Recommended Reading: Tembe Nkomozepi on Earth Day and the Prodigal Son

Temba Nkomozepi, a Global Ministries missionary from Zimbabwe serving at Mujila Falls in Zambia, recently wrote a reflection on Earth Day for the Michigan Annual Conference. The reflection, titled "Leave it for our offspring," shares some of Nkomozepi's family associations with Earth Day. It also includes an environmental interpretation of the parable of the "Prodigal Son." Nkomozepi opens up the parable in new and insightful ways, and his reflection is well worth reading.

David W. Scott: Regionalization as a Kairos Moment

Today’s post is by Dr. David W. Scott. Dr. Scott is the Senior Director of Theology and Strategic Planning for the General Boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. This is the first in a three-part series based on a presentation given to the Connectional Table on a theology of regionalization.

As I have been describing for the past two weeks, while we have some problems in the church, including the problem of US centrism, God provides us solutions to our problems, and regionalization is one important such solution to the problem of US centrism.

There’s more good news, though. I believe we are currently in a period in which God has opened up the possibility of change in our church. We are in a Kairos moment.

Kairos is God’s appointed time. It is a time when the possibility for successful collective action exists. To borrow language from the political science term of policy window, it is when a problem, a solution, and the will to implement that solution line up. We have a problem – US centrism. We have a solution – regionalization. And I believe that we have the will to implement that solution in this moment.

Our current Kairos time is the latest in a long line of Kairos moments throughout UMC history, as the church has repeatedly encountered God’s invitation to live into new and more equitable ways of being the connectional church together across geographic borders:

• From the 1790s through the 1810s, the system of a General Conference and regional annual conferences evolved. The first General Conference was held in 1792, and in 1812, the Methodist Episcopal Church began the present system of electing delegates from annual conferences to the General Conference.
• In the 1830s & 1840s, the first American Methodist international missions offered the first chance to develop equitable relationships and structures across international boundaries. The church decided that annual conferences would be established everywhere Methodist mission went, not just in the United States.
• In the 1870s, the first central conferences were created in India and elsewhere in Asia to allow for more coordination among annual conferences outside the United States. Eventually, central conferences led to leadership selection adaptation of church practices on a regional level outside the United States.
• In the 1920s, there was discussion of how the church in the United States should relate to the church in Korea, Mexico, and Brazil, where the church was pursuing autonomy. In this period, central conferences were also extended around the world, almost but not quite, including to the United States.
• The 1960s and 1970s brought COSMOS – the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas – and a wave of churches in Latin America and Asia becoming autonomous.

I want to talk a little more about the COSMOS process as an example of how the church approached a Kairos moment in the past. COSMOS was designed to address issues of the relationship between the Methodist Church in the United States and the Methodist Church in other countries. In doing so, it was intended to balance the principles of freedom and fellowship.

COSMOS focused on 5 Core Principles that should determine the relationship between the church in different contexts:

• Developing responsible, indigenous churches of integrity
• Being shaped by the centrality of mission
• Fostering interdependence in mission and fellowship
• Being considered provisional and thus flexible
• Providing for equality of relationship

Based on those principles, COSMOS developed four options for the structure of the church:

1. Continuing the present structure, including central conferences
2. Granting autonomy for churches outside the United States
3. Creating an international church with regional conferences
4. Creating a World Methodist Conference of Churches

So, COSMOS considered a variety of solutions to the perceived problems of its day. In the end, the UMC went with a combination of the first and second options. Some churches became fully autonomous. Others stayed in in the present central conference structure. We can perhaps see COSMOS as a missed opportunity to be more creative in finding ways to develop equitable connectional relationships across international differences, but it was a time when the church dedicated significant focus to such questions, and it was still a step forward in that direction.

Experimentation has continued since the time of COSMOS.

• In the 2000s, the Worldwide Nature of the UMC saw regionalization legislation passed in 2008 but not ratified.
• That brings us to our current moment of regionalization, where legislation has passed and is now in the ratification process.

So, regionalization has lots of historical precedence. Every few decades throughout the life of The United Methodist Church and its predecessors, there have been Kairos moments when the church has sought anew to develop equitable relationships of Christian fellowship across countries. With the current regionalization legislation, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to live into what God has been calling us to as a church for a long time.

I hope this series of posts leaves you with three things:

First, I hope you are assured of the strong theological basis behind the Worldwide Regionalization legislation.

Second, I hope you are grateful for the gift God has given the church in the form of this Kairos moment.

Third, I hope you are determined not just to support the Worldwide Regionalization legislation but to figure out how we can in all our ways as a denomination live into the type of connectionalism to which God is calling us. So may it be. Amen.

