David W. Scott: Why the Book of Discipline Matters More in the US

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

When General Conference convenes in just over a month, it will spend most of its time examining legislative petitions to alter the Book of Discipline (BOD), the denomination’s rule book. And the overwhelming majority of those petitions dealing with the BOD come from the United States.

There are many reasons why so much of the BOD legislation at General Conference comes from the US – the relative size of the church there, the historical US-centrism of the denomination, the lack of any other venue for the church in the US to make policy.

But along with these well-documented reasons, there are also cultural and institutional factors for why US United Methodists want and need a Book of Discipline for church governance more than United Methodists elsewhere. That’s not to say that other parts of the UMC don’t use or care about the BOD. It’s just to say that the BOD has a special significance in the US that it doesn’t hold elsewhere.

I’ll briefly survey four explanations:

• An emphasis on the rule of law

• Light government regulation of religion

• A large, distributed, and diverse church

• Significant assets

Each of these factors contributes to the greater emphasis on the Book of Discipline in the United States relative to elsewhere in the UMC.

An Emphasis on the Rule of Law

US Americans tend to place a high cultural value on rules, laws, and formal, impersonal systems. When something goes wrong, the US American attitude is often, “There should be a rule about that!” and US Americans often assume that things will go smoothly if everyone follows the rules.

While this attitude is bred in US Americans primarily by our secular legal system, this preference for formal rules carries over into many other arenas, including the church. Having a book of church laws as the central text for a denomination reflects a particularly American veneration for law.

In this veneration of the rule of law, US Americans reflect a general trend withing Western modernity. Yet the large and active lawsuit culture in the United States that is not present elsewhere in the Western world also turbocharges a reliance on formal rules as a way of avoiding bad scenarios.

Not all countries in the world share the same high cultural value on the rule of law as Americans do. Other countries may emphasize personal preferences of a leader, interpersonal or collective systems of arbitration, or implicit cultural standards to tell people how to act and what to do when something goes wrong. These are all alternatives to formal laws and thus alternatives to relying on the BOD for questions of church governance.

Light Government Regulation of Religion

This may seem paradoxical in connection with the above point about the emphasis on the rule of law, but it’s not. One of the foundational concepts in the system of American laws is the separation of church and state. That is not true everywhere, even in other Western countries with a similarly strong sense of the rule of law. The standard in much of the world is for the government to regulate people’s religious practices and organizations.

If the government is not going to regulate religious groups in the US and there’s a desire for those religious groups to be governed by a system of laws, that means the religious groups have to come up with their own laws, since the state isn’t going to do it for them. The BOD is an expression of the US American church’s desire to self-regulate in the absence of much government regulation.

In other countries with a UMC presence, it may not be necessary to put so many rules into the Book of Discipline because the matters addressed, including employment and pensions, may already be covered by government regulation. Thus, having separate church regulation is unnecessary.

A Large, Distributed, and Diverse church

Even after disaffiliation, but especially historically over the past half century, the US American portion of The United Methodist Church is large – millions of members within scores of annual conferences led by dozens of bishops spread across five jurisdictions and every US state and territory. Within this group are very large churches and very small churches; urban, suburban, and rural churches; black, white, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic churches; rich churches and poor churches; and many other forms of variety.

This size, distribution, and diversity mean two things.

First, the church is much too large to operate effectively through informal, personal governance. While there are certainly United Methodist insiders, most United Methodists do not have direct personal ties with one another. Most are not even at one degree of removal, where two parties both know someone in common who could serve as a go-between. In the absence of such personal connections between United Methodists, it is more important to have impersonal rules since behavior and conflict management cannot always be addressed through personal means.

Moreover, there is no central head figure of the church in the United States who could serve as an ultimate personal arbiter within the church. Each bishop is co-equal, and there are dozens of bishops. Short of a miraculous revelation, there is no way to adjudicate a dispute among bishops by appealing to their common superior. Without personal regulation, impersonal regulation becomes more important.

Second, the church is too distributed and diverse for there to be central cultural norms that shape everyone’s understanding of how to act as the church and what to do when things go wrong. Different regions of the country, different racial and ethnic groups, even churches at different stages of the organizational lifecycle will have different notions of what the expectations for church are. Without shared cultural understandings, it is impossible to adjudicate between competing understandings of how to behave in certain situations without some sort of external systems of written procedures.

While this lack of personal or cultural regulation in the United States makes the BOD that much more important there, other countries have stronger systems of personal and cultural regulation that make the BOD less necessary there. The small size of the church in Europe and the Philippines means that many systems for running the church can be established through personal connections and a shared culture without the need for formal regulations. In Africa, the strong power of bishops, who often govern all the United Methodist churches in a country, provides a personal focus for church governance. In many places in Africa, this personal approach to church governance is reinforced by shared cultural, ethnic, and kinship ties.

Significant Assets

Finally, the US UMC has large holdings in property and finances. Pre-disaffiliation, those total assets throughout the US connection were somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 billion. All these assets mean that the financial stakes for church governance in the United States are high. If someone embezzles money, tries to leave the denomination with their church’s property, does something to get the church sued, or makes a bad financial transaction, the ramifications for those actions could be large, at least monetarily.

Thus, there is in an incentive for more extensive formal rules to try to handle and protect this large amount of assets. Regulations on church property, pensions, apportionments, church employment, and other finance and finance-adjacent areas of the BOD are there so that US Americans can manage their church’s assets, especially in the context of a well-developed secular US legal system with significant opportunities for lawsuits. Putting rules in the BOD allows US United Methodists to avoid secular courts more often and set the terms for when cases do end up in secular courts.

The church in all places has some assets. But in no other place is there the same combination of wealth and size that the church has in the US. Thus, no other place has the same financial incentives to put in place a system of formal financial rules through the BOD that the US has.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it is neither inherently good nor bad for the US to rely heavily on the BOD or for other branches of the church to rely less heavily on it. What creates a possibility for misunderstanding is when US United Methodists rely heavily on the BOD, other United Methodists rely less heavily on it, but General Conference proceeds as if the BOD has the same significance for everyone. Delegates should be aware when they discuss the BOD at General Conference that delegates from different places will have different understandings about the role of the BOD in the life of the church and may have different things at stake in the discussion.

If General Conference creates some option for the formation of a US region, it will have the benefit that US United Methodists will have a venue in which they can fulfill their cultural and contextual need for an extensive set of church laws and regulations without needing to negotiate all those laws and regulations across international cultures, where the various parties have different understandings of law and different senses of what’s at stake. Such an outlet for US energy around lawmaking would then free up General Conference to focus more on spiritual, relational, and other aspects of what it means to be the church together.

Jefferson Knight: Addressing Human Sexuality in the United Methodist Church Book of Discipline: A Missional Imperative

Today's post is by Jefferson Knight. Knight is Program Director of the United Methodist Human Rights Monitor in Liberia and a delegate of the Liberia Annual Conference to the 2024 General Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The United Methodist Church is currently embroiled in a significant crisis regarding the definition of marriage within its doctrine. The looming conflict arises from the potential attempt by the General Conference of The United Methodist Church to change the definition of marriage, a move that could lead to serious repercussions across its global connections.

One of the primary reasons for the potential conflict is the disparity in the legal and cultural context of marriage across different regions, particularly in relation to same-sex marriage. In the United States, same-sex marriage has been legally recognized since the landmark Supreme Court decision in 2015. However, this legal framework is not universally applicable, especially in other parts of the world, such as Africa and certain other regions.

In many African countries, laws criminalize same-sex marriage, reflecting deeply ingrained cultural and religious beliefs. As a result, any attempt by The United Methodist Church to change its definition of marriage to include same-sex unions would clash with the legal and cultural norms prevalent in these regions, potentially causing significant discord within the global church community.

Furthermore, United Methodists in the United States and other Western countries may find themselves in a constant state of conflict with the Book of Discipline of the UMC if they were to adhere to their national laws, which permit same-sex marriage, while other countries, particularly in Africa, maintain laws that explicitly criminalize such unions.

This stark contrast in legal frameworks creates a complex and challenging situation for the church, with divergent interpretations of the Book of Discipline causing tension between different regions and members.

This situation has led to the formation of the Global Methodist Church, a US-based denomination that broke away from The United Methodist Church, and it has also led to the disaffiliation of churches from the UMC, mainly in the United States.

