Traditional Christianity Is an Oxymoron

See, the former things have come to pass, 
and new things I now declare; 
before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Isaiah 42:9

Traditional Christianity is an oxymoron.

I have said that many times. 

I keep hoping it will become a meme.

Jesus was a devout and observant Jew. But he was not a traditionalist. 

He was continually breaking new ground. He redefined the role of women and the definition of neighbor. He continually challenged his disciples to see the world and their neighbors in new ways. And he preached a message about the Kingdom of God that turned the world upside down.

And Paul made it clear that to be in Christ was to die to old ways and live into a new reality. “When anyone is in Christ,” he told the church in Corinth, “the old has passed away and there is a whole new world.” Everything is made new.

Of course it really begins long before Jesus and Paul. The prophets continually pressed forward in the face of the cultic tradition.  Rather than burnt offerings they demanded justice and mercy. The parables of Ruth and Jonah broke new ground, rejecting exclusionary doctrines in favor of  a new openness. Throughout the Hebrew Bible and through the Greek New Testament there is a continual push toward new insights and understandings. And the movement is always away from the past and into the future.

The genius of great Christian thinkers and theologians is that they were innovators. They looked at things in new ways. They developed new ideas and perspectives. That was true of Augustine, of Luther and Calvin, of Wesley, of Gladden, Rauschenbusch, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, and Niebuhr.

If John Wesley were with us today he wouldn’t be looking at eighteenth century solutions to our twenty-first century dilemma. He would be looking at how we can use what we know today to solve today’s problems.

And that brings us to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

Although it represents a significant advance in biblical and theological reflection, and provides a key insight into Wesley’s thought, the quadrilateral has been under attack by traditionalists ever since Albert Outler articulated it as a key Wesleyan methodology. 

Simply put, Wesley believed that sound biblical interpretation requires testing individual texts against the whole of the biblical witness, and then reasoning about that text, using the tradition of the church as well as every aspect of our experience. Similarly, ethical decision-making means more than searching the Bible for a text that will tell us what to do. It requires using the whole of the biblical witness, and then thinking it through in terms of the wisdom of the past and the experience of the present.

The traditionalist critique has reshaped the quadrilateral to make it clear that scripture is primary. In one rendering it is pictured as a pyramid, with Scripture in large letters at the top, and Reason, Tradition, and Experience below. In another image, Reason, Tradition, and Experience are pictured as overlapping circles within a larger circle labeled Scripture. 

Paul Wesley Chilcote, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, writing for Good News magazine, begins his critique 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 did 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. 

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.

Maybe We Need Less Hot or Cold and More Lukewarm

And to the angel in the church of Laodicea write: “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
Revelation 3:14a, 15-16

Long ago and far away, when I was in seminary, we were sure of almost everything and one of the things about which we were most certain was that the principle problem with the church was that it was lukewarm. 

And nothing could be worse than lukewarm.

The Laodiceans lacked commitment. They were middle-of-the-road moderates. They were the ancient equivalent of modern cultural Christians, observing the forms of Christianity without the content. They had no passion.

Today I take a more tolerant view of that church.

And sometimes when I consider our current impasse over the issues of LGBTQ inclusion or exclusion, I think that in the United Methodist Church we could use a little more of Laodicea.

When the first talk of schism began in earnest a few years ago, I believed that it would not happen. Not because I expected that we would have a sudden epiphany, but because I thought our lukewarm bureaucratic polity would move so slowly that the issue would be settled long before we ever got to schism.

That now appears unlikely.

One of the things I have loved about the United Methodist Church is that historically we have always had a big tent. We could accommodate George Bush and Hillary Clinton, George McGovern and Dick Cheney. At our best we worked together toward common goals. Sometimes we worked both sides of the same issue and at other times we focused on very different concerns. But in all of that we respected each person’s commitment.

Some of us wanted to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and others wanted “Once to Every Man and Nation,” but we agreed on “Jesus Loves Me.”

In our current conflict there is a sense in which the very visible issue of LGBTQ exclusion or inclusion serves as a proxy for a conflict that is really about doctrine and biblical interpretation. The Wesleyan Covenant Association, Good News, and the Confessing movement all want to take a much more literal approach to the Bible and to the ancient creeds.

And they want everyone to agree with them.

More than two decades ago I mentored a young man in our church who wanted to be a United Methodist Pastor. When he was turned down at one point in the process, I wrote to the Board of Ministry and pressed hard for his inclusion, arguing that we needed diverse theological positions and that this was an essential part of who we were as United Methodists.