David W. Scott: Regionalization as Solution to US Centrism

Today’s post is by Dr. David W. Scott. Dr. Scott is the Senior Director of Theology and Strategic Planning for the General Boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. This is the second in a three-part series based on a presentation given to the Connectional Table on a theology of regionalization.

As discussed last week, US centrism is a problem in The United Methodist Church, and God is calling us to a better connectionalism.

The way we get from one to the other is the solutions God offers us as a church. One very important such solution right now is regionalization. Regionalization is one way, but an important way, to move away from US centrism and toward the type of connectional values that God is calling us to practice.

It is important to make a distinction between regionalization as a theological concept and the Worldwide Regionalization legislation. I will talk about both.

As a theological concept, regionalization affirms that the primary venue for making collective decisions for the church should be a regional level rather than a global or local level. Regionalization is a value that affirms that all parts of the church should have equal authority and equal ability to make decisions.

Regionalization is related to other theological concepts such as contextualization. Contextualization asserts that the practices of the church should be determined within a shared context so as to best fit that context.

For both regionalization and contextualization, there are differing levels of local and regional contexts. We could talk, for instance, about the local context of Basel and the regional contexts of Switzerland, central Europe, and Europe as a whole.

What decisions are made on what level is a question of polity.

There already is one form of regionalization in United Methodist polity. The Book of Discipline refers to annual conferences as “the fundamental bodies of the Church.” Annual conferences are a form of regionalization in the church. They bring together churches from across a region for collective decision making in a way that goes beyond the local but does not include everyone from the global. The issue in our current US centrism is that this is not a sufficient form of regionalization.

As a package of legislation, Worldwide Regionalization seeks to implement the concept of regionalization in one way within The United Methodist Church. The Worldwide Regionalization legislation proposes to change the names of the existing central conferences into regional conferences. It would also create a new U.S. regional conference enabling The UMC in the U.S. to decide on specific U.S. matters.

Central conferences are already existing forms of regionalization. The Worldwide Regionalization legislation would standardize this form of regionalization to include the US, which currently does not have an equivalent form of regionalization to the central conferences. This is one of the major drivers of the problem of US centrism. 

Once created, each regional conference will have the authority to maximize the effectiveness of mission and ministry in its context by adapting portions of The Book of Discipline.

All regional conferences will share the common portions of the Book of Discipline, including the Constitution, Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task, The Ministry of All Christians, and Social Principles enacted by General Conference. These are not adaptable by regional conferences. The Council of Bishops, Judicial Council, General Agencies and General Conference are fully maintained.

The important thing to affirm is that the Worldwide Regionalization legislation is based on regionalization as a theological concept. In addition to discussing the merits of that legislation, it’s also important to better understand the theological concept of regionalization, which is where this presentation comes in.

I want to offer four affirmations about regionalization as a theological principle: that regionalization has a biblical foundation; that regionalization is missional; that regionalization is equitable; and that regionalization is connectional. Together, these four affirmations aim to give a better sense of what the theological concept of regionalization is and why it matters.

Let’s first look briefly at the affirmation that regionalization has a biblical foundation. Throughout the Bible, God has recognized the diversity of cultures and nations, included that diversity in God’s redemptive plans for humanity, and allowed for decision-making structures that take such diversity into account. In this way, the theme of regionalization runs through the Bible.

In the Hebrew Bible, we see in the Psalms and Prophets that God intends for all nations to one day know and worship God. This will not happen because cultural or political differences among nations are erased. Rather, each nation, with its unique heritage, will worship God through its own culture or cultures and under its own leadership. So, there is international connectionalism and regionalization of worship and leadership in that theological vision.

We also see in the history of the 12 tribes of Israel intertribal connectionalism, united around a shared faith and history. This was paired with regional decision-making by elders within each tribe.

Turning to the New Testament, we see repeatedly in such verses as Matthew 28:18–20, Acts 2, Acts 10–11, and Revelation 7:9–10 that, just like in the Hebrew Bible, God includes all nations in God’s salvific vision and intends for them to keep their own unique culture or cultures as part of that vision.

Moreover, in the early church, there was a spiritual and relational unity among the churches along with local and regional decision making by leaders of churches and groups of churches throughout Greco-Roman, Persian, and African lands.

Next, let’s explore how regionalization is missional. As I said earlier, regionalization is tied to contextualization, which is one of the major insights from the past half century in the theology of mission. Mission theology has shifted away from an understanding of mission that equates Christianity with Western culture and toward an understanding of mission that recognizes that all cultures are equally valid homes for the gospel. This insight extends across mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Catholic theologians.