In light of these challenges, it is evident that The United Methodist Church must seek a solution that respects the diverse legal, cultural, theological, biblical, and regional contexts within which it operates. One potential path forward could involve defining marriage within the Book of Discipline based on regional contexts wherever applicable.

By acknowledging the legal and cultural differences across its global connections, The United Methodist Church can strive to define marriage in a manner that respects the varying perspectives and realities of its members. This approach would entail recognizing and respecting the legal frameworks and cultural norms related to marriage in different regions, thereby allowing for a more inclusive and harmonious coexistence within the church.

Moreover, establishing a framework that respects regional variations in the definition of marriage would help mitigate potential conflicts and foster a spirit of unity and understanding within The United Methodist Church. By embracing diversity and adapting its doctrine to reflect the complex realities of its global membership, the church can navigate the current crisis and emerge with a strengthened sense of inclusivity and community.

However, it is essential to recognize that the missional context of the church extends far beyond the confines of any single issue, including human sexuality. The UMC's global reach necessitates an approach that acknowledges and respects the diverse cultural, social, and theological perspectives of its members across different regions. The proposal to regionalize the church as proposed by the Christmas Covenant underscores the recognition of these differences and the need for a more localized understanding of faith and practice.

The idea of regionalization holds significant potential for addressing the complexities surrounding human sexuality within the UMC. Rather than attempting to impose a singular stance on this issue that may be incongruent with the beliefs of certain regions, a regionalized approach allows for the accommodation of diverse perspectives in accordance with the unique cultural and contextual factors at play.

In conclusion, the crisis facing The United Methodist Church in relation to the definition of marriage underscores the need for a thoughtful and inclusive approach that respects the diverse legal, cultural, and regional contexts within the church's global connections. By defining marriage in the Book of Discipline based on regional context wherever applicable, the church can pave the way for a more harmonious and respectful coexistence, ensuring that all members feel valued and heard within the broader church community.

David W. Scott: The Coming Pastoral Shortage as a Missional Concern

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

At the annual meeting of the Northern Germany Annual Conference this past June, conference leaders shared a startling statistic: the number of active pastors in the conference is expected to drop in half in the next eight years. In response, the conference is looking to promote more collaboration across congregations and to form "multi-professional teams" of pastors and skilled lay workers who can collectively provide leadership to United Methodist congregations.

United Methodists in the United States would do well to watch and learn from this experiment as it unfolds in Germany over the next several years. While the statistics might not be quite as dramatic as in the Northern Germany Annual Conference, there are indications that the United States is heading towards a growing clergy shortage as well. This is something that this blog wrote about a year and a half ago, and a Washington Post story from this summer drew similar conclusions.

Clergy decline is not a new trend. The number of ordained elders in the US UMC has been declining since 1990, according to the Lewis Center for Church Leadership. There are almost half as many ordained elders now as there was thirty years ago (21,507 in 1990 vs. 11,168 in 2022).

However, up until recently, this trend of declining elders has been masked and managed by other trends:

At the same time as the number of ordained elders has gone down, the number of licensed local pastors has increased substantially. The number of licensed local pastors rose from just under 4,000 in 1990 to over 7,500 in 2020, again according to the Lewis Center.

Moreover, as smaller churches have closed and proportionately more members have worshipped in larger congregations, the number of elders required to serve US United Methodists has decreased.

And as small, rural congregations have gotten smaller, the number of multi-point charges (groups of churches served by a shared minister) has increased, with some charges now including four or more churches.

Masked within the number of elders is another trend: an increasing reliance on clergy who have immigrated from another country. Without these immigrant clergy members, the decline in the number of elders would have been even more stark.

Yet, these various off-setting trends will likely no longer continue to provide adequate solutions to a decline in the number of ordained clergy from the United States. The number of licensed local pastors has itself been declining since 2019. Increased visa restrictions and issues of regionalization may make it harder for the United States to import pastors in the future. And while multi-point charges are certain to increase, there are limits to just how many churches can be served and how many miles can be driven by one pastor.

Thus, churches in the United States will need to look to other solutions and other models for clergy deployment in the next decade, which is why the Northern Germany story is so significant. It is an experiment, one that may yield models worth copying. There are others as well, including from the Methodist Church in Britain. But wherever the ideas come from, experiments will need to be tried.

Finally, it is important to point out that the question of finding models that will match the number of clergy and the number of churches is not just an administrative one, but a missional one.

In the 18th and 19th century, Methodism's model of itinerant clergy was a major factor in the growth of the denomination throughout the United States. Not all those clergy were ordained elders, but finding a way to develop and deploy enough leadership to where the missional needs of the community and the country are was part of what made Methodism a successful missional movement.

The systems for recruiting, training, and deploying congregational leadership are likely to look very different in the future than they did in the era of the circuit riders or in the recent eras of the ubiquitous M.Div.-trained elder or the rise of licensed local pastors.

But the need for called and trained leaders who can lead the church forth in mission will always be constant. May the church experiment successfully with new models for finding such leaders.

A Defense of My Congregation

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

One of the unexpected upsides of the pandemic for me and my family has been the opportunity to move back to my hometown, Decorah, IA. Along with that move, I’ve been able to resume my connection to the church I grew up in, First United Methodist Church of Decorah.

Being a part of Decorah FUMC has not only been a nice opportunity to reconnect with people who have been an important part of my spiritual development, it has also been a unique opportunity to reflect on the challenges that have faced American Christianity in the past 25 or 30 years as they have played out in this congregation.

Like many United Methodist churches (and like many churches of other denominations), Decorah FUMC is a smaller and older congregation than it was when I grew up in it. While it’s easy to interpret that statement in entirely negative ways, I think it’s worth saying a word in defense of the church, a word about why the church does not deserve to shoulder all the blame for that change.

I make this defense of my congregation not because I think it is unique, but rather because I know it is not. From my wife’s experiences as a pastor, my knowledge of the ministry of other pastors, my teaching of Course of Study, and my reading of stories about United Methodist and other churches in the United States, I think what is true in Decorah is true in a lot of places. I’m able to make this defense for Decorah FUMC because I know it better than other congregations, but a lot of what I have to say carries across congregations.

Changes in Attendance
Although The United Methodist Church and only mainline denominations have been losing members since the 1960s, Decorah FUMC, like a number of other United Methodist and other mainline congregations, was actually doing really well through the 1990s. Indeed, the 1990s were something of a heyday of members and ministries for several United Methodist congregations that I know, including congregations across the theological spectrum.

Since the 1990s, though, membership and attendance has dwindled, at Decorah FUMC and at most of the other congregations I know for whom the 90s was a heyday. Attendance at Decorah FUMC peaked at somewhere around 120 a week in the 90s. Currently, it’s probably somewhere between 40 and 50 on a given Sunday.

While that drop may seem dramatic, it’s more typical than one might think. One Hartford Institute for Religion Research study found that the median worship size for US congregations across denominations fell by just over 50% between 2000 and 2020. Another recent Hartford study has shown that average attendance has decline by a further quarter compared to pre-pandemic.

Put these two figures together, and one would expect Decorah FUMC to have attendance in the average low 40s these days just based on national trendlines. As dramatic as this drop in attendance figures may seem, it’s not exceptional. It’s normal.

Small and Rural
Both of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research articles cited above make clear that drops in typical attendance have been especially pronounced for smaller churches and churches in rural areas or small towns. Decorah FUMC fits both these categories. Indeed, given the unique challenges of rural and small congregations, Decorah FUMC is doing somewhat better than one would expect.

Rural churches often don’t receive a lot of attention. Most Americans live in suburbs; only 14% live in rural areas and small towns. But 47% of American congregations are in rural areas and small towns. That means while the typical American Christian may be in the suburbs, the typical American church is not.

This is true for United Methodism as well. One of the legacies of the circuit riders is that the UMC has churches in most small towns in America. There are about the same number of UMC churches in the United States as there are post offices. The typical UMC congregation is small and located in a rural or small-town setting.

While detailing all the challenges of rural and small-town life in 21st century America would go far beyond this essay, a pervasive sense of dwindling and decline applies to many aspects of rural life. Businesses close. Young people move away. Schools are consolidated. The population ages and declines. Why should churches be exempt from these trends?

