Theology as basis for United Methodist unity?

The last two weeks, I’ve written to raise the question of what the basis for Christian unity is.  I’ve talked about it mainly on a broad level, looking at Christianity as a whole, though I’ve indicated that this is a question for individual denominations as well.  Starting this week, and for the next several weeks, I’d like to look at the question of the basis of unity in my own denomination, The United Methodist Church.  I hope my non-Methodist readers will bear with me.  While some of what I say will be specific to Methodism, I hope that much of my reflections can be applied to other denominations as they also struggle to maintain unity.  (I’m looking in particular at you, Episcopalians.)

I think for a lot of Christians, especially those from creedal traditions, assume that the basis for unity should be theology or belief.  I don’t think this works for United Methodism, though, and I’m not sure how well it works for any non-creedal tradition (or creedal tradition, for that matter).  Before I explain, let me make a disclaimer: I’m not saying in this post that theology doesn’t matter or that people should be able to believe anything they want and still call themselves a Christian or a United Methodist.  I think theology does matter.  I personally believe a number of things quite fervently and hope others do, too.  I even think belief is something that’s worth arguing about at times.  So I’m not saying in this post that belief is unimportant.  I’m saying that theology can’t serve as a good basis for unity in The United Methodist Church.

The first reason why theology is an insufficient basis for unity is that, if we look at the church today, it is not a current source of unity.  In fact, it’s often a source of division within the church.  Liberals and conservatives fight like weasels (a phrase I once heard a United Methodist layperson use to describe General Conference) over theological issues.  In order to go from where we are now to a place where theology is the basis for United Methodist unity, either someone would have to persuade a whole lot of people or kick a whole lot of people out of the church.  The first seems unrealistic, the latter unacceptable.

Second, it’s not really clear what theological pieces we would set up as the basis for United Methodist unity, were we to try to go that route.  Most of what either evangelical or liberal United Methodists would like to get everyone to believe isn’t distinctively United Methodist but is tied into larger theological currents in the U.S. that cut across denominations, so in many cases, neither side is really presenting a distinctively Methodist vision of theological unity.

We could, then, turn to the Book of Discipline (the United Methodist constitution, if you will) to see what it has to say about the doctrinal basis for Methodist unity.  But it turns out the Book of Discipline is not very helpful in this regard.  It states that the 25 Articles (John Wesley’s condensation/reduction of the Church of England’s 39 Articles of Faith) and John Wesley’s sermons shall be the standards of Methodist theology.  But that’s such a large body of works that it’s not really useful in defining standards of United Methodist theology to serve as a basis for unity.  It’s certainly no five point creed.  There are many strands within the Sermons and Articles on which to draw.  Plus, how many people are you going to get to read even the 25 Articles, let alone all of Wesley’s sermons (which even most Methodist seminarians don’t read in their entirety)?

If we can’t use these textual resources for unity, perhaps we could identify a couple of historically distinctive doctrines as the theological basis for United Methodist unity.  Here, the two most distinctive Methodist doctrines have been an Arminian approach to salvation and the doctrine of sanctification.  Arminianism states that God offers God’s grace freely to all, and humans must respond by accepting that grace.  The doctrine of sanctification states that God is capable of making humans perfect in love while we are yet alive, and we should all be striving for that.

The problem with Arminianism, though, is that it’s been so widely successful as a theology in the United States that it’s no longer distinctively Methodist.  The emphasis within a lot of Arminianism has shifted from free grace to free will, and almost everyone wants to believe in free will in this country.  Even a lot of Calvinists or people from Calvinist traditions have become Arminians.  Hence, saying that United Methodists are going to be known as the people who believe in free grace and free will Arminianism is like saying Burger King is going to be known as the fast food place that serves burgers.  It’s true, but it’s not like there aren’t others making burgers, so it’s not really something that would set them apart.

Which leaves us with sanctification.  The problem with trying to make sanctification the theological basis for United Methodist unity is that so few United Methodist actually know what the doctrine is and know that it’s a traditional Methodist doctrine.  Of those who do, probably even a smaller number actually believe in the possibility of entire sanctification in this life.  I think it’s sad, but nonetheless true, that Methodists have lost touch with the doctrine of sanctification.  Given that that’s true, though, it seems like it would be a lot of work to try to reclaim sanctification as the basis of theological unity in the church.

Therefore, I don’t think theology works as the basis for unity in The United Methodist Church.  That may make some upset or uneasy, but I don’t think that means there aren’t other possible bases for unity.  Agreement on a set list of beliefs is not the basis of unity for families, the Army, knitting groups, or Phish fans, yet there is something which holds each of these groups together.  In the upcoming weeks, I’ll continue to look at some of these other possible grounds for Methodist unity.