A colleague applauded my efforts and then added a cautionary addendum: “You know, Bill, that’s great that you want Tom to be included. But you need to understand that if they get the majority they will want to have you thrown out.”

And that’s basically where we are.

I’m not sure whether the traditionalists are hot or cold in the sense we see in Laodicea, but they present a faith that is brittle and narrow. And they want me to see it all the same way that they do.

For more that forty years we United Methodists have been doing harm to the LGBTQ folks in our midst, and we have contributed to the broader “Christian” cultural condemnation that surrounds them. We need to stop harming folks. But beyond that we should not expect everyone to conform to the same point of view.

The traditionalists fret about the church “condoning sin” when we elect a gay bishop, ordain LGBTQ clergy, or marry same sex couples. 

But what traditionalists experience today is certainly no worse than what progressives went through fifty years ago when we saw churches and clergy within our denomination perpetrating the sins of racism, segregation, and voter suppression, contrary to positions we took as a church in our Book of Discipline. Today in our Social Principles we support a living wage, gun control, collective bargaining, universal health insurance, immigration reform, and we support programs to combat global warming, but we tolerate opposition by churches and clergy and we do not sanction those who advocate antithetical positions.

Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter proposed an amendment at the 2012 General Conference that ultimately failed, but it described our choice this way:

“We can divide, or we can commit to disagree with compassion, grace, and love, while continuing to seek to understand the concerns of the other. Given these options, schism or respectful co-existence, we choose the latter.”

And then they concluded:

“We commit to disagree with respect and love, we commit to love all persons and above all, we pledge to seek God’s will. With regard to homosexuality, as with so many other issues, United Methodists adopt the attitude of John Wesley who once said, ‘Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may.’”

I know that many United Methodists reject the possibility of “respectful co-existence” as no better than that lukewarm church in Laodicea, but I see it as an affirmation that we are held together by something more than the Book of Discipline.





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. 

Blaming John Wesley

Today is the birthday of John Wesley, June 28, 1703

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
I John 4:7-8

When it comes to the prospect of schism in the United Methodist Church, there is more than enough blaming to go around.

The traditionalists blame the progressives.

The progressives blame the traditionalists.

And the centrists blame both the progressives and the traditionalists.

But it’s time to put the blame where it properly belongs. I blame John Wesley.

The Wesleyan motto, taken from the First Letter of John, is that “God is love.” It is at once both simple and complicated.

All of Wesleyan theology and social concern flows from that basic affirmation. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. But the simple affirmation leads to a very complicated question, “How do we live that out in the world?”

Wesley preached and practiced a life of personal and social holiness. And he connected those two seemingly opposite concerns with a wide tolerance for diverse opinions and a deep commitment to that core affirmation that God is love.

The result is a denomination that has historically been open to theological pluralism. We have been comfortable with a focus on the spiritual journey rather than on theological doctrine. 

The cynics will say that our attempted denominational branding of “Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.” was never anything more than an advertising slogan. Maybe. But for many of us, it felt like a deep insight into our heritage and our calling.

At its best our Wesleyan heritage has produced some very remarkable Christians. Walter Muelder, Paul Deats, Georgia Harkness, E. Stanley Jones, and all of those other great saints that Halford Luccock called an “Endless Line of Splendor.”

But the tension has always been there, between the progressive agenda of social holiness and the traditional constraints of personal holiness.

Life would be easier if we could settle for one or the other. Do we want to embrace the conservative agenda of the Bible belt, or are we more comfortable with the openness of the liberal denominations? 

Earlier this month, at the Iowa Annual Conference, the Rev. Anna Blaedel, the campus minister and director of the Wesley Foundation at the University of Iowa asked for a moment of personal privilege to address her “Sisters and brothers in Christ, in covenant, in connection.”

Rev. Anna Blaedel

She began by describing her identity as a United Methodist, “I was baptized, confirmed, called, commissioned, and ordained into this church,” she said. “This has been my place of spiritual belonging, of vocational calling, my faith community, my faith home.”

But then she explained why her “home” no longer held a place for her. “I am a self-avowed, practicing homosexual.  Or, in my language, I am out, queer, partnered clergy.  I know this is not news to most, if any, of you.  But by simply speaking this truth to you, aloud, here, I could be brought up on charges, face a formal complaint.  I could lose my job, lose my clergy credentials, lose my space of spiritual belonging, of vocational calling, my faith community, my faith home.”

And then she went on to talk about her pain and disappointment with the church that nurtured her and loved her into faith.

When LGBTQ persons describe their upbringing in the United Methodist Church and the way in which that spiritual home has turned against them, it sounds like an ecclesiastical variation of the classic “bait and switch.”

