Retired Bishop Dale White made a blistering attack on renewal groups within United Methodism, alleging that they have a “polarizing style” and “intimidating tactics” that are “calculated to spread fear” and “impugn the motives of others.” He warned against their “dirty tricks politics” and “right-wing ideology.” White made his remarks a First United Methodist Church in Schenectady, New York on October 26 as part of its Carl Lecture Series.
The bishop named the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), Good News, and the Confessing Movement among the groups that he was criticizing. “They aren’t accountable to anybody but themselves,” he complained. The bishop helped to organize the recently published Methodism at Risk: A Wake-up Call, which decries the renewal groups as a non-Methodist conspiracy to take over the United Methodist Church and dismantle its supposed tradition of support for “progressive” political causes.
“People don’t know who these people are!” Bishop White said. “We must do something.” Like the book that he helped to publish, White refrained from any careful analysis of the theological arguments presented by the renewal groups. Instead he focused on their funding sources. “Most of them are empowered with grants from non-church groups that have nothing to do with winning disciples for Christ,” he charged.
In particular, Bishop White targeted the IRD, which he said depends on “money from right-wing corporate foundations.” The bishop apparently assumed that, because some IRD donors hold their wealth in the form of corporate stock, they must therefore lack any Christian convictions or any genuine concern for the mission of the church. He said nothing about the vast majority of the money supporting IRD’s United Methodist Action committee, which comes from thousands of devoted members of the United Methodist Church.
According to White, the IRD promotes “conservative policy goals” such as increased military spending, more U.S. foreign intervention, and opposition to social welfare programs and the environmental movement. “Their goal is not a spiritual quest but a political take-over by the extreme right.” The bishop claimed that the Southern Baptist Convention and the IRD were the only U.S. Christian groups that endorsed the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Bishop White did not cite any specific IRD statements taking these alleged positions. In fact, no such statements exist. The only IRD statements to which the bishop alluded were those challenging church officials who demanded decreased military spending, U.S. non-intervention in Iraq and elsewhere, increased social welfare programs, and stricter environmental regulations. He did not mention the grounds for the IRD’s challenge: that such partisan political pronouncements have no biblical mandate, are not supported by most church members, and rely on a one-sided presentation of the facts. Consequently, White did not consider the possibility that the IRD might oppose a (hypothetical) take-over of the United Methodist Church to serve conservative policy goals just as strongly as it resists the current captivity of United Methodist agencies to a leftist political agenda.
The bishop also charged that the IRD is raising money to bring lawsuits and file charges against clergy who fail to uphold doctrines like Christ’s virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, and a “particular understanding” of Christ’s atonement. “If IRD didn’t have all that money, they would simply be dismissed as dysfunctional people who don’t have any manners,” he quipped.
White complained about United Methodist theologian Tom Oden, who chairs the IRD board. “Something happened to him over the years,” Bishop White surmised about Oden, who once aspired to being on the leftist “cutting edge” of theology, but later turned toward renewing the church’s orthodox tradition. “He’s associating with groups that are damaging our church. He’s saying what they want to hear.”
Bishop White remarked that Drew Theological School in New Jersey, where Oden has tenure, “continues to offer him hospitality,” though Oden “hardly ever shows up any more.” His “whole ministry is now IRD,” White contended. (The bishop did not mention Oden’s service as general editor of the monumental Ancient Christian Commentary Series, which is publishing the works of early church fathers.) “He advocates a strategy for seizing power in the church” through church trials and lawsuits. “How schismatic can you get?” White wondered.
Good News also received considerable criticism from Bishop White. He accused it of creating an “alternative denomination” by sponsoring supplemental ministries, such as a publishing house and alternative women’s programs. In particular, White was unhappy that Good News had found fault with a recent United Methodist Women’s convocation. “If I were mean, I would say this is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” the bishop declared. “We shouldn’t excuse these people any more.”
“They are exploiting the hospitality on which their existence depends,” White asserted, alleging that Good News wants to undermine the tolerance that has permitted it to function within the denomination. “Not even the hospitality of the ancient Hebrews allowed their guests to steal their identity,” Bishop White said.
Specifically, the bishop said that he was troubled by Good News’ criticism of the United Methodist Women’s Division for its opposition to U.S. military actions. “Is it Christian to attack Christian peacemakers?” he asked.
Good News also wants to “require pastors to take re-ordination vows,” he alleged. It “threatens the freedom of the pulpit and is an insult to all clergy.”
Bishop White advised evangelicals to focus on evangelism rather than contentious debates about the church’s beliefs. “Will we attract new members if we are quarreling over doctrine?” he asked.
Particular concern was raised over church trials for clergy who have conducted same-sex rituals, which Bishop White called “selective” enforcement of church doctrine. “How many pastors have been tried for blessing nuclear submarines?” he asked. “They [conservatives] are selective in what is orthodox and not orthodox.”
Bishop White called the Confessing Movement “very powerful” because it involves the pastors of large churches and some bishops. “Not all are evangelical, but most are conservative.” He referred to the “interlocking directorates” of the three United Methodist renewal groups.
“We want them at the table, but we exhort them to stop spreading false witness,” Bishop White said of the renewal groups. An “over-zealous cadre” is attempting to impose its interpretation of Scripture on the whole church, he warned. The bishop did not specify any errors in the doctrines that the renewal groups were upholding, or any inaccuracies in their reporting of events within the denomination.
Bishop White claimed that as a bishop he had been fair to evangelical clergy under his jurisdiction and had never told any pastor what to preach. But he was disturbed that evangelicals “avoided challenging systems causing war and poverty.”
Bishop White doubted that liberalism is the cause of all the church’s ills, or that a return to orthodoxy would restore the church. He insisted that people who attend church now are not interested in doctrine but “longing to address the hurts in the world.”
Recalling evangelical criticisms of the General Board of Global Ministries 20 years ago, Bishop White said there were hopes that those critics would “go away.” But they have not, so “we need to stand up to these people.”
“If to be evangelical is to be mean-spirited and use distorting tactics and yellow journalism, you ought to be ashamed to be evangelical,” Bishop White thundered. “How long will we offer our hospitality to these people?”
Bishop White said that for the first time “progressives” are talking about the “dissolution” of the denomination. He blamed some of its current problems upon the alleged historic baggage of his theological adversaries.
“Some of the former EUB folks are the ones giving us the fits,” Bishop White said of the Evangelical United Brethren, which merged into the United Methodist Church in 1968. “They are German pietists, not Wesleyan,” he recalled another bishop saying of them.
Bishop White also speculated that the southern church still has “lingering resentment” over losing civil rights battles, a resentment that might still fuel criticism of national church policies.
Countering the complaint that liberalism is destroying the denomination, Bishop White maintained that United Methodism has actually been conservative and yet it is “dying.” He lamented that “they [conservatives] are blaming everybody but themselves.” Noting that African Methodist churches are growing, the bishop attributed that growth to effective techniques rather than a depth of classic Christian faith. It was the General Board of Global Ministries that “gave them [African Methodists] the tools,” he said.
“Many honest church members” are being deceived by “dysfunctional organizations that are impacting from the outside,” Bishop White concluded. He pointed to politically leftist evangelicals like the Sojourners group, which is not United Methodist. “There are different kinds of evangelicals, thank God,” the bishop concluded.
Mark D. Tooley
Research Associate
UM Action Executive Director
The Institute on Religion & Democracy
1110 Vermont Avenue NW Suite 1180
Washington DC 20005
mtooley@ird-renew.org <mailto:mtooley@ird-renew.org>