and Work of Women in Churches.” Just before the discussion began, the chairperson surprised Harkness by asking her to state the theological basis for the work. She recalls, “I said briefly that in the Old Testament it is stated that both male and female are created in the image of God; in the New Testament Jesus assumed always that men and women were equal before God, and in our Christian faith is the chief foundation of sex equality.”

She reports that as soon as she finished, Barth addressed the group and said that she was “completely wrong, that the Old Testament conception of woman is that she was made from Adam’s rib and the New Testament that of Ephesians 5, that as Christ is the head of the Church, so man is the head of woman.”

After that they had a lively interchange in which, as she recalls, “I did little more than quote Galatians 3:28 (“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”) Her judgment was that “Barth convinced nobody.” And she concludes her recollection of the event this way: “A year later when a friend of mine asked him if he recalled meeting a woman theologian from America, his cryptic reply was, ‘Remember me not of that woman.’”

Barth did not want to remember her, but I do. 

Reconciliation Is Not Indoctrination

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:23-24

Our culture is obsessed with lots of things. When it comes to obsessions, we are multi-taskers. We are obsessed with wealth and fame and power and celebrity. 

But within our many obsessions, sex has a special place.

And within the church we have our own special obsession with sexual orientation.

With all that is happening in the world, from rising income inequality to global warming, from the violence in the Middle East to the violence on our own streets, one might reasonably ask, why has the church focused so narrowly on this issue?

There are really two answers. 

The first is that sexual orientation is not our only focus. We are doing lots of things all around the world that address every major issue faced by humankind. Most of it just flies under the radar because although it is important, it has little entertainment value. 

The second answer is that the treatment of our LBGTQ sisters and brothers is an issue for which the church bears a special responsibility. We have done great harm in the name of faith. Sometimes we have done it inadvertently, or even with the best of intentions. Other times we have done it vengefully and without remorse. But we have done it. It is uniquely our sin.

This is an issue on which we must seek reconciliation before we can faithfully come before God to offer our gifts.

John Lomperis, the United Methodist Director for the Insitute on Religion and Democracy posted a blog with the provocative title: “Are Methodist Sunday Schools, VBS for LGBTQ Indoctrination? Should young children be indoctrinated in LGBTQ ideology in United Methodist Vacation Bible Schools and Sunday schools?”

For information on the IRD, click here. 

Mr. Lomperis complains that at a Chicago event called “Winter Warming,” the Reconciling Methodist Network, RMN, presented a program for indoctrinating children in the “ideology” of LGBTQ advocates. The article is inflammatory and accusatory, and there are many points where one might reasonably take offense. I want to address just two of them.

The first comes from the title of the blog post. 

The online Merriam Webster dictionary defines “indoctrinate” as “to teach (someone) to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs.” My Microsoft Office thesaurus lists "brainwashing" and "propaganda" as common synonyms.

My guess is that we don’t want anyone indoctrinating our children with any particular point of view, period. That’s not how we grow faithful disciples or responsible citizens or thoughtful adults.

But I wouldn’t call creating a climate in which children can accept and affirm the diverse family groups and individuals they will encounter in their lives as “indoctrination.”

The second issue relates to gender identity.

Mr. Lomperis tells of the presentation given by M. Barclay, whose name at birth was Mary Ann Kaiser. He writes, “She shared about her own more recent experiences as a transgendered individual who has 'physically transitioned in some ways,' now self-identifying as not conforming to gender binaries and using the pronoun 'they' rather than 'she.' She also gave a broader overview of some of the often confusing aspects of transgenderism, including how part of transgenderist ideology is that people did not change genders but rather they were never truly the gender they were assigned at birth—except for folk in the narrow sub-category of ‘gender-fluid.’”

The reality that some people live with, of never feeling that their biology matches their internal sense of who they really are, is not “transgenderist ideology.” It is their reality. And it is incredibly painful. It is not something one chooses.