This is the actual letter of complaint.

And not long after she made her statement, three clergy colleagues wrote a letter of complaint to the Bishop.

The temptation to play “gotcha” has always been a part of the personal holiness side of our heritage. Once when Wesley was dining with a colleague, there was a young woman at the table who wore more rings than the other preacher could approve. He took hold of her hand and turned to Wesley.

“What do you think of this, Mr. Wesley, for a Methodist hand?”

Wesley smiled at the young woman and answered gracefully, “I think the hand is very beautiful, sir.”

A few decades back, in an earlier attempt at denominational branding, our slogan was, “Grace, Discipline, and a Warm Heart.” It was not a great success, mainly because you had to be a Methodist to understand what it meant. But it did capture something of the Wesleyan ethos.

Now we are arguing about Discipline, when we ought to focus on Grace and a Warm Heart.

Pope Francis and John Wesley

Pope Francis addressing a joint session of Congress 

"But although a difference in opinions or modes of worship may prevent an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection? Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. These remaining as they are, they may forward one another in love and in good works.”

John Wesley

I love Pope Francis.

He is humble and brilliant, simple and profound, prophetic and brave, and he does not seem to care how others may judge him. He is faithful to the Gospel in such open and obvious ways that one can never doubt his passion and commitment.

Insofar as a pope can reject the trappings of his office, he does. He seems to have little patience with pomp and circumstance. He has great respect for the office he holds, and he seems to care deeply about his responsibilities as a faith leader, but part of that responsibility involves the embrace of his own humanity as a common bond with others. 

I know we disagree about many things: abortion, same sex marriage, and the role of women in the church come immediately to mind. Those are not small disagreements. In part, I accept those differences because I just like him so much as a person and respect him so much as a Christian. But I also know that as important as those issues are, they are not at the center of the biblical witness on issues of social justice.

From the Torah to the Hebrew Prophets to the teachings of Jesus, and throughout the life of the early church, the major biblical emphasis is on economic justice. This is the big issue at the heart of how human society is organized and it is the key component of how we show our love for one another.

I think I also love Pope Francis because he reminds me of John Wesley.

The visible similarities are striking. Wesley, like Francis, lived very simply and did not embrace the trappings of his office. Wesley, like Francis, embraced the poor and marginalized. Wesley, like Francis, was well loved by the common people. It was said of John Wesley that when he died he was the best loved man in all of England. And Wesley, like Francis, drew enormous crowds wherever he went. In common parlance, Wesley was, as Francis is, a rock star.

And beyond the visible similarities, they share a common message. Wesley’s sermon on “The Danger of Riches” is a foreshadowing of Francis’ critique of capitalism. The corrosive effects of unchecked greed are harmful to the soul and harmful to the social fabric. They harm the rich as well as the poor.

In his address to Congress, Francis declared that politics cannot be the slave of economics and finance, but must be “an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life.” He went on to say that he would not underestimate the difficulty of that endeavor, “but,” he said, “I encourage you in this effort.” Wesley did not make the connection between politics and economics as systematically as Pope Francis does, but he understood and advocated a connection between personal faith and social responsibility.

Wesley was outspoken in his criticism of ostentatious wealth and consumption, but he refused to be judgmental. Once at the dinner table a leader in the Methodist movement called Wesley’s attention to the obviously expensive rings worn by a woman dining with them. He asked pointedly, “Mr. Wesley, what do you think of that hand.” Ignoring the man’s intent, Wesley answered, “I think it is a very lovely hand.” In a similar way, when Pope Francis was asked about homosexuality, he answered, “Who am I to judge?”

In an essay on “The People Called Methodist,” Wesley declared as a first principle, “that orthodoxy, or right opinions, is, at best, but a very slender part of religion, if it can be allowed to be any part of it at all.” One guesses that Francis would never put that thought into writing, but one might also guess that he may well think it.

For Wesley as for Francis, the belief that “God is love,” is a core theological concept. Everything else flows from that central insight. It is simple and yet profound. As Wesley would say, it is something that everyone professes to believe, yet very few practice.

Why Are the Millenials Leaving Church?

He also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye."
Luke 6:39-42
In an online article for Washington (CBS DC) Benjamin Fearnow reported on a new survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute showing that almost a third of Millenials (ages 18 to 33) who have abandoned their childhood religion said that the anti-gay teachings of their church played a significant role in their decision making. And 70 percent of Millenials believe that these teachings are driving away their generation.

