Today's post is the fourth of a four-part series on the tensions between contextual theology and connectional polity in The United Methodist Church, written by Barry E. Bryant, Ph.D., Associate Professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
In this series we’ve been exploring the problem taking a contextual theology and placing it into a connectional polity. The purpose of contextual theology is making Scripture relevant to the context of Christian faith, witness, and ministry. We have looked at Wesley’s practice of “searching the Scripture,” which consists of reading, meditating, and hearing. Reading and mediating on Scripture are indeed acts of piety but they are also the initial acts of contextualization. This time we’ll look at hearing as a way of trying to alleviate the tension between contextuality and connectionalism.
Ideally, Wesley wanted Methodists to attend the hearing of Scripture every morning not just with an act of devotion, but with an act of worship. The math is simple. One reader plus one hearer equals two and when they invoke the promised presence of Jesus that equals three. This is basic ecclesial math. But, the move Wesley makes here is much more profound. It is the return of the individual and her devotional reading of Scripture back into the community to hear and be heard. For United Methodists today, this means moving from a contextual reading of Scripture to a connectional understanding of hearing it read to us by other people and in return their hearing us read to them. We may read locally but we must listen globally. So, what facilitates global listening?
First, Scripture is most at home when being heard. For over 1400 years that was the primary way of being exposed to Scripture and was meant to be read aloud to an eager and listening community. Hearing is a communal act and Christianity is a social religion; social religion is constitutively relational and ultimately a connectional religion.
"Christianity is essentially a social religion, and that to turn it into a solitary religion is indeed to destroy it. By Christianity I mean that method of worshipping God which is here revealed to [humankind] by Jesus Christ. When I say this is essentially a social religion, I mean not only that it cannot subsist so well, but that it cannot subsist at all without society, without living and conversing with other men. And in showing this I shall confine myself to those considerations which will arise from the very discourse before us. But if this be shown, then doubtless to turn this religion into a solitary one is to destroy it." (“Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Fourth,” ¶ I.1.)
Wesley has pointed us in the right direction here. Listening to Scripture today means listening not just to the text. It means also listening and conversing with others while paying attention to the reader’s own theological context. In this case, context does not just mean the context of Scripture. It means to also listen to the context of the one reading the Scripture. This act of acknowledging the reader and his/her context is not just hearing. It is listening. We hear God’s word, and we listen to its reader. When we listen, we acknowledge the other’s experience of reading and meditating, or sacred reading.
Secondly, global listening is an important step in what Wesley has called the “catholic spirit.” The catholic spirit of hearing and listening becomes the theological foundation of “conference” as means of grace. When engaging in global listening as an act of conference, it means listening to others reading the Bible to us. It means hearing women read to us; it means hearing people of color read to us; it means hearing members of the LGBTQ read to us; it means hearing Palestinian Christians read to us. I think you get the idea.
Thirdly, the body of Christ needs to engage in the making of disciples who are social agents. Miraslov Volf describes this in detail in Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. The encounter of another through global listening can be accommodated through “social arrangements” by which others may be welcomed to the table. What is more demanding is forming disciples who are capable of being social agents with the desire to give one’s self to others as an act of welcoming and hospitality without judgement. More significantly, it also means readjusting our own identities to welcome them as readers and hearers of Scripture.
Fear is what drives exclusion. Love demands embrace. Our connectional polity with its myriad of contexts severely needs disciples of Jesus Christ who are social agents capable of global listening who can help hold the connection together.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Showing posts with label Barry E. Bryant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barry E. Bryant. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Barry Bryant - Contextual & Connectional: Meditating on the Scriptures
Today's post is the third of a four-part series on the tensions between contextual theology and connectional polity in The United Methodist Church, written by Barry E. Bryant, Ph.D., Associate Professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
In my first post, I drew attention to a tension in United Methodism between our contextual theology and our connectional polity. In this post, I will continue to illustrate this tension at play by looking at the first element of the “Quadrilateral”: Scripture, following up on my remarks from my previous post about how approaches to Scripture shifted on the American frontier.
Wesley did not just read the Bible. He “searched the Scripture,” a method consisting of “reading, meditation, and hearing.” In a previous post, it was pointed out that Wesley’s was the first age where technology and politics had succeeded in lowering the price of a Bible so ordinary people could purchase their own copy that could be read devotionally. Piety has benefited from technology. The challenge was when American geography did much to transform the Bible as the church’s book to personal property; from “our” Bible to “my” Bible.
