Today’s post is by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley. Rev. Dr. Hartley is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity at the Seattle Pacific University School of Theology. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/.
On March 10, 1957, over a span of just over four hours, the waters of the mighty Columbia River flooded and silenced the Celilo Falls. The Dalles Dam would now provide electricity to the growing population of the Pacific Northwest, but the cost was dear.
Celilo Village, the oldest continuously inhabited village in North America (for which there is archeological evidence, anyway) remains today, but it has been moved further away from the dam-swollen river. For 15,000 years Native Americans fished, traded, and made cross-cultural connections with one another at this place. It was perhaps the continent’s best fishing spot with millions of salmon swimming through the narrow channels around and through the Falls. It was also a place where, for thousands of years, thousands of Native Americans gathered, their languages and customs mixing from many cultures throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Last week, on the 65th anniversary of Celilo Falls’ silencing, I joined about three hundred Native Americans to mark the occasion at a park near Portland, Oregon. Yakama, Nez Perce, Cowlitz, Umatilla, Cayuse, and other tribal groups were well-represented. Some traveled hundreds of miles to be there. So far as I could tell, I was among just a handful of people who were not Native American.
I observed a sacred ceremony and heard testimony from elders who recalled their own parents weeping when Celilo Falls was flooded. At several points in the service, a flock of several hundred Canadian geese flew overhead, their calls almost drowning out the sounds of speakers, drums, and singing. In my own imagination, I couldn’t decide if the geese reminded me of the wailing of elders so many years ago, or if their call was reminiscent of a more confident reminder, “We are still here, and we shall not forget!”
I spent the day mostly being quiet, watching, and listening to what was happening around me. The mood was celebratory sometimes. After two years of Covid-canceled gatherings, people were once again able to meet across diverse tribal cultures. I learned about gill net fishing from a Yakama fisherman who still fishes near the once-Falls. I learned about the good work of the Confluence Project that is seeking to educate Oregon and Washington citizens about the people of the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
The dominant narrative too often remains that of Lewis and Clark’s voyage on this river in the early 19th century rather than the story of peoples who traveled, fished, and loved the river for the 15,000 years before and two hundred years after Lewis and Clark passed by.
I attended this event for several reasons. Honoring a place like Celilo Falls that has brought different people, beliefs, and customs together for 15,000 years seemed important as I prayed for a divided United Methodism during this Lenten season.
I wrote an academic article a couple years ago about Methodist missionaries who lived a few miles downstream from the Celilo Falls (but still in the midst of smaller falls and rapids). It was the Methodists’ most successful mission outpost in the Pacific Northwest, and the missionaries there, Dan and Maria Lee and Elvira and Henry Perkins, were some of the best missionaries of their age. They had their blind spots and ethnocentric arrogance, of course.
But Henry and Elvira both became proficient in Sahaptin, an important language of the river. Henry’s detailed descriptions of the sacred salmon ceremony in the late 1830s (and still practiced at multiple sites along the river each April) is one of the earliest written accounts of the ceremony. His journals even suggest that Native practices and beliefs challenged his own interpretation of the Bible he was translating into Sahaptin. This willingness to have his ideas challenged is one of the things I admire about Henry, and I seek to follow in his footsteps on that.
I was also present at this 65th commemoration of the silencing of the Celilo Falls because I am still trying to live out the desire for reconciliation and repentance that my Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference expressed at a service of worship in 2015. It described repentance “as a journey and not a destination.”
That is true, of course. But Blue Lake Regional Park outside of Portland, Oregon was one destination on March 10, 2022 where I needed to show up to remember, repent, and also bear witness to my desire for right relationships and reconciliation in the present and future. I am trying to do that where I live and work at Seattle Pacific University in the Puget Sound. It is far away from the Columbia River in some ways, but as I learned last Thursday, the silencing of the Falls affects us all. It can also still bring people together.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Showing posts with label Benjamin L. Hartley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benjamin L. Hartley. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2022
Wednesday, June 2, 2021
UMC Deacons at 25: Rethinking Deacons’ Education
Today’s post is by Deacon Benjamin L. Hartley. Hartley is a member of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference. In the fall of 2021, he will begin serving as Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity at Seattle Pacific University. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the United Methodist Order of Deacons. Anniversaries are a time to celebrate and think critically about the past and to look forward to the future. Two years after the UMC General Conference established the Order of Deacon, I wrote a book with GBHEM Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry staff member Paul Van Buren, The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love. In 1998 it was the first book to introduce the new understanding of the diaconate to the denomination. In the years since writing that book with Paul, I have written a half dozen scholarly articles on the diaconate that can be found here – along with some other scholars’ work on the diaconate that I have found helpful.
Deacons in the UMC are rightly celebrating their 25th anniversary as an Order, but the idea in United Methodism to have a permanent, distinctive, and ordained diaconate in the UMC can be traced back much earlier.
On July 27, 1973, Associate General Secretary of the Board of Higher Education and Ministry Robert W. Thornburg gave an address to United Methodist deaconesses and home missionaries entitled “The Permanent Diaconate: A Challenge to the United Methodist Church.”
When I was a twenty-eight-year-old seminarian at Boston University School of Theology, I told by-then Dean Thornburg (he was my preaching professor and Dean of Marsh Chapel at BU) that I was fascinated by the possibilities of the diaconate and wanted to become one. He gave me a warm smile and said, “Well, you know, I have some history on this one.” He proceeded to rummage through a file cabinet in his office and handed me two papers he had written. The first was “The Permanent Diaconate.” The other one, written in the mid-1980s, involved personal reminiscing about his efforts to support a permanent diaconate in the United Methodist Church. He entitled that paper “The Story of the Challenge."
Re-reading these papers as part of my own reflecting on the past 25+ years of the United Methodist diaconate I was most struck by these words from Dean Thornburg in 1973:
These words remind me of how long reform often takes in the church as well as how reform needs to continue. Twenty-five years into the Order of Deacon I wonder how even our understanding of the diaconate needs to be reformed and revitalized. Who are the people today who are excluded from the diaconate because our structures for the diaconate remain inflexible?
At the top of my wish list for revitalizing the United Methodist diaconate is to change the way deacons are educated. Many deacons will not like what I have to say here, but reform rarely happens without disagreement.
United Methodists departed from the experience of the distinctive, ordained diaconate in Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions when we decided that to be ordained a deacon one needed to have a seminary education (a minimum of 27 credits along with some other master’s degree). As I remember the conversation that took place in the wake of the 1996 General Conference decision, people seemed to arrive very quickly at the assumption that deacons needed a similar educational background to ordained elders in the UMC for their ordinations to be meaningful, or, more precisely, for their status to be recognized.
But why does this have to be the case? Ordination is something we do in the church to set people apart for leadership. Ordination vows are taken, the Holy Spirit is called upon, and a bishop’s hands are prayerfully laid on people whom God calls for this important role in the body of Christ. Having a seminary education is valuable, to be sure, but is it really necessary?
The decades-long experience of ordained Episcopalian and Roman Catholic deacons around the world is one where a seminary education has not been required nor has it proven necessary. The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has crafted an excellent guide for diocesan training programs for deacons. Great diocesan-level deacon training programs exist in the Episcopal Church as well.
When I dream about a revitalized Order of Deacon in the next twenty-five years, I think about the expanding numbers of deacons who feel the call to the diaconate “in their bones” and who are integrally connected to poor communities and communities of color. If we are to even come close to keeping pace with demographic changes in the United States, many more future deacons will be recent immigrants or the sons and daughters of recent immigrants.
But our current requirement for costly seminary education erects too high a barrier for too many people who may be experiencing a call to be deacons. That said, seminary education itself is going through dramatic change, with some seminaries offering less expensive pathways for theological education. That could work too, I will admit. But there is something about an intensively contextual deacon training program at the Annual Conference level that I find even more exciting and filled with possibilities for the training of deacons. I think, for example, of the work a friend began many years ago to train community organizers. Could we do something similar to this alongside Annual Conference deacon training initiatives?
In an article I wrote over fifteen years ago I argued that the office in the Methodist tradition that probably comes closest to what I think contemporary deacons could be is that of “class leader.” In the past, class leaders visited the sick, encouraged serious discipleship, and were critical to the functioning of Methodist societies. Class leaders had already established themselves as trusted, wise, leaders in communities, and they were not trained in seminaries. The comparison between class leaders of the early nineteenth century and deacons of today is not perfect, I realize. Deacons today are different in many ways. Still, the example of the class leader inspires my imagination. How would our church be different twenty-five years from now if we had as many deacons as we had class leaders in the early nineteenth century? Imagine the possibilities!
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the United Methodist Order of Deacons. Anniversaries are a time to celebrate and think critically about the past and to look forward to the future. Two years after the UMC General Conference established the Order of Deacon, I wrote a book with GBHEM Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry staff member Paul Van Buren, The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love. In 1998 it was the first book to introduce the new understanding of the diaconate to the denomination. In the years since writing that book with Paul, I have written a half dozen scholarly articles on the diaconate that can be found here – along with some other scholars’ work on the diaconate that I have found helpful.
Deacons in the UMC are rightly celebrating their 25th anniversary as an Order, but the idea in United Methodism to have a permanent, distinctive, and ordained diaconate in the UMC can be traced back much earlier.
On July 27, 1973, Associate General Secretary of the Board of Higher Education and Ministry Robert W. Thornburg gave an address to United Methodist deaconesses and home missionaries entitled “The Permanent Diaconate: A Challenge to the United Methodist Church.”
When I was a twenty-eight-year-old seminarian at Boston University School of Theology, I told by-then Dean Thornburg (he was my preaching professor and Dean of Marsh Chapel at BU) that I was fascinated by the possibilities of the diaconate and wanted to become one. He gave me a warm smile and said, “Well, you know, I have some history on this one.” He proceeded to rummage through a file cabinet in his office and handed me two papers he had written. The first was “The Permanent Diaconate.” The other one, written in the mid-1980s, involved personal reminiscing about his efforts to support a permanent diaconate in the United Methodist Church. He entitled that paper “The Story of the Challenge."