Andrew Walls on Christian commonalities

Last week, I wrote a post in which I encouraged Christians to think about what binds us together.  What binds us together is different, however, than what we have in common, and I hope to demonstrate that in this week’s post by using the work of the great missiologist Andrew Walls.  I think Walls has written some of the most brilliant stuff on the history of Christianity, and especially its relation to culture, that’s out there, so I’m also happy to plug reading Walls by writing this post.  And as it turns out, he’s written something germane to this question of what unites Christians.

In an article entitled “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture”, Walls first notes the extreme variety amongst Christians of varying places and times in terms of beliefs and practices.  Walls asks how someone from another planet looking at Christians in these different times and places would recognize them as part of the same movement.

Walls’ answer is that there are three common elements shared by Christians across time and space, to which one can add a fourth: a man, a meal, a bath, and a book.  (The wording for this is not Walls’, but I can’t for the life of me remember where it does come from.)  The man, of course, is Jesus.  Walls points out that Christians everywhere see Jesus as having ultimate significance in history and in the ongoing religious life of their communities.  The meal is communion, using bread and wine or some sort of substitutes for them.  The bath is baptism, some sort of ritual anointing with or immersing in water.  Communion and baptism are the two universally recognized and universally practiced Christian sacraments, and both are distinctively Christian.  The book is the Bible, used by Christian communities across space and time, albeit translated into different languages.  These, then, are the four foundational Christian commonalities.  Are they enough, though, to constitute the basis of Christian unity?  It would seem not.

Christians all agree that Jesus is important, but there have been widely differing interpretations on why he’s important.  Is he an atoning sacrifice for sin?  Is he the victor in the struggle against the devil?  Is he a good moral example?  Is he divine?  Is he human?  Is he semi-divine?  What is the relation between the historical Jesus and the cosmic Christ?  All of these questions and more have divided Christians about Jesus even as they have had Jesus in common.

As for communion, Christian unity fares no better there.  Christians may all practice communion, but many won’t share communion with each other, the most notable example being the Roman Catholic’s Church exclusion from communion all but faithful Catholics.  Furthermore, as Christianity has spread into climates where wheat and grapes are not readily available, communion has been additionally divisive as Christians grapple with whether it is acceptable to substitute something else for bread and grape wine.  Then there are the theological debates about communion, the most famous of these being how to understand the nature of Christ’s presence in the elements, with the major camps being the transubstantiation people, the consubstantiation people, the spiritual presence people, and the memorial meal people.

Baptism, too, though a universal ritual for Christians, is not a uniting ritual.  Here, the major distinction is between those who practice infant baptism and those who insist on adult (or believers’) baptism, with the latter often not recognizing the validity of the former.  In addition to this divide, there are also debates between the sprinklers, the dunkers, and any other forms of administering baptism you could hope for.  Questions about validity separate these groups, too.  And these questions are just in the realm of practice.  There are also significant debates over the theology of baptism, what happens in baptism, what the status of the unbaptized is vis-à-vis the church or heaven, etc.

Finally, we come to the Bible.  Anyone who’s spend time around Christians should not be surprised that the Bible fails to provide a source of unity, too, as arguing about Biblical interpretation among Christians is as old as the Bible itself.  There are both big picture arguments (Is the Bible inerrant?  How is it inspired?) and little picture arguments (How do you interpret such and such a text?).  There are even arguments about translation, usually playing into little picture arguments about the interpretation of specific texts.

Hence, commonalities are not sufficient grounds for unity.  They’re a good starting place, but unity in terms of purpose, action, spirit, and fellowship needs something more.  In order to work and worship together, we need something more than saying, “Well, we all like Jesus,” or “We all read the Bible.”  I personally think it’s too much to hope for to come up with something more that will unite all Christians, but I do think it’s an important and potentially answerable question for Christians who are united in a particular denomination.  It’s important, too, because those united in a particular denomination are supposed to work and worship together.  And that is ultimately the point of Christian unity – that it enable our work for and worship of God.

Bind Us Together, Lord

In the old hymn, Christians petition God to “bind us together with cords that cannot be broken”.  The song then goes on to ask God to “bind us together with love”.  It is a worthwhile question for Christians to ask ourselves what the nature is of the cords that bind us together.  This question is especially pertinent for those who share not only general Christian fellowship but are brothers and sisters bound together in a particular denomination or faith tradition within Christianity.