Searching the Scripture also consists of “meditation.” Wesley regularly spoke of “meditation” in his diaries and spent a great deal of time doing it. Prayer, reading, and meditation were listed together so often that they seem like a single act. He encouraged his preachers to meditate on Scripture from 4-5 in the morning and from 5-6 in the evening. Through meditation a thorough knowledge of the sacred meaning of Scripture is gained. In the “Preface” to his Explanatory Notes on the Old Testament (1765) Wesley wrote,
"If you desire to read the Scriptures in such a manner as may most effectually answer this end, would it not be advisable,
"(1.) To set apart a little time, if you can, every morning and evening for that purpose?
"(2.) At each time, if you have leisure, to read a chapter out of the Old, and one out of the New, Testament [...]
"(3.) To read this with a single eye, to know the whole will of God, and a fixed resolution to do it? […]
"(4.) Have a constant eye to the analogy of faith, the connexion and harmony there is between those grand, fundamental doctrines, original sin, justification by faith, the new birth, inward and outward holiness:
"(5.) Serious and earnest prayer should be constantly used before we consult the oracles of God; seeing "Scripture can only be understood through the same Spirit whereby it was given." Our reading should likewise be closed with prayer, that what we read may be written on our hearts:
"(6.) It might also be of use, if, while we read, we were frequently to pause, and examine ourselves by what we read, both with regard to our hearts and lives. […] And whatever light you then receive should be used to the uttermost, and that immediately. Let there be no delay. Whatever you resolve, begin to execute the first moment you can. So shall you find this word to be indeed the power of God unto present and eternal salvation."
By now some may recognize aspects of Ignatius of Loyola’s method of “lectio divina.” There are indeed similarities. It was Wesley’s belief that through a sacred reading and meditation on the text, the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Biblical writers also inspires Biblical readers to read and discern the meaning of Scripture. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no “means of grace,” neither may Scripture be properly understood. So what exactly is grace?
The answer to that is found in the only catechism Wesley ever published, Instructions for Children (1745). The question was asked, “What is grace?” The answer given was, “The Power of the Holy Ghost, enabling us to believe, and love and serve God.” In Wesley’s pneumatology, the Holy Spirit is grace. An experience of the Holy Spirit is an experience of grace, and an experience of grace is an experience of the power of the Holy Spirit. Meditation is placing one’s self in a position of openness to hear and experiencing the Spirit of grace.
There is obviously a great deal of potential for abuse here too, particularly given what happened to Scripture on the American frontier. Whether it’s pietism or mysticism, the result can be exacerbated by an individualism that can easily be directed to a subjective authority that is now spiritually authorized. As Wesley was quick to remind us, to turn Christianity into a solitary religion is to kill it. At worst the radical individualism that has plagued much of Western society potentially leads to subjectivism, ethical relativism, and ironically, nihilism. When two individuals who are utterly convinced by the convictions of their subjectivism, it often becomes a case of the irresistible force encountering the immovable object.
The only thing capable of dislodging subjectivism is the need to accommodate and welcome the other. Christ has commanded it. Or, put another way in a previous post, the only thing capable of accommodating contextual theology in a connectional polity is the need to accommodate and welcome the other.
Reading and meditating must be balanced by something else, such as hearing and practicing. That is the hardest work of all. Perhaps it is the work and presence of the Holy Spirit alone that enables the one who reads and meditates out of the closet of prayer and solitary devotion to encounter the “other” as the basis of community.
In my first post, I drew attention to a tension in United Methodism between our contextual theology and our connectional polity. In this post, I will continue to illustrate this tension at play by looking at the first element of the “Quadrilateral”: Scripture, following up on my remarks from my previous post about how approaches to Scripture shifted on the American frontier.
Wesley did not just read the Bible. He “searched the Scripture,” a method consisting of “reading, meditation, and hearing.” In a previous post, it was pointed out that Wesley’s was the first age where technology and politics had succeeded in lowering the price of a Bible so ordinary people could purchase their own copy that could be read devotionally. Piety has benefited from technology. The challenge was when American geography did much to transform the Bible as the church’s book to personal property; from “our” Bible to “my” Bible.
