The disciples had been with Jesus for some time. They had seen him heal and perform other miracles. They had listened to his teaching to different audiences, and had shared intimate moments of conversation with him. They had observed him in public and private. So, one day Jesus asked them, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" (Matt. 16:13). They responded with what they had heard: "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets" (v. 14).
Jesus pressed the question. He wanted their thoughts, their personal judgment: "But who do you say I am?" Peter, speaking for the group, responded, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God" (vv. 15-16).
All three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record this encounter, and through the ages since, the church has seen this as a pivotal moment of revelation and teaching. On their testimony concerning who he was, Jesus said, "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (v. 18).
For years, the simple but profound and encompassing creed "Jesus is Lord" was the essence of the church's profession of faith. It is still the essence. I mean by essence what the dictionary says: "That which makes something what it is; the distinctive quality or qualities of something." That which makes the church what she is—the distinctive quality is our confession and profession of Jesus Christ; who he is, what he has done for us, and the promise of salvation he makes to all humankind. There is no Christian church apart from Jesus Christ. There is no Christian history apart from persons encountering Jesus Christ, confessing and professing faith in him.
Knowing who Jesus is involves divine revelation rather than human assessment alone. Christianity is not just a confession, it is a profession of faith. Faith is a gift of God, but our profession is not a groundless assertion. It arises out of the witness of Scripture and out of the experience of persons with Jesus. It is interesting that in all three gospels where this confession of the Messiah is recorded, Jesus warned them not to tell anyone. A lot of discussion has surrounded that part of the story. Whatever else is involved, this much is clear: the full nature of the Messiah was not yet understood, not even by the disciples. In Luke's account this is made clear: "Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life...'" (9:21-22).
At the point of the revelation in Caesarea, the disciples were becoming aware of Jesus being more than a man; more than Elijah or one of the prophets, with a far more crucial role to play in God's plan and purpose. Jesus was the Son of Man, the Messiah. But there was more to be revealed and experienced: Jesus was the Son of the Living God, and as he told them, his death and resurrection would reveal the rest of the story.
A Rigid Fundamentalism
For years United Methodism has wrestled with the third part of the slogan for the 1996 General Conference: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and, in all things, charity." Implicitly, we have forgotten—if not forgotten, then certainly neglected—the hinge element of the "slogan": essentials. Liberty and charity have become a rigid "fundamentalism," the watchwords of condemnation against those who contend that we must recover a commitment to the essentials.
This fundamentalism of liberty and charity was inadvertently institutionalized by the General Conference in 1972. We made doctrinal pluralism the center around which we ordered our life as a denomination. What happened, in fact, was that pluralism became an ideology garnering more attention and commitment than doctrine or theology. For two decades "in non-essentials, liberty, and, in all things, charity" has been reduced to a hyper-toleration in which even raising the question of "essentials" is seen as intolerance that has no place in United Methodism.
To have charity in all things does not mean an unexamined and unquestioned commitment to pluralism and diversity. It means that we begin at the center—Jesus Christ as Son of God, Savior, and Lord—and from that center we diligently seek to order our life as a unique community that stands against the moral relativism that is the cancer of our age. Charity must be defined with reference to God's highest expression of love in sending his Son to live among us, and die for our salvation. We value diversity, but do not make diversity redemptive in itself. While "inclusivity," with respect to culture and race are clearly Christian, and by contrast "exclusivity" must be clearly rejected on Christian principles, this does not mean that we sacrifice truth claims for the sake of getting along together, especially when it is truth claims about Jesus that give us life and are the ordering dynamics of Christian community. Where truth is concerned, falsehood and error must be excluded, regardless of culture or race. Truth by its very nature is exclusive. To be sure, our insights may be partial, and many facets of truth are needed for wholeness. But, in the Christian view of reality, everyone's well-being consists in acknowledging Christ as he truly is, accepting him as Savior and Lord, obeying his commands, being a part of the community of which he is the head, and bringing others to faith in him. We do not promote the well-being of others if we do not uphold the truth they themselves need.
John Wesley based his call to love (charity) on the love that God gave us in Jesus Christ. "It behooves us therefore to examine well upon what foundation our love of neighbor stands: whether it is really built upon the love of God; whether 'we' do 'love because He first loved us'" (Sermon 23, part 1, section 1). He insisted that the love Christians know and share is the love of Christ flowing through them. A church in which charity of that sort "in all things" dwells will be a vibrant fellowship of acceptance where persons live together with different opinions, celebrate the pursuit of truth, submit themselves to the lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture, and give themselves sacrificially to Christ's redemptive mission of service to the world. Our worship of God, as we know God in Christ, keeps our identity clear. Our ministry to each other and to the world in Christ's name is the dynamic bonding that keeps us alive as a part of the Church—the Body of Christ.