Here, too, Decorah FUMC is indicative of broader trends. Decorah, IA, is in many ways a successful and thriving small town compared to others. But the population has been static since 1980, with a recent dip from declining enrollment in the local college. There are fewer people in the surrounding county now than there were in 1870. In a static to declining population, even maintaining church membership is a challenge, especially given national trend lines away from religion.

This is especially true given the outmigration of people from small towns. Looking through pictures of the confirmation classes from the years my brothers and I were being confirmed, I see that probably 75% of the kids who grew up in Decorah FUMC have moved away. It’s not that other young people haven’t moved to town since, but the experience of moving can be disruptive those with weaker church attachments. Newer young people moving in are less likely to affiliate with a church than the young people who grew up in a congregation but are now moving away.

Focusing on young families (the golden grail of so many churches) reflects another challenge that small churches have. As churches contract, it becomes harder to maintain a critical mass of young families. My family has been the only young family in some churches we’ve attended, and my kids have been the only kids under 10 in those churches. It can be rough.

For parents who care about passing on the faith to their kids, there is an incentive to switch to another church with more kids and perhaps a Sunday school. Even when I was in high school, the attraction was palpable of the larger, Lutheran youth groups when compared to the small band of Methodists. I know other families in Decorah who were connected to First United Methodist Church but switched to other churches than still had a larger attendance so that their kids would have age-level peers in church.

Exegeting the Experience
Am I making excuses and saying that it’s okay that membership and worship attendance at Decorah FUMC have dropped? No! I sincerely wish it was different. It breaks my heart to see the congregation a fraction of its former self, especially because I know the faith of those who have been a part of the congregation and the good work that the congregation has done.

What I am saying is that I don’t think we should place all the blame for these changes on the congregation itself. Has the congregation made mistakes in the past 25 or 30 years that have cost it members? Sure. Every organization makes mistakes, and the congregation and its ministers have made mistakes too.

But the congregation has also done things right and tried new things in the past 25 or 30 years, things that the experts say should lead to growth and vitality. They experimented with a new, non-traditional worship experience. They’ve been heavily involved in their local community. People are willing to talk about their faith. They have welcomed new members. When I look around on Sunday, a good portion - probably between a quarter and a third - of the people in the pews were not yet there when I was growing up.

And many of the factors affecting the congregation are far beyond its control. It cannot control the educational, economic, and cultural incentives that make young people decide to leave town. It did not control the 2019 General Conference, though its outcome did cost the church members. It certainly didn’t control the COVID pandemic, though that’s been the most disruptive impact on church attendance in living memory. And, while everyone bears some responsibility for the larger cultural shifts away from church attendance and membership, it is unfair to hold individual congregations responsible for solving a problem that US Christianity as a whole has not been able to.

Decorah FUMC is a good congregation, and it has done good ministry and continues to do good ministry, even as its numbers have declined. And as hard as it may be to see empty pews, what’s even harder is to see good, faithful people feeling like they have failed because of those empty pews.

Yes, evangelism should be a practice and a value of the church. But to fault every congregation that is not growing amidst a tidal surge in the opposite direction, especially congregations in areas with real demographic limitations to growth, is cruel. We cannot expect every congregation to be like those in growing suburbs. And to insist that they must is to abdicate responsibility for really engaging with the reality of nearly half of American congregations.

Nor is it productive to make congregations feel bad because they have fewer members. No one wants to join a floundering or failing organization. Telling congregations that they have failed because they have lost members is counter-productive to the goal of bringing in new people. Christianity is about good news, not about fulfilling obligations even though the experience is sort of a downer.

To continue to reach new people, we need to focus on what goes right at our churches, not just what goes wrong. So, in my next post, I’m going to write an appreciation of Decorah UMC and celebrate the things that go right there, and in so many other United Methodist congregations in the United States.

Recommended Viewing: American UMs Interviewing African UMs

The African bishops' statement earlier this fall caught many Americans by surprise. In some instances, though, the release of the statement motivated American United Methodists to want to better understand dynamics in The United Methodist Church in Africa. Two such United Methodists have released video interviews of their conversation with African United Methodist leaders.

Rev. Jeffrey Rickman of Nowata and Delaware UMCs in Oklahoma has started a video podcast called "Plainspoken." As part of that podcast, he has interviewed three African leaders:

Rev. Dr. Jerry Kulah of the Liberia Annual Conference

Rev. Ande Emmanuel of the South Nigeria Annual Conference

Mr. Simon Mafunda of the Zimbabwe East Annual Conference

Rev. Rickman intends to produce more such video interviews as well.

Rev. John Stephens of Chapelwood UMC in Houston has a long-running video podcast, "Pod Have Mercy." Recently, he interviewed Bishop Mande Muyombo of the North Katanga Episcopal Area.

The interviewers and interviewees all have distinct views on and vested interests in the present situation in The United Methodist Church, as do many United Methodists. Thus, some claims may need to be taken with a grain of salt or compared with others across the interviews for a comprehensive picture.

What is particularly interesting about the interviews, though, is two things:

First, to see the interactions between American and African United Methodists when Americans come to those conversations with a real interest in learning, as Revs. Rickman and Stephens do. More such conversations need to be happening in the denomination.

Second, it is interesting to see how, although the four Africans interviewed have very different takes on denominational politics, they do affirm some common themes: the need for Africans to have a greater voice in the denomination, the desire to avoid American control or manipulation of the church in Africa, and the potential problems introduced by American money into the relationship between Americans and Africans. They may differ on the politics of realizing such a vision or what the roadblocks to that vision are, but the vision articulated has significant commonalities.

Political context and the meaning of church

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries. This piece originally appeared as a commentary on the United Methodist News Service site and is republished here with permission. 

The United Methodist Church aspires to be a worldwide church. Yet both because of the current separation happening within the denomination and its changing international composition, it finds itself in a time of rethinking what it means to be a church, and a global church at that.

“Church” is one of the most foundational terms used by Christians, but the meaning of that word may not be as universally agreed upon as one might expect. First, church can be used for three different levels of Christian gathering: local congregations, denominations and the church universal. The United Methodist Church is a church in the second, denominational sense.

While the nuances of theological understandings vary, there is at least an intuitive common meaning of congregation and the church universal: a gathered Christian community and the body of all Christians, respectively.

Not so with the other category. While most Christians could point to a denomination, they might be harder pressed to give a definition, and those definitions might vary widely. There are historical reasons for this uncertainty. Congregations have been a feature of Christianity since its beginning; denominations have not.

One might think of a denomination broadly as a middle level of church that unites local congregations and is a part but not the whole of the church universal, but this still leaves a lot of room for divergent understandings of how a denomination should go about uniting congregations and how it should interact with other denominations and broader society.

Moreover, the exact meaning of denomination is heavily influenced by context and the political and cultural factors at play in each context. Political contexts and their effect on the religious landscape mean that The United Methodist Church’s identity as a denomination means different things in different branches of the church.

Not only are there are different understandings within the denomination of what it means to be a “church,” but these different understandings go along with different strategies for how to be a successful church. Here, the notion of religious marketplaces — how religious groups behave in their social and political contexts to grow and thrive — is helpful. Even if talking about religion as a marketplace is inadequate theologically, it highlights issues of fit between an organization (such as The United Methodist Church) and its environment.

Because of differing political and religious landscapes in the United States, Africa, Europe and the Philippines, United Methodists in those different regions have adopted different postures toward political leaders and the general populace, part of divergent strategies to help the church succeed in the sense of attracting members and avoiding outside interference.

The United States

The concept of denomination came into its own in the United States, fostered by the American principle of separation of church and state. In the United States, there is minimal government regulation of religion (most of what does happen is through tax laws), and religious identity is seen as a personal choice by Americans. That does not mean that Americans view faith as solely a private matter — there may be public and political implications of one’s faith — but ultimately, one’s choice of faith is minimally constrained by political or other public forces. The United States is thus close to a religious free market.

In the United States, The United Methodist Church (and its Methodist predecessor denominations) has functioned as a leading competitor in the denominational marketplace. American Methodism’s goal has always been to grow and appeal to the masses. Unlike other traditions (Mennonites, for example), Methodism was never content to be a niche player in the religious marketplace. At times, this has led to conflict or compromise (as in dropping early American Methodism’s opposition to slavery), but the goal has been consistent: to be a major denomination with an extensive membership.