Searching the Scripture also consists of “meditation.” Wesley regularly spoke of “meditation” in his diaries and spent a great deal of time doing it. Prayer, reading, and meditation were listed together so often that they seem like a single act. He encouraged his preachers to meditate on Scripture from 4-5 in the morning and from 5-6 in the evening. Through meditation a thorough knowledge of the sacred meaning of Scripture is gained. In the “Preface” to his Explanatory Notes on the Old Testament (1765) Wesley wrote,
"If you desire to read the Scriptures in such a manner as may most effectually answer this end, would it not be advisable,
"(1.) To set apart a little time, if you can, every morning and evening for that purpose?
"(2.) At each time, if you have leisure, to read a chapter out of the Old, and one out of the New, Testament [...]
"(3.) To read this with a single eye, to know the whole will of God, and a fixed resolution to do it? […]
"(4.) Have a constant eye to the analogy of faith, the connexion and harmony there is between those grand, fundamental doctrines, original sin, justification by faith, the new birth, inward and outward holiness:
"(5.) Serious and earnest prayer should be constantly used before we consult the oracles of God; seeing "Scripture can only be understood through the same Spirit whereby it was given." Our reading should likewise be closed with prayer, that what we read may be written on our hearts:
"(6.) It might also be of use, if, while we read, we were frequently to pause, and examine ourselves by what we read, both with regard to our hearts and lives. […] And whatever light you then receive should be used to the uttermost, and that immediately. Let there be no delay. Whatever you resolve, begin to execute the first moment you can. So shall you find this word to be indeed the power of God unto present and eternal salvation."
By now some may recognize aspects of Ignatius of Loyola’s method of “lectio divina.” There are indeed similarities. It was Wesley’s belief that through a sacred reading and meditation on the text, the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Biblical writers also inspires Biblical readers to read and discern the meaning of Scripture. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no “means of grace,” neither may Scripture be properly understood. So what exactly is grace?
The answer to that is found in the only catechism Wesley ever published, Instructions for Children (1745). The question was asked, “What is grace?” The answer given was, “The Power of the Holy Ghost, enabling us to believe, and love and serve God.” In Wesley’s pneumatology, the Holy Spirit is grace. An experience of the Holy Spirit is an experience of grace, and an experience of grace is an experience of the power of the Holy Spirit. Meditation is placing one’s self in a position of openness to hear and experiencing the Spirit of grace.
There is obviously a great deal of potential for abuse here too, particularly given what happened to Scripture on the American frontier. Whether it’s pietism or mysticism, the result can be exacerbated by an individualism that can easily be directed to a subjective authority that is now spiritually authorized. As Wesley was quick to remind us, to turn Christianity into a solitary religion is to kill it. At worst the radical individualism that has plagued much of Western society potentially leads to subjectivism, ethical relativism, and ironically, nihilism. When two individuals who are utterly convinced by the convictions of their subjectivism, it often becomes a case of the irresistible force encountering the immovable object.
The only thing capable of dislodging subjectivism is the need to accommodate and welcome the other. Christ has commanded it. Or, put another way in a previous post, the only thing capable of accommodating contextual theology in a connectional polity is the need to accommodate and welcome the other.
Reading and meditating must be balanced by something else, such as hearing and practicing. That is the hardest work of all. Perhaps it is the work and presence of the Holy Spirit alone that enables the one who reads and meditates out of the closet of prayer and solitary devotion to encounter the “other” as the basis of community.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Barry Bryant - Contextual & Connectional: Reading the Scriptures
Today's post is the second of a four-part series on the tensions between contextual theology and connectional polity in The United Methodist Church, written by Barry E. Bryant, Ph.D., Associate Professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
In my last post, I drew attention to a tension in United Methodism between our contextual theology and our connectional polity. In this post and the next, I will illustrate this tension at play by looking at the first element of the “Quadrilateral”: Scripture.
It should come as no surprise that John Wesley had a method for reading the Bible. He called it “searching the Scripture.” It was simple, insightful, and memorable: read, meditate, and hear. Wesley repeatedly told Methodists that “searching the Scriptures” was a means of preventing, justifying, and sanctifying grace. This is too easily forgotten by us today. The method was so important that he included it as a part of the “General Rules” and anyone who took love of God and love of neighbor seriously could not afford to ignore it. More than that, “searching the Scripture” illustrates how to engage in a Wesleyan way to study the Bible and appropriate it into a theological method.
First there is “reading.” We take the devotional reading of Scripture for granted and forget that not all Christians everywhere and in all ages have had either a Biblical text to read or the ability to read it. For 1400 years, texts were kept and maintained in monasteries where they were copied by monks. Access to them was a privilege and copies were rare. Scripture reading itself was an act of elitism.