This question is especially pressing because whatever there is holding us together as Christians and as members of particular denominations, there is also much dividing us.  As American society has become more pluralistic and the diverse societies of the globe have been brought together into a pluralistic world society, so has American Christianity become more pluralistic and so has World Christianity become an increasingly pluralistic enterprise, to the point where some scholars are now beginning to talk about “World Christianities” instead of “World Christianity”, implying that Nigerian AICs (African Initiated Churches) have so little to do with Swedish Lutherans that they cannot be thought of as the same thing.

Yet as Christians, we have a theological commitment to believe that Nigerian AICs and Swedish Lutherans are part of the same thing.  One of the basic tenants of Christianity is the catholicity of the faith.  Catholicity in this sense means universality.  It means that Christians believe that Christians everywhere are bound together in the body of Christ.  Now, I know that some Christians believe that their group has the Truth and all others are heretics and thus outside the body of true believers.  Such groups certain pose a challenge to the doctrine of the catholicity of the faith, but they do not negate it.

For those who are members of a particular denomination, there is more than just the doctrine of the catholicity of the faith that necessitates us thinking about what it is that binds us together.  We must live, work, fellowship, and worship with our denominational sisters and brothers and find a way to do so despite the differences that divide us.

And those differences are not always insignificant.  We may like to think that good Christians would not let race divide us, but Martin Luther King, Jr. famously remarked that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.  Related to, but distinct from race, is the question of ethnicity.  Ethnic churches are very common in America and have many strengths to offer their members and the wider body of Christ.  Nevertheless, they do pose the question of how Korean UMCs relate to Hmong, Mexican, Brazilian, African-American, and Anglo UMCs.  The question is complicated when there are linguistic as well as ethnic differences.

Economic differences separate Christians from each other to a much larger extent that we are comfortable acknowledging.  These economic differences are often related to geographic differences.  How do the middle or upper-middle class churches of the newer suburbs relate to the poor churches of the inner cities and the working-class churches of the older suburbs?  Geography also plays a differentiating role on a larger scale: How do the churches of the Northeast and those of the South, the Midwest, and the West Coast relate to each other?

Then there is the role of theology, and here is where the question really becomes pressing.  What cords bind Christians or members of a denomination together when they are divided in how they view the Scriptures, what they think of homosexuality, whether or not they’re willing to let women be pastors, their views on science, how they understand free will and God’s agency vs. human agency, what they believe to be the divinely-ordained or just best form of church government, and a whole host of other questions?  Even divisions that are partly stylistic, like whether to use hymns or contemporary praise music in worship, often take on theological dimensions as well.  Since these theological divisions really get at the heart of the matter of religion for most, they are often the divisions that run deepest.

Hence, just as last week, I mentioned that societies as a whole need to ask what common commitments, beliefs, and values hold them together as societies lest they fall apart, so too, do Christians and in particular Christians united in particular denominations need to ask ourselves what holds us together lest we fall apart.  At stake is not just a sentiment of “Wouldn’t it be nice if we all just got along?” but our testimony to a God who is able to bind us together in love.

The Problem of Pluralism

Last post, I examined two different definitions of pluralism: one which describes a state of society characterized by cultural, religious, ethnic, and other forms of diversity and one which embraces such a state of society.  I then tried to distinguish the second definition from relativism.  This post, I’d like to return to that first definition and examine why pluralism poses a problem for social systems.  I don’t pretend that anything in this post will be especially original or profound, but it sets up a series of posts that I want to write starting next month.

A pluralist society is a diverse society, and a diverse society is one characterized by differences: religious differences, cultural differences, gender and sexual differences, economic differences, political differences, racial and ethnic differences, etc.  Accompanying these and other forms of differences are differences in fundamental values and ideas: what religious truth is and what role it should play in individuals’ lives and the broader society; the best form of government and how leaders should relate to the governed; the uses of money, what counts as fair and ethical economic practices, and how the economy can best be structured for society’s benefit; how race and ethnicity are defined and how different racial or ethnic groups should relate to one another; how gender and sexuality are thought of, what are proper relations between the sexes, and what forms of sexuality are acceptable; what cultural practices should and shouldn’t be allowed; and a whole host of other fundamental issues that shape how humans relate to each other.

Liberals often like to celebrate diversity as a wonderful and enriching aspect of our society, and conservatives frequently seem to want to eradicate diversity in favor of the hegemony of straight, white, American males.  Both positions miss out on something.  Not only is conservative opposition to diversity often mean-spirited and bigoted, it’s also mistaken in its view of the possibilities of the future.  American cannot, even if it wanted to, go back to the traditional, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant mainstream of the 1950s.  Diversity will not just stick around, it will increase in this country for demographic, economic, and political reasons that would be nigh impossible to reverse.  Yet this increasing diversity is not just a cause for celebration, but a cause for reflection on the social makeup of our country because, contrary to what some liberals seem to think, diversity is not just a source of enriching broadening of our horizons, but is also a big source of conflict in society.