Re-reading these papers as part of my own reflecting on the past 25+ years of the United Methodist diaconate I was most struck by these words from Dean Thornburg in 1973:
[T]here are many other people … who are willing and eager for a part in the serving ministries of the church that we are not putting to good use, because our structures are not flexible enough and our imaginations less than adequate. We seem to be stuck with a tradition that may have had good reason to evolve as it did but which is no longer self-validating. We seem to have forgotten another tradition – the permanent diaconate – that may hold greater promise for revitalization in ministry than most of the other viable options open before us.[1]
These words remind me of how long reform often takes in the church as well as how reform needs to continue. Twenty-five years into the Order of Deacon I wonder how even our understanding of the diaconate needs to be reformed and revitalized. Who are the people today who are excluded from the diaconate because our structures for the diaconate remain inflexible?
At the top of my wish list for revitalizing the United Methodist diaconate is to change the way deacons are educated. Many deacons will not like what I have to say here, but reform rarely happens without disagreement.
United Methodists departed from the experience of the distinctive, ordained diaconate in Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions when we decided that to be ordained a deacon one needed to have a seminary education (a minimum of 27 credits along with some other master’s degree). As I remember the conversation that took place in the wake of the 1996 General Conference decision, people seemed to arrive very quickly at the assumption that deacons needed a similar educational background to ordained elders in the UMC for their ordinations to be meaningful, or, more precisely, for their status to be recognized.
But why does this have to be the case? Ordination is something we do in the church to set people apart for leadership. Ordination vows are taken, the Holy Spirit is called upon, and a bishop’s hands are prayerfully laid on people whom God calls for this important role in the body of Christ. Having a seminary education is valuable, to be sure, but is it really necessary?
The decades-long experience of ordained Episcopalian and Roman Catholic deacons around the world is one where a seminary education has not been required nor has it proven necessary. The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has crafted an excellent guide for diocesan training programs for deacons. Great diocesan-level deacon training programs exist in the Episcopal Church as well.
When I dream about a revitalized Order of Deacon in the next twenty-five years, I think about the expanding numbers of deacons who feel the call to the diaconate “in their bones” and who are integrally connected to poor communities and communities of color. If we are to even come close to keeping pace with demographic changes in the United States, many more future deacons will be recent immigrants or the sons and daughters of recent immigrants.
But our current requirement for costly seminary education erects too high a barrier for too many people who may be experiencing a call to be deacons. That said, seminary education itself is going through dramatic change, with some seminaries offering less expensive pathways for theological education. That could work too, I will admit. But there is something about an intensively contextual deacon training program at the Annual Conference level that I find even more exciting and filled with possibilities for the training of deacons. I think, for example, of the work a friend began many years ago to train community organizers. Could we do something similar to this alongside Annual Conference deacon training initiatives?
In an article I wrote over fifteen years ago I argued that the office in the Methodist tradition that probably comes closest to what I think contemporary deacons could be is that of “class leader.” In the past, class leaders visited the sick, encouraged serious discipleship, and were critical to the functioning of Methodist societies. Class leaders had already established themselves as trusted, wise, leaders in communities, and they were not trained in seminaries. The comparison between class leaders of the early nineteenth century and deacons of today is not perfect, I realize. Deacons today are different in many ways. Still, the example of the class leader inspires my imagination. How would our church be different twenty-five years from now if we had as many deacons as we had class leaders in the early nineteenth century? Imagine the possibilities!
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
UMC Deacons at 25: Claim the name “Deacon!”
Today’s post is by Deacon enjamin L. Hartley. Hartley is a member of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference. In the fall of 2021, he will begin serving as Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity at Seattle Pacific University. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the United Methodist Order of Deacons. Anniversaries are a time to celebrate and think critically about the past and to look forward to the future. Two years after the UMC General Conference established the Order of Deacon, I wrote a book with GBHEM Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry staff member Paul Van Buren, The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love. In 1998 it was the first book to introduce the new understanding of the diaconate to the denomination. In the years since writing that book with Paul, I have written a half dozen scholarly articles on the diaconate that can be found here – along with some other scholars’ work on the diaconate that I have found helpful.
When I was teaching at Palmer Theological Seminary, an American Baptist seminary in Philadelphia, a delightfully bold student asked on the first day of class, “What should we call you?”
Because I teach courses on Christian mission and world Christianity, I sometimes use occasions like this to discuss cultural differences in what scholars call “power distance,” but this time I paused. I decided to ask a favor of my students. I explained how in the academic world professors sometimes derive too much of their sense of self-worth from things like their publication record, faculty rank, and the like.
To counter that tendency in myself I asked my students that evening to call me Deacon Ben. I told them that I needed to be reminded of my ecclesial calling, something I hold most dear. Only a few people did that as the semester wore on, but I so appreciated their kindness. I always smiled in response because I was reminded that my work as a seminary professor was integral to my calling as a deacon.
This year United Methodists are remembering the 25th anniversary of the United Methodist decision to create the Order of Deacon as a distinct, ordained, and permanent vocation in the church. Back in 1998, when I was first writing about the diaconate in the United Methodist Church, I was mostly “taking my cues” from ecumenical sources – Anglican and Roman Catholic scholars mostly since those two traditions had instituted a permanent diaconate decades earlier than United Methodists, and they were doing more theological work on it than United Methodists.
I noticed that deacons in these traditions were referred to as “Deacon” followed by their name. I assumed that United Methodist deacons would follow this example. It seemed an obvious choice to me, as it would invite conversation about what this calling meant. United Methodists had a lot of educating to do about the diaconate, after all, and I thought claiming the title “Deacon” was an easy way of creating “teachable moments” in congregations across the connection.
I was disappointed that did not happen. When UMC deacons use any title – and many don’t – I have observed that they mostly opt for the “Reverend” term to describe themselves. There were several reasons for this, not least of which was a strong desire by UMC deacons who were previously diaconal ministers – a lay, consecrated office in United Methodism since 1976 – to be acknowledged as ordained elders’ equals. This desire was totally understandable since the vast majority of diaconal ministers were women and had struggled for many years (and still do) to be treated as “real ministers.”
For several reasons – my social location as well as my theological and historical understanding of the diaconate – I prefer to be called “Deacon.” I love being a deacon precisely because it is an ecclesial identity and function that is “off-center.” Why use a title like “Reverend” that fails to identify my off-center vocation?
When I was first learning about the diaconate, I drank deeply from the well of stories of early deacons who claimed their role as assistants to bishops and, in one case, had even started a new religious order on the margins. I was fascinated to learn that Saint Francis of Assisi was ordained a deacon but never a priest. In learning the history of the Christian missionary movement, I was amazed at the great work Methodist deaconesses had done (and still do!) among the poor in the United States and around the world, in part because they too were off-center. I remember interviewing a Roman Catholic deacon in the Archdiocese of Boston who taught me about his literally off-center place in his liturgical leadership.
At a 1998 United Methodist deacon gathering in Houston, Texas I began a friendship with another member of the ecumenical diaconate, Episcopalian Archdeacon of the diocese of Chicago Richard Pemble. We met at the hotel check-in line, and he told me that part of his responsibility was to be in relationship with deacons in other denominations. We talked for a long time that night as he filled in gaps in my knowledge of the ecumenical diaconate.
In that same year Richard Pemble wrote an article for the Roman Catholic deacons’ magazine, Deacon Digest, describing the diaconate as “the ecumenical office.” He noted that because deacons were not the ones solely responsible for the well-being of a parish, they had the freedom to make connections across the ecumenical spectrum for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Insights garnered from John N. Collins’s linguistic research on the meaning of diakonia as “emissary” or “go-between” in the New Testament were also germane to Richard’s reflections. Emissaries are off center because they are “on the move” connecting people.
Archdeacon Richard Pemble died at the age of 68 in June of 2001. His funeral in Chicago took place the same day as my commissioning as an ordained deacon by the West Michigan Annual Conference. I sent his widow a sympathy card expressing how important my few meetings with him had been and that I was remembering him on my commissioning day.
As we look forward to the next twenty-five years of the United Methodist diaconate may we all do a better job of not only claiming the title “Deacon” but living like the great deacon saints of the church like Deacon Richard Pemble, Deacon Francis of Assisi, Deacon David Oakerhater, and many others. As we do so, may we also relish our “off-center” ecclesial identity. Claim the name!
2021 is the 25th anniversary of the United Methodist Order of Deacons. Anniversaries are a time to celebrate and think critically about the past and to look forward to the future. Two years after the UMC General Conference established the Order of Deacon, I wrote a book with GBHEM Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry staff member Paul Van Buren, The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love. In 1998 it was the first book to introduce the new understanding of the diaconate to the denomination. In the years since writing that book with Paul, I have written a half dozen scholarly articles on the diaconate that can be found here – along with some other scholars’ work on the diaconate that I have found helpful.
When I was teaching at Palmer Theological Seminary, an American Baptist seminary in Philadelphia, a delightfully bold student asked on the first day of class, “What should we call you?”
Because I teach courses on Christian mission and world Christianity, I sometimes use occasions like this to discuss cultural differences in what scholars call “power distance,” but this time I paused. I decided to ask a favor of my students. I explained how in the academic world professors sometimes derive too much of their sense of self-worth from things like their publication record, faculty rank, and the like.
To counter that tendency in myself I asked my students that evening to call me Deacon Ben. I told them that I needed to be reminded of my ecclesial calling, something I hold most dear. Only a few people did that as the semester wore on, but I so appreciated their kindness. I always smiled in response because I was reminded that my work as a seminary professor was integral to my calling as a deacon.
