Is 'mainline' Wesleyan?

Scott Kisker, a professor at Wesley Theological Seminary, recent published a book entitled, Mainline or Methodist? Rediscovering Our Evangelistic Mission.

I review this book in the current issue of the United Methodist Reporter.

Considering that many United Methodists take pride in the description of their church as "mainline," Dr. Kisker's thesis is a bold one. He argues that our claim of mainline identity is deeply connected to our sense of wanting to be acceptable to the broader American culture. And in that sense, it is un-Wesleyan and un-Methodist.

Dr. Kisker has done a good job in several ways through this book, which is published by Discipleship Resources and is intended largely for a lay reading audience.

He writes about both early Methodist history and Wesleyan theology in a style designed to be accessible to the general church. And he attempts to explain how very counter-cultural the original Methodists tried to be. They weren't trying to 'fit in.' They were seeking passionately after salvation, a reality that is often dependent on not fitting in with what the broader world says is the way we should live and relate to one another. And a large part of their mission was to offer a different way of life to others, which can only come about when discipleship is not treated as equivalent with cultural conformity.

This is a timely book, not least because the church still tries desperately to be treated as acceptable to the broader culture in so many ways. And when we do that, our gospel is rendered tame and our discipleship is rendered toothless. Dr. Kisker is simply trying the church to look around and realize how far we have strayed from our original mission.

It is a message we would do well to heed.