By Bill Mefford
Recently, the newly organized Global Methodist Church released their much-anticipated-only-by-them “Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline.” It is 97 pages long (emphasis on long) and much of it isn’t bad, just repetitive. No, I did not read all of it, but of what I did read, I felt like I was back at Asbury - LOTS on personal salvation, very little on social witness, and LOTS on rules. Why is it that people who write so eloquently about grace LOVE making rules mainly for other people?
While I find a lot of Wesley’s writings a bit tedious (yes, I was a lifelong Methodist and yes, I was not a very good one) and while I think he probably should have worked on his marriage a little more and written a little less, I also must fully disclose that I tend towards the Orthodox in much of my theology. But from as far back as I can remember I have found, generally speaking, that the way orthodoxy is lived out as a collective social witness on the part of those who proclaim to be orthodox to fall far short of demonstrating the transformational power of God. If your orthodoxy causes trauma and violence to the people who are supposed to be the focus of your missional love, then you are doing orthodoxy wrong.
Unfortunately, the document put forward by the GMC is ultimately a failed attempt that I am afraid will indeed cause more harm than good. In fact, I believe what they have shared is ultimately heretical. Below is why I believe this is so and I also try and offer some solutions for the folks with the GMC. One thing we should always remember is that bad missiology always screws up good theology, no matter how well-intentioned or well-stated.
In a 97 page document they barely devoted a page to addressing anything resembling social justice. To say the 14 points they put forth are weak is a dramatic understatement. They largely steer clear of addressing specific issues because conservatives have long opposed the work of the general church taking specific stands on issues like immigrantion reform, ending gun violence, advocating for universal health care, eradicating poverty, protecting the rights of all people, and other issues.
In my recall from having served for a time in the general church, the reason why conservatives tend to oppose addressing issues specifically is that it will inevitably tread on individual freedoms and “create division.” I remember numerous conversations with conservatives who forcefully opposed the work I did who would have preferred I make statements very general in nature and not “get in the weeds.” Thus, in their document, they promote flowery language that sounds Jesusy, but fails spectacularly to live up to the call Jesus places on all of us to care for the most vulnerable in the midst of their suffering.
But let’s back up for a minute. The reason why you address specific issues of justice is based not just in the suffering happening around us, but rather, it is rooted in the actual character of who God is. God is both unconditionally loving and just at the same time. God’s love is especially directed towards people experiencing suffering. I think it is fair to say that God has a preferential option towards vulnerable people, which is born out in even the most cursory reading of the Gospels. All of Scripture in fact shows God very intimately engaged in every facet of our lives, especially on how people and marginalized people are treated.
Thus, the GMC fails to urge its members to love people who are suffering because they refuse to speak to that suffering except in the most general of terms. Anyone who experiences or sees suffering up close knows that suffering is rarely ever general in nature. Suffering has a context and thus, our call to love and work for justice must be contextual as well. It must be specific.
Sadly, two of the times they call for specific forms of justice they result in only causing more harm. Once again, engaging in justice is a calling for ALL followers of Jesus no matter where you reside on the theological or political spectrum. Just as conservatives are not solely called to pray, the same is true of our shared call to missional engagement in justice. Working for justice entails addressing systems that perpetuate violence and oppression and working for their transformation to structures which uphold the dignity and rights of those once marginalized. Biblical justice is achieved when those with access to resources gain that same access to those same resources for those whose access has been restricted or denied. Yet, instead of doing justice, the GMC actually calls for the continued unjust status quo. This is the antithesis of social transformation or social holiness.
Here are a couple of examples. In one of the 14 points they claim, once again to love all people, yet they go on to say they support “lawful” immigration, which has historically been code for “deport the illegals.” They might not be openly calling for violence directed at undocumented immigrants, but in many ways they do worse; they put qualifiers on their love. They, in essence, are creating categorizations of “good immigrants” (lawful immigrants) and “bad immigrants” (undocumented immigrants). This will nicely provide just the excuse the many people who will flock to the GMC to use to continue practicing a nationalistic form of Christianity where the poor are categorized into deserving and undeserving of our help. Though they drone on and on about the grace, or unmerited favor, of God, they, at the same time, demand a merit-based form of missional outreach. In essence, they are saying Jesus loves us without condition, but it’s cool for us to conditionally love others, not as Jesus loves us, but as the world does. They combine a high Christology for personal salvation and a secular ethic in creating a syncretized brand of Christianity; a form of godliness without the power of God. Categorizing the poor into deserving and undeserving classes is simply not supported by the preponderance of Scripture and is, I believe, the most venal form of heresy in the church today.
Further, though they claim they oppose discrimnation, they list descriptions of groups of people who should receive fair and nondiscriminatory treatment and they refuse to include LGBTQIA+ people. Seriously. This is just dumb and, as their brief and insufficient interlude into immigration shows, that their social witness is not driven by Scripture, but rather, by their own culturally-skewed biases and prejudice. The expansive language to love and reach out to others that they reiterate in several lines of the Social Witness section comes out as completely hollow.
So, to my undocumented friends the message is this: the Global Methodist Church loves you so much that they will prayerfully stand by as you are deported back to your home country and possibly even denied access to forms of charity since you do not have citizenship. And to my LGBTQ friends, the GMC loves you so much that they will discriminate against you until you are straight, at which time, they will fight with a vengeance to make sure you are not discriminated against. Though they believe in the concept of entire sanctification, apparently you can be entirely sanctified even while you refuse to grant grace to people you simplistically and wrongly label as “illegal” and while you discriminate against people who do not sufficiently conform to your culturally-formed understanding of gender and sexuality. For the GMC, entire sanctification has practically zero social ramifications.