Historically, American Methodism has been successful in achieving this goal. Methodism (across denominations) was the most popular variety of Protestantism in the United States at the end of the 19th century, and The United Methodist Church remains the second-largest Protestant denomination. It is the most nationally distributed of any major denomination, crossing all regions of the country.

The United Methodist Church in the United States has, of course, experienced a prolonged loss of members over the course of its lifetime. Yet part of what has made that experience so painful for U.S. members is because it represents the loss of a former dominant position in the American religious landscape.

There have been myriad proposals for how to reverse the membership decline in the United States, but they all have several features in common: They are focused on appealing directly to individual potential members, usually through the preaching and programming of the church. None of them address the denomination’s relationship with the government. While some of these reflect on the “brand” of United Methodism, very few of them talk about the role that the church plays in the public square. These strategies to retain and gain members are about appealing to individuals’ choices across broad swaths of the American public.

Europe

The United Methodist Church functions very differently in Europe. Most of Europe has a long tradition of state churches supported by the government. In some instances, state support has recently ended, but the legacy remains. In that context, The United Methodist Church has functioned as a “free church,” that is, one that people freely choose to join (rather than doing so because it is the government-set default). Indeed, in several countries, Methodism helped pioneer the idea of religious freedom.

But free churches are necessarily small. The state church, as a government monopoly of sorts, will always have the dominant position in society. In such a setting, Methodism has never aspired to win over the masses, as it has in the United States.

Instead, The United Methodist Church has sought to avoid the stigma of a being a “sect,” a label that would bring popular aversion and possibly government interference. The goal is survival and ideally modest growth, but not becoming a dominant player in the religious landscape, which is not possible.

To avoid the label of “sect,” United Methodism tends to emphasize its ecumenical relations and its contributions to the common good. Both these habits demonstrate that the church is willing to get along with and benefit others, rather than being closed-off like a sect.

But this approach of being a good citizen is a very different model of engaging the religious marketplace than American churches’ appeal to the interests of individuals as free consumers. It is a different set of strategies with a different end goal.

Africa

People might look at the lack of a state church in most African countries and conclude that they are free denominational marketplaces, as in the United States. Yet such a view misses two important points about how religion functions in most African contexts.

First and foremost, while religious identity in the United States is a personal matter, in most African contexts, it is a public matter. That is, one’s religious identity is not merely chosen independently as an individual but is instead connected to other elements of public and communal identity — family, tribe, political party, occupation, etc. In some instances, these communal aspects of identity determine denominational identity more so than personal choice.

Second, while freedom of religion does exist in almost all African countries, there still tends to be a heavily regulated religious marketplace. There are no state churches, but the government actively intervenes in religious affairs for a variety of reasons, sometimes personal to the leader but mostly related to the government’s understandings of good of the society, including preservation of social order. Because religious identity is public, the government has an interest in regulating it.

Thus, there are various instances of African governments interfering with religious organizations, including through permitting and legal cases. Churches also often seek to use state intervention, through government officials or the police, to resolve religious conflicts within their own body — something that an American church would almost never do, except in the instance of lawsuits, which are not seen as a form of government intervention.

The goal for The United Methodist Church in many contexts in Africa is still, as it is in the United States, to appeal to the masses. Methodism tends to be growth oriented, carrying the idea that all should be welcomed into the church and that a growing church is a healthy church.

But this growth is pursued in slightly different ways. Because religion is seen as public rather than personal, Methodism emphasizes not only the personal benefits of worship, community and spiritual care, as it does in the United States, but also how the church engages with and contributes to the overall good of the society, mostly through education and health care. In many places throughout Africa, Methodism is the church of civil society, engaged in building better communities. That is one of its prime selling points. This public image of Methodism both helps attract followers (as groups and individuals) and staves off government interference, though Methodism often ends up interacting extensively with the government around the public services that the church provides.

Philippines

Unfortunately, in the interest of space, I will touch only briefly on the Philippines. It is probably somewhere in between the United States and Africa. There is a relatively free market for religion in the Philippines, a legacy of U.S. colonialism. Yet the government is more likely to curtail religious speech on political issues, and the Filipino religious marketplace is structured differently than the U.S. religious marketplace. One might think of it as an oligarchy: The Catholic Church and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines exercise dominant positions within Filipino society. Within that context, Methodism is a specialty religious provider characterized by education and healthcare, just as education and health care is central to the church’s public face in Africa.

Conclusion

The upshot of this variation among political contexts in which The United Methodist Church operates is that there are different understandings of what it means to be a “church” and different strategies pursued to be a successful church. To the extent that the church is characterized by regionalization, these divergent understandings and strategies can coexist. To the extent that the church is characterized by centralization, there is the potential for conflict among these strategies.

One instance of such implications for how issues play out in the denomination is around sexuality: In the United States, denominations must respond to changing demands in the religious marketplace in a society that increasingly accepts gay marriage, but where there is also a good portion of individuals with traditionalist understandings of marriage, thus leading to conflict about how best to appeal to the masses. In Europe, to avoid the label of “sect,” there is pressure to follow majority opinion (whether conservative as in Eastern Europe or progressive in Western Europe). In Africa, it is important to be seen as contributing to social stability, and when the government has identified the heterosexual family as central to social stability, there is pressure for the churches to toe that line. In the Philippines, questions of sexuality are less relevant to Methodists’ identity as a specialty religious provider focused on education and health care.

Each of these strategies makes sense within the political and cultural logic of its context. The challenge comes when the church tries to come to agreement across contexts.

Recommended Reading: What Church Splits Can Teach Us About a Dividing America

Many commentators, including in posts on UM & Global, have noted the parallels between divisions within Methodism and divisions within American society. Certainly, that is true historically, especially for church divisions around slavery preceding the Civil War. Commentators then use this historical parallel to reflect on the significance of present-day conflicts in both church and society, seeking to better understand each in the light of the other.

In this vein, it is interesting to read Russell Moore's article in Christianity Today last month, entitled "What Church Splits Can Teach Us About a Dividing America." Although Moore is well-known as a Baptist and has recently been embroiled in conflicts within the Southern Baptist Convention, his article actually begins by focusing on The United Methodist Church. Moore uses the UMC to note that present polarization runs through the middle of most communities, rather than mapping neatly onto geographic divisions, as in the pre-Civil War era. Moore also writes about those directing their anti-institutionalist rage at denomination structures. While he does not connect this point to the UMC, he certainly could have as well.

Recommended Reading: North American and African Wesleyan/Methodist theological education initiative

Dr. Hendrik R. Pieterse, associate professor of global Christianity and intercultural theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and contributor to UM & Global, will be leading a new initiative at Garrett to strengthen networks between American and African Wesleyan/Methodist theological educators. The goals of the project include "mapping scholarly networks, institutions, scholarship, partnerships, and publications among sub-Saharan African and North American scholars in the Wesleyan/Methodist traditions who are actively engaged in-depth intercultural theological exchange, collaboration, joint research, and publishing" and "convening representative groups of African and North American Wesleyan/Methodist scholars and thought leaders to serve as consultants and partners in organizing a theological symposium for the second year of the initiative, with an accompanying book project."

As various contributors have emphasized on this blog, and as Pieterse and UM & Global blogmaster David W. Scott have argued in a recent article, intercultural dialogue is critical for the future of Methodist theology. It is hoped that this new initiative will make a substantial contribution in that direction.

Recommended Reading: The Pastor of Little Mexico/El Pastor del pequeño Mexico

Mikeie Honda Reiland has written a lovely essay about United Methodist pastor Rev. Carlos Uroza, a Mexican immigrant serving two congregations in Nashville, one of them also primarily composed of immigrants. The piece is titled "The Pastor of Little Mexico" and is available on the online magazine The Bitter Southerner with accompanying photo essay by Tamara Reynolds. A translation into Spanish by Leonor Yanez is available from United Methodist News Service as "El Pastor del pequeño México." The piece is beautifully written and touches on several topics relevant to this blog: the story of one man's conversion experience, unexpected consequences of connections formed through short term mission trips, one man's immigration experience, and the challenges and opportunities facing immigrant communities in the United States. It is well worth a read, in English or Spanish.

Sung Il Lee: Korean and Western Experiences of Religious Pluralism

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Sung Il Lee. Rev. Dr. Lee is a missionary of Global Ministries and Missionary Practitioner in Residence at Candler School of Theology.