The Heretical Imperative
That we were on the wrong path as a denomination with our hyper-toleration and our superficial, unexamined commitment to pluralism has been recognized for some time. In his Episcopal Address at the General Conference in 1984, Bishop Jack M. Tuell said, "The time has come to say the last rites over the notion that the defining characteristic of United Methodist theology is pluralism. The word [pluralism] may have some descriptive value, but it has no defining value. It carries philosophic overtones which contradict our understanding of the Christian faith." I think the bishop was right.
Peter Berger speaks about the "heretical imperative" that is the necessity to choose a religious faith, or to choose not to have one. He says "this heretical imperative is the endemic challenge that issues from pluralistic society." I do not believe I'm violating Berger's thought when I suggest that the "heretical imperative" within the Christian family is centered not on whether we will choose a religious faith or not, but what we choose to believe about Jesus Christ: his incarnation, his life and ministry, his death and resurrection, his redemption, his triumph in the kingdom, our salvation and sanctification through him, his living presence among us and within us through the Holy Spirit as the power to be and do all God calls us to be and do.
In The Christian Century, Thomas Oden and Lewis Mudge recently debated the issue of "heresy" (April 12, 1995). In his response to Oden, who pleads for us to recognize that heresy is abroad in our church, and especially in our seminaries, Mudge called for a "gathering around the center." In his counter response to Mudge, Oden asks, "Can there be a center without a circumference?" This is not a play on words. That's the reason the debate is so crucial. The center has to be more clearly designated and defined because the center will fashion the circumference. That is what some are seeking to do in the Confessing Movement. The affirmation of the movement is not a creed to replace or even to be added to what we already have in the Discipline of our church, but it is a call to the church to confess with one voice Jesus Christ as Son, Savior, and Lord. This is the center around which we are to move in faith and doctrine.
This is where I would disagree heartily with Lewis Mudge. He says: "Who is in the position to define what is 'heretical'? Our situation today is that no one stands in the center. No one has the right to arrogate to himself or herself a definitive status. We need to determine together where the center is. No literal repetition of formulas coming from any particular place or time in the history of the church can help us now.
Mudge is right when he says, "No one has the right to arrogate to himself or herself the definitive status," but what about his claim that no "formulas coming from any particular place or time in the history of the church can help us now"? What does this say about the church as "the people of God"? The church that is a part of God's history? In his first epistle, Peter used the titles applied to Israel to describe the church; he called us a "chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (I Pet. 2:9). I do not believe that those who are contending for an adherence to, for instance, the Nicene Creed, are arrogating to themselves definitive status. They are claiming the wisdom of "the people of God." They are seeking to begin a dialogue not to determine where the center is, but to claim the center that has already been determined by the church. We are simply calling for an adherence to Scripture and the classic creeds that have defined our life as Christians and are the expression of Christian consensus. We are contending that Scripture is our final authority and that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, Savior, and Lord, is the center that defines the circumference.
What then, does "in all things, charity" mean? It does not mean what we have sought to make it mean during the past 20 years-a hyper-toleration and a mindless, superficial pluralism. It does not mean we can badger others and settle all issues by accusing others of exclusivity and claiming inclusivity as the final warrant of love. It means that we do not set out to find unity in diversity. We begin by claiming our unity in Jesus Christ, and then we celebrate the diversity within the community of Christ.
The following assertions will help us wrestle with the issue of unity, liberty, and charity.
No Church Apart from Jesus
There is no Christian church apart from Jesus Christ, no Christian community apart from some personal experience of him. The Church is the Body of Christ. What we think of Jesus Christ not only makes the biggest difference in our lives, but also the nature and life of the Church is determined by Jesus Christ—who he is, what he did, and what he does. Naturally, our personal experience of Jesus cannot be disconnected from what we think of him. That makes even more crucial what the church through the ages has said about him. Who Jesus is defines and informs our experience of him.
Integrity at Center—Ambiguity at Circumference
If there is integrity at the center, that is, where our Christology is concerned, then there can be ambiguity at the circumference. That doesn't mean there are no boundaries—there are. Our primary source for the setting of these boundaries is Scripture, with the additional aid of reason, tradition, and experience. Our problems come when we seek to move the center to some point out at the circumference field.
