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Commentary
WESLEYAN WISDOM: Let’s be clear on Methodist fundamentals Donald W. Haynes, Aug 19, 2009
Donald Haynes
By Donald W. Haynes UMR Columnist
Editor’s note: This is the first in a four-part series.
Thomas Chalmers of the Church of Scotland wrote in the 1830s, “Methodism is Christianity in earnest.” We may not deserve that compliment today, but its rationale is still important.
A recent Gallup poll disclosed a very encouraging word for United Methodism—we are the most trusted denomination in the United States! This at least implies that fewer people have been hurt, misled, disenchanted or alienated by United Methodist friends, neighbors, acquaintances and family members. That’s impressive!
A second implication is that if the pre-Christian and the lapsed church folk are at the point where they are seeking a faith community, they are more ready to visit a United Methodist Church than we even realize.
United Methodism, if accurately re-branded, could be what author Diana Butler Bass calls “Christianity for the rest of us.” But we cannot do this with a logo like “Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.”—a motto that is seen as a theological sieve!
United Methodists are being challenged today to discover, affirm and live out who we are. We might do well to consider what Bishop Edwin Mouzon wrote in 1923 in response to the rising tide of fundamentalism: “It is one thing to be charitable in reference to theological opinions, and it another and a different thing to be lax.”
And Gilbert Rowe gave this commentary in 1923 on Thomas Chalmers’ evaluation: “[Methodism] is the most persistent and successful attempt that has ever been made to separate between the essential and the nonessential, to concentrate upon the essence of the Christian religion, and to emphasize the characteristic marks of a Christian. Having learned that salvation is the possession of the Spirit of Jesus through experience, Methodism intends to allow nothing to interfere with or obscure this truth.”
The world is waiting for a church that can market that message!
‘Holy boldness’
The current psyche of the U.S. culture offers United Methodism an unprecedented opportunity for what our ancestors called “holy boldness.” We have an opportunity for major personal and cultural impact, but to seize the moment, we must lose our timidity, get our message straight and then share it—politely, respectfully, but with conviction. We must practice radical hospitality that includes one-on-one follow-up of worship guests and inter-personal faith sharing. We must preach the Good News invitationally, wherever we find ourselves.
The 19th century has been called “The Methodist Century” in American history. By 1840, we had replaced the Congregational and Anglican churches as the largest and most culturally dominant denomination in the country. Our message of grace theology was clear and cogent, and our methodology of going where the people were was effective.
By the dawn of the 20th century, however, historian Russell Richey says “Methodist leadership was convinced that the future belonged to ecumenism.” We began to hide our Wesleyan lamp under a bushel. Our strength in Christian pluralism became a weakness in identity.
Each generation of Methodist children began to know less and less about the doctrines and disciplines of our heritage. The Evangelical United Brethren churches did a bit better job, but they lost their identity in the 1968 merger with the Methodists.
The only surviving “mark of Methodism” was the notion that “they move their preachers a lot.”
I would expect that few United Methodists would be able to provide a synopsis of “who” the UMC is. The message of United Methodism has blurred with the culture. We retained our methodology but let our message erode.
William Abraham, a son of Irish Methodism who now teaches at Perkins School of Theology at SMU, laments Methodism’s “doctrinal amnesia.” The time has come for United Methodists to do our homework, to stand up and speak out!
The marketing world talks about the need for “branding.” This is as important for colleges and universities, churches and childcare centers as it is for Lexus and Starbucks. To many inside and outside United Methodism, our image is too “vanilla.” Because we have such a large umbrella, our trumpet plays an uncertain sound.
‘Marrow of doctrine’
It is inevitable that certain polemical issues will always be divisive within United Methodism, and caucus groups always tend to be tangential. Nevertheless we can resurrect Wesley’s doctrine of the “catholic spirit” if we live out our mantra: “If your heart is as mine, give me your hand.”
We also need to remember that there is “a marrow of doctrine,” as theologian Albert Outler put it, that is distinctively United Methodist. Most of us yearn for certainties to anchor us spiritually. One appeal of some rapidly growing religious groups has been their promise of religious absolutism in a world awash with relativism.
Too many United Methodist laity from all walks of life have found a spiritual home in a faith community that seems to say with authority, “Thus saith the Lord.” This human-based sense of certainty brings comfort and seems to solve all the riddles. Under scrutiny, however, the message is often revealed to be rooted in cultic doctrine, biblical proof-texting (to make the Bible say what we want it to say) or a strong personality.
Our own Book of Discipline is clear. There are doctrines we consider to be the fundamentals of grace theology. They constitute what former Duke Divinity School dean Robert Cushman called a consensus fidelium (“consensus of faith”) in mainstream United Methodism.
This consensus of experience, beliefs and practices distinguishes us from denominations or churches that confine God to certain positions or doctrines. Listen to John Wesley: “You who call yourselves of catholic spirit only because you are of a muddy understanding, [admit] that your mind is in a mist because you have no settled, constant principles but are just jumbling all opinion together. Be convinced [if this is your state] that you have missed your way; you know not where you are. Go first and learn the elements of the gospel of Christ, and then shall you learn to be of a truly catholic spirit.”
We have to understand the religious landscape today to see the contrasts with Methodism.
What we are not
Let’s first clarify what we are not. Bishop Mouzon outlined it well in 1923 (though we can find United Methodist laity, clergy, seminary faculty, authors and even General Conference resolutions that would disagree): “Methodism lays down no theological requirement for Church membership and allows large liberty of thinking. But belief in the essential facts of Christianity is, of course, necessary to being a Christian. United Methodism rests on a solid foundation of Apostolic, Protestant and Wesleyan fundamentals of belief, experience and practice.”
Methodist theologian Edwin Lewis spoke wisely to every stripe of theology when he said: “It is our right, perhaps our obligation, to look at the whole long history . . . but if at the same time we also reject the faith that inspired that history, we cannot escape the charge that we have broken at a vital point with the testimony of Christian tradition.
“The invulnerable evidence is that we are called to a faith that God in Jesus Christ showed Himself a God of redeeming love. One message has been proclaimed, one mystery disclosed—the God who is revealed in Jesus inseparably unites incarnation and atonement.”
When Wesleyanism fleshes that out, we call it “grace theology.” It is here that we discover and define the core fundamental of our belief. Recent conversations with some young and bright minds of United Methodism have forced me to rethink our slogan of “Open hearts. Open doors. Open minds.” It almost seems to imply that we are “a mile wide and an inch deep.” When Wesley said that Methodists “think and let think,” he also limited pluralism to “those opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity.”
As we launch a denominational effort to “Rethink Church,” we must avoid three extremes: We cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater; we cannot deny the disenchantment many have with the Church; and we cannot embrace individualized spirituality that has no continuity with the biblical story and collective experience of 20 centuries of Christian journeying.
We can define our brand in the marketplace of religious theologies. We can maintain our fundamentals without becoming fundamentalists. We can know and teach who we are, and we can find the meaning of life and saving grace within those fundamentals.
The time is now for United Methodism to rethink our roots, our missiology and our doctrine.
Dr. Haynes is an instructor in United Methodist studies at Hood Theological Seminary. dhaynes11@triad.rr.com.
Donald Haynes
‘Holy boldness’ 
