David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Possibilities and Anomalies

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.

Inspired by upcoming work on the General Book of Discipline during this quadrennium of the UMC, I have been examining over the past couple of weeks how United Methodists understand the concept of discipline and what it means to have a Book of Discipline. Thus far, I have looked at the relationship between discipline and discipleship and examined rules vs. norms and boundaries vs. ideals as ways of influencing behavior.

I’d like to conclude this series (for now, at least) but looking at one more pair of concepts, related this time to when rule making is necessary: possibilities and anomalies.

Much rule making occurs in response to a specific situation. Something happens, and then rules are put into place to make sure there’s consistency if a situation happens again or to avoid a bad situation happening again. Certainly, rules can arise in response to theoretical issues or for other reasons, but this approach to rule making is a common one. Something happens, someone says, “That might happen again, so there ought to be a policy about that,” and a policy is created.

This is not a bad approach. It is good to have consistency and to avoid bad situations if we can. Many would argue that we have a moral imperative to do so. Yet behind this approach to rule making are some assumptions about risk or recurrence that are worth delving into.

One of the assumptions behind this “there should be a policy” approach to discipline is the judgement that the possibility of a situation recurring is realistic and significant – that it is common enough and important enough that it justifies the effort of making and carrying out a policy.

Thus, for instance, the Book of Discipline states in ¶256.1, “Local churches or charges are strongly encouraged to develop policies and procedures to provide for the safety of the infants, children, youth, and vulnerable adults entrusted to their care.” The consequences of abuse or harm to children and youth are so severe and, unfortunately, such an occurrence is frequent enough around the world that it is important for the Book of Discipline to set this policy. Sadly, child abuse is a realistic risk, and it would be irresponsible of the church not to try to prevent it.

On the other hand, General Conference hasn’t recommended a policy about what to do if a plane crashes at your church before worship, though this is something that happened to a Baptist church in North Carolina last year. https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/baptists/plane-crashes-near-nc-church-before-sunday-services/ That possibility is seen as too remote to be worth worrying about, even though we could imagine the situation having an impact on worship and pastoral care. And in the North Carolina incident, thankfully, the pilot was okay and church services continued, so the situation had few major consequences. Planes crashing into churches are not seen as a realistic, significant possibility. Instead, the incident can be chalked up as an anomaly.

An anomaly is something abnormal, peculiar, and unexpected. It is unlikely, and it may even be a singular occurrence – something that has only happened once. There is generally no need to make policies to avoid anomalies because they are seen as rare (and therefore not worth worrying about) and unpredictable (and therefore unable to be controlled).

So, when United Methodists are considering when to embed policies into the Book of Discipline in response to something that has happened, the question is, “Could this situation likely happen again? Or was the situation an anomaly?”

The challenge is that determining whether something is a realistic and significant possibility or an anomaly is a judgment call, and different people’s judgments will be influenced by a whole host of issues, including personal experience and relevant information they possess. Critically, that judgment can also be influenced by cultural context.

Cultures involve assumptions about what phenomena are salient and significant in the human world. Set aside for a moment that the statistical likelihood of a plane crashing into a church varies from one context to another based on the prevalence of planes, churches, and aerial safety measures. If planes were to crash into two different churches in two different cultural contexts, the members of those churches would make sense of those crashes in two different ways. They would derive different theological and social meanings from the events.

And, crucially, they might have a different sense of whether another plane crash was a realistic risk and/or how significant an event it was for a plane to crash into a church. Thus, they would have a different sense of whether something was a possibility or an anomaly.

To bring this discussion back to the Book of Discipline, there are, for instance, several paragraphs in the current Book of Discipline on Ecumenical Shared Ministries, ¶207-211. In the United States, the possibility of an ecumenical congregation formed by combining United Methodists and Christians from another denomination is both realistic and significant. There are many such congregations, meaning that this is more than just a singular occurrence. And given the challenges in integrating differing denominational governing structures, the UMC sees these instances as significant enough for there to be rules surrounding them.

But this might not be the case in all other contexts. In other contexts, such ecumenical congregations may be unheard of or even unthinkable. Or they may exist, but they may be seen as mere anomalies – unusual circumstances, but not significant enough to make general rules around such occurrences.

Thus, part of the work that will need to be done around the General Book of Discipline is not just cross-cultural discussion of theological, educational, and legal systems. It will also involve cross-cultural discussion of risks, possibilities, and anomalies – deep level investigations into how different cultures understand the patterns and significance of occurrences within the life of the church.