The question arises, of course, how do we deal with the ambiguity? I propose that we make more use of what recent Roman Catholic thought is calling for: focusing on "the sense of the faithful." Richard M. Mouw has introduced this dynamic in his challenging book Consulting the Faithful (Eerdmans). He says: "The disdain many Christian scholars show toward domestic popular religious culture is itself a theological defect, stemming from a failure to develop an adequate theological understanding of ordinary religious people. The notion that the laity's perspective should be taken into account in assessing a theological or ethical teaching is not entirely new to Catholic theology, but in the past the laity was assigned a fairly passive role in the theological formulation. Cardinal Newman was signaling a new emphasis on the laity's active role in the process when he wrote in the nineteenth century that church leaders must take seriously 'a son of instinct, deep in the bosom of the mystical body of Christ."'
It is commendable that all the leaders of the church pastors, bishops, heads of boards and agencies, seminaries, and even caucus groups—champion the priesthood of all believers. The Bishops' report on ministry and the Board of Discipleship's report on baptism, two big issues before the 1996 General Conference, give a central place to the laos, the whole people of God. But how much attention are these leaders willing to give to the "instincts" of the laity? How much attention to the "sense of the faithful" as it relates to matters such as abortion and the ordination of practicing homosexuals? How much freedom will we give laypersons in choosing the mission expression of their local congregations and how they order their spending priorities? Will voices who get a hearing in seminaries, national meetings, and the United Methodist press not be at least questioned, if not checked, by our leaders when they accuse lay Christians of homophobia and patriarchy when these laypersons are being faithful to their understanding of Scripture, and especially when they are in harmony with the Discipline of United Methodism and with the majority of Christians around the world?
If we are going to have charity in all things, then certainly those who are a part of the General Conference should think long and hard about action that clearly violates the "sense of the faithful." Charity in all things allows ambiguity at the circumference, but does not allow church leadership to advocate, much less impose on the church as a whole, that which is so far from the center that to accept it would demand a spiritual and moral elasticity beyond the capacity of the faithful.
This does not mean that truth and moral issues can be determined by majority vote. It is simply a plea that the General Conference collect the wisdom of the whole church and enter into theological reflection, using reason and experience, yet staying faithful to those truths that constitutionally the General Conference has said it cannot change, i.e., the twenty-five Articles and the Confession of Faith.
The Church—Place of Hospitality
I believe that the Church, as the Body of Christ, the fellowship of which Christ is the head, is a home of grace. As a home of grace, it is a place of hospitality and a home for all. If it is not a home for all, it is not a home at all. By nature, if it is Christian, the church is redemptive and transforming. Though some may choose not to be a part of the Christian community because of the community's call to new life in Christ, the church is not to be faulted. As Wesley would put it, grace may be universally offered though not universally received. It is tragic when any community that calls itself Christian is so amorphous in its doctrine and teaching that there are no distinctive faith commitments called for. Equally tragic, perhaps more so, is for the church to be so accepting of all moral behavior and failure that persons are never confronted with sin and/or offered the redemptive transforming grace of Jesus Christ. "In all things, charity" means that because the church is the home of grace, it receives all as they are and where they are, depending on the grace of Jesus never to leave us as we are or where we are.
If there is an absolute center, which classic Christianity says there is, then there is going to be practical and theoretical heresy. There are going to be those who refute the "center," and offer an alternative. That has been true throughout Christian history, and the church has always refuted the "optional" teaching. There will always be those who refuse to accept the center, Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son of God incarnate, as God's self revelation, as God's offer of salvation to all humankind, as the pattern of life to which we are called, and as sender of the Spirit who makes us new creatures. "In all things, charity" does not mean that the church can forget the center and not challenge those who propose a more culturally acceptable expression of the gospel. In "An Open Letter to Presbyterians: Theological Analysis of Issues raised by the Re-Imagining Conference," six professors from Princeton Theological Seminary said: "The unity of the Church is not endangered whose heresies are labeled as such. On the contrary, the unity of the Church is a unity in its Head, Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of wisdom and truth. It is not those who point out the heresy and apostasy of others who break that unity. It is rather the heretic and the apostate who break the unit of the Church by undermining the Church's obedience to its Head. Those who raise the necessary protest are simply bringing to the light of day the fact that the unity of the Church has already been shattered."
Desiring charity in all things for the church means that we order our love around the only unity that will enable us to have and celebrate diversity in the church. It is the unity created by our acceptance of God's gift of God's self in his Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior and Lord.
Maxie D. Dunnam is the president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is the former world editor of the Upper Room and the author of numerous books including, most recently, This is Christianity (Abingdon).
This article was published in Good News magazine (March/April 1996).