This year United Methodists are remembering the 25th anniversary of the United Methodist decision to create the Order of Deacon as a distinct, ordained, and permanent vocation in the church. Back in 1998, when I was first writing about the diaconate in the United Methodist Church, I was mostly “taking my cues” from ecumenical sources – Anglican and Roman Catholic scholars mostly since those two traditions had instituted a permanent diaconate decades earlier than United Methodists, and they were doing more theological work on it than United Methodists.
I noticed that deacons in these traditions were referred to as “Deacon” followed by their name. I assumed that United Methodist deacons would follow this example. It seemed an obvious choice to me, as it would invite conversation about what this calling meant. United Methodists had a lot of educating to do about the diaconate, after all, and I thought claiming the title “Deacon” was an easy way of creating “teachable moments” in congregations across the connection.
I was disappointed that did not happen. When UMC deacons use any title – and many don’t – I have observed that they mostly opt for the “Reverend” term to describe themselves. There were several reasons for this, not least of which was a strong desire by UMC deacons who were previously diaconal ministers – a lay, consecrated office in United Methodism since 1976 – to be acknowledged as ordained elders’ equals. This desire was totally understandable since the vast majority of diaconal ministers were women and had struggled for many years (and still do) to be treated as “real ministers.”
For several reasons – my social location as well as my theological and historical understanding of the diaconate – I prefer to be called “Deacon.” I love being a deacon precisely because it is an ecclesial identity and function that is “off-center.” Why use a title like “Reverend” that fails to identify my off-center vocation?
When I was first learning about the diaconate, I drank deeply from the well of stories of early deacons who claimed their role as assistants to bishops and, in one case, had even started a new religious order on the margins. I was fascinated to learn that Saint Francis of Assisi was ordained a deacon but never a priest. In learning the history of the Christian missionary movement, I was amazed at the great work Methodist deaconesses had done (and still do!) among the poor in the United States and around the world, in part because they too were off-center. I remember interviewing a Roman Catholic deacon in the Archdiocese of Boston who taught me about his literally off-center place in his liturgical leadership.
At a 1998 United Methodist deacon gathering in Houston, Texas I began a friendship with another member of the ecumenical diaconate, Episcopalian Archdeacon of the diocese of Chicago Richard Pemble. We met at the hotel check-in line, and he told me that part of his responsibility was to be in relationship with deacons in other denominations. We talked for a long time that night as he filled in gaps in my knowledge of the ecumenical diaconate.
In that same year Richard Pemble wrote an article for the Roman Catholic deacons’ magazine, Deacon Digest, describing the diaconate as “the ecumenical office.” He noted that because deacons were not the ones solely responsible for the well-being of a parish, they had the freedom to make connections across the ecumenical spectrum for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Insights garnered from John N. Collins’s linguistic research on the meaning of diakonia as “emissary” or “go-between” in the New Testament were also germane to Richard’s reflections. Emissaries are off center because they are “on the move” connecting people.
Archdeacon Richard Pemble died at the age of 68 in June of 2001. His funeral in Chicago took place the same day as my commissioning as an ordained deacon by the West Michigan Annual Conference. I sent his widow a sympathy card expressing how important my few meetings with him had been and that I was remembering him on my commissioning day.
As we look forward to the next twenty-five years of the United Methodist diaconate may we all do a better job of not only claiming the title “Deacon” but living like the great deacon saints of the church like Deacon Richard Pemble, Deacon Francis of Assisi, Deacon David Oakerhater, and many others. As we do so, may we also relish our “off-center” ecclesial identity. Claim the name!
Friday, May 21, 2021
UMC Deacons at 25: Hopes for the Future
Today’s post is by Deacon Benjamin L. Hartley and Deacon Paul E. Van Buren. Paul E. Van Buren is a retired deacon residing in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Benjamin L. Hartley is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and is living in Seattle, Washington. In the fall, he will be joining the Seattle Pacific University School of Theology as an Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/
In 1998 Paul Van Buren of the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in GBHEM and I wrote a book together about the UMC’s new understanding of the diaconate. I was a second year MDiv student at Boston University filled with enthusiasm for what the new diaconate could be. The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love was the first book to provide theological and practical guidance on our denomination’s understanding of deacons after the 1996 General Conference decision to institute the Order of Deacon as a full and equal order.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Paul and I had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and our hopes for the future. This post contains the third part of that conversation.
We all know that things are rather uncertain for United Methodists, but what are your continued hopes for the future of the diaconate in the UMC?
Ben Hartley: In recent weeks, I’ve been doing some reading about how the conversation around the ordained diaconate is progressing in other denominations, and I have been encouraged by people who have noted that the permanent diaconate is still in its early stages of formation. For me, I still hope that deacons can really take the lead in ecumenical work. Many deacons are already doing their ministry inspired by the best of the ecumenical movement that seeks to work together for the sake of the Gospel, but there is a lot of work on this remaining to be done. When we were writing this book together, I was drawing so much inspiration from deacons in the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran denominations, but I have been surprised that many other United Methodist deacons haven't done the same. Of course, many UMC deacons have really benefited from participating in the Diakonia World Federation and similar groups, but there haven’t been very much connecting with permanent deacons in the Roman Catholic Church or at least not that I am aware of.
I also hope that United Methodist deacons can continue to inspire creativity and imaginations about what it means to be Church. I love the fact that there are some deacons in the UMC who are involved in new church starts and probably many more who are trying to re-imagine what ministry looks like in established congregations. Deacons’ experiences in these efforts and their theological reflections about what this work means for a theology of the diaconate is something that I hope the church will be eager to listen to in the future. I still think that deacons could really play a key role as a kind of reimagined class leader in Wesley’s terminology. I know of a few deacons who have served churches in that way, but I think there could be a lot more of this! I’ll write about that more in an upcoming blog post.
Paul Van Buren: Ben, I don’t know about the deacon taking a role in ecumenical connections, although it seems to make sense when you consider the world movement of diaconia, especially in European countries.
While I join you in your hopes for deacons taking a role in theological reflection on what it means to be the Church, I have been listening to some of the reports from various conference Orders of Deacons that indicate they are still educating the church that deacons are more about who they are than what they do. There is no defined or detailed job description. This is good, I believe, but it is still confusing to many traditional church members who understand ministry as order, not so much as prophetic. The Order of Deacon is still in its infancy in our denomination.
Our denomination is still working out the relationship between ordination and sacraments and itineracy. There is a recommendation from the 2016 Ministry Study coming up for approval to ordain laypeople who are currently licensed local pastors to become local elders. To add to the complication, a significant portion of our denomination is splitting over human sexuality issues and order that will leave some deacons without a home in their appointment to local churches that identify with a different outlook than the deacons who minister in those churches.
With the shrinking number of local churches as well as the number of ordained elders, we can anticipate there will be the problem of local churches asking deacons to be the pastors or preachers, the same problem being experienced by the Roman Catholics. When I was a Church and Community Worker in Ohio, I helped organize rural cooperative parishes where three to seven local churches were organized as a cooperative parish. At the time, there were 27 such parishes. There was usually one elder, one part-time pastor, and a volunteer choir director and/or educator. It would be the ideal appointment for a deacon to lead the circuit into a joint undertaking of mission and reaching out to the community, bridging the church and the world.
Ben Hartley: I had forgotten, Paul, that you served in Ohio in this form of ministry. I was considering doing something similar with area churches I was preaching at occasionally in Oregon. Everywhere I’ve served I’ve let people know that I would be happy to serve as pulpit supply for elders when they needed a day off. This enabled me to get to know several local congregations a bit and to see how congregations could complement one another in common ministry. I’ve never pushed this to the next level as you did, Paul, in a cooperative parish action. I suppose my draw to the academic life of teaching and writing has so far prevailed. You have given me something to be prayerful about, Paul. Thank you.
It has been a delight to have this conversation with you, Paul. The Order of Deacons across the connection has developed in so many good ways these past twenty-five years, and so much good ministry has happened. It is important to take a moment during this 25th anniversary to reflect about that, be grateful, and be prayerful as we seek a way forward into the future.
In 1998 Paul Van Buren of the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in GBHEM and I wrote a book together about the UMC’s new understanding of the diaconate. I was a second year MDiv student at Boston University filled with enthusiasm for what the new diaconate could be. The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love was the first book to provide theological and practical guidance on our denomination’s understanding of deacons after the 1996 General Conference decision to institute the Order of Deacon as a full and equal order.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Paul and I had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and our hopes for the future. This post contains the third part of that conversation.
We all know that things are rather uncertain for United Methodists, but what are your continued hopes for the future of the diaconate in the UMC?
Ben Hartley: In recent weeks, I’ve been doing some reading about how the conversation around the ordained diaconate is progressing in other denominations, and I have been encouraged by people who have noted that the permanent diaconate is still in its early stages of formation. For me, I still hope that deacons can really take the lead in ecumenical work. Many deacons are already doing their ministry inspired by the best of the ecumenical movement that seeks to work together for the sake of the Gospel, but there is a lot of work on this remaining to be done. When we were writing this book together, I was drawing so much inspiration from deacons in the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran denominations, but I have been surprised that many other United Methodist deacons haven't done the same. Of course, many UMC deacons have really benefited from participating in the Diakonia World Federation and similar groups, but there haven’t been very much connecting with permanent deacons in the Roman Catholic Church or at least not that I am aware of.
I also hope that United Methodist deacons can continue to inspire creativity and imaginations about what it means to be Church. I love the fact that there are some deacons in the UMC who are involved in new church starts and probably many more who are trying to re-imagine what ministry looks like in established congregations. Deacons’ experiences in these efforts and their theological reflections about what this work means for a theology of the diaconate is something that I hope the church will be eager to listen to in the future. I still think that deacons could really play a key role as a kind of reimagined class leader in Wesley’s terminology. I know of a few deacons who have served churches in that way, but I think there could be a lot more of this! I’ll write about that more in an upcoming blog post.
Paul Van Buren: Ben, I don’t know about the deacon taking a role in ecumenical connections, although it seems to make sense when you consider the world movement of diaconia, especially in European countries.