Most Koreans, including myself, are exposed to the gospel of Christianity for the first time in a religiously pluralistic world. Korean religious culture includes elements of Shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity. In my last post, I examined the personal questions that this religious pluralism raises. In this post, I want to contrast the Korean context with the Christendom context in the West.

Becoming church members, Koreans come to think that Christianity, to which they belong, is one of many religions in Korea; that is, they have a relativistic view of religion. Evangelists did not regard Shamanism or Confucianism as religions, so they are eager to share the Gospel with people. However, Buddhist monks who were clearly regarded as Buddhists would pass without evangelism. However, through many miraculous experiences of meeting Jesus Christ personally, Korean Christians became exclusive and aggressive evangelists in the eyes of non-believers, but they acknowledge that Jesus is the only King of kings and Lord of lords and show zeal to evangelize to all people.

As such, the experience of Korean Christians started in the world of religious pluralism, and through hearing the Christian gospel and receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord, Christianity developed into a religious relativism that is one of many religions in Korea. Then, through a miraculous religious experience, they also made the same confession that Moses' father-in-law Jethro confessed after hearing Moses' testimony. "Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, and he has overcome those who behaved proudly toward Israel" (Exodus 18:11).

This confession of Korean Christians becomes an absolute confession of faith that only Jesus Christ is the God of all gods and the Lord of lords in the context of religious pluralism. Experiencing maturity through the experience of the Holy Spirit, it develops into what Wesley called “religion of the heart, faith that works by love” (Section 1 of the preface series § 6, #7 Path to Heaven I. §6). In the eyes of others, it appears to be a religiously exclusive attitude, but over time, while ethically considerate of other religions, those Korean Christians embrace people of other religions with love. In the end, we can see the heart of Christ, who endures all persecution and misunderstanding and leads us to the Lord with love, in the hearts of Korean Christians.

Western Christians' experience of religious pluralism is fundamentally different from Korean Christians. They traditionally lived in a Christian world (Christendom) and considered themselves true Christians. Perhaps in Wesley's eyes, they would have looked like “nominal Christians” (#63. The General Spread of the Gospel. §1) with a formal and outward religion, but the sad thing is that they think themselves true biblical Christians. The Western world has traditionally viewed evangelism as a domestic activity targeting non-believers and nominal church members and missions as targeting unbelievers in the non-Christian world. However, surprised by the vast scriptures of Eastern religions and their piety, Western Christians, starting with the missionaries who served on the mission field, gradually changed from the belief that Christianity is the only absolute religion to a religious relativist teaching and finally took over a pluralistic teaching, wherein they became accepting of the existence of other religions. By a relativistic teaching of religion, I mean one that is based on the premise that you should not impose your religion on me; and by pluralistic teachings, I mean those that assume that all religions represent only one path to salvation.

Although the Western world has now embraced a religious pluralism that has always characterized Korea, Koreans have not found Western views on pluralism helpful. Korean Christians are generally conservative. Out of thankfulness to the church in USA, which sent missionaries to Korea, Korean Christians have put more trust in American theologians than others. Yet, those Korean theologians who have accepted a religiously pluralistic theology developed in the United States have shaken the Korean Christian faith fundamentally. In this sense, the religious pluralism developed by Western theologians has been damaging to the churches in Korea. What is necessary is for Korean Christians to develop their own understandings of other religions and to be trained to have an ethical attitude toward peoples of other faiths so as not to demand social conflicts due to the lack of ethical attitudes that deserve respect in a religiously pluralistic Korean society.

In future posts, I will read Wesley’s sermon series from a Korean perspective on religious pluralism, examining how John Wesley understood religions, including Christianity, and their salvation.

The Great Resignation, the Great Retirement, and the Great Reconsideration among Clergy

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Many commentators have written about how the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed clergy in the United States to think about resigning from ministry, including a previous post on this blog. While much of the evidence for this trend is anecdotal, there has also been survey research to back it up. A Barna Group study released in November found that 38% of all clergy, including 46% of pastors under 45 and 51% of mainline clergy have considered leaving ministry in the past year. This commentary about clergy resignations comes on top of news from the Lewis Center that the number of young United Methodist elders in the U.S. is lower than ever.

What has not been much emphasized in the reporting on clergy resignations or on United Methodist clergy age trends is trends among older clergy. The Lewis Center report acknowledged that after decades of a growing number of older clergy, that trend has reversed over the past two years, with the number of older clergy now falling. A Washington Post article looking at the labor shortage across job sectors found that the largest declines in labor force participation from pre-pandemic to the present were among older workers, many of whom opted for earlier retirement. Both these data points suggest there may be an increased retirement rate among clergy, though more specific data is needed to prove that.

Thinking about the dynamics of age and career stage leads to a more complex understanding of the multiple crises facing denominations trying to supply congregations with enough clergy. We can think of three related but distinct crises: the Great Resignation, the Great Retirement, and the Great Reconsideration.

The Great Resignation is one of several terms that have been used to describe a trend across job sectors over the course of the pandemic for people to quit their jobs. In some instances, people have not taken new jobs, but the Washington Post evidence suggests that most people under 55 have found other work. Applied to clergy, the Great Resignation describes the trend of clergy to leave ministry before the end of their careers. While this trend applies across age brackets, the Barna and Lewis Center data suggests this trend is most pronounced among clergy in the first half of their career lives, who have more time to build a career in an alternate field. Late middle aged clergy may feel a greater compulsion to stay in their current occupation, rather than attempt to switch careers in their 50s.

The Great Retirement describes people who, because of the pandemic, denominational uncertainty, or other reasons, are leaving ministry to retire earlier than they would have otherwise. Rather than continuing to pastor until they are at the UMC mandatory clergy retirement age of 72, they retire earlier, perhaps at 62 when Social Security benefits become available. Not all may be retiring a full decade early, but this category captures all whose retirement schedules are moved up because of larger systemic (rather than entirely personal) issues. While losing an older clergyperson with 5 years of service left to early retirement is not the same as losing a young clergyperson with 35 years of service left to another career, given the number of older clergy in the UMC, a trend towards earlier retirement nonetheless has the potential to be significant.

The Great Reconsideration, then, describes people who are considering or might have considered a career in ministry but decide not to pursue that sense of calling because of the same set of COVID-related, denominational, and other external factors negatively impacting clergy work for existing clergy. They reconsider their sense of calling. While the Great Reconsideration impacts people across age brackets, it is likely a significant factor impacting the decline in the number of younger clergy. Faithful young people are finding means to serve God with their careers other than as clergy.

Again, more data would be helpful to establish the scope and extent of each of these three clergy challenges, but the existing data suggests it is fair to think of there being three related but distinct clergy crises.

Thinking of these crises as related but distinct helps clarify the sorts of responses required by denominational leaders to address these crises and ensure an adequate supply of clergy for existing and new congregations. Some of the drivers of these crises are common across categories: the ways in which the pandemic, denominational conflict, and societal polarization have made the experience of ministry more difficult and decreased clergy well-being. But the contexts that shape how these external factors impact individual's sense of vocation, career, and alternative options are distinct according to stage of life and ministry.

Thus, efforts to increase clergy well-being are likely to make a positive impact on each of these three clergy crises. But denominational leaders should also be mindful of the unique needs of clergy at different stages of their lives and careers and seek to provide stage-appropriate resources as well.

Glenn Knepp: Methodism, Democracy, and the End of Inclusion

Today's post is by Rev. Glenn Knepp. Rev. Knepp is an ordained elder in the Indiana Annual Conference and pastor of Ford Street UMC in Lapel, IN. He is responding to a post by David Scott, "The United Methodist Church and Declining Democracy."

“How might the decline of democracy impact the United Methodist Church?” The question is difficult to answer, not least of all because from a historical perspective, it is obvious that the movements have grown up together. This has been well documented already. From a philosophical perspective, much the same reality is available to be unearthed.

The Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor has remarked, “Democracy is teleological. It’s a collective effort with a noble goal: Inclusion.”