Over the last decade, support for equal marriage has increased by more than 20 percent according to most polls. Some record total support across the nation at nearly 60 percent, others see support only slightly above 50 percent. Within those numbers, the support goes up as the age goes down. Among Millenials, almost 70 percent support equal marriage. Among those 68 and older, the support is only 37 percent.

Fearnow reports PRRI CEO Dr. Robert P. Jones’ statement that, “While many churches and people in the pews have been moving away from their opposition to LGBT rights over the last decade, this new research provides further evidence that negative teachings on this issue have hurt churches’ ability to attract and retain young people. And Jones went on to say that “Nearly one-third of Millennials who left their childhood religion say unfavorable church teachings about or treatment of gay and lesbian people played a significant role in their decision to head for the exit.”

In other words, the damage has been done.

Thank you to the Fundamentalists, the Literalists, and all the other judgmental so-called “Christians” who have worked so hard to convince the world that being a Christian means condemning gay people and rejecting scientific reason. Heaven only knows the hurt you have inflicted on generations of LBGTQ youth and adults. But beyond that, you have hurt the church you claim to love.

Jesus weeps.

People ask why some of us in the church are so focused on this issue. They wonder why here at the United Methodist Church in East Greenwich we have spent the past two and a half months working out a statement of inclusion and becoming a Reconciling Congregation. There are, after all, lots of other things in the world that should demand our attention. Keith Sanzen, our Church Council Chair puts it simply and eloquently. “Yes,” he says, “there are lots of social justice issues out there and we are concerned about all of them, but this is one issue where the church has really hurt people.”

John Wesley’s first rule was, “Do no harm.” That seems like a good place to start.

What Kind of a Church Are We?

“Woe to you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” 
Matthew 23:27-28

Pastor Frank Schaefer of the Zion United Methodist Church in Iona, Pennsylvania will go on trial next month for officiating at his son’s same-sex wedding in Massachusetts six years ago. His actions almost slipped past the six year statute of limitations which the United Methodist Church has for such offenses, but a parishioner filed charges just before the clock ran out.

Our United Methodist Discipline (a book of by-laws) prohibits pastors from officiating at same sex marriages or blessing same sex relationships.

This isn’t the Inquisition. The worst case scenario for Pastor Frank is that he will lose his clergy credentials. But it’s bad enough.

Over the past few weeks, many of my colleagues have posted Facebook links to vigils for Pastor Frank or stories about the church trial. In response, someone asked, “What kind of a church puts people on trial?"

And that is the key question. What kind of a church are we? Or maybe more accurately, what kind of a church do we look like?

I could give a long explanation about United Methodist polity and the function of church trials in protecting the rights of clergy from overzealous bishops and district superintendents, but that really isn’t the point.

Pastor Frank’s son Tim came out in 2000, after contemplating suicide because his years of praying had not changed his sexuality, and he feared that he would be ostracized by his family and his faith community. Rev. Schaefer chose to affirm his son by officiating at his wedding, and now he is on trial for that.

As the political commentators like to say, the optics are not good.

Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, an outspoken opponent of equal marriage, told a reporter, “Sadly, our church is once again being led down the path of a costly and divisive trial by a pastor who chose to disregard the prayerful and consistent teaching of our church that Christian marriage is the holy union of one man and one woman. As a father, I share Rev. Schaefer’s desire to affirm his son, but there are ways of doing so that do not require a pastor to break the Discipline and the covenant that all United Methodist pastors agree to uphold.”

I can only imagine what a wonderful affirmation that would be.

Even if we don’t care about the civil rights issues, and even if we assume that Tim Schaefer would have gotten over his disappointment if his father had refused to officiate at his wedding, this would still be very bad.

I am a United Methodist for lots of very good reasons. I believe in John Wesley’s theology of grace and his emphasis on practical spirituality. But this is the church at its worst. It makes us look stupid or irrelevant, or both.

Bill O'Reilly, Dan Savage, and Bible Thumpers

For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. 
Philemon 1:8-12 

Recently on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Bill O’Reilly commented that in the debate over marriage equality, the strong arguments were all on the side of same sex marriage. They just want to be treated like everyone else in American, he said. “That’s a strong argument.” By contrast, he noted that all the opponents can do is “thump their Bibles.” And that, he opined, is not a good argument.

Not that long ago, Bill O’Reilly was criticizing those who had shifted toward supporting equal marriage for what he termed “pandering” to public opinion. And he mocked those who said that their perspectives were “evolving.” His own shift, if that is what it is, has been much more abrupt. And it represents a seismic shift in the argument.