The emphasis on contextualization in mission theology recognizes that no culture can claim superiority over other cultures in the Christian faith, just as no region can claim superiority over others. It is an obstacle to the gospel to insist that all Christians follow the practices of one culture or one region.

Instead, when Christianity adapts to the culture of various nations and lands, then it flourishes. By giving decision-making authority to those most familiar with their cultural context, regional governance allows the church in every context to better engage with the culture around it in appropriate ways.

Shared beliefs and practices continue to unite Christians across cultural differences, even when those beliefs and practices are expressed using terms, symbols, and concepts indigenous to each culture.

Again, regionalization is equitable. It moves away from a center/periphery understanding of the church. The United States is no longer treated as the center and template for others.

Instead, regionalization recognizes that the church in each country, including the United States, is an adaptation of United Methodism to the particular context of that country. Each adaptation of United Methodism must reflect on its own context as together they dialogue about what it means to be United Methodist across contexts.

Under regionalization, each region governs itself, and each region contributes equally to the governance of the whole. And all regions build relationships of mutuality with each other grounded in equity, reciprocity, and trust.

Regionalization emphasizes the adaptation of the church to the various contexts in which it operates, but regionalization is not separation. It is simply a way for The United Methodist Church to live into its connectional identity.

As history shows, and I’ll say more about this in next week’s post, the quest to balance regionalization, connectionalism, and autonomy is long-standing. These theological concepts are not mutually exclusive. Instead, they reinforce one another.

Together, United Methodists across nations and cultures can discern how to support one another in carrying out, in our own contexts, our shared mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

David W. Scott: US-Centrism vs. A Better Connectionalism

Today’s post is by Dr. David W. Scott. Dr. Scott is the Senior Director of Theology and Strategic Planning for the General Boards of Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. This is the first in a three-part series based on a presentation given to the Connectional Table on a theology of regionalization.

To frame this theological discussion of regionalization, I want to talk about moving from where we are now as The United Methodist Church to where God is calling us to go before next week looking at how we will get from where we are now to where God is calling us to go.

Where we are now as a church is US centric in many ways. That is, as a denominational whole, the church tends to focus on those members and those parts of the church in the United States. You can see some facts associated with US centrism on this slide:

• In terms of attitudes, US United Methodists often fail to see or treat their fellow United Methodists from elsewhere as equals. If we need proof of this, we can listen to some of the stories that our central conference sisters and brothers can tell us about their experiences in denomination-wide settings.
• The agendas of denomination-wide bodies often reflect primarily US concerns. Just look at the percentage of General Conference petitions that come from the United States vs. from elsewhere.
• For focus, many of the structures of the denomination focus primarily on the church in the United States, even when they are ostensibly denomination-wide and do work internationally. As an example, we could look at the percentage of cases the Judicial Council hears that come from the United States vs. from elsewhere.
• 99% of denominational finances come from the United States, and not all areas of the world contribute to apportionments at the same rates or to the same funds. Granted, there are significant economic differences between regions of the church, and we need to be cognizant of these, but that does not fully explain away this disparity.
• The denomination operates according to rules developed in the United States that reflect American cultural values. Roberts Rules of Order are the most obvious example.
• And United Methodists from the United States are often proportionately overrepresented on denomination-wide bodies. With less than half the global membership, they tend to have much more than half the members of most denomination-wide groups.

There is a long history behind this US centrism. In some ways, it is rooted in the success of the evangelistic mission of American Methodists who shared their faith in countries around the world. In some ways, it stems from the theological and cultural prejudices of previous generations of Methodists. In some ways, it reflects the significant secular economic and political power that the United States has as a country.

The important thing to emphasize is that there are differences in how the UMC’s current structures and practices treat United Methodists in the United States vs. United Methodists from other countries.

I would suggest that these facts about our US centric nature as a denomination point to underlying problems with US-centrism.

• One problem with the difference between the United States and the rest of the church is that by treating different areas of the church differently, we privilege the United States by giving it more power and control of resources. Therefore, US centrism is not fair or equitable.
• Those inequalities are also a problem for Christian fellowship. We believe that all Christians are equal before God. How can United Methodists from different contexts join in true Christian fellowship when they are not treated as equals?
• There are also practical problems. Under the current setup, the United States serves as the template for the rest of the church, but what works in the United States won’t necessarily work elsewhere, since laws, access to resources, and cultural norms are different around the world. As Jose Miguez Bonino, the Argentinian Methodist theologian, said, rules and structures designed for a church of 10 million won’t work for a church of 10,000.
• These differences are also a potential problem for the church’s evangelistic witness. When the church is not adequately able to adapt to its context, it will not be able to address important issues related to the witness of the church in that context.

