What is a Methodist?
Friday, September 14, 2007
That's a good question these days. Is there anything distinctive anymore about claiming the name "Methodist" as a part of your Christian identity? Should there be?
I ask the "what is a Methodist" question in my most recent column in the Covenant Discipleship Quarterly. And let me be clear: I don't think this is just a fun exercise to go through. It is of dire importance.
There are large segments of the United Methodist Church that don't want there to be anything at all distinctive about Methodist identity. In fact, they don't want there to be anything much distinctive about being a Christian at all. The 'inclusivity crowd' takes the open invitation of Jesus and turns it into the defining mark of the church. These are the same folks who howl with protest when anyone dares to question the wisdom of, I don't know, a church marketing slogan that aims at the lowest common denominator in trying to stop the slide in church membership numbers. (Whether the church's membership slide might be a direct result of our pathetically weak sense of discipleship is a question for their open hearts and open minds to consider.) To them, the church is all about open acceptance and not at all about those other things that have always been bedrock parts of our faith: repentance, the new birth, sanctification, and sacrificial discipleship.
It is not clear right now which direction the UMC will ultimately head. It may well continue down the path of lukewarm, milquetoast faith. But we should never mistake such an easygoing, worldly Christianity with the Methodism of John Wesley. For Wesley, Methodists were those who took the commands to love God and love neighbor and actually put them into practice. All day. Everyday.
The point is this: Jesus doesn't just want you in the church. Jesus wants you in the church so he can literally, physically, spiritually, and actually change your life. And if all you are doing is showing up for worship occasionally, and you are not allowing God to transform your life, then church is a bad place for you. Your salvation is in jeopardy. People in that position should leave the church, so they do not get lulled into the false sense of security that they are actually walking the way of salvation.
What is a Methodist? To Wesley, it is someone who is committed to holiness of heart and life. Who loves God and neighbor. Who cares for the poor. Who is inwardly and outwardly conformed to the will of Jesus Christ.
If that's not you, then you're not a Methodist. You may be a member of a United Methodist Church. You may have a cross & flame lapel pin. But you ain't a Methodist. Not according to Mr. Wesley.
Labels: Covenant Discipleship Quarterly, John Wesley, UMC, Wesleyan Heritage
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 3:52 PM
13 Comments:
This is good to read right now...as I sit in a library with my cross and flame lapel pin, having outlined some Wesley sermons for class.
We're about to start accountability groups at G-ETS. I don't think we're using the CD model, but I'm thankful that we're starting the groups. God knows we need it...really. Please pray that we will have a stronger sense of discipleship here. It has to be God strengthening us.
Oh, and congrats on the birthday. :)
A Methodist is someone who understands church isn't church without a covered dish and a hymnsing.
I don't think being a methodist should really be a huge part of our identity - Wesley would agree I think - what IS important is being a believing believer -and to take the Word AND THE SPIRIT together to transform our lives and then the lives of those around us.
As I understand it, Wesley's classes were formed by inviting those who listened to preaching to come and join a class and to seek for salvation.
Classes were open to those who were seeking but did not yet know new birth. It was the bands that were resevered for committed Christians.
The attitude of 'get as serious as I am or get out' may seem attractive, but how on earth are people going to come to know Christ apart from a Christian community? Where is grace in all of this?
I know it's not a major issue, but just for clarification, it is important to remember that we are not JUST Methodists, but United Methodists. There's a lot of history that is part of the UMC that we ignore when we fail to claim the U.
I'll offer some comments of clarification, mostly due to the concern that Pam brings up (and Pam, thank you for your comments).
I do not try to be overly harsh in this post. As I have said before, I believe the invitation of Jesus is absolutely an "Open Doors" invitation. Jesus invites all to come into the church, regardless of background or experience. And the church needs to model that sense of hospitality.
What truly worries me is that we stop at the Open Doors ethos. Once people do get into the church, we are not really serious about helping them receive the grace they need to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. We follow the secular culture's understood maxim that we should never presume to judge how people talk, how they dress, how they spend their money, how they engage in business, who they sleep with, and how they spend their time.
And that is exactly where Wesley can help us. No, we shouldn't claim labels like "Wesleyan," "Methodist," or even "Christian," as some kind of badge of honor. But we can seek to embody the same level of intentionality about our faith that Wesley did (and that he taught his followers to observe). Just read the essay, "The Character of a Methodist," if you want to see what I mean; it is linked from the CDQ article that is referenced in my original post. Wesley said that a Methodist is one who "always exercises his love of God," meaning that he is always, actually, and literally practicing his faith.