The tensions that come out of a pluralist, diverse society aren’t just tensions within the framework of that society (for instance, racial or class struggles over the extent to which different groups get to participate in an agreed-upon definition of political and economic rights) but tensions with the framework of that society (in which some groups in society reject the validity of the political systems or cultural ideas that define the society).  It’s fine for socially separate groups to have their own ideas about every topic you can think of, but in order to have a social system, there must be something (or some things) that bind groups together, whether it’s participation in capitalism, belief in liberal democracy and the rule of law, shared cultural values, shared religious practices, or simply a shared commitment to keep engaging with the other despite differences.  Without some shared basis, things fall apart, and there is no center to hold groups together.  Anarchy and conflict are indeed loosed upon the world.

Arguably, it’s more important to have shared values in some areas than others.  Without shared values upon which to build political or economic systems, force is unregulated and the exchange of goods is not possible.  People kill each other and starve for lack of food, and that’s bad.  On the other hand, if there are cultural differences but a shared political and economic system, then there’s still likely to be a lot of conflict, but fewer people dying (though probably still some).

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not important to think through the problem of pluralism in areas beyond politics and economics.  To assume that these two areas of life are all that matter is reductionist in a way I find unacceptable.  Furthermore, the problem of pluralism is more pressing in areas beyond politics and economics.  In these two areas, liberal democratic capitalism has enough buy-in to keep the world from engulfing itself in flames thoroughly or quickly, but what ties should bind us in other areas is anything but clear.

Globalization makes the question of pluralism all the more pressing, as additional cultural, religious, and ethnic groups plug in to a common global economic and political system.  How does the system handle these types of diversity in a way that respects the rights of groups and individuals to have diverse values and identities while at the same type promoting enough commonalities so that the system does break down into too much open conflict?  This question is one of the most pressing of our times.  Thus, as we look at the increasingly pluralist society in which we live on both a national and global level, in addition to noticing and appreciating the differences between groups, we also need to think about what binds us together.

Pluralism vs. Relativism

I read an article earlier this week ("Theorizing Religion in the Global Age: A Typological Analysis" by Martin Geoffrey, who, like me, has two first names) in which the author laid out a typology between four different types of religion in our modern, global world.  Among these four were pluralist and relativist.  I found Geoffrey’s distinction interesting and worth elaborating in my own fashion in this blog.

Now, many people might not draw a distinction between the two.  Merriam-Webster.com gives the following definitions of “pluralism”:

1: the holding of two or more offices or positions (as benefices) at the same time

2: the quality or state of being plural

3 a : a theory that there are more than one or more than two kinds of ultimate reality

b : a theory that reality is composed of a plurality of entities

4 a : a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain an autonomous participation in and development of their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization

b : a concept, doctrine, or policy advocating this state

Definition 3a might sound a lot like relativism to some – it’s a denial of a single, universal, capital “T” truth, as is relativism (which Merriam-Webster defines as follows: “1 a : a theory that knowledge is relative to the limited nature of the mind and the conditions of knowing b : a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them”).  These two are not, however, the same – one says that there is more than one kind of ultimate reality, and the other says that each person defines her or his own ultimate reality.

It’s not really Merriam-Webster’s third definition that I want to defend or discuss, though – it’s the fourth.  This definition has two parts which fit perfectly with the two ways I wanted to talk about pluralism even before I went and looked up that definition.

On a first and most basic level, pluralism describes a state of society, without passing judgment on that state one way or another.  Pluralism at this level is a recognition that diversity exists – religious, ethnic, racial, gender orientation, and other types of diversity.  At this basic level, we can say that America is a pluralist society, and that’s a hard statement to argue with.  We could even further say that globalization increasingly knits us all together into an interconnected, pluralist, global world.  These are facts, not value judgments.  They may provoke value judgments and present certain challenges and opportunities for societies that call for critical evaluation, but that’s a second level of analysis.

Pluralism as a value can be a part of that second level analysis, though, and this is where Merriam-Webster’s definition 4b comes in.  This definition refers to “a concept, doctrine, or policy advocating” the state described in the paragraph above.  It seems to me that there are two versions of such a position: an active pluralism which seeks to encourage the creation of such a pluralist society and a passive pluralism which accepts the existence of such a pluralist society.  I’ll probably spend time later in this blog defending at least a passive pluralist position, but for now, I just want to draw the distinction between that and a relativist position.