But there is hope! If US centrism is a problem in the church, then God will provide solutions. In fact, God may offer the church multiple different ways to move forward, and the church may use multiple different ways to move toward a better expression of church.

As we consider possible solutions to these problems, our goals should include preserving our connection to one another. For United Methodists, connectionalism is the term we use to talk about what it means to be the church together. When we’re talking about where God is calling The United Methodist Church to go, we are asking: How is God calling us to better live out our connectionalism?

Some people and some groups have already left the UMC or are in the process of doing so. The work of shaping the future of the UMC belongs to those of us who have decided to remain and #BeUMC and to our ecumenical Methodist partners with whom we have official, recognized, and in most cases, long-standing relationships. The work ahead of us is work for those who are committed to being connected to one another.

As we think about what sort of connectionalism God is calling The United Methodist Church to embody, we need to be aware of the different senses in which the term can be understood. This includes a structural meaning of connectionalism, where we talk about the formal polity of the denomination: conferences, episcopal leadership, itineration, the agencies, and so on. While this form of connectionalism is what people often think of first, it is not the only meaning of connectionalism.

Connectionalism is also a set of relationships between people who know one another and have eaten, prayed, worked, talked, and traveled with one another. But there’s even more: As Christians, we believe that we are sisters and brothers in Christ, whether or not we have ever met. This is a spiritual sense of connectionalism. Finally, connectionalism has an ecclesiological sense. There is something important about the nature of the church that only exists in the connections between local congregations. Congregations need one another to fully be the body of Christ.

With these four senses of connectionalism in mind, I would like to suggest that God is calling us as a denomination to live into a connectionalism that embodies the following qualities:

• First, it is missional: Connectionalism exists to serve mission, and mission cannot exist without connectionalism.
• Second, it is mutual: Mutual connectional relationships depend upon investment from all parties, give and take by each party, and benefit for all parties.
• Third, it is decolonial: It must actively address historic injustices related to empire, nation, race, gender, class, ability, and other forms of privilege.
• Fourth, it is contextual: Understandings and practices of connectionalism vary across contexts, and this is a normal and healthy reality that supports missional effectiveness.
• Fifth, it is intercultural: Connectionalism must put us in dialogue with each other across difference for the sake of mutual learning and collective discernment.
• Sixth and finally, it is open: As United Methodists we may expect, even demand, that the church continue to change and grow for the sake of better loving God and neighbor.

This is a theological vision of what God is calling us to be as a church, how God is calling us to live into our connectionalism. We are called to step away from our US centric past and present and toward these better practices of connectionalism in the future.

Plan Now: Worldwide Regionalization and Ratification Webinar

UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott will present on “Theology of Regionalization” as part of an upcoming “Worldwide Regionalization & Ratification Webinar.”

The webinar will be on February 20 at 8am PST/9am MST/10 am CST/11am ET. The webinar is expected to last about 3 hours long. Dr. Scott will be second on the agenda.

The webinar is organized by the denomination’s Regionalization Task Force and presented by United Methodist Communications. It represents a collaboration among UMCOM, the Connectional Table, the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters, members of the Christmas Covenant writing team and The Council of Bishops

According to the event description, “This session will examine the significance of worldwide regionalization in The United Methodist Church, its implications for the U.S. church and the consequences of inaction. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the ratification process, engage with key leaders, and explore how regionalization fosters adaptability, equity and mission effectiveness.” The webinar will conclude with a live Q&A.

Interested readers can register here.

Recommended Reading: Jean Claude Maleka on mission theology

United Methodist New Service published an article by Rev. Dr. Jean Claude Masuka Maleka last week entitled "Mission can revitalize United Methodism." While revitalization is part of Rev. Dr. Maleka's concern, the article extends beyond its headline's focus to present a Methodist/Wesleyan theology of mission. Rev. Dr. Maleka draws connections between mission and such important Methodist/Wesleyan theological concepts as sanctification, social justice and social service, the importance of the laity, spirituality, and the worldwide nature of the church. The article is an excellent brief discussion of mission theology from a United Methodist perspective. Rev. Dr. Maleka has made an important conversation to denominational conversations around mission theology, and it is encouraging to see UMNews publishing a variety of pieces on mission theology.