Bibles were not cheap. In 1450 when Johannes Guttenberg printed the first Bible the price would have been around $200,000; in 1539 the Coverdale Bible would have about $5000; the 1576 Geneva Bible about $1400. In 1611 Bibles were finally being printed small enough to be owned by individuals who could afford them.
By the 18th century technology had increased and governmental interference had decreased enough to bring down prices. In 1710 the Canstein Bible Institute in Germany printed Bibles for around $6, making the Scripture affordable for most people. In 1755 Wesley would publish Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, to be read by Methodists, a doctrinal standard for United Methodism still today. The reading of scripture could now be become a common part of Christian piety. Now that anyone could own a Bible everyone should read the Bible as a means of grace.
This means reading and literacy are generally a means of grace. Teaching others to read is an important ministry and assists others to discover the liberative power of Scripture. For this reason, in 1769 Hannah Ball, a Methodist woman in the north of England, started the idea of having school on Sunday so children could learn to read in order to read the Bible. The liberative power of Scripture was also why slaves were forbidden to read, even by Methodist slave owners. Literacy was empowerment.
After the Civil War, the American Bible Society sought to place Bibles into the hands of westward moving settlers. Bibles were now cheap enough to be given away and placed into every open hand that wanted one. The Bible was slowly but surely being transformed from “our” Bible, into “my” Bible. It had become personal property in the truest American sense. And this was the frontier. The mythology of America’s “rugged individualism” was being cultivated and coupled with a vast expanse that did little to nurture a sense of sacramental Christian community. On the frontier, the Bible did not just meet technology. It encountered Jeffersonian democracy and its values of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In a sense, the Bible fell off the pulpit and into the pew, and from the pew into pious Protestant hands and homes.
And for Methodists, who were struggling with a perennial shortage of ordained clergy who alone were capable of administering the sacraments, this was significant. The American frontier sheered away the sacraments, leaving mainly the Bible in the pew and the conversion experience as the single most important event shaping one’s Christian formation and not the sacraments. The “altar call” was no longer an invitation to the Communion table. It was the place for penitents to be converted. Revivalism, camp meetings, and the conversion experience, placed the pulpit as central, not the communion altar.
Is all this to suggest that reading the Bible is a bad thing? Not at all. But it is to suggest that “searching the Scriptures” in the Wesleyan sense includes more than just reading.
So, just how does Wesley’s method of “searching the Scripture” overcome these American challenges? The short answer is through “meditating and hearing.” In the next post we’ll consider “meditating” on Scripture.
In my last post, I drew attention to a tension in United Methodism between our contextual theology and our connectional polity. In this post and the next, I will illustrate this tension at play by looking at the first element of the “Quadrilateral”: Scripture.
It should come as no surprise that John Wesley had a method for reading the Bible. He called it “searching the Scripture.” It was simple, insightful, and memorable: read, meditate, and hear. Wesley repeatedly told Methodists that “searching the Scriptures” was a means of preventing, justifying, and sanctifying grace. This is too easily forgotten by us today. The method was so important that he included it as a part of the “General Rules” and anyone who took love of God and love of neighbor seriously could not afford to ignore it. More than that, “searching the Scripture” illustrates how to engage in a Wesleyan way to study the Bible and appropriate it into a theological method.
First there is “reading.” We take the devotional reading of Scripture for granted and forget that not all Christians everywhere and in all ages have had either a Biblical text to read or the ability to read it. For 1400 years, texts were kept and maintained in monasteries where they were copied by monks. Access to them was a privilege and copies were rare. Scripture reading itself was an act of elitism.
Bibles were not cheap. In 1450 when Johannes Guttenberg printed the first Bible the price would have been around $200,000; in 1539 the Coverdale Bible would have about $5000; the 1576 Geneva Bible about $1400. In 1611 Bibles were finally being printed small enough to be owned by individuals who could afford them.
By the 18th century technology had increased and governmental interference had decreased enough to bring down prices. In 1710 the Canstein Bible Institute in Germany printed Bibles for around $6, making the Scripture affordable for most people. In 1755 Wesley would publish Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, to be read by Methodists, a doctrinal standard for United Methodism still today. The reading of scripture could now be become a common part of Christian piety. Now that anyone could own a Bible everyone should read the Bible as a means of grace.
