logo

Letters
Cheers and Jeers

Rearranging the deck chairs
I have appreciated your bold and uncompromising stance to call the United Methodist Church back to its Wesleyan roots and biblical fidelity. Yet, I am beginning to lose all hope that this denomination can be reformed. Like the prophet Ezekiel who was asked by God if these dry bones could live, I must hedge my bets and say in good Methodist fashion, “You alone know, O Lord.”

Of course, God can bring new life into this denomination, but I believe it will require major structural changes. We are top-heavy and bloated and have a polity of power that demands a dysfunctional loyalty to the status quo. In essence, the wind of the Holy Spirit cannot fit into the old wineskins of our structure.

The call by Good News and the Confessing Movement to remain within the  denomination because there are people to lead and feed is a valid point, but as Jesus said about the poor—that is, that you will always have the poor among you—there will always be hungry people to lead and feed no matter where we go. Does it not make sense for them to leave and find a place where they can be faithful to raise their children “in the faith once handed down to the saints” than to be embarrassed and impoverished by unfaithful and unbelieving pastors and bishops? Does it not make sense for pastors to leave and seek places to use their gifts to build up the body unencumbered with bureaucratic nonsense and hoop-jumping? Maybe it is time to cut our losses and either form a new denomination or seek the many other biblical and faithful denominations out there to serve in.

As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, serving in the Texas Annual Conference, I am not encouraged by the call to stay, despite its noble intentions. To quote a former United Methodist pastor of mine, it is like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” I know this letter is critical, but given our connectional nature, and given the fact that we have a bishop like Joseph C. Sprague and others who fail to uphold orthodoxy, are we not an apostate denomination? Would not the early church, as well as Wesley, label us such?

None of us seems to have the courage to speak out clearly, that is, the ordained elders of our church, including yours truly. Even in my conference, the evangelicals seem remarkably silent—only a whimper. Yes, I know that I have the responsibility to speak out, but I have not had the courage either. I have written a letter to the council of bishops and my bishop, but what is that? The only thing that keeps me serving in this denomination is the fact that my life is not my own. I do not have the right to do what I want with it. I have not felt a release from God to leave, so I will stay and keep on praying. Yet, I am no longer going to pray for mercy, instead I am praying that God will either turn us or judge us. We cannot keep on going the way we are. 

Name withheld

Crossing the line
In response to Doug Robinson-Johnson’s letter to the editor about the article on Bishop Joseph Sprague I feel it necessary to respond. Robinson-Johnson can quote Origen, Tertullian, and Bishop Sprague all he wants. It does not change the fact that Bishop Sprague and himself are opposed to both Scripture and The Book of Discipline and have crossed the line into the area of heresy. 

 I believe that both Mr. Robinson-Johnson and Bishop Sprague have ever right to express their theology. If that theology, however, falls outside the boundary of what defines us as Christian and United Methodist, it is time that both should seriously ask themselves why they continue to be affiliated with a denomination whose tenets are exactly opposite of theirs.

Joe Reynolds
First United Methodist Church
Durant, Mississippi

Lack of theology
George Mitrovich wants us to recapture our Wesleyan heritage and blames theological liberals for undermining our faith in the church’s historic creeds. For that reason, he says, we are a dying denomination.

I wonder if only theological liberals are at fault. I agree with a noted United Methodist theologian, speaking about the United Methodist Church, who wrote: “For a long time now, I have had the distinct impression that the body of Christians who boast of a Discipline are among the most undisciplined persons in Christendom, especially when it comes to matters of doctrine. It is notorious that, at every level in the Church, from the local congregation to the General Conference, it is possible to disseminate the widest range of doctrines, both theological and ethical, regardless of the extent of their contrariety to the doctrinal standards we have officially acknowledged. In fact, one measure of the situation that has long prevailed in our church is that the vast majority of its members, ministerial as well as lay, would still be hard pressed simply to name the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church—to say nothing of having any operational understanding of their contents in relation to the church’s continuing witness.”

You might think that hard-hitting assessment came from somebody who wrote in your magazine recently. It was written almost thirty years ago by Schubert Ogden, a liberal theologian, long before conservatives started their handwringing about our membership decline and the fault of liberal theology or it. (Cf. Perkins Journal, vol. 28, no 1, Fall 1974) The lack of theology as such is partly at fault for our confusion, not whether it is liberal or conservative theology. That is all the more reason to put responsible theological reflection on the front burner in our denomination at all levels of the church and to stop assigning blame simply on the basis of liberal or conservative labels. Then, we can add to our theological capital rather than depleting it.

David McCreary
Chadron UM Church
Chadron, Nebraska



Click here to send your response plus the title of this article to us at Good News.

Good News | 308 East Main St. | P.O. Box 150 | Wilmore, KY 40390 | 859-858-4661 | 1-800-487-7784
info@goodnewsmag.org | About Us | ©2007 Good News magazine