A statement like this does much to explain why democracy at least seems imperiled now. The democratic impulse Taylor observes towards inclusion has uncovered laudable results, especially around the inclusion of voters of color. In the first US Presidential election, the voting electorate was comprised almost exclusively of white men. While democracy would expand the pool of voters in dramatic ways over the next two centuries, extending suffrage to all free men, and then to women, and then to those as young as 18, the racial composition of that electorate would not change dramatically for the first 200 years of the American experiment. In 1992, for instance, 84% of voters in the presidential election were white.

2020 offered a new reality in the project of American democracy, as 33% of presidential election voters identified as non-white. Racially speaking, the electorate shifted by as much in less than 3 decades as it had in the previous 2 centuries. Is it any wonder that in the wake of this great exercise of inclusive democracy some individuals and groups felt threatened, rejected the outcome, and challenged the institutions which upheld it, posing an at least temporary threat to the American democratic project? Other forces not entirely dissimilar in shape are playing out in dozens of contexts around the world.

But how will this impact United Methodism?

The project of democracy as described by Taylor, bears a remarkable resemblance to the stated mission of the United Methodist Church, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world (BoD p v).” Just as Taylor’s definition of democracy, the aims of this mission are teleological, focused on a goal: “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”. The goals of democracy and United Methodism share many fundamental features. Both are focused on creating a new vision of flourishing for the world, rooted in a philosophy of inclusion of all people. The roots of this broad inclusivity in Methodism can be traced back to John Wesley and his understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ. To be sure, American democracy is not at all explicit about its commitment to Jesus as a central agent in its project.

It is at this point of difference that United Methodists might see cause for hope, even if the fortunes of democracy dim.The agent of Methodism’s inclusivity is not the citizens of Methodism, except insofar as they are agents interacting with the providing, contingent God of Jesus Christ. The Theological Task of the United Methodist Church spelled out in Paragraph 102 of the Book of Discipline places the agency of action first and most squarely with God in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit:

“At the heart of the gospel of salvation is God’s incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. Scripture witnesses to the redeeming love of God in Jesus’ life and teachings, his atoning death, his resurrection, his sovereign presence in history, his triumph over the powers of evil and death, and his promised return. Because God truly loves us in spite of our willful sin, God judges us, summons us to repentance, pardons us, receives us by that grace given to us in Jesus Christ, and gives us hope of life eternal.”

It goes on to add, “We share the Christian belief that God’s redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit, both in personal experience and in the community of believers.” The primary agent of Methodism is not the citizenry, but God.

All of this suggests that the impacts of the decline of democracy on Methodism will be proportional to the seriousness with which United Methodists take their own claims. If democracy declines, United Methodism will certainly too, at least in institutional, statistical, and numerical terms, regardless of what Methodists do, for the roots of the two are entangled.

Yet, if United Methodists are truthful in their theological claims, one might expect that God would continue to be the faithful agent of truth and liberation, speaking through people called Methodists. This means that even if the harvest of democracy withers in the field, the Church might still, through divine power, raise even a small harvest of witnesses pointing to truth and freedom for those oppressed by authoritarianism, violence, intolerance.

Depending on how steep a decline democracy faces, though, the path for these United Methodist witnesses may not be easy. If other historical scenarios of declining democracy offer any vision, some of these witnesses will bear social stigma and shame, decreased economic opportunity, and perhaps even martyrdom.

Again, if historical references serve as any guide, these costs will not be paid because anti-democratic powers come directly for United Methodists, who have historically in the USA and abroad found themselves at the intersection of cultural, political, and economic power. Rather, these kinds of witnesses will be called for when other marginalized communities, such as migrants, ethnic, racial, religious minorities, the economically marginalized, or LGBTQ+ persons, are targeted first as victims of regimes whose vision of power and prosperity deny the basically inclusive vision of democracy. If United Methodists speak up for those who are least and lost, they can be expected to be counted with them, not only at the sorting of sheep and goats, but by the brutal tendencies of societies sliding toward authoritarianism, intolerance, and hate.

This is not in the slightest to suggest, however, that United Methodists should understand the potential future depicted here as bleak. All these things, even at their worst, would only be consistent with the working of an abiding, contingent God present with God’s people to perfect God’s love in them, and through them to enfold all creation. The ultimate arc of history, no matter the fate of democracy, for Methodists is found to point toward the unfolding relationship with God for all creation, even if this arc must pass by the cross and other bearings of the burden of this holy, sacrificial witness of truth and love when the structures of our fleeting time stand broken.

The Pandemic Broke Our Narratives, and We Haven't Found New Ones Yet

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Do you remember January of 2020? I mean, really remember? What sorts of things were you spending your days thinking about?

Humans are story-telling creatures, and we usually have a number of stories that we tell ourselves about what is going on in our lives and in our world. So, in January 2020, people had stories that they were telling themselves about their lives, their families, their churches, their denomination, their city, state, and country. We remember what some of those stories were: In US politics, foreign election interference and the impeachment of President Trump dominated much of that January. For United Methodists, the story of the impending division of the church and the Protocol loomed large. People made plans based on the assumption that the narratives they were telling themselves would continue to carry them forward.

Then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. And with it, all of the story lines that we thought we were living in suddenly changed. The legacy of the impeachment or the possibility of church division suddenly became less relevant than trying not to get deathly sick while grocery shopping. In churches, not only worship but other programming and strategic initiatives like capital campaigns were suspended. In families, gatherings were postponed. Schools and companies shut their buildings and had to radically rethink their model of operation. The things that people thought they were preparing for in January or February of 2020 probably didn't happen, and if they did, they looked dramatically different than anticipated.

Of course, the pandemic itself was a tremendous source of story lines as people struggled to come to grips with what COVID was and what it meant for their individual and collective lives - spiritually, politically, socially, economically, etc. Although everyone experienced the pandemic differently, everyone had a story about what the pandemic meant for them and for those around them. The pandemic became one of the most significant stories in most people's lives and an overarching narrative impacting almost all other narratives.

The pandemic did not completely forestall other narratives. Some stories begun before the pandemic, whether they were about climate change or presidential elections or denominational division, continued, albeit with alterations and likely less attention. New stories emerged, too, most notably a reckoning with race in all aspects of US society and a divisive presidential election and its long aftermath. These new stories, however, were inflected by the story of the pandemic.

Even with the continuation in some form of old stories and the addition of new stories, the narrative worlds in which people had lived in January 2020 were broken by the pandemic. It was no longer possible to care about the same things in the same way to the same extent or to plan for the future with the same level of certainty about what it would be like. The pandemic had foreclosed that possibility.

The rollout of vaccines in the United States and elsewhere this spring raised the question then: Would it soon be possible to go back to normal? By June, people were discarding masks and returning to places they had not been in months, including, for some, in-person church. Would it now be possible to move on from the dominating story of the pandemic and return to focusing on all those stories that had shaped our worlds in January 2020?

No, as it turns out, and for several reason.

First, the story of the pandemic is not over. Granted, the pandemic no longer dominates all other aspects of life in the ways that it did six months or a year ago. Yet the rise of a fourth wave of the virus in the United States shows that the pandemic is still going in the United States, still capable of generating plot twists and uncertainty, despite the extensive availability of vaccines in this country. And the pandemic is certainly not over in other countries where vaccines are less available. The story of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to evolve, but it will not be over, not for a while, even if it gradually becomes less all-encompassing.

Second, even when other story lines are no longer subsumed under the larger story of the pandemic, we cannot go back to where we were in January 2020. In many cases, relevant details have changed: Main characters of the stories of our lives have died or moved or changed jobs. Organizational and financial realities have changed. Political realities have changed. And we ourselves have changed. Even when everything else is the same, we have, each of us, been shaped in some way by the pandemic. And for that reason alone, we cannot go back to things just as they were.

We must, therefore, continue to go forward.

But in so many areas, I don't think people yet know what that looks like. Church worship may be back in person, but does that mean we should resume planning for that building renovation? What work meetings will we continue to hold by Zoom? How can we address the racial and economic inequalities highlighted by the pandemic? What will school look like in the fall? Is it worth restarting that annual Christmas cookie sale, or should we replace it with something new? The answers to these and many other questions are still not clear.

So, we find ourselves in a liminal space. The old story lines from before the pandemic are broken. The story of the pandemic continues, but with less force. And it is not clear what new stories we will create about where we as individuals and communities are and where we are going. The future is never given, but we seem to be at a moment of cultural and narrative inflection, where it is particularly hard to predict what will come next and what will consume our time and attention in the months and years to come.