Relativism is essentially about truth, ethics, and values.  Pluralism (in the 4b sense) is essentially about social relations.  Relativism says that each person or group of people defines their own truth, establishes their own ethics, and chooses their own values, and none of those truths, ethics, or values are inherently any more true, ethical, or valuable than any others.

Pluralism doesn’t really comment on the trueness of others’ truths, the ethicality of others’ ethics, or the valuableness of others’ values.  Even in the definition 3a sense, which says there’s more than one aspect to ultimate reality, doesn’t comment on the validity of others’ perceptions of ultimate reality.  And pluralism in the 4b sense isn’t about judging other’s truths, it’s about granting the legitimacy of their right to pursue those truths.

Indeed, there are reasons why you might think another person or group of people have missed out on some important aspect of the truth, but still think it very important that they be allowed to pursue their own understanding of the truth.  Ethics is a bit more tricky, since ethics impacts other people, and values can a bit, too, and part of pluralism is trying to create a system where all can live and let live.

Still, even if there is some negotiation around ethics or values, pluralism in general tries to leave people alone to pursue their own ends as long as they’re willing to play nice with others.  Part of playing nice with others for pluralism is not trying to coerce others into adopting your truths, values, and ethics, even if you think you’re right and the other party is wrong.  That live and let live attitude may be the same practical result as relativism, but it is reached by starting at a different philosophical standpoint.

What we can learn from Koreans (and other non-Western Christians)

My last several posts have dealt with the relationship between American and non-Western Christianies, and this post will conclude that vein of posts for a while.  In it, I’d like to reflect on some things that American Christians can learn from non-Western Christians.

When most people talk about things we can learn from non-Western Christians, they talk about things like being enthusiastic about your faith, worshipping in non-Western ways, appreciating what you have materially, and, if you’re conservative in your theology, how to uphold the fundamentals of faith that the godless people in America have abandoned.

What people don’t often talk about, but what I’d like to talk about, is how we can learn to think about our social situation as Christians and our relationship to the wider national culture.

I think this is something that American Protestants (especially mainline Protestants) need to think more about.  American Protestantism had this great quest from the First Great Awakening through the 1950s to build a Protestant America characterized by white, Anglo-Saxon values.  This project failed (and for some good reasons) in the 60s.  Since then, evangelical Protestants have alternated between building a Christian subculture (a project they’d actually been working on since the 1920s) and reasserting language about American being a Christian nation.  We mainline Protestants haven’t known what to do with ourselves since then.  We have nostalgia for a time when we were the cultural center of America, a growing realization that time is long over, and few if any ideas about what to do in our new socio/cultural situation.

I would like to suggest that one thing which might help us figure out what to do with ourselves as American (mainline) Protestants is listening to Christians who aren’t American.  One of the ways to think new possibilities about your own social situation is to learn how other people think about their social situations which are different than yours.  That’s why Gramsci wanted Italian school kids to learn Latin – so they would be introduced to a different way of thinking about the world that would then allow them to think differently about early 20th century capitalist, fascist Italy.  We don’t have to learn Latin to do that, though – we can listen to Christians from other countries in the world.

In particular, I think we would do well to listen to Koreans.  Why Koreans?  Korea, like America, is a country with a lot of Christians.  But not a majority of Christians.  (Which, I recognize, the US does have, at least nominally).  Christianity is a sizable presence in Korea, but it doesn’t define the cultural or social mainstream nor (and here’s the important contrast) did it ever.  Korean Protestants have been going through their own handwringing about plateauing growth in the past decade.  In some ways, Korean Christians are in a social position that’s similar enough to but different enough from the US to make them good conversation partners from which we could potentially learn a good deal about how to think of ourselves in relation to the rest of American society.

Of course, we can learn from other Christian groups around the world, too.  Nigerians, Kenyans, Indonesians, and Malaysians all have things to teach us about how to interact with Muslims.  Zimbabweans can teach us some things about the relationship between religion and ecology.  The list goes on.  But as we Americans think about our relationship to non-American Christians, we must be sure to have the humility to let at least one facet of that relationship be learning.

The US of A and All of Us

Last week, I wrote about the extent to which postmodernity was a Western phenomenon, and the post before that, I wrote about the numbers problem in The United Methodist Church.  This week’s post sort of combines those two thoughts.

As acknowledged, The United Methodist Church has some problems – problems with membership numbers, finances, structures, etc.  As the article my advisor and I wrote, these problems are not just an American phenomenon, but that’s primarily how they’re thought about.  Part of this bias toward focusing on the American problems is that mainline American Protestantism has problems that are different from the types of problems Protestantism around the world faces, and United Methodism reflects that.  Part of this bias is that the United States is still the membership and financial center for The UMC.  Part of this bias is just Americans being bad at thinking about the rest of the world.