While I join you in your hopes for deacons taking a role in theological reflection on what it means to be the Church, I have been listening to some of the reports from various conference Orders of Deacons that indicate they are still educating the church that deacons are more about who they are than what they do. There is no defined or detailed job description. This is good, I believe, but it is still confusing to many traditional church members who understand ministry as order, not so much as prophetic. The Order of Deacon is still in its infancy in our denomination.
Our denomination is still working out the relationship between ordination and sacraments and itineracy. There is a recommendation from the 2016 Ministry Study coming up for approval to ordain laypeople who are currently licensed local pastors to become local elders. To add to the complication, a significant portion of our denomination is splitting over human sexuality issues and order that will leave some deacons without a home in their appointment to local churches that identify with a different outlook than the deacons who minister in those churches.
With the shrinking number of local churches as well as the number of ordained elders, we can anticipate there will be the problem of local churches asking deacons to be the pastors or preachers, the same problem being experienced by the Roman Catholics. When I was a Church and Community Worker in Ohio, I helped organize rural cooperative parishes where three to seven local churches were organized as a cooperative parish. At the time, there were 27 such parishes. There was usually one elder, one part-time pastor, and a volunteer choir director and/or educator. It would be the ideal appointment for a deacon to lead the circuit into a joint undertaking of mission and reaching out to the community, bridging the church and the world.
Ben Hartley: I had forgotten, Paul, that you served in Ohio in this form of ministry. I was considering doing something similar with area churches I was preaching at occasionally in Oregon. Everywhere I’ve served I’ve let people know that I would be happy to serve as pulpit supply for elders when they needed a day off. This enabled me to get to know several local congregations a bit and to see how congregations could complement one another in common ministry. I’ve never pushed this to the next level as you did, Paul, in a cooperative parish action. I suppose my draw to the academic life of teaching and writing has so far prevailed. You have given me something to be prayerful about, Paul. Thank you.
It has been a delight to have this conversation with you, Paul. The Order of Deacons across the connection has developed in so many good ways these past twenty-five years, and so much good ministry has happened. It is important to take a moment during this 25th anniversary to reflect about that, be grateful, and be prayerful as we seek a way forward into the future.
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
UMC Deacons at 25: The Progress of the UMC Diaconate
Today’s post is by Deacon Benjamin L. Hartley and Deacon Paul E. Van Buren. Paul E. Van Buren is a retired deacon residing in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Benjamin L. Hartley is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and is living in Seattle, Washington. In the fall, he will be joining the Seattle Pacific University School of Theology as an Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/
In 1998 Paul Van Buren of the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in GBHEM and I wrote a book together about the UMC’s new understanding of the diaconate. I was a second year MDiv student at Boston University filled with enthusiasm for what the new diaconate could be. The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love was the first book to provide theological and practical guidance on our denomination’s understanding of deacons after the 1996 General Conference decision to institute the Order of Deacon as a full and equal order.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Paul and I had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and our hopes for the future. This post contains the second part of that conversation.
Ben Hartley: Because my academic career has not been at United Methodist colleges or universities but at American Baptist, Quaker, and (in a few months) Free Methodist ones, it has been hard for me to have a birds-eye view of UMC deacons. You have a better sense of that, Paul, and even followed up with people whose stories we included in our book. Are you pleased by what you see deacons doing now? Did you think the diaconate would look differently after 25 years?
Paul Van Buren: This is a good question, Ben. How are they living out their calling? Initially, most of the deacons were employed by local churches and agencies as Christian Educators, musicians, administrators, and some as pastors of outreach and mission. About three-fourths of them were women with a master’s level of training in some specialization. Today, twenty-five years later, the range of appointments has expanded beyond the local church, especially as opportunities within the local church are shrinking. The gradual trend has been that more candidates are getting a Master of Divinity degree in addition to a specialization which gives them more flexibility for employment. I have been told by some seminary faculty that the students attracted to the ministry of the deacons are as qualified or better than those preparing to be elders.
According to a Lewis Center for Church Leadership Report from 2020, the number of newly ordained deacons is growing and the percent of deacons under age 35 has increased over the last ten years. According to this study, approximately three-fourths of the deacons in the UMC are employed in the Southeast and South-Central jurisdictions of this country. There is also a significant increase in the number of young men entering the United Methodist diaconate, (an increase from 20% in 2019 to 26% in 2020). The gender ratio is still that 27% of candidates in the UMC diaconate are men compared to 73% who are women. It is important, however, to bear in mind that this study is based on data derived from the denomination’s pension program. Many deacons were not included in that study because they are not part of that program. There are currently 1,424 active deacons in the UMC.
Clearly, there are unlimited needs and possibilities for deacons to serve beyond the local church in varieties of service agencies as their primary appointment while still having a secondary appointment in a local church usually without pay. For example, Bruce Maxwell, whom we interviewed for the book, is still doing chaplaincy ministry at truck stops to truck drivers. Randy Lewis is still coordinating outreach ministry of a local church, and Rae Frank is still involved in hospice ministry. But it is not unusual for the deacon to piece together a variety of ministries both for support and new awareness of needs. I would estimate one-fourth of the deacons in our denomination are employed in a secular setting outside a local church and/or a church agency.
Ben Hartley: Paul, you have also been really engaged outside of North America in encouraging the ministry of deacons. How would you say the new understanding of the deacon has been received in different places around the world?
Paul Van Buren: Ben, it was twenty years ago I was provided an opportunity to attend eight annual conferences in four African countries, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the United Methodist Churches in these countries were still using an outdated Book of Discipline of the Central Conference, the bishops of these countries were interested in the recently approved ministry of the ordained deacon for those persons employed by church agencies in the areas of health, education, administration, and missions. We interviewed a number of young people who had been trained as “missioners” who were interested in and identified with the calling to be a deacon. The primary problem we found was some of them wanted to use the designation of deacon to start their own local congregation and function as a pastor without meeting all of requirements of training and approval of the board for ordination. There was also the problem of the two-step ordination still in practice that shaped the mindset that a deacon was on the way to becoming an elder. That was an outlook for many in the United States to change as well!
Countries that have Roman Catholic permanent deacons are more advanced in having an established Order of Deacon with a well-defined role in the church. The episcopal structure of the Roman Catholic church and several Protestant denominations lends itself to an understanding of the Order of Deacon that is missional, prophetic, and innovative as well as accountable to a Bishop for an appointment. On this basis I would expect to see growth in the diaconate eventually, but at this time there are few and only isolated cases of persons ordained to the Order of Deacon in many of the African countries with which I am familiar.
Ben Hartley: I do wonder what will happen to the ecumenical diaconate when (and I do think it is a matter of when) the Roman Catholic Church decides to ordain women to the diaconate. That will be quite a shift!
In your many years of service as a deacon, what story from your own ministry comes to mind that best represents what the diaconate truly is or could be? Do you have a time when your heart, body, and mind all shouted with delight, “Yessss. This is what it means to be a deacon!”
Paul Van Buren:Your reference to “many years of service” totals sixty years! It is much easier for me to respond to years of identity with servanthood ministry beginning with our General Board of Global Ministry as a missionary. I knew I was a deacon long before the church recognized it!
At the same time our denomination approved the formation of the Order of Deacon in 1996, it also approved the establishment of a world-class university in Africa. The Board where I was employed was given the responsibility, and I happened to have the agricultural training needed in international development to coordinate the creation of the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. When my boss “sanctified” this appointment as my ministry as a deacon, that is when I proclaimed “Yesss!” That eventually led to me to coordinating the Faculty of Health and later a ministry of rehabilitation of persons in Zimbabwe living with HIV and AIDS. That project was accepted as a model of the ministry of the deacon by our church. Another big “Yesss!”
Ben Hartley:I’ve been inspired, as you know, by the linguistic research on diakonia that Australian Roman Catholic scholar John N. Collins has done.[1] He highlights the concept of “go-between” or “emissary” for the diaconate, and I have tried to embody that in my academic writing on Christian social welfare history, urban history, and my current project to write a new biography of Methodist Nobel Peace Prize laureate John R. Mott (1865-1955). The working title for that biography is one that will make you smile, Paul. It is “World Christianity’s Emissary.” Of course, Mott was not a deacon, but I think he was animated by some of the spirit of the diaconate as it has been understood over the centuries. Working on that biography is a “yes” to my calling as a deacon. Writing a historical article on the history of UMCOR for its 75th anniversary also prompted a heartfelt “Yesss!” But beyond the writing projects, I think where I most feel like I have done the work of the deacon is when I have led my little congregation in Oregon to pray for one of the kids in the correctional facility that I visited or when I’ve pick up the crumbs of bread after communion. Those quiet and even awkward activities are moments when my deacon’s heart whispers a “Yesss!” too.
In 1998 Paul Van Buren of the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in GBHEM and I wrote a book together about the UMC’s new understanding of the diaconate. I was a second year MDiv student at Boston University filled with enthusiasm for what the new diaconate could be. The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love was the first book to provide theological and practical guidance on our denomination’s understanding of deacons after the 1996 General Conference decision to institute the Order of Deacon as a full and equal order.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Paul and I had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and our hopes for the future. This post contains the second part of that conversation.
Ben Hartley: Because my academic career has not been at United Methodist colleges or universities but at American Baptist, Quaker, and (in a few months) Free Methodist ones, it has been hard for me to have a birds-eye view of UMC deacons. You have a better sense of that, Paul, and even followed up with people whose stories we included in our book. Are you pleased by what you see deacons doing now? Did you think the diaconate would look differently after 25 years?
Paul Van Buren: This is a good question, Ben. How are they living out their calling? Initially, most of the deacons were employed by local churches and agencies as Christian Educators, musicians, administrators, and some as pastors of outreach and mission. About three-fourths of them were women with a master’s level of training in some specialization. Today, twenty-five years later, the range of appointments has expanded beyond the local church, especially as opportunities within the local church are shrinking. The gradual trend has been that more candidates are getting a Master of Divinity degree in addition to a specialization which gives them more flexibility for employment. I have been told by some seminary faculty that the students attracted to the ministry of the deacons are as qualified or better than those preparing to be elders.