David W. Scott: Exploring Intercultural Connectionalism

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.

As 2024 begins, many United Methodists are looking toward the next General Conference, to be held April 23-May 3. This legislative gathering has the potential to make significant changes to The United Methodist Church through regionalization and other proposals.

Whatever happens at this General Conference, it will be historic. For over 240 years, General Conference has always had a majority of U.S. delegates; however, 2024 is very likely to be the last time a regular General Conference will have a majority of delegates from the United States.

The upcoming shift in delegates reflects a shift in membership in The United Methodist Church. Even before the recent wave of local church disaffiliations, membership decline in the United States and membership growth in Africa meant that more United Methodists have been living outside the United States than in it for the past several years. This membership shift coincides with a season in which United Methodists are seeking to reexamine and revitalize relationships with ecumenical partner Methodist churches throughout the world.

These changes present United Methodists and their ecumenical Methodist partners with a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to shift from centuries of U.S.-dominance in the church. The opportunity is to reflect better the multinational, multicultural nature of the church universal. Multiculturalism has been part of the church since its beginning in Acts 2 and will continue to be part of the church in heaven, according to Revelation 7:9-10.

For the church to avail itself of the divine opportunities of being a multinational, multicultural church, it will need to engage in both deconstructive and constructive work.

The deconstructive work involves letting go of the presumption that the church should revolve primarily around Americans and their values, concerns and standards, and dismantling or reconfiguring the structures that solidify that presumption.

This work is underway throughout the church, often carried out under the term “decolonizing church.” One example of such work is the book of essays I have edited with Filipe Maia, “Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church.”

The bishops’ initiative over the past several years to “dismantle racism” is a related endeavor, and many other scholars, agencies and church leaders are involved in such efforts as well.

The constructive work necessary for becoming a truly multinational, multicultural church is for the church to increase its capacity to communicate and work across cultures and contexts. Communicating and collaborating across cultures requires not just intellectual commitment to the importance of being a worldwide church. It requires specific skills in listening, seeking understanding, being flexible and adapting.

Again, this work is being carried out in many spots throughout the denomination. One such effort that I am involved in is a joint theological task force between the United Methodist boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. Joining me in that work are the Rev. Dr. Greg Bergquist, Dr. David Field, the Rev. Dr. Paulo Roberto Garcia, the Rev. Dr. Jean Claude Maleka, Deaconess Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana, the Rev. Dr. Connie Semy Mella, Dr. Amos Nascimento, Dr. Hendrik R. Pieterse and Dr. Ulrike Schuler.

This task force was convened to reflect on theological grounds for greater collaboration between the two agencies. One of the major insights from our joint reflection is a concept we are calling “intercultural connectionalism.”

The term “intercultural connectionalism” builds on the Methodist tradition of connectionalism as a central ecclesiological concept. I have written about connectionalism elsewhere, but briefly it refers to the structures, practices, relationships and theology that connect local congregations to one another, in the process creating something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Adding the term “intercultural” recognizes that the connections that make up The United Methodist Church (and its ecumenical partners) cross lines of culture and other elements of difference. Intercultural connectionalism thus offers a factual description of the current nature of The United Methodist Church. (And much of its history, too, if we have eyes to see it — as in, for instance, this article.) It also offers a normative aspiration — that the church will learn to connect in ways that take cultural differences seriously.

Indeed, to push the claim further, we cannot truly understand the nature of United Methodist connectionalism unless we consider various cultural perspectives on the concept. I have written elsewhere about how the understanding of what a denomination is varies across contexts and how European and Filipino United Methodists have unique perspectives on the nature and meaning of connectionalism.

Thus, intercultural connectionalism involves a different approach to theological reflection in and for the denomination. It requires that United Methodists engage in intercultural dialogue as we seek to understand the nature of our church and how God is calling us to join in God’s mission around the world.

While General Conference does provide a venue to engage in intercultural dialogue, United Methodists should avoid associating intercultural connectionalism only with General Conference. Although it brings together United Methodists from around the world, General Conference, because of its limited time frame and legislative focus, may not always be the best place for United Methodists to engage in deep listening and learning across cultures.

Instead, it is better to think of intercultural connectionalism as a principle that various parts of the denomination can incorporate into their practices. This includes the general agencies, the Council of Bishops, the ecumenical office, the Commission on Faith and Order, scholarly networks and mission partnerships. Whenever United Methodists from varying cultural backgrounds gather, attention should be paid to how those cultural backgrounds inform their understanding of United Methodism and what they can learn from one another.