This means reading and literacy are generally a means of grace. Teaching others to read is an important ministry and assists others to discover the liberative power of Scripture. For this reason, in 1769 Hannah Ball, a Methodist woman in the north of England, started the idea of having school on Sunday so children could learn to read in order to read the Bible. The liberative power of Scripture was also why slaves were forbidden to read, even by Methodist slave owners. Literacy was empowerment.
After the Civil War, the American Bible Society sought to place Bibles into the hands of westward moving settlers. Bibles were now cheap enough to be given away and placed into every open hand that wanted one. The Bible was slowly but surely being transformed from “our” Bible, into “my” Bible. It had become personal property in the truest American sense. And this was the frontier. The mythology of America’s “rugged individualism” was being cultivated and coupled with a vast expanse that did little to nurture a sense of sacramental Christian community. On the frontier, the Bible did not just meet technology. It encountered Jeffersonian democracy and its values of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In a sense, the Bible fell off the pulpit and into the pew, and from the pew into pious Protestant hands and homes.
And for Methodists, who were struggling with a perennial shortage of ordained clergy who alone were capable of administering the sacraments, this was significant. The American frontier sheered away the sacraments, leaving mainly the Bible in the pew and the conversion experience as the single most important event shaping one’s Christian formation and not the sacraments. The “altar call” was no longer an invitation to the Communion table. It was the place for penitents to be converted. Revivalism, camp meetings, and the conversion experience, placed the pulpit as central, not the communion altar.
Is all this to suggest that reading the Bible is a bad thing? Not at all. But it is to suggest that “searching the Scriptures” in the Wesleyan sense includes more than just reading.
So, just how does Wesley’s method of “searching the Scripture” overcome these American challenges? The short answer is through “meditating and hearing.” In the next post we’ll consider “meditating” on Scripture.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Barry Bryant - Contextual & Connectional: Methodism’s Chimera
Today's post is the first of a four-part series on the tensions between contextual theology and connectional polity in The United Methodist Church, written by Barry E. Bryant, Ph.D., Associate Professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Since 1972 United Methodism has not had a theology as much as it has a theological method consisting of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Methodists have Albert Outler to thank for that. There is one significant difference between Outler and his Anglican predecessors such as Richard Hooker, however. The Quadrilateral adds “experience” to the Anglican theological method consisting of Scripture, reason, and tradition. What the addition of experience has done is to provide a theological method that has facilitated Methodists who do theology that is both contextual and practical. We do not have a Methodist theology as much as Methodists who do theology.
There is another point that is equally argued. Neither does Methodism have an ecclesiology as much as it has an ecclesiological concept, otherwise known as “connectionalism.” As Russ Richey points out the term connectional is generally used as an organizational classification that is employed to distinguish denominations with centralized authority, governance, and structure from a more congregational model where such prerogatives are located in the congregation. Methodists understand connectionalism institutionally. By this definition there are many denominations that are interrelated institutionally and function connectionally. Just as Methodists did not invent the quadrilateral, neither did we really invent connectionalism, and we are connectional at least for now. After being examined by economists, United Methodists have been told that we have about 15 years of an economically sustainable connectionalism left unless things are turned around. What happens then? The movement that became a denomination may one day have to reinvent itself as a movement again.
The problem that has quadrennially plagued United Methodism has been when General Conference attempts to insert contextual theology that has been shaped by square Quadrilateral pegs into round Connectional holes. After watching several episodes of the “Big Bang Theory,” it occurred to me that perhaps we need to change the metaphor from one of Euclidian geometry to one of quantum physics. One of Methodism’s biggest problem is when contextual theology and connectional polity collide like subatomic particles in the Hadron supercollider we call “General Conference.” After that we are frequently left looking for the Higgs boson “God particle,” the theoretical subatomic particle that holds things together in order to create mass. The phenomenon of General Conference demonstrates how contextual theology stretches connectionalism to the point of breaking causing it to lean more toward a congregational polity than not. This is why Methodists frequently fret of schism and why we do so still today.
In fairness, neither did Methodists invent schism, but in the 19th century we worked to perfect it. Between 1784 and 1895 the Methodist Episcopal Church would split no fewer than ten times. We have been schooled on schism.