Yet we American United Methodists do need to think about the rest of the world as we’re trying to solve the problems of the denomination here.  We must be aware that, as a globally-connected church, the actions we take in the United States have implications around the world.  Solutions we implement for problems in the United States have the potential to cause new problems elsewhere (as well as new problems here, as all solutions do).  This presents a tension for United Methodists: how do we address the critical and pressing questions of the church in America while at the same time not losing sight of how those solutions affect the church around the world?

This also raises a set of questions: What does it mean to be a globally-connected church?  What does the Methodist concept of connectionalism mean when it is extended across geographical, political, cultural, and linguistic boundaries?  What does it mean for United Methodists in Nigeria, say, to be part of the same church as United Methodists in Cambodia, Lithuania, and the Philippines, as well as the United States?

This problem seems to me to be uniquely a Methodist one, too.  Certainly, some other denominations have trans-national aspects to them.  Yet none has quite the same structural/ecclesiological relationship between different national branches as The UMC does (with the probable exception of other American Wesleyan bodies).  In large part this is because of the uniqueness of Methodist polity/ecclesiology.

On the one side of Methodism, you have churches where church is defined primarily in congregational terms.  This category includes churches coming from the Reformed tradition such as Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, etc.  It also includes most Pentecostal churches, non-denominational megachurches, church from the American Restorationist movement (Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ), and a whole host of others.  While there are structures which connect these local churches, some of which are transnational, these transnational structures don’t raise the same issues, as what matters most is the local church.  At the end of the day, the important decisions are made in local churches, and whatever larger associations that local church may have, it is ultimately only responsible to and for itself in the decisions it makes.

Then there are churches with an episcopal polity, including Lutherans, Anglicans, and most notably the Catholics (as well as some pentecostals and AICs, interestingly enough).  Most of these churches have a diocesan understanding of the bishopric (i.e., bishops are responsible for a particular geographic area), and, while you can argue that The UMC has effectively adopted a diocesan model of bishops, in theory at least The UMC is not a diocesan church.  In churches organized on the diocese model, diocese tend to be grouped together into national churches, which tend to be geographically or perhaps ethno-linguistically based, though recent developments in the Anglican church challenge this organizational pattern.  There are often larger structures that connect the various national churches, but each national church, while connected to the church as a whole, has a degree of local autonomy.  Thus, the national church serves as a buffer between the greater structures of the church and local congregations.  This is less true for the Catholics, who have strong centralized authorities, than it is for Anglicans or Lutherans, where such centralized authorities are less well-developed or lacking.  And certainly such a system has its own problems (Anglicans, I’m looking at you again).  But in general, national churches can adopt policies and mainly worry about how those policies will affect the faithful within that nation.

In The United Methodist Church, however, the heart of the denomination is neither the local church nor the diocese nor the national church but the connection as a whole.  In Methodism, the church is the connection.  So we don’t have a sense that each local church can make its own decisions in all matters.  Nor do we allow geographic sub-units of the church to make their own standards for policy that differ from each other.  Neither Annual Conference nor Jurisdictional Conferences have the authority to really set policy in ways that differ greatly from the denomination as a whole.  Only General Conference really has the power to set policy for the denomination.  This means, however, that General Conference, a body which meets in America with mainly American delegates, needs to think about how its decisions affect the entire church, not just America.

I think with the various stresses and conflicts which General Conference 2012 is facing, that it is likely that General Conference will end up making some decisions that significantly impact United Methodist polity.  Ideally, these decisions would be part of some well-thought through vision for United Methodist polity, but I think it is more likely that we will pass revisions to our polity for the sake of trying to enable more effective ministry and will only later realize how significant the decisions we made were.  I’m okay with this approach, too, actually, because I feel like that’s often how The UMC and its predecessor bodies have operated – our approach to church organization is more practical and experimental than systematic.  I just pray that when we make whatever changes we are going to make to our polity, intentional or not, that they serve as an opportunity for us to really think about what it means to be both connectional and global and that they may be changes that release the Spirit’s power for ministry and mission not just in this country but around the world.

The Western-ness of postmodernity

After a week and a half’s hiatus (ah, the start of summer!), we’re back and blogging.  Today, I’d like to talk about a topic that I think will weave together some threads from the last three or four posts, and that’s the relationship between postmodernity, the West, and the Majority World.

It’s generally acknowledged that modernity was, at least in its origins, a project of the Western (i.e., European and North American) world.  Indeed, this is one of the criticisms of modernity – that though it claimed to be a universal movement in human history, it was instead a Western movement that was imposed upon other people and/or which ignored the experiences of other peoples.