According to a Lewis Center for Church Leadership Report from 2020, the number of newly ordained deacons is growing and the percent of deacons under age 35 has increased over the last ten years. According to this study, approximately three-fourths of the deacons in the UMC are employed in the Southeast and South-Central jurisdictions of this country. There is also a significant increase in the number of young men entering the United Methodist diaconate, (an increase from 20% in 2019 to 26% in 2020). The gender ratio is still that 27% of candidates in the UMC diaconate are men compared to 73% who are women. It is important, however, to bear in mind that this study is based on data derived from the denomination’s pension program. Many deacons were not included in that study because they are not part of that program. There are currently 1,424 active deacons in the UMC.
Clearly, there are unlimited needs and possibilities for deacons to serve beyond the local church in varieties of service agencies as their primary appointment while still having a secondary appointment in a local church usually without pay. For example, Bruce Maxwell, whom we interviewed for the book, is still doing chaplaincy ministry at truck stops to truck drivers. Randy Lewis is still coordinating outreach ministry of a local church, and Rae Frank is still involved in hospice ministry. But it is not unusual for the deacon to piece together a variety of ministries both for support and new awareness of needs. I would estimate one-fourth of the deacons in our denomination are employed in a secular setting outside a local church and/or a church agency.
Ben Hartley: Paul, you have also been really engaged outside of North America in encouraging the ministry of deacons. How would you say the new understanding of the deacon has been received in different places around the world?
Paul Van Buren: Ben, it was twenty years ago I was provided an opportunity to attend eight annual conferences in four African countries, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the United Methodist Churches in these countries were still using an outdated Book of Discipline of the Central Conference, the bishops of these countries were interested in the recently approved ministry of the ordained deacon for those persons employed by church agencies in the areas of health, education, administration, and missions. We interviewed a number of young people who had been trained as “missioners” who were interested in and identified with the calling to be a deacon. The primary problem we found was some of them wanted to use the designation of deacon to start their own local congregation and function as a pastor without meeting all of requirements of training and approval of the board for ordination. There was also the problem of the two-step ordination still in practice that shaped the mindset that a deacon was on the way to becoming an elder. That was an outlook for many in the United States to change as well!
Countries that have Roman Catholic permanent deacons are more advanced in having an established Order of Deacon with a well-defined role in the church. The episcopal structure of the Roman Catholic church and several Protestant denominations lends itself to an understanding of the Order of Deacon that is missional, prophetic, and innovative as well as accountable to a Bishop for an appointment. On this basis I would expect to see growth in the diaconate eventually, but at this time there are few and only isolated cases of persons ordained to the Order of Deacon in many of the African countries with which I am familiar.
Ben Hartley: I do wonder what will happen to the ecumenical diaconate when (and I do think it is a matter of when) the Roman Catholic Church decides to ordain women to the diaconate. That will be quite a shift!
In your many years of service as a deacon, what story from your own ministry comes to mind that best represents what the diaconate truly is or could be? Do you have a time when your heart, body, and mind all shouted with delight, “Yessss. This is what it means to be a deacon!”
Paul Van Buren:Your reference to “many years of service” totals sixty years! It is much easier for me to respond to years of identity with servanthood ministry beginning with our General Board of Global Ministry as a missionary. I knew I was a deacon long before the church recognized it!
At the same time our denomination approved the formation of the Order of Deacon in 1996, it also approved the establishment of a world-class university in Africa. The Board where I was employed was given the responsibility, and I happened to have the agricultural training needed in international development to coordinate the creation of the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources. When my boss “sanctified” this appointment as my ministry as a deacon, that is when I proclaimed “Yesss!” That eventually led to me to coordinating the Faculty of Health and later a ministry of rehabilitation of persons in Zimbabwe living with HIV and AIDS. That project was accepted as a model of the ministry of the deacon by our church. Another big “Yesss!”
Ben Hartley:I’ve been inspired, as you know, by the linguistic research on diakonia that Australian Roman Catholic scholar John N. Collins has done.[1] He highlights the concept of “go-between” or “emissary” for the diaconate, and I have tried to embody that in my academic writing on Christian social welfare history, urban history, and my current project to write a new biography of Methodist Nobel Peace Prize laureate John R. Mott (1865-1955). The working title for that biography is one that will make you smile, Paul. It is “World Christianity’s Emissary.” Of course, Mott was not a deacon, but I think he was animated by some of the spirit of the diaconate as it has been understood over the centuries. Working on that biography is a “yes” to my calling as a deacon. Writing a historical article on the history of UMCOR for its 75th anniversary also prompted a heartfelt “Yesss!” But beyond the writing projects, I think where I most feel like I have done the work of the deacon is when I have led my little congregation in Oregon to pray for one of the kids in the correctional facility that I visited or when I’ve pick up the crumbs of bread after communion. Those quiet and even awkward activities are moments when my deacon’s heart whispers a “Yesss!” too.
[1] Research stemming from Collins’s work decades ago continues. The latest scholarly volume in this regard is Bart J. Koet, Edwina Murphy, and Esko Ryokas (eds.), Deacons and Diakonia in Early Christianity (Tuebingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2019).
Monday, May 17, 2021
UMC Deacons at 25: Picking up on an Old Conversation
Today’s post is by Deacon Benjamin L. Hartley and Deacon Paul E. Van Buren. Paul E. Van Buren is a retired deacon residing in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Benjamin L. Hartley is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and is living in Seattle, Washington. In the fall, he will be joining the Seattle Pacific University School of Theology as an Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/
In 1998 Paul Van Buren of the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in GBHEM and I wrote a book together about the UMC’s new understanding of the diaconate. I was a second year MDiv student at Boston University filled with enthusiasm for what the new diaconate could be. The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love was the first book to provide theological and practical guidance on our denomination’s understanding of deacons after the 1996 General Conference decision to institute the Order of Deacon as a full and equal order.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Paul and I had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and our hopes for the future. This post contains the first part of that conversation.
Reading the book after so many years have passed since writing it, what stands out to you the most?
Ben Hartley: For me, I would have to say that I am most pleased by the theme we chose to accentuate – namely, the importance of deacons’ work as interrelating worship and service. I still think that it is critical for deacons to be active in the worship life of the congregation to bring focus to ministries of service, justice, and compassion. That focal attention happens best in worship.
I’m also humbled when I read these words from over twenty years ago. I have failed to live out as well as I thought I would this central dimension of the deacon’s calling. As a deacon who has lived out his calling primarily as a professor in a seminary and then among university undergraduates, I have too often not led my local congregations very well in ministries of service, justice, and compassion. I have been better at working at the Annual Conference level by serving on the Board of Ordained Ministry and other committees.
And yet, I am grateful for small ways I have interrelated worship and service in recent years through volunteering at a youth correctional facility, offering prayers at my local church for young men I had spoken to that week, and in initiating an ecumenical Lenten study program with neighboring Wesleyan congregations in my small town. Covid-19 brought that last initiative to a premature end, but the effort is still important for me to remember as an example of interrelating worship and service in my twenty-year calling as a deacon. As a professor in Oregon, I’ve loved offering “field trips” to a Coptic Orthodox Church, a synagogue, and mosque for my students. This too is an expression of my calling, even if I often don’t see such work as part of some sort of “programmatized” deacon effort. This work grew out of who I was. But that is an important insight. The work of a deacon – as in all callings – should be something that comes naturally if it is truly a manifestation of one’s call.
I am also really pleased by how well we engaged the ecumenical literature on the diaconate back in 1998 when we wrote this book together. Back when I entered seminary at Boston University in 1997, there was very little theological work being done in United Methodist circles about what this new understanding of the diaconate means for our church. The General Conference’s decision was not based on an elaborate “theology of holy orders” as the Roman Catholics would have framed things! Rosemary Skinner Keller, Gerald F. Mode and Mary Elizabeth Moore had written Called to Serve back in 1987 to add some clarity around the office of diaconal minister, but there wasn’t much more than that. I was drawn to scholars on the ordained diaconate in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican traditions because those groups had instituted a permanent, ordained diaconate a decade or more before United Methodists and were actively engaged in ecumenical conversations about the diaconate.
I was fortunate at Boston University School of Theology in 1998 to take a doctoral seminar on the diaconate taught by Professor Carter Lindberg, a Lutheran. He had recently participated in an ecumenical dialogue between Anglicans and Lutherans in Hanover, Germany about the diaconate called The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity. A year later, I took another course by Professor Dana Robert entitled “Women in Diakonia and Mission.” I was elated. It was still another Boston University School of Theology staff member, Margaret Wiborg, Director of the Anna Howard Shaw Center, who is responsible for connecting me to you all at the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in Nashville. As I recall, she asked me for the papers I had been writing for classes, nearly all of which had something to do with the diaconate. She liked them and told me to send them to your colleague, Jimmy Carr. It wasn’t long before you and I were having conversations about writing a book together! I was so honored to write that with you, Paul. It meant so much to me.
Paul Van Buren: Thank you, Ben, for refreshing my memory on how it came about that we wrote the book. I too am pleased about what we wrote and how we complemented each other in our perspectives. I had years of service as a missionary, church and community worker, and working in GBHEM, and you were just barely starting out! I am especially pleased about our emphasis on the Order of Deacon, an entirely new creation in the United Methodist Church. If we were to rewrite this book, now that we have a bit of history to draw on, I would keep the existing theme and topics but flesh out the reference to Order as a covenant community. Even though most conferences in the Northeast and West lack the critical mass of deacons to have a large community (Order) of deacons, we can now see how critical it is to have the support of each other in the process of bringing change in the structure and ordering of ministry. Drawing on the history of deacons in other traditions was helpful.