• 1784- Formation of Methodist Episcopal Church, Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, Bishops
• 1787- Richard Allen, split from St. George’s MEC to form the AME 1816
• 1792- James O’Kelly to form Republican Methodists who ended up UCC
• 1795- Peter Williams, Sr. split for John Street MEC to form the AMEZ
• 1828- Methodist Protestant Church
• 1843- Wesleyan Methodist Church
• 1844- Methodist Episcopal Church, South
• 1860- Free Methodist Church
• 1870- Christian Methodist Church
• 1895- Phineas Bresee over a homeless mission in LA to form the Church of the Nazarene (mission)
Methodists have split over race and the episcopacy more than anything else. We come by schism honestly. We are the schismatic child of a schismatic parent. We split from the Church of England and the Church of England was a split from the Roman Catholic Church as the result of a very nasty, bloody, and violent royal divorce.
The “Quadrilateral” is a theological chimera, a hybrid of Anglicanism and Wesleyanism constructed rolled out in 1972 in the hopes that it would result in uniting the newly formed United Methodist Church. At this point unity itself has become a chimera in the other sense of word as something that is hoped or wished for but is often illusory or impossible to achieve. As United Methodists engage in “holy conversation” around the issue of human sexuality there will be implicit and explicit appeals made to the “Quadrilateral.” Regardless of whether one is for it or against it most agree it has cast a long shadow over a great deal of everything else and its relentless use has caused many a Methodist to quip, “I am Methodist because we believe in the Quadrilateral.”
We indeed have a problem when epistemology overshadows Christology. If our aim is to find unity, we don’t need to look at a chimera. We should be looking to the Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit who binds and connects us into the body of Christ.
Since 1972 United Methodism has not had a theology as much as it has a theological method consisting of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Methodists have Albert Outler to thank for that. There is one significant difference between Outler and his Anglican predecessors such as Richard Hooker, however. The Quadrilateral adds “experience” to the Anglican theological method consisting of Scripture, reason, and tradition. What the addition of experience has done is to provide a theological method that has facilitated Methodists who do theology that is both contextual and practical. We do not have a Methodist theology as much as Methodists who do theology.
There is another point that is equally argued. Neither does Methodism have an ecclesiology as much as it has an ecclesiological concept, otherwise known as “connectionalism.” As Russ Richey points out the term connectional is generally used as an organizational classification that is employed to distinguish denominations with centralized authority, governance, and structure from a more congregational model where such prerogatives are located in the congregation. Methodists understand connectionalism institutionally. By this definition there are many denominations that are interrelated institutionally and function connectionally. Just as Methodists did not invent the quadrilateral, neither did we really invent connectionalism, and we are connectional at least for now. After being examined by economists, United Methodists have been told that we have about 15 years of an economically sustainable connectionalism left unless things are turned around. What happens then? The movement that became a denomination may one day have to reinvent itself as a movement again.
The problem that has quadrennially plagued United Methodism has been when General Conference attempts to insert contextual theology that has been shaped by square Quadrilateral pegs into round Connectional holes. After watching several episodes of the “Big Bang Theory,” it occurred to me that perhaps we need to change the metaphor from one of Euclidian geometry to one of quantum physics. One of Methodism’s biggest problem is when contextual theology and connectional polity collide like subatomic particles in the Hadron supercollider we call “General Conference.” After that we are frequently left looking for the Higgs boson “God particle,” the theoretical subatomic particle that holds things together in order to create mass. The phenomenon of General Conference demonstrates how contextual theology stretches connectionalism to the point of breaking causing it to lean more toward a congregational polity than not. This is why Methodists frequently fret of schism and why we do so still today.
In fairness, neither did Methodists invent schism, but in the 19th century we worked to perfect it. Between 1784 and 1895 the Methodist Episcopal Church would split no fewer than ten times. We have been schooled on schism.
• 1784- Formation of Methodist Episcopal Church, Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, Bishops
• 1787- Richard Allen, split from St. George’s MEC to form the AME 1816
• 1792- James O’Kelly to form Republican Methodists who ended up UCC
• 1795- Peter Williams, Sr. split for John Street MEC to form the AMEZ
• 1828- Methodist Protestant Church
• 1843- Wesleyan Methodist Church
• 1844- Methodist Episcopal Church, South
• 1860- Free Methodist Church
• 1870- Christian Methodist Church
• 1895- Phineas Bresee over a homeless mission in LA to form the Church of the Nazarene (mission)
Methodists have split over race and the episcopacy more than anything else. We come by schism honestly. We are the schismatic child of a schismatic parent. We split from the Church of England and the Church of England was a split from the Roman Catholic Church as the result of a very nasty, bloody, and violent royal divorce.