And there's not much we can do but wait to find out. Wait to see what stories will grow around us.

Waiting is rarely enjoyable or satisfying. But it can be deeply spiritual. Much of the rhythms of Christian life are built around waiting. Advent is the liturgical season of waiting par excellence, but Lent is a season of waiting in its own way. As members of Christ's already-but-not-yet kingdom, the entire Christian experience is situated within one large narrative pause, a period of waiting that has persisted for two millenia at this point.

Paul often acknowledges the incompleteness of our knowledge about the future, especially the eschatological future, though he always affirms that knowledge will come. Now we see dimly and what we will be has not been revealed; but later, after the waiting, we will fully know.

So what can we do but wait, and try to keep faith that whatever comes, whatever stories emerge to shape our lives and the lives of those around us, God will be with us, will be part of our stories? What can we do but wait, knowing that there may be no more Christian practice to which we can devote ourselves at this time.

United Methodists and the American Religious Landscape

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

 

PRRI (the Public Religion Research Institute) just released their 2020 Census of American Religion. And surprisingly, the results of the census contain some encouraging news for United Methodists.

For decades, The United Methodist Church and other mainline denominations have declined in membership and as a percentage of the overall US population. In the UMC, this decline has been primarily driven by declining white membership.

Thus, it comes as a bit of a surprise that, according to PRRI surveys, the percentage of the US population who self-identify as white mainline Protestants has increased over the past four years, from 12.8% in 2016 to 16.4% in 2020. Based on the numbers, it seems that in the past few years, white mainline Protestants have benefited from transfers both from white evangelicals and white unaffiliated.

At the same time that white mainline Christians have grown, Christians of color have held steady as a share of the population, though the PRRI report does not break out trends over time for each sub-group within that larger amalgamation (Black non-evangelical Protestants, Hispanic evangelicals, Asian Catholics, etc.).

This survey is based on self-identity, not denominational membership, so there is some possibility that the changes reflected in the survey are the result of new self-understandings rather than new congregational or denominational homes.

Still, the survey should give some encouragement to United Methodists in the United States. For the first time in a half century, there is a growing interest in mainline Christianity as a religious option in the United States, at least among white Americans. As the largest mainline denomination and a predominantly white body, that should be good news for United Methodists, even as it seeks to dismantle racism and contemplates a denominational split.

More than just it being good news that United Methodists celebrate, these survey results should be good news that encourages United Methodists of all backgrounds to think more about the Good News and how to share it with others regardless of racial background. These encouraging survey results are an indicator of a spiritual hunger that the UMC, despite all its flaws, is capable of fulfilling by sharing with others the fruits of Wesleyan theology and spirituality. That should be an incentive to evangelism.

Moreover, there are a number of excellent evangelism resources that have come out in the past several years by a number of United Methodist evangelism professors. It is as easy as ever for churches and individuals to prepare themselves to share the Good News with others in a culturally-sensitive, informed, non-coercive way.

It is easy these days as a United Methodist to get down on the church, its internal politics, and its standing in the world. And the PRRI report isn't all good news. The percentage of the population that self-identifies as Christian in the United States still declines among younger groups, a corollary of an increasing number of younger people who do not identify with any religion. That trend will still negatively impact United Methodist membership numbers.

Nonetheless, it is good to be reminded that the good things we experience from our Methodist heritage and Methodist way of being church are not just good for us, but might be good things that others could appreciate as well.

We will see in another four years or so when PRRI or Pew comes out with their next poll whether this increase in white mainline Protestantism persists or not and how trends among Christians of color develop. But how that future plays out depends in part on whether United Methodists take courage from this current report and engage in evangelism because of it.

Call for Papers: Methodism and American Empire Project

From the start of North American colonies of European powers, empire has characterized the American experience. The role of empire in shaping the United States extends far beyond its origins as an imperial hinterland itself or its turn-of-the-20th-century heyday of possessing its own colonies. Empire as concentrated, top-down power that seeks to control others for the sake of its own agendas is a constant within US history. Empire goes beyond particular political parties, presidential administrations, or theological groupings. The impulses and perspectives of Empire have characterized and continue to characterize American politics, economics, culture, and religion in a thorough-going way. US imperialism has functioned and continues to function both within and beyond the territorial boundaries of the United States as a nation-state. Empire is a basic strategy by which those with power in the United States have sought to unite larger groups for the sake of asserting power over others, even as those within these in-groups often act against their own interests by participating in such imperial projects. Thus, empire is a technique of exploitation of those within and beyond the empire, especially those on the margins.

Scholars in postcolonial and decolonial theologies as well as recent developments in political theology have insisted that empire shapes religious traditions and imaginaries. In the case of the United States, the entanglement between imperialism and US Christianity runs deep in the powers and principalities of this world. The impact of empire on US Christianity has been most evident among those closest to its levers of power—historically speaking, straight, white, male citizens of the dominant class. Though the impact of imperialism is not limited to this group, the work of resisting imperial Christianity requires attention to communities that stand on the underside of US imperialism.

As significant expressions of US Christianity, Methodist and Wesleyan traditions in the United States have been and are shaped by the imperial practices and mindsets of their US members, even when they aspire to be “global” denominations. US empire has shaped other expressions of Methodism as well, even those that are not historically connected to the United States. Methodism’s relationship with empire is at times ambiguous, and there are ambiguities and ambivalences in how Empire has played out historically. Those on the margins of empire have appropriated the openings created by empire for their own purposes. Nevertheless, the exploitation and injustice that are inherent to empire go against basic tenets of Christianity, especially in its Wesleyan expressions.

Writing from within Methodist traditions, the authors in this volume provide testimonies of a “theological surplus,” as Joerg Rieger has termed it, in the tradition: while imperial forces seek to control everything, God’s work exceeds the grasp of empire. This volume will include historical and theological reflections that elevate these experiences and that showcase Methodism as a denominational tradition that has historically resisted US imperialism even as it often times succumbs to it.

This volume therefore suggests that resistance to empire is a biblical imperative. The Bible makes it clear that God’s power does not stem from domination over but from identification with God’s interactions with God’s creation. These interactions are marked by love, justice, service, and freedom. This biblical depiction of God inspires us to our own work of resisting empire and crafting alternatives to it, especially within the church. These alternatives to empire are indeed the first fruits of God’s new creation. By so doing, we join in partnership with God and others in the work of doing God’s will on earth as in heaven, and we open ourselves to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, who helps us grow in our love for others.

Given the impact of Empire on the American church and on Methodism as a historically and predominantly American denominational tradition, and given the Christian imperative to resist any system that identifies a Lord other than Christ, we intend to develop a book project that will serve as a resource for the work of resisting Empire. We intend that this resource will be primarily geared toward a popular audience, rather than a scholarly one. The goal is to bring along people for whom a critique of Empire does not come naturally but who recognize on some level the problems of imperial Christianity and who are open to trying as Christians to live in a new way.

We envision a collection of writings that draw upon a variety of disciplines: biblical studies, theology, history, missiology, etc., that will help readers better understand how the forces of empire have impacted Methodism (in its various expressions) and its practices and how the church can move towards a non-imperial manner of being and acting. To do so, we anticipate that authors will explore different forms of empire—not just political and military might, but also economics, culture, media, and other forms of “soft” empire. Moreover, we recognize that imperial power is not static but grows, fluctuates, and declines over time. We also anticipate that authors will explore the ways in which empire interacts with other categories of analysis such as race, class, nation and nationalism, geography (rural/urban, for instance), sexuality, the environment, and the body. Again, the goal of this analysis is not primarily to advance conversations in the academy but to use the resources of the academy to help educate and equip the church broadly. Finally, recognizing that the ills of empire cannot be fully cured solely by those at the centers of the imperial system, we hope for contributions from Methodists around the world.

Themes
We invite contributions for essays or resources that relate to the following themes:  

1.    Historical essays tying Methodist missionary activity and the expansion of United States foreign interests. Case studies could include US missionaries in Puerto Rico, Western Africa, the Philippines, the impact of US expansions on the church in the United States, and international structures of Methodism, etc.
2.    Theological and ethical reflections on Wesleyan theology, Empire studies, and political theology.
3.    Liturgical, worship, and ministry resources (sermons, liturgies, litanies, biblical studies, Sunday school lessons, etc.) for church communities to engage in anti-imperial reflections.
4.    Practical resources on activism, advocacy, and mission focused on Methodist communities and contexts.