Ben Hartley: Your mentioning of the importance of Order brings to mind what I thought was one of the best papers written in those early days by a United Methodist professor on the diaconate. I remember being invited to a small conference that you, Joaquin Garcia, and Jimmy Carr pulled together (maybe other GBHEM staff were there too, I don’t recall). It was held in a rather stuffy Nashville hotel conference room with maybe fifty people there. Dr. Deidre Kriewald gave what I thought was an inspiring paper on “Order.” As the youngest person in the room (28 years old) I was energized by what Professor Kriewald had to say. Re-reading her paper these many years later, her final paragraph still excites me. After mentioning the 3rd century story of Deacon Laurence (you’ll recall I love that story), Kriewald writes:
As you mentioned, Paul, the Order of Deacon has not always and everywhere lived up to Professor Kriewald’s hope that it would be “a strong communal force” to strengthen and encourage deacons, but I’ve been blessed to be part of two Annual Conference Orders of Deacons – in Eastern Pennsylvania and Oregon-Idaho – which have really tried to live that out.
Paul Van Buren: Thanks for reminding me about Professor Kriewald’s paper from that long-ago conference, Ben! The section on “Similarities and Differences of Elders and Deacons” was another critical piece of our book. We received more questions on this topic in our office than any other subject. Even though we stressed that one’s identity is more important than function, our denomination seems consumed with the ordering and ranking of ministry. How a deacon functions varies a great deal depending on the bishop and senior pastor with whom the deacon is accountable. There is some progress over the past decades in involving the deacon in some aspects of celebrating and administering the Sacraments.
I have you to thank for the ecumenical perspective in our book. Would it not be a great idea if the Order of Deacon were more inclusive of some of these other traditions in some of their meetings? We have much to learn from Roman Catholic and Episcopal deacons.
In 1998 Paul Van Buren of the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in GBHEM and I wrote a book together about the UMC’s new understanding of the diaconate. I was a second year MDiv student at Boston University filled with enthusiasm for what the new diaconate could be. The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love was the first book to provide theological and practical guidance on our denomination’s understanding of deacons after the 1996 General Conference decision to institute the Order of Deacon as a full and equal order.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Paul and I had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and our hopes for the future. This post contains the first part of that conversation.
Reading the book after so many years have passed since writing it, what stands out to you the most?
Ben Hartley: For me, I would have to say that I am most pleased by the theme we chose to accentuate – namely, the importance of deacons’ work as interrelating worship and service. I still think that it is critical for deacons to be active in the worship life of the congregation to bring focus to ministries of service, justice, and compassion. That focal attention happens best in worship.
I’m also humbled when I read these words from over twenty years ago. I have failed to live out as well as I thought I would this central dimension of the deacon’s calling. As a deacon who has lived out his calling primarily as a professor in a seminary and then among university undergraduates, I have too often not led my local congregations very well in ministries of service, justice, and compassion. I have been better at working at the Annual Conference level by serving on the Board of Ordained Ministry and other committees.
And yet, I am grateful for small ways I have interrelated worship and service in recent years through volunteering at a youth correctional facility, offering prayers at my local church for young men I had spoken to that week, and in initiating an ecumenical Lenten study program with neighboring Wesleyan congregations in my small town. Covid-19 brought that last initiative to a premature end, but the effort is still important for me to remember as an example of interrelating worship and service in my twenty-year calling as a deacon. As a professor in Oregon, I’ve loved offering “field trips” to a Coptic Orthodox Church, a synagogue, and mosque for my students. This too is an expression of my calling, even if I often don’t see such work as part of some sort of “programmatized” deacon effort. This work grew out of who I was. But that is an important insight. The work of a deacon – as in all callings – should be something that comes naturally if it is truly a manifestation of one’s call.
I am also really pleased by how well we engaged the ecumenical literature on the diaconate back in 1998 when we wrote this book together. Back when I entered seminary at Boston University in 1997, there was very little theological work being done in United Methodist circles about what this new understanding of the diaconate means for our church. The General Conference’s decision was not based on an elaborate “theology of holy orders” as the Roman Catholics would have framed things! Rosemary Skinner Keller, Gerald F. Mode and Mary Elizabeth Moore had written Called to Serve back in 1987 to add some clarity around the office of diaconal minister, but there wasn’t much more than that. I was drawn to scholars on the ordained diaconate in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican traditions because those groups had instituted a permanent, ordained diaconate a decade or more before United Methodists and were actively engaged in ecumenical conversations about the diaconate.
I was fortunate at Boston University School of Theology in 1998 to take a doctoral seminar on the diaconate taught by Professor Carter Lindberg, a Lutheran. He had recently participated in an ecumenical dialogue between Anglicans and Lutherans in Hanover, Germany about the diaconate called The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity. A year later, I took another course by Professor Dana Robert entitled “Women in Diakonia and Mission.” I was elated. It was still another Boston University School of Theology staff member, Margaret Wiborg, Director of the Anna Howard Shaw Center, who is responsible for connecting me to you all at the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in Nashville. As I recall, she asked me for the papers I had been writing for classes, nearly all of which had something to do with the diaconate. She liked them and told me to send them to your colleague, Jimmy Carr. It wasn’t long before you and I were having conversations about writing a book together! I was so honored to write that with you, Paul. It meant so much to me.
Paul Van Buren: Thank you, Ben, for refreshing my memory on how it came about that we wrote the book. I too am pleased about what we wrote and how we complemented each other in our perspectives. I had years of service as a missionary, church and community worker, and working in GBHEM, and you were just barely starting out! I am especially pleased about our emphasis on the Order of Deacon, an entirely new creation in the United Methodist Church. If we were to rewrite this book, now that we have a bit of history to draw on, I would keep the existing theme and topics but flesh out the reference to Order as a covenant community. Even though most conferences in the Northeast and West lack the critical mass of deacons to have a large community (Order) of deacons, we can now see how critical it is to have the support of each other in the process of bringing change in the structure and ordering of ministry. Drawing on the history of deacons in other traditions was helpful.
Ben Hartley: Your mentioning of the importance of Order brings to mind what I thought was one of the best papers written in those early days by a United Methodist professor on the diaconate. I remember being invited to a small conference that you, Joaquin Garcia, and Jimmy Carr pulled together (maybe other GBHEM staff were there too, I don’t recall). It was held in a rather stuffy Nashville hotel conference room with maybe fifty people there. Dr. Deidre Kriewald gave what I thought was an inspiring paper on “Order.” As the youngest person in the room (28 years old) I was energized by what Professor Kriewald had to say. Re-reading her paper these many years later, her final paragraph still excites me. After mentioning the 3rd century story of Deacon Laurence (you’ll recall I love that story), Kriewald writes:
A rightly appropriated Order of Deacons will promote an effective partnership between laity and deacons and act as a bridge between laity and clergy within the organic ministry of the body of Christ. The order can be a strong communal force to help the deacons exemplify and encourage the servanthood to which all Christians are commissioned in baptism. The order is also a structure for the continuing education of deacons and a visionary vehicle for the formation of the Christian clergy. Let the whole church say “Amen!” and respond with energy and prayerful support.
As you mentioned, Paul, the Order of Deacon has not always and everywhere lived up to Professor Kriewald’s hope that it would be “a strong communal force” to strengthen and encourage deacons, but I’ve been blessed to be part of two Annual Conference Orders of Deacons – in Eastern Pennsylvania and Oregon-Idaho – which have really tried to live that out.
Paul Van Buren: Thanks for reminding me about Professor Kriewald’s paper from that long-ago conference, Ben! The section on “Similarities and Differences of Elders and Deacons” was another critical piece of our book. We received more questions on this topic in our office than any other subject. Even though we stressed that one’s identity is more important than function, our denomination seems consumed with the ordering and ranking of ministry. How a deacon functions varies a great deal depending on the bishop and senior pastor with whom the deacon is accountable. There is some progress over the past decades in involving the deacon in some aspects of celebrating and administering the Sacraments.
I have you to thank for the ecumenical perspective in our book. Would it not be a great idea if the Order of Deacon were more inclusive of some of these other traditions in some of their meetings? We have much to learn from Roman Catholic and Episcopal deacons.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Benjamin L. Hartley: Becoming One, Becoming Holy: A Response to “Sent in Love”
Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley. Dr. Hartley is Associate Professor of Christian Mission at the College of Christian Studies at George Fox University. He also blogs at http://www.missionandmethodism.net/. This post is part of a series on the UMC's new ecclesiology document, Sent in Love: A United Methodist Understanding of the Church, which will be presented to General Conference 2020 for review and adoption.
“There has never been a time in greater need of a compelling articulation of the message of holiness.” So begins the 2006 “Holiness Manifesto,” crafted by the Wesleyan Holiness Consortium (now called the Wesleyan Holiness Connection), an ecumenical body comprised of eighteen Wesleyan denominations in the United States, including the United Methodist Church.
At the request of the Council of Bishops, I have been honored to attend a number of annual “steering committee” gatherings with this group. I believe there is much to be learned from our Wesleyan sisters and brothers and much we United Methodists have to contribute – especially at this difficult time in our history as United Methodists.
“Sent in Love,” the recently revised United Methodist ecclesiology statement put forth by the Committee on Faith and Order, is, in part, also a kind of “holiness manifesto,” set forth at a time when there is again a great “need of a compelling articulation of the message of holiness.”
“Sent in Love” (henceforth, SIL) strikes an ecumenical tone at the very beginning, much like the previous draft, “Wonder, Love, and Praise,” did although it does not follow other ecumenical theological statements as explicitly as “Wonder, Love, and Praise.”
As a result, I think SIL portrays our Wesleyan distinctiveness better than its predecessor, and I hope that will aid in its reception by United Methodist congregations. SIL rightly stresses at the very beginning that ecumenical engagement is no extraneous add-on in our ecclesiological reflection, but is instead integral to who we are as United Methodists. “We have perspectives to contribute to a wider common Christian understanding of the church. We also learn about ourselves from other Christians and churches (SIL, paragraph 6).”