The “Quadrilateral” is a theological chimera, a hybrid of Anglicanism and Wesleyanism constructed rolled out in 1972 in the hopes that it would result in uniting the newly formed United Methodist Church. At this point unity itself has become a chimera in the other sense of word as something that is hoped or wished for but is often illusory or impossible to achieve. As United Methodists engage in “holy conversation” around the issue of human sexuality there will be implicit and explicit appeals made to the “Quadrilateral.” Regardless of whether one is for it or against it most agree it has cast a long shadow over a great deal of everything else and its relentless use has caused many a Methodist to quip, “I am Methodist because we believe in the Quadrilateral.”
We indeed have a problem when epistemology overshadows Christology. If our aim is to find unity, we don’t need to look at a chimera. We should be looking to the Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit who binds and connects us into the body of Christ.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Barry Bryant: The Rorschach Wesley Test
Today's piece is written by Barry E. Bryant. Rev. Dr. Bryant is Associate Professor of United Methodist and Wesleyan Studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
“Look at the inkblot and tell me what you see.” That phrase has long been associated with the Rorschach inkblot test and the response says more about the one doing the looking than the nature of what is being seen. Reading Wesley can often be something akin to a Rorschach test. What one sees in Wesley says as much about the one doing the “looking” as it does about what is being “seen.”
The first thing to consider is the nature of what may be seen in Wesley. Of course this is not unique to Wesley or his readers and looking at Wesley is not an entirely subjective experience. There is more meaning and structure in Wesley than what’s in an ink blot. There are reasons why some see what they see in Wesley and there is a variety of things to be seen. Wesley was an intellectual pack rat and an accumulator of ideas over a long period of time. He lived in every decade of the 18th century and during those decades while the essence of what he thought remained constant the nuance of his thinking changed and varied over time. At all times he sought coherence.
While he considered himself a “man of one book” obviously he didn’t read only the Bible. He read a plethora of books on a variety of topics, ranging from Greek and Latin poets, to Shakespeare and Milton, to natural science and philosophy, to secular and sacred history, to Biblical studies and a wide spectrum of theology. He was also an indiscriminate reader. He read those with whom he agreed and disagreed, writers who comforted and enraged him, writers whom he imitated and appreciated.
As much as he read, he also listened to the experiences of others. Wesley’s journals, diaries, and letters reveal someone who valued the testimonies of how grace had transformed Methodist lives. These narratives in all of their complexities had a significant influence on the shaping of Wesley’s theology, leaving some to conclude it is a practical theology by nature.
All this resulted in an eclectic and ecumenical theology that reflected a variety of traditions: Puritan, Pietist, Anglican, Apostolic, Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, and an emerging Methodist tradition. In all this he tried to hold together faith and works, an Arminian understanding of predestination, robust doctrines of original sin and prevenient grace, a doctrine of personal sin and Christian perfection, and his Anglicanism with his evangelicalism.
It should be no surprise then that so many different traditions find something in Wesley that resonates with their own theology. Indeed, different people look at Wesley and see different things in the Wesleyan Rorschach, and this is how we end up with so many different “Wesleyans”: Methodist Wesleyans, holiness Wesleyans, process theology Wesleyans, evangelical Wesleyans, fundamentalist Wesleyans, and Pentecostal Wesleyans, just to name a few.
At this point an important distinction needs to be made regarding the term “Wesley” and “Wesleyan,” and “Methodist” and “Methodism.” Not all Methodists are Wesleyan, and not all Wesleyans are Methodist. Each of these groups of Wesleyans are on a quest for coherence and an organizing principle, or a single concept that helps all the material gain more coherent meaning, assuming that coherence is gained through the use of an organizing principle.
In the very least an organizing principle functions as a type of “thesis statement,” or as a way of arguing a particular theological point. On the other hand, and more significantly, an organizing principle can function as an interpretive lens through which all the material is seen and understood.
Is there a single concept around which one might definitively organize Wesley’s theology? Probably not, particularly given the very nature of the complexities, first of the material at hand, and more significantly because of the complexities of the interpretive process itself. Indeed, the arguments for an organizing principle in Wesley are plentiful and varied, often resulting in conflicting conclusions. This is not a bad thing. Having a variety of organizing principles actually demonstrates the nuanced complexity of Wesley’s theology and accounts for the theological variety in his theological progeny.