This is simply ludicrous and gross.
There is more that is deeply flawed with this document, but I believe the heresy deceptively hidden in this document makes it enough for us to walk on by. The GMC will likely be popular for they are the Fox News of new denominations; lots of nice graphics with a hard emphasis on branding without much regard for substantive and truly socially transformative truth. But they will tickle the ears of those who find social transformation not the work of the church in the first place.
I am truly saddened to watch the number of people they will ultimately lead astray, but it saddens me even more to know they do not have to do this. They could keep much of the document as is - well, the “believe in Jesus and Wesleyan grace” stuff (they need to nix all the emphasis on discipline and rules; I mean, some of that is just nuts). Love and grace works. But rather than keeping the “Jesus transforms me” for ourselves, what if we just participated in God’s hoped-for desire to transform and liberate the whole world?
Forgive the length of this, but please permit me to write out what could easily be included in this document which would lessen it’s heretical leanings and bring it more closely aligned with Scripture and God’s current work in the world. Here are a few examples of what I hope the writers of this document might consider as a friendly amendment to the Social Witness section:
Loving others as God loves us means we will accept unreservedly any and all people into membership and we will always work to make space for God’s amazing giftings that work through all of God’s creation to both edify us as one expression of Christ’s Body and to transform and liberate the world from sin and death. Therefore, because we acknowledge that there is no God but God and we are not attempting to assume the role of God, we make no bars on leadership; it is not ours to proclaim entire groups of people beyond the reach of God’s call to leadership. Only the Spirit determines who receives what gifts for ministry. Only the Spirit determines those who lead. Thus, we confess that we are not the Holy Spirit and will allow all to lead as the Spirit calls them and as their gifts are identified by their local community of faith.
Loving others as God loves means that the oppression and violence done to others must be responded to as if it were done to us. Historical racism and oppression done to people of color in the United States (and throughout much of the world), with special attention to the Black and Brown communities, has all too often been done in coordination or under the blessing of those who claim to be followers of Jesus. We acknowledge that Christians who hold to orthodox theological positions have often been active and passive participants in acts of racism, violence, and the most virulent forms of colonialism.
We repent of racism, both individually and collectively, and as the fruit of our repentance we commit ourselves to use our power in service to Black and Brown people. Two obvious campaigns that we are committed to are defunding the police and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), both of which have been used historically and in our current context as means of oppression and agents of state-sponsored terror. We will no longer support the work of these agencies towards these ends. As we seek to defund the police and abolish ICE we are reminded of our foreparents, the abolitionists of the 19th Century who struggled with whether to commit themselves to the gradual or immediate abolition of slavery. Their only hesitation to immediate abolition lay in their paternalistic attitudes towards Blacks and their willingness to bend their missional commitment to the politics of the day.
We pledge not to follow in the footsteps of the gradualists and instead, we will use every fiber of our being to abolish ICE and defund the police and imagine a world where safety is not achieved through historically racist and militarily armed outside forces seeking to maintain white-majority rule. Instead, we believe public safety is a result of empowering and equipping people to care for their own communities and that care must be accompanied through transferring ownership of homes and businesses to those who live in those communities. We seek transformation not as a means of berating the police or ICE, but rather, in inviting them into what God desires for all of creation: peace and justice.
Loving others as God loves us means that the world is truly our parish. As such, while we recognize national boundaries and the sovereignty of individual nations, we owe our allegiance to one who is more powerful than any nation and at whose feet all nations will one day bow. Our allegiance is only to Jesus and we are ambassadors of his Kingdom of love, grace, mercy, and justice. Nationalism is sin and we will no longer allow that pernicious sin to stain the worship we are called to enter into in Spirit and truth. Thus, in a small, but faithful step, we will no longer allow only the US flag to hang in our sanctuaries. We want all people to be welcome and affirmed in our worship. Our missional engagement will not be to introduce a culturally-defined concept of Jesus, but rather, an adventure to find the God-already-present in every culture and people.
Loving others as God loves us means that no one, and we mean no one, should be discriminated against for any reason. Denying people their right to marry who they choose, or their right to buy a wedding cake from whatever business they choose, or any other decision that is made, under the false guise of “religious freedom” is a denial of the religion we profess. Denying LGBTQ people their rights does not make us more Christian; it only makes us bigots. All people are welcome, all people are loved, all people are worthy of dignity simply and solely because all people carry within them the imago dei.
More could be added, but I will stop here. This is not that hard. Loving others because God loves us means that we sacrifice our culturally-shaped list of moral absolutes so that others can experience God’s love. Loving others because God loved us means we use every gift we have been given - whether in the form of money, political power, spiritual giftedness, or whatever - for the transformation of the world. Advocacy is not a call for the few. Indeed, we advocate for real and lasting change because Jesus and the Spirit advocated for us then and now. We love others unconditionally solely because we are loved unconditionally. The Spirit is responsible to convict others of sin. Our call is to love.
The members and the leaders of the GMC have a simple choice before them. They can choose to remain church people committed to their own holiness without much concern for the holiness of all of society which will result in the continued political and economic status quo where mass numbers of people are suffering. Or they can follow the radical Jesus whose life and ministry call us to live into the year of Jubilee, where the poor are cared for, the oppressed go free, and no one trains for war any longer. It’s a choice between being just another denomination or a movement.