The Global Ministries/Higher Education theological task force has developed a discussion guide to help United Methodists and their ecumenical Methodist partners engage in conversations related to intercultural connectionalism. The study guide, which is available in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and German, moves from reflections about our Wesleyan origins through our history to our hopes for healing and renewal and the actions inspired by those hopes. The four-session discussion guide can be used in various settings, from the local church to seminaries to connectional bodies.

The guide ends with questions about how we can act as United Methodists. This is significant, because while conversation and conferencing are important realms in which to live out intercultural connectionalism, intercultural connectionalism must also characterize our joint work in the world. United Methodists have always had a strong sense that one’s faith must be lived out. Living out our faith with others from different cultural backgrounds, as together we engage in mission and ministry, presents new opportunities to learn from one another.

In this regard, United Methodists can learn from Interfaith Youth Core and other interfaith organizations which have concluded that generating understanding across differences should involve not just talking about those differences but also joining together in positive work in the world. Such joint work builds understanding and relationships. As I have argued elsewhere, relationships are a vital component of connectionalism, necessary to make organizational connectionalism work.

The Global Ministries/Higher Education task force, and the increased alignment between the two agencies broadly, including sharing a general secretary, represents a further opportunity here. Not only is education an important part of mission around the world, but this interagency collaboration is also a chance to bring scholarly conversation about intercultural connectionalism and the application of intercultural connectionalism in mission practice together.

Alignment between the two agencies creates possibilities for deeper learning about and better practice of intercultural connectionalism.

United Methodists are part of a multicultural church that is tied to partner Methodist churches from yet more cultural backgrounds. This has long been true and will only become truer in the future. For the church to embrace this blessing from God, we must live into the reality and the opportunity of intercultural connectionalism.

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.

Recommended Viewing: "A New Era of United Methodism" Documentary

J. J. Warren has produced a documentary called "A New Era of United Methodism," documenting his trip along with Helen Ryde and Rev. Kimberly Scott to visit Rev. Kennedy Mwita in Kenya for the dedication of the new sanctuary of First UMC Moheto. First UMC Moheto is the first reconciling congregation in Africa, and Warren, Ryde, and Scott all attended the dedication as representatives of Reconciling Ministries Network. The hour-and-a-half long document shows both exceptional and representative elements of world-wide Methodism, only one of which, though, has to do with the congregation's status as the first reconciling congregation in Africa.

Rev. Mwita and First UMC Moheto are certainly exceptional in some ways, the most notable of which is their work to become a reconciling congregation and to create a space of welcome for LGBTQ persons in a culture that is often not very welcoming.

But Rev. Mwita is also remarkable in the size of the vision he has for what God can do around and through First UMC Moheto. He has big ambitions for how God can use the church and the others in its circuit to be a blessing to its surrounding community. In part, that is through its status as a reconciling congregation, but it also involves a lot more traditional development work - a school, a clinic, water and electricity projects.

While Rev. Mwita's holy ambitions are notable, they are also in many ways representative of the sorts of visions for the church and its relationship to the wider community that many United Methodists hold across countries in Africa. United Methodism in most places in Africa is a form of Christianity that is oriented towards benefiting the community through a holistic gospel that combines evangelism, social justice, education, health, development, and agriculture.

First UMC Moheto and the other circuit congregations under the leadership of Rev. Mwita, his wife Pastor Elnora Mwita, and Rev. Benedict Odiambo -- Christ Chapel United Methodist Church in Oyani and St. Paul’s Giosahi United Methodist Church in Kuria West -- are also representative of so many churches throughout the continent of the Africa in their assets for and their struggles in trying to implement the holistic vision of church and community proclaimed by United Methodism. They have multiple assets - intelligent, hard-working, visionary leadership; enthusiastic and generous members; land; and local resources. Yet they also struggle with obtaining other necessary resources, not always because of poverty but because of a combination of logistics, supply lines, and regulations.

The documentary also show something else remarkable, though, and that is cross-cultural conversation between the three Americans and the Kenyans. Especially around the half hour and one hour marks of the video, there are recorded conversations about the nature of justice in its many forms and about the church's role in development respectively. The future of the UMC depends upon such cross-cultural conversations with equal exchange and mutual learning becoming more common.

Therefore, the feature-length documentary is well worth taking the time to watch -- both for the ways in which what it shows is remarkable and the ways in which it is not.