Such criticism is an important feature of postmodernity’s reaction to modernity.  Postmodernity reminds us to examine social location and to distrust the sort of grand narratives presented by modernity, deconstructing them to try to find the ways in which they serve the colonialist or neo-colonialist agendas of those in the West and ignore or oppress the subaltern.

Yet it’s valid to ask whether the same sorts of critiques could be used against postmodernity itself.  While postmodernity emphasizes diversity, plurality, and attempts to recover voices unheard in the discourses of modernity, that doesn’t mean postmodernity itself doesn’t come from a particular social location.

Indeed, to the extent that one thinks of postmodernity as a reaction to (or continuation of, or the death of, etc.) modernity, then postmodernity is a phenomenon with Western roots because modernity is/was a Western phenomenon.

Furthermore, an intellectual definition of postmodernity (which isn’t my preferred definition, but worth discussing) must be acknowledged to be a strongly Western phenomenon with its roots in French philosophical traditions and its views spread through the academy, which is in its origin (and to a large extent in its current instantiation) a Western set of institutions and methodologies.

I think there’s an argument to be made that cultural postmodernity is Western, too.  I was at a mission conference a year or two ago where the subject of the conference dealt with the emerging church and postmodernity.  I remember a Korean scholar there objecting that much of what was said at the conference didn’t apply to Korea.  Even if that Korean scholar was not entirely right and a number of the values of postmodernity do have resonances in some (but not all) cultures around the world, others do not.  Storytelling and community are important in many cultures around the world, and I would argue important to postmodernity as well.  Relativism and consumer capitalism may have weaker roots or resonances with non-Western cultural traditions.  Certainly much of the technological side of postmodernity has its origins in the West, even if it is people elsewhere that takes it to its fullest conclusion (like the Arab spring).

If we conclude that postmodernity has Western roots or even a Western bias, does that make it bad?  I think not.  After all, one of the things postmodernity teaches us is that bias is inescapable.  It’s important to be aware of our biases to the extent that we can, but to think we can totally escape or overcome them is foolish, so we shouldn’t expect postmodernity or anything else to be unbiased and universally applicable.

We should, however, be wary in using postmodernity as an analytic framework for describing what’s happening in the Majority World.  Postmodernity may end up describing some of what’s going on in other sociocultural settings, but then again, frameworks from within those settings may be more useful and/or accurate.  I would argue that postmodernity as a framework is a useful tool for thinking about the impact of globalization, which now has an impact on almost every country and culture around the globe.  Postmodernity’s usefulness in this regard is a reflection of the way that much of the globalized world, like postmodernity, has its roots in the West, even if it emphasizes the inclusion of a diverse set of cultural and political contexts.

Nevertheless, while postmodernity as a framework may or may not be entirely appropriate for analyzing the Majority World, it is a useful tool for analyzing the West and for analyzing the globalized world.  I think one of the ways we overcome Western cultural prejudices is by recognizing that the West has culture in the same ways that other peoples have cultures.  Analyzing that culture with appropriate tools is just as valid as analyzing other cultures with appropriate tools.

Numbers, Mission, and Losing Our Life for the Sake of the Gospel

My adviser, Dana Robert, and I recently wrote an article (which is available for free online – check it out) comparing growth rates of United Methodism to related denominations around the world.  We conclude that United Methodism is often growing slower than related denominations, and that this indicates a problem.  We suggest some possible explanations for the cause of that problem and then call for further research and missiological reflection on the state of the denomination.

For anyone living in the United States who is a United Methodist (or any other form of mainline Protestant for that matter), the idea that we have a numbers problem is not a new one.  The United Methodist Church in the US has not just been lagging in growth behind other denominations – we’ve been steadily declining in numbers for decades now.  Dr. Robert’s and my article goes beyond this observation in suggesting that The UMC has problems elsewhere, too, but it certainly does tie in to the narrative of United Methodist decline in the US.

There is, in my mind (and I’m speaking only for myself here and not trying to put words in Dr. Robert’s mouth) a right and a wrong way to respond to the realization of numerical problems with the denomination.  I think the wrong way to respond is to say, “We’ve got a problem with numbers.  Therefore, we need to find a way to improve our numbers so that we can continue what we’ve got.”  The right way to respond, in my mind, is to say, “We’ve got a problem with numbers.  Therefore, we need to think deeply about what God’s mission for us is and make sure we’re pursuing that mission as passionately and as whole-heartedly as we can.”  I think it is fair to say that both Dr. Robert and I were hoping our article would be a stimulus to get people in The UMC to think more deeply about mission, which I see as central to this second option.