Each one reads Wesley in a peculiar setting with a different set of assumptions and even a differing set of presuppositions that are in turn shaped by Scripture, reason, experience, and tradition (now there’s another topic). These presuppositions often predetermine the outcome. The problem with the way some use organizing principles is that it is a way of justifying the exclusion of some of the more difficult, disagreeable, and possibly some irreconcilable parts of Wesley’s theology. From there it is easier to exclude other “Wesleyans.” The Wesleyan tradition is a big tent with lots of room. So, what do you see in Wesley?
“Look at the inkblot and tell me what you see.” That phrase has long been associated with the Rorschach inkblot test and the response says more about the one doing the looking than the nature of what is being seen. Reading Wesley can often be something akin to a Rorschach test. What one sees in Wesley says as much about the one doing the “looking” as it does about what is being “seen.”
The first thing to consider is the nature of what may be seen in Wesley. Of course this is not unique to Wesley or his readers and looking at Wesley is not an entirely subjective experience. There is more meaning and structure in Wesley than what’s in an ink blot. There are reasons why some see what they see in Wesley and there is a variety of things to be seen. Wesley was an intellectual pack rat and an accumulator of ideas over a long period of time. He lived in every decade of the 18th century and during those decades while the essence of what he thought remained constant the nuance of his thinking changed and varied over time. At all times he sought coherence.
While he considered himself a “man of one book” obviously he didn’t read only the Bible. He read a plethora of books on a variety of topics, ranging from Greek and Latin poets, to Shakespeare and Milton, to natural science and philosophy, to secular and sacred history, to Biblical studies and a wide spectrum of theology. He was also an indiscriminate reader. He read those with whom he agreed and disagreed, writers who comforted and enraged him, writers whom he imitated and appreciated.
As much as he read, he also listened to the experiences of others. Wesley’s journals, diaries, and letters reveal someone who valued the testimonies of how grace had transformed Methodist lives. These narratives in all of their complexities had a significant influence on the shaping of Wesley’s theology, leaving some to conclude it is a practical theology by nature.
All this resulted in an eclectic and ecumenical theology that reflected a variety of traditions: Puritan, Pietist, Anglican, Apostolic, Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, and an emerging Methodist tradition. In all this he tried to hold together faith and works, an Arminian understanding of predestination, robust doctrines of original sin and prevenient grace, a doctrine of personal sin and Christian perfection, and his Anglicanism with his evangelicalism.
It should be no surprise then that so many different traditions find something in Wesley that resonates with their own theology. Indeed, different people look at Wesley and see different things in the Wesleyan Rorschach, and this is how we end up with so many different “Wesleyans”: Methodist Wesleyans, holiness Wesleyans, process theology Wesleyans, evangelical Wesleyans, fundamentalist Wesleyans, and Pentecostal Wesleyans, just to name a few.
At this point an important distinction needs to be made regarding the term “Wesley” and “Wesleyan,” and “Methodist” and “Methodism.” Not all Methodists are Wesleyan, and not all Wesleyans are Methodist. Each of these groups of Wesleyans are on a quest for coherence and an organizing principle, or a single concept that helps all the material gain more coherent meaning, assuming that coherence is gained through the use of an organizing principle.
In the very least an organizing principle functions as a type of “thesis statement,” or as a way of arguing a particular theological point. On the other hand, and more significantly, an organizing principle can function as an interpretive lens through which all the material is seen and understood.
Is there a single concept around which one might definitively organize Wesley’s theology? Probably not, particularly given the very nature of the complexities, first of the material at hand, and more significantly because of the complexities of the interpretive process itself. Indeed, the arguments for an organizing principle in Wesley are plentiful and varied, often resulting in conflicting conclusions. This is not a bad thing. Having a variety of organizing principles actually demonstrates the nuanced complexity of Wesley’s theology and accounts for the theological variety in his theological progeny.
Each one reads Wesley in a peculiar setting with a different set of assumptions and even a differing set of presuppositions that are in turn shaped by Scripture, reason, experience, and tradition (now there’s another topic). These presuppositions often predetermine the outcome. The problem with the way some use organizing principles is that it is a way of justifying the exclusion of some of the more difficult, disagreeable, and possibly some irreconcilable parts of Wesley’s theology. From there it is easier to exclude other “Wesleyans.” The Wesleyan tradition is a big tent with lots of room. So, what do you see in Wesley?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)