Darryl W. Stephens: Facing the Empire Within

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Darryl W. Stephens. Rev. Dr. Stephens is Director of United Methodist Studies at Lancaster Theological Seminary and is author of, among others,Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church (2024). This post is taken with permission from Rev. Dr. Stephens' blog, Ethics Considered.

On Monday, the United States of America inaugurated the reign of a president who said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. Such international aggression would be a blatant attempt to expand the not-so-hidden empire of the USA. To my fellow United Methodists in the USA: Do not retreat in resignation! We must face the empire within.

Empire assumes many guises. The 2024 Social Principles of the UMC defines Donald Trump’s threat as colonialism: “the practice of establishing full or partial control of other countries, tribes, and peoples through conquest and exploitation.” Empire can also be conducted through neocolonialism, exercised through economic, political, and social control of other peoples. More expansively, empire refers to any coercive power that controls people’s lives—often without their realizing it.

The United Methodist Church (UMC) and its predecessor institutions have a long history of supporting and building empire. The UMC was born of a state church, the head of which controlled the largest world empire at the time. When the US colonies won political independence from the British crown, Methodism in the US also became independent of John Wesley and the Church of England. US Methodism, however, retained the structures and attitudes of empire.

White US Methodists, in particular, have a lot to reckon with. We exercised empire through chattel slavery, forced relocation of indigenous peoples, and missionary expansion. Methodists defended these practices with biblical proof-texts and theological arguments, claiming their actions to be God’s will. Indigenous boarding schools, for example, were cast as education and Christianization. Jim Crow laws were depicted as maintaining public order. Methodists justified their participation in projects of empire through powerful rhetoric and jurisprudence, such as Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery.

Trump’s territorial aspirations mirror in some ways the UMC’s decades-long agenda to become a “global church.” Both efforts involve structures of empire, with control residing in the United States. The UMC’s central conferences, for example, are directly modeled after the Church of England’s structure from 1867—during the height of Western colonialism. Regarding Anglican churches overseas, the Church of England sought “the binding of the Churches of our colonial empire and the missionary Churches beyond them in the closest union with the Mother-Church.” The US-based UMC has been slow to dismantle this inherited form of empire, making its largest overseas acquisition in 2008 (a relationship that unraveled in 2024).

Facing “the empire within” requires a long process of repentance. For example, the UMC began facing up to its past mistreatment of Native Americans in 1988. General Conference confessed the church’s sin and offered a formal apology in 1992, supported restitution to some tribes in 1996, offered an act or repentance in 2012, and published an in-depth report of Methodist involvement in the Sand Creek massacre in 2016. The work of repentance continues. In 2000, General Conference adopted an Act of Repentance for Racism—and the work is not done. Repentance involves confessing sin, ceasing wrongdoing, turning from old patterns of behavior, and intending to do better. Repentance also requires restitution and active resistance to further harm.

If only we could face down empire with a quick apology and a simple vote! Neither is sufficient, and yet both are important steps. In 2025, annual conferences in the UMC have the opportunity to vote on several constitutional amendments that address the harms of empire.

• Proposed is adding the words “gender” and “ability” as protected categories to Paragraph 4, Article 4, which proclaims the “inclusiveness of the church.” Behind this proposal is the awareness that Methodism has a long history of discrimination against persons because of gender and physical and mental (dis)abilities.

• Proposed is a revision of Article V, “Racial Justice.” Through this amendment, United Methodists must decide if “The United Methodist Church commits to confronting and eliminating all forms of racism, racial inequity, colonialism, white privilege and white supremacy, in every facet of its life and in society at large.” An affirmative vote would be a significant step toward dismantling these forms of empire.

• The most complex package of constitutional amendments addresses the most complex form of empire with the UMC: the role and power of the United States. The “regionalization legislation” proposes decentering US conferences by putting them on equal legislative footing with conferences around the world. No longer would the denomination’s General Conference be dominated by legislation pertaining only to the United States.

While I am in favor of the above constitutional amendments, I know that they will not solve the problem of empire. To face the empire within, we must reckon with our past, repair relationships, and create more just structures for all. The project of decolonizing church and society requires collaboration in material projects of shared concern through which we can craft new narratives of solidarity and belonging. We cannot achieve this goal by serving “the needy” from our position of perceived privilege. Rather, we must roll up our sleeves and get to work alongside each other as equals in the kin-dom of God.

If you, your reading group, or congregation is invested in facing the empire within, consider reading together the following books:

Stephens, Darryl W. Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church. Cascade, 2024.

Scott, David W., and Filipe Maia, eds. Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church. Abingdon, 2023.

