It was in the early 1960s. On the campus of Garrett Theological Seminary (Evanston, Ill.), Christian education students gathered for a presentation by Henry Bullock, top editor of curriculum for the mainline Methodist church.
Afterward, one student asked about rumors that the new curriculum would be “evangelical.” The reply: Children today are accustomed to violence on television, so we can say something about the Cross in the new children’s literature.
That statement is to me symbolic of the long-standing ills of the United Methodist Church. How do we decide whether the message of the Cross should be included or excluded from Sunday school materials? To make a judgment on such a flimsy basis illustrates the problem that the Cross has not been central to those who have made the decisions about the UMC curriculum for at least 50 years.
The apostle Paul was so different. He would have taught about the Cross to everyone, regardless of age. He wrote to the Corinthians: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
Just what is United Methodism like? I base my comments on such things as graduation from Garrett (United Methodist) Theological Seminary, almost 10 years as a UMC pastor, participation behind the scenes at five general conferences (held once every four years), visits to 53 of the 73 annual conferences across America, correspondence with hundreds of Methodists worldwide, private and public meetings with many church leaders, and study of official denominational communications for more than 15 years. My conclusions?
It has become evident to me that nonevangelical thinking has long prevailed at United Methodism’s upper levels. A leading member of the mainline Methodist bureaucracy illustrated this when he referred scornfully to “those fundamentalists.” Asked “What do you mean by the word ‘fundamentalist’?,” he replied, “Why, anybody who reads the Bible.”
The denomination’s colleges and seminaries have revealed for years that mainline Methodism, at its heart, has drifted far from its origin, which Wesley called “scriptural Christianity.” As a result, the schools of mainline Methodism are dominated by concepts alien to the understanding of many biblical Christians about faith, Christian lifestyle, and the mission of the church.
One family discovered this when it sent a son to a Midwest United Methodist college, thinking the moral climate would be wholesome and the spiritual environment biblical. The first Sunday on campus, the son phoned home. “Guess what the chaplain told us today?” he asked. “That Karl Marx and Jesus were great political prophets.”
And going to get their son for Christmas break, the parents were dismayed to have to pick their way through empty liquor bottles littering the dorm floor.
The nonevangelical influence has not been limited to UMC colleges and seminaries, however. Since 1970, the denomination has been spending millions of dollars to empower various special interest groups, which have gained de facto control of the church power structure. Consider the UMC’s tragic decline of evangelism. In recent years the denomination financed the work of many “community developers.” But only an infinitesimal sliver of the total amount spent by the national church and its regional units is devoted to evangelism (understood not in the sense of “whatever the church does,” but in the evangelical sense of offering salvation to those who are separated from God because they do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord). Is there a single one of the 73 annual conferences that pays the salary and underwrites the expenses of a full-time evangelist? “Approved” evangelists must raise most of their own money, often against heavy official opposition.
Pluralism
Many mainline Methodists boast that the church’s greatest asset is “pluralism.” This means anyone is free to define the Christian faith and life in any manner. The 1972 general conference officially adopted doctrinal pluralism, and by this action moved mainline Methodism outside the historic Protestant commitment to the Bible as the supreme authority. Rather, reason, experience, and tradition were elevated to a par with—and, in effect, above—the Bible. This abandonment of biblical authority in the church’s life makes it difficult to know what, for a United Methodist, is absolutely essential to Christianity.
Hence the United Methodist obsession with feminist, black, liberation, and Third World emphases regardless of their biblical validity. Yet, oddly, evangelical views are not included under pluralism. Instead, orthodox Christianity is simply ignored, or relegated to stereotypes of the nineteenth century. This means that forthright evangelicals are consistently excluded from the highest elective and major policy-making positions. It has been a long time since an evangelical, who was not first and foremost a supporter of the institutional status quo, has been elected or appointed to a position of significant authority in mainline Methodism.
However, some “closet evangelicals” can be found in leadership positions. A bishop once admitted privately: “In my personal faith, I am an evangelical. But the pressure against evangelicals is so great that we bishops who hold an evangelical view personally don’t dare to be very open about this. Being evangelical isn’t intellectually respectable among our peers.”
When the homosexual issue first surfaced, a number of bishops said privately that they were opposed to clergy who practiced homosexuality. But I do not recall a United Methodist bishop who came out publicly, during the protracted discussion of this issue since 1972, to condemn homosexual practice as unbiblical and therefore as categorically wrong and unacceptable.
This strange silence on the part of UM bishops is one reason it took until 1984 for the denomination to exclude—albeit very hesitantly—self-professing, practicing homosexuals from its clergy. Other factors were the prohomosexual public statements made by Denver Bishop Melvin Wheatly, and the prohomosexual stands of certain church boards and agencies expressed in general conference resolutions since 1975. The New York Annual Conference has ruled in recent years that a homosexual pastor was to be considered in good standing, and therefore eligible for reappointment to a church by the bishop.
The pluralism of theology in United Methodism is bewildering. This makes its clergy a very mixed bag. In my last year of denominational seminary, one classmate wanted a Methodist pastorate so he could help people get rid of the superstitious notion that there was a Higher Power who restricts their freedom to be authentically human. Yet in the same class were other seminarians who were eager to preach Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Under pluralism, United Methodist clergy can hold almost any view—unless (and here’s the rub) it is too strongly and explicitly orthodox-evangelical. One student pastor in Ohio heard a professor at a United Methodist seminary deny the necessity of the Resurrection. The student, in his parish newsletter, then stated that, without the authenticity of the Resurrection, there could be no Christianity. A very much dissatisfied superintendent called him to warn that if he expected to be ordained into a pluralistic church, he could not be so rigid and dogmatic over specific doctrines, including the Resurrection.