The public sentiment in favor of equal marriage is growing at an amazing rate. And that is a very good thing.

But what is not a good thing is that the Bible has been “thumped” from both sides.

Opponents misuse it, and supporters ignore it or denigrate it.

A friend posted a quotation from Dan Savage that is indicative of how the Bible has been dismissed in the debate. Addressing a high school group in Washington State, Savage declared:

“The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn't say, 'Christians don't own people.' Paul talks about how Christians own people.... the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong: slavery. What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? One hundred percent."

In spite of the fact that the Bible does not condemn slavery, at least not consistently, and there are many more verses condoning slavery than there are condemning it, we need to put that in historical perspective. Nearly two millennia after the last biblical writer wrote the last verse in the Bible, the framers of our constitution “got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong.” If Jefferson and his colleagues were wrong two hundred years ago, it’s not surprising that Paul was wrong two thousand years ago. We should also note that the “slaves” in Paul’s time were more like indentured servants than the slaves kept by the Founders.

But wait, there’s more.

Paul, like Jesus, was a radical egalitarian. In his letter to Philemon, he is appealing for the release of Onesimus. He hopes that Philemon will do this, out of a sense of Christian faith, rather than under compulsion, because he feels Paul’s appeal as a command. But one way or the other, he wants Onesimus freed and embraced as “a brother.” Paul understand the early Christian church to be an egalitarian community, and a model for what the whole world will eventually become when the Kingdom of God is realized “on earth as it is in heaven.”

John Wesley, who was deeply committed to biblical Christianity, was a life-long opponent of slavery. Wesley knew the many verses that condoned slavery, but he also saw that the whole thrust of the Bible, from the Exodus to Paul’s letters, was toward freedom and liberation.

While the founders were enshrining slavery in the Constitution, Wesley was condemning it. In his last letter, written to William Wilberforce, he writes: “O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

Wesley did not oppose slavery in spite of his faith, but because of it. In the same way, we cannot develop an authentically Christian perspective on equal marriage by appealing to a few scattered verses of Scripture. We need to look for the broad themes and principles.

Remembering Walter Muelder

The Lord said to Moses, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”

Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.

Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated. Deuteronomy 34:4-7

Walter Muelder died five years ago, on June 12, 2004, at the age of 97. He died of a sudden heart attack. He had not been ill. Like Moses, his mind was “unimpaired.” and “his vigor had not abated.”

He was passionate until the end about peace and justice, and civil rights. When Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Boston University to pursue a Ph.D., Muelder was Dean of the School of Theology and a Professor of Christian Social Ethics. He was one of Dr. King’s teachers, and Muelder’s ethics made a deep impact on King.

The story of Moses being shown the Promised Land, but unable to go there is always poignant and painful. Dr. King used that same imagery before his own death. But in a larger sense everyone committed to the Kingdom of God will be in that same position. We know that where we are is not where we are called to be. And we know that as we journey forward there will be new challenges and possibilities. We are always looking ahead to the Promised Land.

On June 9, 2004, just three days before he died, Dean Muelder was looking toward another “Promised Land” of equal rights, when he addressed the retired pastors of our United Methodist Conference with this challenge:

We retired ministers have an ongoing role to play in the conflicts, such as those on homosexuality, which threatened to split the church at the last General Conference. We are in constant dialogue with clergy and laity who are rightfully troubled by these issues. We can help hold the church together by reminding people to think comprehensively and holistically about these questions. The positions taken by militant opponents are often narrowly based by appeals to the authority of single verses of Scripture as decisively conclusive.

We need to remind the whole church that Methodism has a fourfold basis for making authoritative positions, namely: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. It is the coherence of these explorations that is authoritative. No literal appeal to isolated scripture passages is sufficient. We have to understand the historical nature of Scripture as a whole and relate any passage to the Bible as a whole, to the evolving tradition both within the Biblical period, to historical Methodism, to the best scientific reasoning, and to a comprehensive awareness of evolving experience. This fourfold coherence is essential for maintaining authoritative doctrine and practice.

As retired ministers we are constantly in contact with members of the contemporary church and hence we are part of its ongoing dialogue to maintain the unity of the church.

Within the biblical word, we have to use the whole Bible. Isolated texts can never be decisive. In the tradition of John Wesley, we have a fourfold basis for arriving at ethical and theological insights: scripture, reason, tradition and experience. And then that wonderful sentence, “It is the coherence of these explorations that is authoritative.” Muelder was convinced that a faithful study of scripture in the context of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, would lead us to the full acceptance of Gay and Lesbian persons in the church.

What a wonderful legacy for the church!