2024 Publications on Methodist Mission and Evangelism

As the year winds down, we are taking a moment to review scholarship on Methodist mission and evangelism from 2024. The following is a list of books and articles published since the beginning of the year by scholars in the Association of Methodist Professors of Mission, friends of the blog, and other scholars about topics related to Methodist mission and evangelism. Readers are encouraged to consult these sources for the latest in scholarship about Methodist mission and evangelism.

Peter J. Bellini, “John Wesley, the Almost Charismatic,” in Heirs of Pietism in World Christianity: The 19th to the 21st Centuries, edited by Wendy J. Deichmann & Scott T. Kisker (Wilmore, KY: First Fruits Press, 2024).

Brian J. Chalmers, Methodist Revivalism and Social Reform in the Paradise of Dissent 1838-1939 (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, “Charles Wesley and the “Peaceable Reign” of Christ,” Holiness 9 (2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, Cultivating Christlikeness: Loving as Jesus Loved (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, The Fullest Possible Love: Living in Harmony with God and Neighbor (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, The Quest for Love Divine: Select Essays in Wesleyan Thought and Practice (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, “Songs of renewal: The language of renewal in the hymns of Charles Wesley,” The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture 10:2 (2024).

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, An Historiography of Twentieth-century Women's Missionary Nursing through the Lives of Two Sisters: Doing the Lord's Work in Kenya and South India (New York: Routledge, 2024).

Taylor Denyer, “Ecclesiastic Empires: American Conflict and the UMC in Africa,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Norma Dollaga, “The Diaconal Spirituality of Activism in the Philippines,” in Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America, edited by Craig L. Nessan and Darryl W. Stephens (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

David N. Field, “Engagements with Non-British Cultures,” in The Routledge Companion to John Wesley, ed. by Clive Murray Norris and Joseph W. Cunningham (London: Routledge, 2024).

Benjamin L. Hartley, “John R. Mott amidst the students: Historical and missiological gleanings for today,” Missiology: An International Review (2024).

Benjamin L. Hartley, “The Problem and Promise of the Diaconate,” in Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America, edited by Craig L. Nessan and Darryl W. Stephens (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

Arun W. Jones, “From courtesan to King: The conversion of Farzana,” Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies 9:1 (2024).

Filipe Maia, Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology: Theological Engagements from the Underside of Methodism (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).

David L. McKenna, Seeing All Things Whole My Calling to Fulfill (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024).

Martin Mujinga and Onias Chagudhuma, “Meaning beyond symbols!: A theological interpretation of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe’s logo,” Pharos Journal of Theology 105 (2024).

Eben Kanukayi Nhiwatiwa, By the Grace of God: My Life as an African Bishop (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Joon-Sik Park, “The Worldwide Nature of The United Methodist Church: A Historical and Missiological Reflection,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville, Abingdon, 2024).

Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell, “Popular Catholicism Puerto Rican Style: The Virgin of Rincón, Human Agency, and Miracles,” Religions 15 (2024).

David W. Scott, “American Power in the Global Church in Ecumenical Methodist Perspective,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

David W. Scott and Filipe Maia, eds., Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

David W. Scott, “Review of Dana L. Robert, Allison Kach-Yawnghwe, and Morgan Crago, Creative Collaborations: Case Studies of North American Missional Practices,” Missiology, 52:1 (2024), 118-119.

Howard A. Snyder, Consider the Lilies: How Jesus Saves People and the Land: The Theology and Ecology of Salvation (Wilmore, KY: First Fruits, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens, “Developing a Trauma-Informed Diaconal Praxis,” in Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America, edited by Craig L. Nessan and Darryl W. Stephens (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens and Craig L. Nessan, eds., Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens, “A Global Ethic for a Divided Church,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens, Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).

Darrell L. Whiteman, Crossing Cultures with the Gospel: Anthropological Wisdom for Effective Christian Witness (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024).

Darrell L. Whiteman, Forward to Jerusalem Burning: The Terror and Promise of the "Wrath of Love," by Robert L. Canfield (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, “The Autonomous Process of Latin American Methodism: A Critical Review,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, “Latin America and the Caribbean,” in The Routledge Companion to John Wesley, ed. by Clive Murray Norris and Joseph W. Cunningham (London: Routledge, 2024).

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, “Review of In the Hands of God: How Evangelical Belonging Transforms Migrant Experiences in the U.S. by Johanna Bard Richlin,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 25 (2024).

David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Boundaries vs. Ideals

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.

As part of that series, I asserted that the purpose of having a denominational Book of Discipline is to help United Methodists live productive lives of Christian discipleship, where, together with others in Christian community, they grow in holiness, i.e., the love of God and neighbor.