He follows his description of the presentation with an apology which is not really an apology. He writes, with parentheses: “(I realize that transgenderist ideology would protest my use of female pronouns for Ms. Barclay. It is not my intention to insult or hurt anyone’s feelings. But when someone is facing what needs to be named as a severe delusion of not recognizing his or her own God-given sex – long recognized by psychiatrists as a mental disorder – true compassion involves helping people come back to reality, rather than “humoring them” by saying anything to encourage or enable their very self-destructive confusion.)”

Contrary to his assertion, transgender people do recognize their own “God-given sex,” just like Mr. Lomperis wants them to; the problem is that the identity that God has given them does not match their biology. It is cruel to insist that they are delusional and that the only solution is for them to sit down and be quiet and pretend that nothing is wrong.

This is not easy. For many of us it is uncomfortable. But it is long past time for us to “leave our gifts at the altar,” and go “and be reconciled.”

Reasoning Our Way Toward a Better Future for the UMC

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; 
remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; 
cease to do evil, 
learn to do good; 
seek justice, rescue the oppressed, 
defend the orphan, 
plead for the widow. 
Come now, 
let us reason together, 
says the LORD: 
though your sins are like scarlet, 
they shall be like snow; 
though they are red like crimson, 
they shall become like wool.
Isaiah 1:16-18

In a recent blog post, John Lomperis, the United Methodist Director for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative political action group, wrote about the need “to strengthen our denomination’s enforcement mechanisms to better ensure accountability for those of our clergy who choose to break their own word to honor our communal covenant.”

He argues that this accountability is needed to rein in those “United Methodist clergy who, with the protection of some sympathetic bishops, have engaged in some publicity stunts of performing same-sex union services, in open violation of our denomination’s very clear prohibitions of them.”

His criticism of the uncivil discourse of those who advocate for the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons within the life of the church is somewhat undercut by his characterization of same sex weddings as “publicity stunts.”

Just for the record, when I was ordained on a very hot Sunday in June of 1973 in the chapel of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the Book of Discipline I promised to uphold did not say that as a pastor I would be forbidden to officiate at same sex weddings.

In contrast to the apocalyptic pronouncements of Lomperis and other traditionalists today, the 1972 Book of Discipline said mildly, “We do not recommend marriage between two persons of the same sex.”

That Book of Discipline spoke of our need to understand the gift of our human sexuality and called upon “Medical, theological, and humanistic disciplines” to combine “in a determined effort to understand human sexuality more completely. And then after a long section affirming that “Homosexuals no less than heterosexuals are persons of sacred worth,” and insisting that “all persons are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured,” the Discipline ended with the disclaimer, “though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

The language did not seem nearly as harsh then, coming after a long section on rights and sacred worth and expressing an openness to continued learning.

There was nothing about penalties for celebrating a same sex marriage. And the whole section carried within it the implicit assumption that we would gain more insight as we partnered with social scientists and clinicians in the study of human sexuality.

The Discipline has always been an evolving document and on that hot June day in the Mount Holyoke chapel, I was confident then that we would find our way in this matter just as we had eventually found our way on slavery and segregation and the rights of women.

Aside from one bad sentence and one less than positive sentence, that 1972 Book of Discipline is an amazing document. There is a whole section affirming “theological pluralism” and a broad sense of the spiritual journey as unfinished business. When I read it I am reminded of why I became a United Methodist pastor in the first place.

The traditionalists are correct when they point out that across two millennia of Christian history the church has generally condemned and marginalized LGBTQ persons. The church also condoned slavery for most of those same centuries. But the future is supposed to be better than the past. We are supposed to learn and grown.

As Jeremiah proclaimed God’s vision: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

A Fulsome Orthodoxy

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

Recently I came across an essay by Mark Tooley, called “Calvinist Evangelicals in a United Methodist Church!” Tooley is President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a right-wing institution committed to demonizing mainline Christianity. He is a longtime critic of the United Methodist Church, and the essay was predictably negative.

What was surprising was the theology he advocated as an alternative to what he sees as the non-biblical drift of “institutional Methodism.”