Our robust ecumenism stems not only from our denomination being a merger of Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist churches in 1968 but also from our global or oikoumene growth since 1968. In these months before General Conference 2020, it is critical to remind ourselves in our prayers and in our work that we do not stand alone as individuals or as a denomination, but are part of a world Christian movement in which the Holy Spirit is working to make us all more perfect in love.
I believe SIL will be most useful for what it has to say about holiness. Holiness is an integrating and animating idea and practice too often relegated to the “ash heap” of Methodist history rather than history’s “garden” from which United Methodists may still yield abundant fruit.
In the eighteen years since I was commissioned as a deacon I have been a member of three different Annual Conferences in three different jurisdictions (Northeast, North Central, and Western). In all of the places where I have served I have been struck by the lack of attention given to holiness as an integrating and animating idea in United Methodist theological practice. I have seen this lack of attention at Annual Conference gatherings, in Boards of Ordained Ministry, and in local church preaching. I am also convinced that this is not only a problem for North American United Methodism.
I believe SIL portrays an expansive vision of what holiness is and can be in the life of United Methodist people. “Holiness is deeply personal and yet has inseparable public and social dimensions. It is as intimate as each person’s inner experience of the pardoning and sanctifying grace of God, and as all-encompassing as God’s will for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation (SIL, pargraph 90).”
At a time when political movements inside and beyond the church seek to polarize people in various “camps,” I believe a reinvigoration of “holiness” language and accompanying practices in United Methodism has the potential to break down “dividing walls of hostility.”
That said, I am fully aware that debates about holiness have been a source of conflict in our history. Areas of conflict will doubtless persist as they have in the church from the days of the apostles onward, but I believe that framing our disagreements in light of a common call to holiness can call forth within all of us a posture of reconciling love as we seek to model our lives after Jesus Christ, the Holy One.
The theme of holiness resonates deeply with all four “marks” of the church discussed in SIL and does so implicitly and explicitly. I especially like the way these four marks are discussed (in Part Three) in an inverted order such that our missional impulse (apostolicity) is mentioned first and followed by catholic, holy, and one rather than the more conventional ordering.
In the ecumenical movement of the past several decades sometimes Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17, “that they may be one,” has been stressed to the neglect of his prayer “that the world may believe.” By inverting the traditional ordering SIL sends a different message, one that I pray unifies us around our common missional priorities instead of the issues that divide us. We are apostolic, catholic, holy, and one.
Inspired by the ecumenical work of the Wesleyan Holiness Connection and as part of my own celebration of the Methodist missionary society centennial in 1819, I decided to organize a group of five Wesleyan pastors in my hometown to gather our congregations in weekly meetings during Lent to celebrate our common Wesleyan mission. I look forward to sharing excerpts from SIL concerning the theme of holiness during at least one of these meetings. I encourage readers to do the same in your own formal and informal efforts at living out Jesus’ prayer “that they may all be one… that the world may believe. It is our holy calling.
“There has never been a time in greater need of a compelling articulation of the message of holiness.” So begins the 2006 “Holiness Manifesto,” crafted by the Wesleyan Holiness Consortium (now called the Wesleyan Holiness Connection), an ecumenical body comprised of eighteen Wesleyan denominations in the United States, including the United Methodist Church.
At the request of the Council of Bishops, I have been honored to attend a number of annual “steering committee” gatherings with this group. I believe there is much to be learned from our Wesleyan sisters and brothers and much we United Methodists have to contribute – especially at this difficult time in our history as United Methodists.
“Sent in Love,” the recently revised United Methodist ecclesiology statement put forth by the Committee on Faith and Order, is, in part, also a kind of “holiness manifesto,” set forth at a time when there is again a great “need of a compelling articulation of the message of holiness.”
“Sent in Love” (henceforth, SIL) strikes an ecumenical tone at the very beginning, much like the previous draft, “Wonder, Love, and Praise,” did although it does not follow other ecumenical theological statements as explicitly as “Wonder, Love, and Praise.”
As a result, I think SIL portrays our Wesleyan distinctiveness better than its predecessor, and I hope that will aid in its reception by United Methodist congregations. SIL rightly stresses at the very beginning that ecumenical engagement is no extraneous add-on in our ecclesiological reflection, but is instead integral to who we are as United Methodists. “We have perspectives to contribute to a wider common Christian understanding of the church. We also learn about ourselves from other Christians and churches (SIL, paragraph 6).”
Our robust ecumenism stems not only from our denomination being a merger of Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist churches in 1968 but also from our global or oikoumene growth since 1968. In these months before General Conference 2020, it is critical to remind ourselves in our prayers and in our work that we do not stand alone as individuals or as a denomination, but are part of a world Christian movement in which the Holy Spirit is working to make us all more perfect in love.
I believe SIL will be most useful for what it has to say about holiness. Holiness is an integrating and animating idea and practice too often relegated to the “ash heap” of Methodist history rather than history’s “garden” from which United Methodists may still yield abundant fruit.
In the eighteen years since I was commissioned as a deacon I have been a member of three different Annual Conferences in three different jurisdictions (Northeast, North Central, and Western). In all of the places where I have served I have been struck by the lack of attention given to holiness as an integrating and animating idea in United Methodist theological practice. I have seen this lack of attention at Annual Conference gatherings, in Boards of Ordained Ministry, and in local church preaching. I am also convinced that this is not only a problem for North American United Methodism.
I believe SIL portrays an expansive vision of what holiness is and can be in the life of United Methodist people. “Holiness is deeply personal and yet has inseparable public and social dimensions. It is as intimate as each person’s inner experience of the pardoning and sanctifying grace of God, and as all-encompassing as God’s will for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation (SIL, pargraph 90).”
At a time when political movements inside and beyond the church seek to polarize people in various “camps,” I believe a reinvigoration of “holiness” language and accompanying practices in United Methodism has the potential to break down “dividing walls of hostility.”
That said, I am fully aware that debates about holiness have been a source of conflict in our history. Areas of conflict will doubtless persist as they have in the church from the days of the apostles onward, but I believe that framing our disagreements in light of a common call to holiness can call forth within all of us a posture of reconciling love as we seek to model our lives after Jesus Christ, the Holy One.
The theme of holiness resonates deeply with all four “marks” of the church discussed in SIL and does so implicitly and explicitly. I especially like the way these four marks are discussed (in Part Three) in an inverted order such that our missional impulse (apostolicity) is mentioned first and followed by catholic, holy, and one rather than the more conventional ordering.
In the ecumenical movement of the past several decades sometimes Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17, “that they may be one,” has been stressed to the neglect of his prayer “that the world may believe.” By inverting the traditional ordering SIL sends a different message, one that I pray unifies us around our common missional priorities instead of the issues that divide us. We are apostolic, catholic, holy, and one.
Inspired by the ecumenical work of the Wesleyan Holiness Connection and as part of my own celebration of the Methodist missionary society centennial in 1819, I decided to organize a group of five Wesleyan pastors in my hometown to gather our congregations in weekly meetings during Lent to celebrate our common Wesleyan mission. I look forward to sharing excerpts from SIL concerning the theme of holiness during at least one of these meetings. I encourage readers to do the same in your own formal and informal efforts at living out Jesus’ prayer “that they may all be one… that the world may believe. It is our holy calling.
Friday, October 5, 2018
Benjamin L. Hartley: Opening Up the Church so Wide…
Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley, Associate Professor of Christian Mission at George Fox University. The post originally appeared on the author's personal blog, Mission and Methodism, in slightly modified form.
I have been thinking and writing about refugees quite a bit recently. There’s ample reason for it; today, seventy million people in our world have been forced from their homes as refugees or internally displaced persons.[1]
November 11, 2018 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. The end of that war brought peace to some, but the refugee crisis it spawned and the ensuing famine in Russia that affected millions made life a nightmare for years after the trench warfare ceased. I wrote an article about this that came out in the International Bulletin of Mission Research this month.[2] Specifically, I wrote about the European Student Relief – the first aid organization to be truly international and ecumenical. It was organized by Christian students around the world to come to the aid of refugee students.
Our refugee crisis today was again brought to my attention a couple of months ago at the Oxford Institute for Methodist Theological Studies with a sermon given by Rev. Peter Storey, a Methodist pastor from South Africa. I met him several days earlier - spotting his name tag as I trickled into a lecture hall with 150 other attendees for the conference’s first plenary lecture. I was surprised to see him. He is not the young man that he was when he bravely fought against the apartheid regime for decades beginning in the 1960s.
As part of his resistance to that regime he would sometimes hold a sign that read, "All who pass by remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of the city, and who were forced by law to leave their homes because of the colour of their skins. Father forgive us."
This so-called “Plaque of Shame” was erected on the outside wall of the local Methodist church in District 6 as well. I’m told it is still there. In his sermon that Sunday, Rev. Storey also described another time in the history of that church – long after he had departed as its pastor – when the building provided a place of refuge for people fleeing the ruthless regime of Robert Mugabe in the neighboring state of Zimbabwe.
On the last day of the Oxford Institute, Peter preached on the story of four friends who dug a hole in the roof of a home where Jesus was teaching and asked (demanded?) that Jesus heal their paralyzed friend. The church, he said, has to be broken in order to actually be the church. By serving refugees from Zimbabwe, the church he loved – including the building itself – was literally broken down from the stress of housing dozens of people who lived, cooked, and slept in the sanctuary.
I am reminded of how rarely I have seen this kind of ministry happen in the churches that I have attended and served in for the past several decades. To be clear, I have been a part of churches – urban ones especially – that did prioritize ministry to their neighbors over keeping the church building in shape. I am grateful for their witness, but I have not seen this enough.