I also asserted that one of Methodism’s theological insights is that actions matter in the Christian life, and that discipline builds on this insight by trying to regulate Methodists’ actions, to encourage those actions which best express holiness and discourage actions which are at odds with holy living. Last week, I looked at rules and norms as two different ways to influence action.

This week, I would like to suggest another pair of approaches to influencing action: boundaries and ideals.

In brief, boundaries set the limits of acceptable actions. They determine what sorts of actions are prohibited, or “out of bounds” within a particular community, and what actions are required of a community’s members to remain in the bounds of the community. Boundaries set expectations for behavior by indicating what behaviors people should not engage in and focusing on penalties for not performing required behaviors.

Ideals, on the other hand, set standards and goals for desired and discouraged actions. They determine what sorts of actions would best reflect the beliefs, values, and identity of a community and what actions would be inconsistent with those beliefs, values, and identity. Thus, they set aspirations for behavior by indicating what behaviors people would exhibit in the best of situations, even if there is recognition that in practice, individuals will not exhibit all of these behaviors or will not exhibit them perfectly.

An easy test of whether a rule sets a boundary or an ideal is whether questions about if it has been followed must be answered with “yes/no,” in which case it sets a boundary, or whether such questions can be answered on a spectrum, in which case it sets an ideal.

The UMC Book of Discipline contains both boundaries and ideals.

As an example of a statement of ideals, look at the membership vows in ¶217. When members affirm that they will “accept the freedom and power God gives them to resist evil, injustice, and oppression,” they are not agreeing that they will never commit any more wrongs at the risk of losing their church membership. They are affirming an ideal of Christian discipleship. For various reasons, members may by commission or omission still participate in oppression, but they recognize that such behavior does not conform with the highest ideals of Christian discipleship.

Just a few paragraphs later comes an example of a statement of boundaries. ¶221 on “Accountability” sets a boundary for membership. It explains the actions required by congregants and pastors in a situation in which a congregant is accused of not living up to their baptismal vows. It details the steps of intervention, mediation, and ultimately church trial.

Other portions of the Book of Discipline are less clear whether they constitute boundaries or ideals. When ¶216 says, “Baptized infants and children are to be instructed and nurtured in the meaning of the faith, the rights and responsibilities of their baptism, and spiritual and moral formation using materials approved by The United Methodist Church,” it is clearly attempting to set some boundaries on what the confirmation process should look like in UMC churches. Yet, most United Methodists would recognize that actual confirmation practices in UMC churches vary, with little consequence, so this passage may function more as an ideal than a boundary.

To the extent that the Book of Discipline is influenced by U.S. secular law (and that’s a significant extent), it has tended to proliferate boundary statements. U.S. secular law is geared toward determination of mutuality exclusive states (guilty/innocent, owning/not owning, liable/not liable, etc.) and toward outlining proper procedures. Determining which of two (or more) mutually exclusive states a case falls into is an exercise of boundary setting. The concept of “proper” procedures implies that if certain actions are not performed rightly, if they fall outside the boundary, then the procedures will be improper and invalid.

Large portions of the Book of Discipline, especially in Part VI: Organization and Administration, reflect boundary-setting material – rules for determining who counts as being in which categories of ministry, rules for who should be on what committee or board, rules about actions that must be followed or avoided lest they lead to improper organization and administration of the church. Certainly, some of this material is necessary, especially for the church in the United States to function within the context of secular law.

Yet, we should remember that the point of discipline is discipleship. Discipleship involves being conformed to the image of God through the on-going process of sanctification. And that process of being conformed to the image of God is less about behaviors that absolutely must or must not happen. It’s about better and better reflecting the characteristics and heart of God. It’s about approaching an ideal.

So, since discipline is ultimately about discipleship, ideals are often more useful than boundaries in clarifying the end toward which our church behaviors are oriented. Boundary setting may play an important part in helping us walk the path toward the goal of discipleship by preventing us from falling into ditches to the side of the path, but articulating our ideals of Christian discipleship must remain the primary focus of our disciplines.

To get some idea of what this could look like, I recommend reading through the section on ordination in the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Book of Discipline. So much of the UMC’s section on ordination is focused on boundary setting – required mentoring, required education, required papers, required committee and board meetings, etc. The AME Book of Discipline has some of that, to be sure. But that AME Book of Discipline also has beautiful passages describing the qualities that a Christian minister should embody. It describes what sort of person ministers should be, or at least should aspire to be. It lays out the ideal.

