The ad hoc coalition of self-described "traditionalist" and "moderate" and "evangelical" United Methodists which met in Atlanta in April has formed a Steering Committee and named Dr. John Ed Mathison, senior pastor at Frazer Memorial UM Church (Montgomery, Alabama) as chairman. The Steering Committee also sent a letter of invitation to churches and lay leaders across the denomination.
"We felt the need to call ourselves to accountability concerning our personal ministry and our commitment to sound Biblical doctrine and practice," Mathison said in a cover letter to the mailing about the Atlanta meeting and subsequent action. "From this event came a document which is an invitation to all of us to examine ourselves, our churches, and The United Methodist Church in an effort to be the kind of church God wants for our day."
Included with the "Invitation" document was an expanded statement, "What is the Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church?" written by a Drafting Committee chaired by Prof. Thomas C. Oden of the Drew Theological School. The statement begins by saying, "The Confessing Movement is a witness by United Methodist lay men and women, clergy, and congregations who pledge unequivocal and confident allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ according to "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3)."
The statement continues, "The Confessing Movement asserts that the Church receives her faith as a gift from God; it is not an ideology we imagine or invent. The Confessing Movement asserts that the Church has an identity grounded in Jesus Christ, not created or projected out of our own desires and experiences. The Confessing Movement asserts that the Church has doctrine that binds the faithful, not to unchanging verbal formulations, but to God’s self-revelation in human history that has been witnessed to by Scripture, summarized in confessional statements and standards, and praised in liturgical language that remains faithful to the apostolic witness."
The Confessing Movement plans to "contend for the apostolic faith within the United Methodist Church." It will seek to "reclaim and reaffirm the Church’s ancient ecumenical faith in Wesleyan terms within United Methodism." The Movement makes clear that it "is not asking for a new definition of faith, but for a new level of integrity in upholding our historic doctrinal standards in a thoughtful, serious, and principled way."
The statement further declares: "We envision a doctrinal reinvigoration of our church, which includes a thorough re-engagement of the Wesleyan devotional tradition, a renewed employment of the means of grace for the sake of holy living, and a new obedience to God in the forming of our lives in covenant communities after the pattern of the mind which was in Christ Jesus."
Included in the mailing is a copy of the document drawn up in Atlanta, "An Invitation to the Church." It includes the names of the almost 90 persons who attended the Atlanta event and have since expressed willingness to join as a signatory to the Atlanta "Invitation" statement.
Members of the Steering Committee, which will continue to direct the activities that began in Atlanta, include in addition to Chairman Mathison, Prof. Thomas C. Oden (Secretary), Bishop William R. Canon, the Rev. Maxie D. Dunnam, the Rev. Andrea Bishop, the Rev. William Hinson, the Rev. Ira Gallaway, Evelyn Laycock, the Rev. Budd L. Sprague, and David M. Stanley.
The Drafting Committee was composed of Oden, Sprague, Prof. William J. Abraham, the Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth, Mark Horst, Leicester R. Longden.
Published in the July/August 1994 issue of Good News magazine.