Yet few such restrictions seem to apply in the nonevangelical direction. A pastor who supports the UMC system can be anything from quietly conservative to universalist, agnostic, or even farther Left. This poses a serious problem for UMC congregations since local churches do not have final control over their pulpits. United Methodist bishops have the right to send any pastor to any church. While the wishes of the local church are often duly considered, this is not always so. Local churches have no protection against pastors who, regardless of their theology, are approved and supported by the heirarchy.
Pluralism has seriously blurred the term “evangelical.” It has come to be written on rubber, and is being stretched to fit almost any theology. The fact is, many in the doctrinal twilight zone resent the term “biblical Christian” because they are not that closely identified with the Bible. But they are willing to call themselves “evangelicals,” because they see it as giving them considerably more doctrinal latitude.
Why Evangelicals Remain
For many reasons, the United Methodist climate is alien and inhospitable to forthright evangelical faith. Nevertheless, many evangelicals do occupy UMC pews every Sunday; and a fair number remain in the pulpit, especially in smaller, more remote congregations. Why do they stay?
One common reason is ignorance. Many evangelicals simply do not realize how far the official church has departed from basic evangelical beliefs and priorities. About two-thirds of all United Methodist churches have 200 members or less, and are located in small towns or rural areas. In relative isolation, they go on singing the familiar gospel songs, holding occasional revivals, and thinking Methodists everywhere believe and act as they do.
The illusion is intensified since United Methodism has no vehicle for communicating with its over nine million members in some 39,000 churches. There is no official publication being read by most of the “lowerarchy” to learn what is being said and done by the hierarchy. Local and regional leaders often soft-pedal the radicalism of national leaders so they can avoid alienating the grassroots, check-writing laity. This wide information gap allows the official church to proceed in nonevangelical directions without the knowledge of the laity, which trustingly finances the nonevangelical programs and superstructure.
There are also special reasons why evangelical pastors remain United Methodists. Often they say privately that they want to keep their pensions and their seniority in the appointive system. I know many such pastors. Their policy is simply to ignore the denomination as much as possible, while obeying its basic rules and paying its required apportionments. But they count the days until retirement will set them free from an alien system in which they feel trapped, with no possibility of real freedom or positive change.
Yet is is hard to ignore the UMC system, which reaches down into every local church. The case of one Sunday school teacher illustrates this. His pastor refused to allow direct teaching from the Bible because “it is not Methodist literature.” In another situation, a layman was puzzled when the new preacher sent by his bishop did not mention Jesus Christ in the first four months of preaching. Asked about this, the pastor said, “That’s old-fashioned. We have more important things to talk about.”
This lack of substantive biblical teaching poses a serious problem. Many United Methodist evangelicals are able to endure only because of the evangelical world beyond the United Methodist boundaries. Multitudes of UMC evangelicals are like thirsty desert plants sending out long roots to tap hidden springs where they can experience some degree of evangelical comradeship. They often get their curriculum and books from the parachurch world, and devote their energies to its organizations. Their dollars frequently go to parachurch missionaries.
Many United Methodist evangelicals remain because they are unwilling to leave the church they have always known. Having been baptized Methodist, confirmed Methodist, married at a Methodist altar, and having grown up in the familiar Methodist setting, nothing else seems possible. So they stay, though they are unhappy with the prevailing deadness, puzzled at the strange things advocated by their church leaders, and troubled that their money is going to support questionable causes espoused by the World and National Councils of Churches. Nevertheless, they remain. Nothing seems to dislodge these institutionalized evangelicals whose giving helps keep afloat the whole nonevangelical United Methodist superstructure.
Another tie that binds evangelicals to the United Methodist Church is the ownership of church property by the denomination. Rather than forfeit the churches they or their ancestors erected, building-centered evangelicals remain United Methodists.
Some evangelicals remain to minister and witness to fellow United Methodists, for many, including some pastors, give no evidence of a personal relationship to Christ. As a result, United Methodism is seen by many as a mission field ripe for harvest.
Some evangelicals hope that by staying United Methodist, they can change their denomination. This has been the idea behind Good News, “A forum for Scriptural Christianity within the United Methodist Church.” It has worked for change since 1966, publishing Good News magazine, holding national and regional meetings, building a churchwide network of evangelicals, publishing confirmation materials, seeking, since 1972, to exert influence by using the political process of the church.
It was my privilege to begin this movement and then to serve as editor of Good News magazine and executive secretary of the Good News movement until 1981. Then I became an ex-Methodist. I joined the exodus that began in the 1840s and has since carried millions out of mainline Methodism—at least 1.4 million since 1968.
The reasons differ for each person making this exodus. I can speak only for myself. Sadly, by 1981 I had concluded that the United Methodist system has become the enemy of evangelical faith, the enemy of the local church, the enemy of the pastor and people committed to scriptural Christianity. So I joined the exodus, voting with my feet in favor of a church where the climate is more favorable to historic Christianity.
To some people the idea of remaining “Methodist” is supremely important—enough to overbalance all the negative factors in the United Methodist equation. I came to realize that salvaging a sunken ship is not where my ultimate priorities lie. However, I salute those God calls to continue the battle from inside United Methodism.
Tim Stafford is a free-lance writer living in Santa Rosa, California. He is a distinguished contributor to several magazines. His latest book is Do You Sometimes Feel Like a Nobody? (Zondervan, 1980).