The reason I think the first response is wrong is because it is ultimately focused on us, not God and not others.  At its worst, this type of reasoning says, “We’ve got institutions to preserve (whether those be particular ministries, General Boards, clergy guaranteed appointments and pensions, cultural clout, theological positions, places of privilege, or something else), and we can only preserve those institutions if we have enough people in the pews to support them.  Therefore, we need to get people in the pews so that they can support us and our institutions.”  In this way of thinking, people are invited in not for their sake or the gospel’s sake or Jesus’ sake, but for our sake.  Ultimately, this approach will not be successful.  People don’t want to be used, and it’s hard to sell people on a defensive attitude centered on preserving institutions of which they haven’t previously been a part.  If that’s how we respond to our falling or lagging numbers, our numbers will continue to fall and lag.

I have concern for The UMC because I do see this sort of response popping up to various degrees.  I’ve seen it in both the Call to Action and in some of the clergy response to the Call to Action.  While I think there are a number of positive things in the Call to Action, at times I detect an underlying assumption that what The UMC needs most is a way to start growing again.  Yes, I think The UMC should be growing, but what I think we need most is to be participating in God’s mission to the world in the ways God wants us to, whatever those ways may be.  At the same time, a lot of the clergy responses I’ve seen, while rightly holding up the importance of various ministries that can’t be best judged by numerical growth, also has an undercurrent to it, one which wants to make sure the clergy’s current financial and vocational turf is protected before they’re willing to talk about new ministry initiatives.  The Call to Action is more radical in suggesting changes, but I worry that both some of its supporters and detractors are motivated more by protecting the current life of the church than they are by the gospel, however defined.

In contrast, in what I think is the right response to recognizing our numbers problem, we would use the gut-check moment that comes along with that recognition to hold ourselves accountable to God and God’s will for us, even if that means losing some of what we’ve currently got.  One of the questions Dr. Robert and I ask in our article is, “[I]s it the case that holistic ministry (including numerical growth) gushes from a deep well of confident faith that United Methodists lack, relative to the stronger theological or liturgical identities of sister denominations?”  I think a proper response to the problem of numbers involves (re-)articulating for ourselves that deep well of confident faith.  I’m not here saying that The UMC has lost the faith we once had (as conservatives might) or that we need to completely adjust our faith to fit with our contemporary situation (as liberals might).  I am saying that we need to know what our faith is, both in its traditional and contemporary elements.  We need to know the gospel, and recognizing problems with numbers can be an occasion for us to make sure we know the gospel so that we can put that gospel into action for the sake of the world.

In this approach, then, the focus is not on us and defending what is ours, but on God and pursing what God has in store for us and the world - following a sense of mission.  It’s about putting God’s call on us ahead of our attachment to our communal life as we now know it.  There are costs involved in such an approach.  Deciding we care more about the gospel than our institutions will mean that some of those institutions, even some of those institutions which are in many ways good, will fall by the wayside.  It means some who had been part of our communal life before will leave, and it may even threaten schism among those who can’t agree on what the gospel is.  We’ll lose some of our life together.  And I can’t promise that such an approach will lead immediately to dramatic increases in numbers, though I think it is our best long-term hope.  Yet if we pursue this path, no matter what happens with numbers, we will have the joy of participating in God’s mission to the world, and we’ll be less worried about what happens to us because we won’t be focused on ourselves; we’ll be focused on God and on others.

Ultimately, I think this is the right way because it is the Biblical way.  In Mark 8:35, Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (NRSV)  If we only care about saving the current form of our common life as United Methodists, we will lose that life.  If, however, we are willing to lose the current dimensions of our common life together for the sake of Jesus and the sake of the gospel, then we will find new life – new life in Christ, new life in the gospel, new life in mission together, new life overflowing with joy.  May it be so.  Amen and amen.

a postmodern lecture

I agreed to give a lecture on postmodernity for the class I TA last week.  But as I was planning this lecture, I thought it would be not very postmodern and more than a little boring of me to just stand and talk about postmodernity.  So instead, I designed a participatory lecture.  I wrote down different points of the lecture on notecards, shuffled them, and then passed them out to any students who were willing to take one.  The notecards had one of three markings on them, and when I indicated one of the markings, those students with that marking on the card read their notecards in whatever order ended up happening.  I introduced the lecture (not from the front, though – standing at the side of the room), and indicated when it was time to transition between sections (while moving about the room).  Thus, it was a structured but still participatory and somewhat spontaneous lecture.  I’ve uploaded the lecture notes for any who are interested.  They can be found here.