He tells of walking by a church that once was home to a healthy United Methodist congregation and now houses a new and vibrant Calvinist church filled with enthusiastic millenials. “I was walking by an old United Methodist sanctuary,” he writes, “and heard uncharacteristic music emanating from the windows. Curiosity drove me inside, where I was surprised to see a full congregation of almost all twenty-somethings singing fulsomely as a band performed behind the altar.”

I don’t think he really meant to say that they were singing “fulsomely.” Fulsome is defined as “offensive to good taste,” “disgusting, sickening,” and “repulsive.” On the other hand, his essay certainly was fulsome.

He is saddened, he says, that there are no comparable United Methodist alternatives. “Sometimes over the years I’ve been asked by friends where their young adult child newly arrived in the nation’s capital might find a vital and orthodox United Methodist church. I’ve told them there really are no options.”

As a pastor who feels blessed to serve a congregation where the worship service is always accompanied by the sounds of babies, I share his sadness that there are not more “vibrant” United Methodist churches filled with enthusiastic millenials. But I was immediately suspicious about what he might mean by “orthodox.”

“Think about it,” writes Tooley. “The most powerful city in the world has almost no vital, orthodox United Methodist churches. Instead there are typically small, liberal congregations that celebrate their diversity but have little capacity for meaningful outreach.”

For Tooley, the key word is “orthodox.” And by orthodox, he means a particular brand of orthodox. He doesn’t mean what most Christian theologians would have called orthodox in the mid-twentieth century. He isn’t talking about something that Karl Barth or Reinhold Niebuhr would have called orthodox.

He quotes approvingly from the website of the church he visited: “We believe in the personal, bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.”

I don’t believe in the “bodily return” of our Lord, but I can get behind “constant expectancy,” “blessed hope,” “sacrificial service and energetic mission.” I may understand those terms differently than Mark Tooley does, but the terms themselves are familiar to many, if not most, thoughtful Christians.

But we’re not done. In Tooley’s view, the best is yet to come. He quotes again from the website:

“God’s gospel requires a response that has eternal consequences. We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace. Amen.”
It’s hard to know where to begin. Given enough time and thought, I could make my way around “eternal consequences,” but do they really believe that “God will raise the dead bodily”? Do they really believe in “eternal conscious punishment”? My guess is that many Christians who say they believe in hell would still be a little squeamish about “eternal conscious punishment.” That takes it up a notch or two.

And the dividing line for these eternal consequences is between “believers” and “unbelievers”. Pay no attention that that parable about the sheep and the goats, “I was hungry and you gave me food,” etc. God only cares about what you believe.

Tooley seems to think that the only thing standing in the way of a massive revival of Methodism in America is our failure to properly believe in hell. When you think about it, it is a remarkably dark and narrow vision.

In contrast to the robust faith he sees in this “orthodox” church, Tooley is appalled by the mission of what he calls “diversity churches.” They have given up a commitment to orthodoxy, he says, and replaced it with “inclusiveness, community building, radical hospitality, affirmation, etc.” And then he quotes the words of welcome from the website of one of these “diversity churches:”

No matter,
– Where you’ve come from or are going;
– What you believe or doubt;
– What you are feeling or just not feeling;
– What you have or don’t have; and
– No matter whom you love
All of who you are
– is welcomed into this community of faith
– by a God who loves you passionately.
Thanks be to God. Amen!

Several years ago when our daughter was doing an internship at the Smithsonian, we heard that welcome given by the Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church where our daughter was attending. CHUMC was a small congregation, but wonderfully vibrant and faithful.

Ginger Gaines-Cirelli is now the new Senior Pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. The folks at Foundry would certainly fail Mark Tooley’s test of orthodoxy, but they are vital, and vibrant, and they are not small (in any sense of that word).

My guess is that the millenials attending the church that Mark Tooley visited are more positively engaged by the praise band than by the theology. And I don’t think that such a dark vision of Christianity will be compelling in the long run. In fact, that dark vision, supported by a crudely selective biblical literalism, is one of the major barriers to getting young people to take the Christian church seriously. But that’s not the biggest problem with Tooley’s vision. The biggest problem is that in the deepest sense it is unchristian. He advocates an “orthodoxy” which does violence to the teachings of Jesus.