When Rev. Storey finished preaching I felt compelled to thank him for his sermon. It had moved me to tears. But I knew that kind words and a handshake wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to hug this man – to feel the aging sinews in his back muscles that had fought against oppression. Peter Storey reminded me that morning that the Christian life is not primarily about finely nuanced talks or academic papers (valuable as they can be) but about ministering to people where they are at in their fullness as people truly created in God’s image and who reflect that image even in the brokenness of their bodies. “Too often,” he noted, “we are more concerned about being right than doing good!”
Rev. Storey paraphrased Mother Teresa in his closing words that Sunday morning in Oxford. I can’t think of a better was to close this blog than to follow his example:
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” Reflecting on this quotation with respect to the story of the paralytic and his four friends, Peter went on, “Only if the church gets broken open does the world get mended… Open up the Church so wide that the whole world falls in."
I have been thinking and writing about refugees quite a bit recently. There’s ample reason for it; today, seventy million people in our world have been forced from their homes as refugees or internally displaced persons.[1]
November 11, 2018 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. The end of that war brought peace to some, but the refugee crisis it spawned and the ensuing famine in Russia that affected millions made life a nightmare for years after the trench warfare ceased. I wrote an article about this that came out in the International Bulletin of Mission Research this month.[2] Specifically, I wrote about the European Student Relief – the first aid organization to be truly international and ecumenical. It was organized by Christian students around the world to come to the aid of refugee students.
Our refugee crisis today was again brought to my attention a couple of months ago at the Oxford Institute for Methodist Theological Studies with a sermon given by Rev. Peter Storey, a Methodist pastor from South Africa. I met him several days earlier - spotting his name tag as I trickled into a lecture hall with 150 other attendees for the conference’s first plenary lecture. I was surprised to see him. He is not the young man that he was when he bravely fought against the apartheid regime for decades beginning in the 1960s.
As part of his resistance to that regime he would sometimes hold a sign that read, "All who pass by remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of the city, and who were forced by law to leave their homes because of the colour of their skins. Father forgive us."
This so-called “Plaque of Shame” was erected on the outside wall of the local Methodist church in District 6 as well. I’m told it is still there. In his sermon that Sunday, Rev. Storey also described another time in the history of that church – long after he had departed as its pastor – when the building provided a place of refuge for people fleeing the ruthless regime of Robert Mugabe in the neighboring state of Zimbabwe.
On the last day of the Oxford Institute, Peter preached on the story of four friends who dug a hole in the roof of a home where Jesus was teaching and asked (demanded?) that Jesus heal their paralyzed friend. The church, he said, has to be broken in order to actually be the church. By serving refugees from Zimbabwe, the church he loved – including the building itself – was literally broken down from the stress of housing dozens of people who lived, cooked, and slept in the sanctuary.
I am reminded of how rarely I have seen this kind of ministry happen in the churches that I have attended and served in for the past several decades. To be clear, I have been a part of churches – urban ones especially – that did prioritize ministry to their neighbors over keeping the church building in shape. I am grateful for their witness, but I have not seen this enough.
When Rev. Storey finished preaching I felt compelled to thank him for his sermon. It had moved me to tears. But I knew that kind words and a handshake wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to hug this man – to feel the aging sinews in his back muscles that had fought against oppression. Peter Storey reminded me that morning that the Christian life is not primarily about finely nuanced talks or academic papers (valuable as they can be) but about ministering to people where they are at in their fullness as people truly created in God’s image and who reflect that image even in the brokenness of their bodies. “Too often,” he noted, “we are more concerned about being right than doing good!”
Rev. Storey paraphrased Mother Teresa in his closing words that Sunday morning in Oxford. I can’t think of a better was to close this blog than to follow his example:
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” Reflecting on this quotation with respect to the story of the paralytic and his four friends, Peter went on, “Only if the church gets broken open does the world get mended… Open up the Church so wide that the whole world falls in."
[1] See the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/data.html. This number would be higher if an even broader definition of refugee and internally displaced person were utilized.
[2] See my article in the October 2018 International Bulletin of Mission Research, entitled “Saving Students: European Student Relief in the Aftermath of World War I.”
Friday, September 14, 2018
Benjamin L. Hartley: On Really Getting Things Wrong…
Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley, Associate Professor of Christian Mission at George Fox University. The post originally appeared on the author's personal blog, Mission and Methodism, in slightly modified form.
This summer I was once again in the archives researching world Christian leaders in the early part of the twentieth century. In the course of this archival research I occasionally come across letters where the writers are so very blind to the big events that are beginning to happen around them or will shortly happen. They are sometimes astonishing to read. Sometimes they are astonishingly boring in light of what – in historical hindsight – we know was about to happen in their world (like World War 1!).
But for the most part my reaction to these astonishing letters is not one of self-righteous incredulity where I wonder, “How could s/he think or say that?” Quite the contrary. When I come across these letters they frequently give me pause as I wonder to myself, “What am I missing in my own context?” Am I equally blind to critical matters happening in my world where I am doing very little in response?
It seems important to be especially prayerful along these lines following the summer of 2018 which seemed particularly disturbing in the world news events swirling about us. The growth of anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and the United States, the rise of right-wing nationalist leaders, the separation of immigrant families, the praising of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un by President Trump… The list goes on. What will happen next? What is happening now in other parts of the world that I am not noticing because these events I just mentioned are either closer to home or are more active in the press I am paying attention to?
It is with all of this in mind that I share an excerpt from a two-page, typewritten letter written by an early twentieth century evangelist named Sherwood Eddy. He was very popular as an evangelist in student circles, and by the late 1920s was getting increasingly intrigued by what was happening in the still-new Soviet Union. He sent an almost syrupy sweet letter to Josef Stalin in 1932. What was happening in 1932 that he was clueless about? Well, here’s a bit of a taste…
In 1932 the first “five-year plan” was wrapping up. Collectivization of Soviet agriculture was moving forward at a break-neck pace and a devastating famine was setting in causing the deaths of millions of people in the Ukraine and elsewhere. Some scholars see this as deliberate and thus worthy of the “genocide” label committed by Stalin.
Now read the letter that Sherwood Eddy wrote to Stalin that I came across in my research at the Yale Divinity School archives. One of the most striking examples of really getting things wrong.
Yes, that’s right. In the midst of a genocidal famine caused, in large part, by Josef Stalin we have this letter giving Comrade Stalin advice on his country’s hospitality industry! Astonishing? Yes.
May we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what is happening in our world that is at least somewhat better than Sherwood Eddy was able to see in his own day. That is my humble prayer – for all of us.
This summer I was once again in the archives researching world Christian leaders in the early part of the twentieth century. In the course of this archival research I occasionally come across letters where the writers are so very blind to the big events that are beginning to happen around them or will shortly happen. They are sometimes astonishing to read. Sometimes they are astonishingly boring in light of what – in historical hindsight – we know was about to happen in their world (like World War 1!).
But for the most part my reaction to these astonishing letters is not one of self-righteous incredulity where I wonder, “How could s/he think or say that?” Quite the contrary. When I come across these letters they frequently give me pause as I wonder to myself, “What am I missing in my own context?” Am I equally blind to critical matters happening in my world where I am doing very little in response?
It seems important to be especially prayerful along these lines following the summer of 2018 which seemed particularly disturbing in the world news events swirling about us. The growth of anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and the United States, the rise of right-wing nationalist leaders, the separation of immigrant families, the praising of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un by President Trump… The list goes on. What will happen next? What is happening now in other parts of the world that I am not noticing because these events I just mentioned are either closer to home or are more active in the press I am paying attention to?
It is with all of this in mind that I share an excerpt from a two-page, typewritten letter written by an early twentieth century evangelist named Sherwood Eddy. He was very popular as an evangelist in student circles, and by the late 1920s was getting increasingly intrigued by what was happening in the still-new Soviet Union. He sent an almost syrupy sweet letter to Josef Stalin in 1932. What was happening in 1932 that he was clueless about? Well, here’s a bit of a taste…
In 1932 the first “five-year plan” was wrapping up. Collectivization of Soviet agriculture was moving forward at a break-neck pace and a devastating famine was setting in causing the deaths of millions of people in the Ukraine and elsewhere. Some scholars see this as deliberate and thus worthy of the “genocide” label committed by Stalin.
Now read the letter that Sherwood Eddy wrote to Stalin that I came across in my research at the Yale Divinity School archives. One of the most striking examples of really getting things wrong.
This is my ninth visit to this country in twenty years – twice in Czarist Russia, seven times to the Soviet Union, which has made such astonishing progress especially during the Five Year Plan. I am counted a friend of this country and have been working for a decade with my friends… for the recognition of the Soviet Union by the reactionary Government of the United States, so much so that in America it is foolishly said I must be supported by “Moscow gold.” I am not a Communist nor a capitalist, but a Socialist; but I want to see this daring undertaking of a classless society under a new social order succeed, and it is succeeding.
I know you are occupied with much more important questions in collectivization, heavy and light industry, etc. I do not ask an interview nor an
answer to this letter, which may not even reach you, but I have confidence in you as the one man that can bring victory and success in the face of all these difficulties.
Speaking as a friend of the Soviet Union, not by way of criticism but in kindly suggestion, I may say that your tourist business for foreigners is very badly run. I know the difficulties and I do not expect perfection, busy as you are with more important internal problems, but things are worse this year in many respects than in previous years. Thousands of dollars have been wasted abroad in advertising which was unpsychological and not adapted to foreigners, promising things which could not be fulfilled, and have not been fulfilled. A few thousand dollars spent in making these hotels suitable for foreigners would have brought better results than tens of thousands in unwise advertising which has not been fulfilled…[1]
Yes, that’s right. In the midst of a genocidal famine caused, in large part, by Josef Stalin we have this letter giving Comrade Stalin advice on his country’s hospitality industry! Astonishing? Yes.
May we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what is happening in our world that is at least somewhat better than Sherwood Eddy was able to see in his own day. That is my humble prayer – for all of us.
[1] Letter from Sherwood Eddy to Josef Stalin, July 29, 1932. Sherwood Eddy papers, Yale Divinity School archives, New Haven, CT
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