The reason this is needful, for Wesley, is that there is a deeply interconnected dynamic between who we are and what we do; he spoke often about our "tempers," by which he meant our virtues or inner makeup. When these are right, they are productive of holy living. And engaging in the means of grace helps to mold those tempers, so that there is a reciprocal relation between inward and outward religion. This is why he always stressed "holiness of heart and life," with heart as inward and life as outward.
Pam asked, "Where is grace in all of this?" That depends on what you mean by "grace." If you mean a non-judgemental, open acceptance of absolutely anything, then there is no grace! But that isn't what the Christian tradition understands as grace, anyway. Grace is the working of God in our lives, seeking to transform us into a holy people. And that takes hard, serious, committed work on our part so that we can indeed learn to have "the same mind that was in Christ Jesus."
On my blog, I assume that most of my readers are "insiders," meaning that they are committed Christians who live life in the church. That is why I am willing to try and raise the bar. The world will never know it is the world, proper speaking, if the church does not faithfully live as the church to show it the difference.
And if all you are doing is showing up for worship occasionally, and you are not allowing God to transform your life, then church is a bad place for you. Your salvation is in jeopardy.
I agree with the overall thrust of your post, but I think the above statement is irresponsible and unnecessarily inflammatory. What you are communicating is at cross purposes to your impassioned plea to churchgoing members of the UMC to become better disciples. Why do you threaten people with losing their salvation? It seems to me that this kind of approach is medieval and often invokes unfortunate emotional reactions of primarily two kinds: guilt and fear (scare people into being a better disciple for fear of losing their salvation); anger and resentment (subject people to the former emotional manipulation, thus driving people away from the church).
Don't get me wrong. I am not advocating avoiding challenging people to be better disciples. On the contrary, I firmly believe that it is important to challenge people, and healthy challenging is often sorely lacking in the UMC. But we should "sell" discipleship better becomes it opens the doors to more and more "riches" in the Kingdom of God, not because one who fails to be a good disciple might be "lulled into the false sense of security that they are actually walking the way of salvation" and that their "salvation is in jeopardy" because of that.
Cur Deus Homo, thank you for your comments. As I mentioned in my first response, I was really not trying to be overly harsh. And I am certainly not driving at some kind of emotional manipulation when I say that church is a bad place for people who are not engaging in active discipleship because it gives them a false sense of security about their salvation. I only say that because I think it is true. I am not a universalist, and I am not a Calvinist. I think it matters how we are actively responding to God's grace and whether we are walking in such a way that our lives are being transformed into Christlikeness. The reason I think it is spiritually dangerous for nominal Christians to remain in the church is because it allows them to think their eternal salvation is assured by the fact that they claim the label "Christian."
The only way we can responsibly allow nominal Christians to keep moping their way through their earthly existence, as I see it, is if we think their eternal destiny is predetermined. That's where Calvinism and universalism come into play. I think many, many Methodists tend toward the latter - universalism. We think God is so aw-shucks nice that he would never allow anyone to be eternally separated. But a true Arminian must say that, though God does not wish it, human beings can still make it so by rejecting God. And our acceptance or rejection of God is not just an intellectual proposition. It is about the conformity of our hearts, minds, and souls (or wills) to Christ.
So that is just a long way of saying that I stand by the statement, and that I do so because I am not a universalist. I think the decisions we make in this life matter, in an ultimate sense.
Andrew,
I think you were right on target when you said that it's dangerous for cultural Christians to remain in the church. What it is, is salvation by association; "I'm a member of a church and I attend once in a while, therefore I'm a Christian and I'm going to heaven." That kind of thinking, which is widespread, has little to do with one's faith or actions.
Allowing that type of thinking to go unchallenged is not a loving or grace-filled thing. Indeed your post, far from being "harsh" is a statement of love.
What I hear you saying is exactly what Jesus warned the people of Laidocea about. Better to be cold than lukewarm.
We are people centered in God's grace. We confirm that God loves us for the reason of who God is – not for the reason of whom we are or anything we do.
As Wesley – as Methodist, we have faith in the idea that grace goes before us, it constructs us, and transforms us into more and more compassionate beings. The responsibility that comes with grace is revealed in our service and love for others and in our work for justice and mercy.
