Are we the church??

Several days ago I wrote about the ambiguous nature of "membership" in the United Methodist Church. Membership has become an almost meaningless category, I argued, and we would do well to examine how we go about inviting members into the church and holding them accountable for the vows they make.

In response to that post, Casey, a friend and fellow student here at Duke (who is from the Free Methodist tradition, I might add), wrote the following:

"This is, of course, assuming that Methodists are 'the church.' Methodists still need to engage in a robust conversation, both internally and externally with other Christian traditions, about ecclesiology. We have a serious breach with other episcopal traditions over apostolic succession. Are we church or are we still voluntary societies? What's the difference?"

Casey raises some very important points. (They are the very points that brought me to Duke to work on a doctorate, so I guess I think they are important, at least.) We began as a renewal movement within the Church of England. If John Wesley had had his way, the British Methodists would never have separated. Wesley realized that the political reality of the new United States of America made the separation of American Methodists from the Church of England an inevitability, but that shouldn't preclude our having a serious and sustained discussion about who we are in relation to the catholic (universal) church.

Specifically, how do we justify our separation from other Christian churches?

A common (and patently wrong) reason that is given by lots of Protestants is that the unity that Christ desires for the church is spiritual rather than physical. I believe this is a cop-out answer given by people who don't want to think that the very fact of their separation from the larger church might constitute a form of sin. And besides, it is non-biblical. From Acts to Revelation, the NT treats the importance of the unity of the church as embodied (i.e., a physical and spiritual whole).

So how can the Methodists continue to justify their separation? Christ will call us to account for this, I have no doubt. And I don't think he will see "inertia" as a good enough answer.

It is a question of ecclesiology, as Casey points out. And to start, we have to ask questions on at least a couple of different levels:

1) Who are we, as a church? That is, what makes us distinct from other Christian bodies?

2) How do United Methodists justify their separation from other Methodist bodies? How do Methodists in general justify their separation from other Protestant denominations? And how do they justify separation from the Roman Catholic Church?

If you don't think these are crucially important questions, then you are not paying attention. I invite thoughts and comments, as I honestly do not know how to answer these questions.