Timeline
Essay proposals are due August 31, 2021. Proposals should include 300–400-word description of the project and ought to be submitted as an email attachment to the editors, David Scott (dscott(at)umcmission.org) and Filipe Maia (fmaia(at)bu.edu). Accepted proposals will be communicated to authors by September 30, 2021.

John Wesley and Understanding Racial Inequality

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

I was reminded of a John Wesley quote the other day while reading a FiveThirtyEight piece on (mis)perceptions of the racial wealth gap.

For those who don't know, the wealth gap between White and non-white Americans is striking: one federal government survey found that "the typical White family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family." Yet, as the FiveThirtyEight article points out, Americans consistently and dramatically underestimate that racial wealth gap.

The article, entitled "Why Many Americans Can't See the Wealth Gap Between White and Black America" and written by Neil Lewis Jr., argues that one of the major reasons why Americans do not have an accurate sense of the racial wealth gap is because of de facto residential and social segregation. Lewis argues:

"The nature of segregation in the U.S. means that we only end up seeing and learning about what our own groups experience, making it hard to understand the lives of people outside of our own group. This explains, in part, why Americans have such a hard time understanding just how unequal our nation is, and moreover, the racialized nature of that inequality."

It struck me that Lewis' assessment of the situation mirrors perfectly John Wesley's assessment of the failure of the rich to understand the plight of the poor in 18th century England. In his sermon, "On Visiting the Sick," Wesley wrote:

"One great reason why the rich, in general, have so little sympathy for the poor, is, because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is, that, according to the common observation, one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it; and then plead their voluntary ignorances an excuse for their hardness of heart."

One could easily substitute "Whites" for "the rich" and "Blacks" for "the poor," and this quote could describe the problems with making progress on racial justice in the 2020s United States just as well as it did class injustice in Wesley's England. It captures the separation of social networks and the ways in which the privileged are quite comfortable in maintaining that separation, lest their privilege be threatened in some way.

The importance of connection to understanding of racial injustice and motivation to address it is also a major conclusion in Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's landmark study Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. Emerson and Smith argue that one significant reason why white evangelicals fail to understand the systemic nature of racial disadvantage in the United States is because they are not sufficiently connected to networks of people of color from whom white evangelicals could learn about the experiences of their lives.

Emerson and Smith are not optimistic about the power of religion to address this form of racial misunderstanding driven by social distance. Indeed, they write that "religion, as structured in America, is unable to make a great impact on the racialized society. In fact, far from knocking down racial barriers, religion generally serves to maintain these historical divides, and helps to develop new ones." (p. 18) By "structured," Emerson and Smith are referring to the racialized nature of most congregations and denominations in the United States.

Emerson and Smith do not examine in depth the role of Christian mission in addressing this problem. But Wesley was convinced that the practice of mission could help build understanding and empathy across differences. That was the point of his sermon. And many missiologists have emphasized that point since Wesley: mission can be a force for building understanding across racial boundaries, understanding that can then be used to work for greater racial justice.

Nevertheless, for mission to be successful in this regard, that increase in understanding must be an explicit goal, and those engaging in mission must have the right spiritual attitude. Wesley preached, "Whenever, therefore, you are about to enter upon the work, seek his help by earnest prayer. Cry to him for the whole spirit of humility, lest if pride steal into your heart, if you ascribe anything to yourself, while you strive to save others you destroy your own soul."

If White people practice mission as charity to Black people in a way that reinforces their own sense of racial pride, not only will it fail to produce greater understanding, it will destroy their own souls! Humility and openness, then, are requisite to this process of learning about and from other perspectives.

There is much in American society that conspires to prevent this type of cross-racial learning, and missiology as a practice and a discipline has not been without blame in this regard, as David Evans and Otto Harris have demonstrated on this blog.

Yet for those who believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of equality for all persons, there are additional resources and practices in the faith to be used to advance that understanding of the gospel. Building cross-racial compassion through webs of relationships is one such important resource.

All (UMC) Politics Is National

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

There used to be a saying in US politics, often attributed to former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill: "All politics is local." In essence, the saying reflects the recognition that, especially given the winner-take-all system of US elections, unless one is able to connect with local voters in order to win local elections (primary and general), one cannot participate in national politics.

In United Methodist circles, I think there is an opposite tendency: to assume that all politics is global. In this view, current UMC politics are dominated by the impending split between The United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church, with parties lining up behind one or the other of those options based on their views on sexuality and/or the institutions of the church, and this divide drives all other political considerations in the denomination.

I would like to suggest another way of viewing current UMC politics: All politics is national. That is, even seemingly global issues like whether to go with the UMC or the GMC are significantly shaped by considerations that happen at the national level of the church, even when these factors are not readily visible to outsiders.

Within the United States, scholars and journalists have pushed back on O'Neill's saying and have written numerous books and articles about the "nationalization of politics." In this read of US politics and culture, in 2021, even school board elections, a symbol of local government, often become about national political debates like responses to the pandemic, climate change science, and race. Thus, even local political questions are understood through the lens of national political issues.

This nationalization of politics has, I believe, impacted the church as well. Thus, what might in other settings or at other times be viewed as personal conflicts within local churches or annual conferences are turned into conflicts between conservatives and liberals, with denominational, political, and cultural understandings of those categories intertwined. Even routine decisions like appointment-making are viewed through the lens of how that will impact churches' likelihood to leave or stay in the denomination. Local church and annual conference politics are thus understood through the lens of national cultural and religious debates.

This nationalization of UMC politics is also true in most countries in Africa, even though that is not always apparent to US observers. Africans do not really disagree amongst themselves over their views of sexuality. Whether they plan to join the Global Methodist Church or remain in the UMC, Africans are overwhelmingly opposed to homosexuality. Thus, Africans' decisions about leaving or remaining are not really a function of their views on sexuality.

Instead, Africans' decisions to remain or depart reflect their views about the importance of signaling their opposition to homosexuality and their feelings about the church as an institution. Yet both of those views are primarily shaped by national contexts.

Regarding the importance of signaling opposition to homosexuality (by joining the GMC), that is shaped in part by one's theology and whether one is willing to remain in an international denomination with varying views. But it is also based on the national context: How significant are debates about sexuality within that country? What are the contours of those debates? What positions have other churches taken in these debates? How likely is it that religious and political opponents (and most churches have these) might try to use connection to LGBTQ-affirming churches in other countries against the church in your country?

Similarly, views about The United Methodist Church as an institution are not just about how one thinks about international bodies like General Conference, the Council of Bishops, or the boards and agencies. These are also questions about the church in one's own country: How cohesive is the church ethnically, economically, and politically? What are the different factions (ethnic, personality-based, etc.) within the church in your country, and what access do they have to positions of power and prestige? Are the institutions of the church seen as favoring one group over another? What are the relationships like between the UMC and other denominations in the country? What is the relationship between the church and the country's government, and what are the implications of that relationship?

Such national political considerations are also relevant in the Philippines and in Europe. The small size of the church in many European countries reduces the significance of internal church politics but increases the significance of political questions about the UMC's relationship to the government, the country's dominant church tradition, and society as a whole.

Thus, when it comes time to for branches of The United Methodist Church around the world to take sides between the UMC and the GMC, all these different sets of national politics will be at play. In some instances, it will mean that the entire church in one country decides to go one way, as the church in Liberia has indicated its overwhelming intention to join the GMC. But in other instances where there is a great deal of conflict already within the church in a country (such as Nigeria), there may be splits, with different groups in the country aligning one way or another to forward their own local objectives.

In this way, the coming split of the UMC resembles the Cold War: Countries around the world were asked to declare allegiance to one or the other of two dominant global powers (in that case, the US and USSR; in this case, the UMC and GMC). Those decisions were influenced by ideology (capitalism vs. communism; views on sexuality), but were also significantly shaped by expediency based on national-level political considerations. In some countries, there were rival groups who established connections to different superpowers, who were happy to support proxy fights to forward their own ideological agendas, even when there was more going on in a local context than an ideological either/or.

In the end, Cold War politics were neither all global nor all national. They were significantly about the interactions between the two. The politics of the UMC split will be the same: about the interaction between global ideology and national considerations.