Your post came across to me that faith is a destination - namely, heaven – I think we should view faith as a journey.
There are no human barriers in grace - there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female – no Baptist or Methodist – black or white, we are made one in Christ.
It is incredible how many people who claim the title Christian still don't get that. They have a long list of "thou shall nots" that they say we must follow or else we will not earn, or be worthy of, God's grace. It seems to me that they limit God's grace by talking a lot about morality and how we should live our lives.
Perhaps if our focus was more on the here and now more of us would have the understanding, courage and the strength to cross boundaries, remove hateful barriers and eliminate prejudices.
Perhaps we could move past obstructions of culture and custom and transform our daily lives -- our personal agendas as we learn to love those we were taught to fear and share the grace we were meant to share.
If Jesus was the great boundary breaker, how do we as the church, ministering in his name, stack up in the boundary breaking department when you make grace so self-serving?
The message of Jesus does not set minimum standards on who we hang out with, who comes to our church, who we associate with. If we want to impose quality controls on who hears or receives the Gospel, then we are turning the Gospel into something that it is not. We cannot reject people and then try and say we are doing the will of God.
Jesus showed a way beyond the tribalism of religion and ethnicity. He reached out from within his own tradition to embrace others.
This is not a time for retreating or for pulling up the draw bridge for the Methodist church. Rather, this is a time to open our doors still wider, to become the people we are called to be. It is a time for us to be engaged in the community and the wider world because those are God’s values, that is life-giving, that is God’s grace and that is the challenge that is ours to fulfill.
Jbush -
Thanks for your comments. I certainly wasn't trying to make grace a self-serving proposition. My understanding of grace is that it is God's self-giving love, which works to transform human lives (and ultimately, all of creation). The only thing possibly 'self-serving' in that is if you see the salvation of people as a self-serving activity. Should people be attendant to their own salvation? Sure. The Apostle Paul tells us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But I don't think that is self-serving; rather, it is the responsible attitude toward the God who has offered us the possibility of redemption from our sin-diseased natures.
As to the rest of your post, I am not sure what you are talking about. You mention a lot about boundary-breaking and cultural obstructions, but I don't know what in my post would have given you the sense that I thought Methodist identity should be confined to certain cultural expressions or confined within a particular cultural boundary. I'm talking about intentional discipleship, withing the 'cultural boundary' of the church. One of the great beauties of the church, in my mind, is that it has been able to adapt itself to countless different cultural contexts over the past 20 centuries.
I do think you are confused, though, when you say that morality has nothing to do with how grace transforms human life. You yourself say mention that one effect of grace is to make us into more compassionate beings. That, of course, is a statement with moral punch to it. Responding to God by opening ourselves up to transformation by grace necessarily changes the way we live, and hence, it contains eminently moral aspects.
Andrew,
You stand by your statement that people who are "showing up for worship occasionally, and ... are not allowing God to transform [their] life" their "salvation is in jeopardy." Your statement of course assumes the actual salvation of the people in question since their "salvation is in jeopardy." I think, however, such a statement from a "true Arminian" (I assume you used this phrase to represent your own position?) is confused at best. Just because someone doesn't grow very much in their faith (sanctification) doesn't necessarily mean their "salvation is in jeopardy." I am sure you're not confusing justification with sanctification.
Forgive me for nitpicking, but my follow up comment here goes to the crux of my earlier comment that threatening people with their "salvation is in jeopardy" because they're not as sanctified as you would like them to be is not a good way to help them become more sanctified, which was, I believe, the overall purpose of your plea in the original post.
Cur Deus Homo,
As a point of clarification, the language of "threatening people" by saying that the salvation of some is in jeopardy is your language, and not mine. You may see what I am trying to suggest as threatening and irresponsible; I see it rather as fully biblical and necessarily responsible.
The issue is one of whether we will recognize the Son when we see him (and whether he will recognize us). A biblical model of this is Matthew 25; an interesting non-biblical one is C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce."
And no, I don't believe I'm confusing justification and sanctification. I am trying to suggest than they are more nuanced than just to say, "Jesus died on the cross; therefore I am justified before God and it doesn't matter what I do."
Nothing in the scope or tenor of Scripture suggests that Jesus will stop us from falling away eternally if that is what our hearts are set on. And so I think the quality of the community we know as the church is of fundamental importance.
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