I don’t know if AME ministers are better disciples than UMC ministers because of this setting of ideals, nor do I know how such a statement could even be assessed. But I do know that the AME Book of Discipline is more discipleship focused on this point, and that’s an example that United Methodists can aspire to follow as we continue to refine and perfect our Book of Discipline.

David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Rules and Norms

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.

Last week, I argued that the purpose of having a denominational Book of Discipline is to help United Methodists live productive lives of Christian discipleship, where, together with others in Christian community, they grow in holiness, i.e., the love of God and neighbor. The process of developing a General Book of Discipline that determines adaptable and non-adaptable portions of the present Book of Discipline is thus an opportunity to think theologically about the role of discipline in the life of discipleship.

One of Methodism’s theological insights is that actions matter in the Christian life. Christianity is not just about believing the right things; it is about putting one’s faith into action and thereby living out holy love. Discipline builds on this insight by trying to regulate Methodists’ actions, to encourage those actions which best express holiness and discourage actions which are at odds with holy living.

Yet there are two different ways to influence people’s actions: rules and norms.

Rules are formal statements of required or prohibited actions. They usually are tied to a set of stated consequences that apply if the rules are broken or at least an authority that has the power to enforce the rules and apply penalties if they are not followed. The primary feature of rules is that they are explicit. They state clearly, in ways that are accessible to all members of a community, how those community members are to behave.

Norms, on the other hand, are implicit. They are internalized and usually unspoken guidelines about how community members are to behave. There may be consequences to breaking norms, but these are social consequences, and those consequences are not necessarily predetermined nor does their application depend upon a particular authority. Norms operate through a process of socialization into the group that produces a common understanding of how to act.

Both formal rules and internalized norms can significantly shape people’s actions, but they do so in different ways, with each working best in specific settings.

Rules are especially useful in situations where there might be uncertainty or disagreement about how to behave. When there is uncertainty or disagreement about behavior, rules define expected behavior clearly in a way that everyone can access.

There are probably rules posted in your church kitchen. Not everyone who enters a church kitchen does so with the same idea about what to do with a dirty coffee cup or where to store leftover food, so posted rules encourage people to behave in the same way in that kitchen, regardless of what their initial inclinations would be.

Rules are also especially useful in situations where the consequences of behavior are significant. There’s no rule about not making change from the offering plate because, while that might be seen as a social faux pas, there’s little impact on others of that behavior. However, there are probably rules posted around your church about the heating or air conditioning systems because if one person acted inappropriately, that has the potential to discomfort everyone else in the church.

Norms have the advantage of being more comprehensive and more efficient than rules. Because they are based on observations of the behaviors of others, a lot more can be communicated in this way, and it can be done much more quickly than if everything were written down.

Imagine all of the behavioral choices that go into the average church potluck – what type of food to bring, how much to bring, what form to bring it in, how much food to take, etc. Some of these choices might be decided through formal rules (e.g., “Last names A-G bring a salad.”), but most of these choices are made based on observations of previous potlucks. You get a sense of how people act at a potluck, then you behave similarly. There might be some confusion for first-time participants, but by your second or third potluck, you get the hang of it, all without having to read a 32-page manual of rules on how to behave at potlucks. This is the power of norms. Even if there were a 32-page manual of potluck rules, it still probably won’t be as effective at getting people to behave the same way as social imitation is.

The disadvantage of norms is that they require a community of practice to operate. Potluck norms work when there’s a church community that regularly has potlucks. That setting of the same group of people engaging in the same set of actions is what allows people to socially learn from one another. If a church were to have a potluck for the first time ever, there would likely be a lot more variation in people’s behavior at the potluck. Or, if you had been to many potlucks before but then went to one in a new setting, it might be more difficult to anticipate in advance how people would behave because you would be outside the community where you learned potluck norms.

One of Wesley’s key insights, though, was that the practice of Christianity best happened in community. Classes, bands, and select societies were predicated on Christian community. These groups formed settings in which collective Christian norms could encourage all members of the community to behave in a more holy way. The Bible may function as a shared text, but most Christian small groups don’t have an extensive list of rules to govern their behavior or that of their members. Instead, they depend upon frequent interactions among members around shared areas of concern that build up commonly held norms in those areas. This has historically been an incredibly effective way to discipline Christians in their practice of discipleship.

Yet, the entire membership of The United Methodist Church functions much different than a small group. Most members of the church do not know each other, indeed have never met each other. So, there is no opportunity for people to directly learn social norms from one another. To the extent that individuals are part of multiple smaller groups within the denomination, they may help transfer norms from one area to another.

Nevertheless, for there to be shared understandings of expected behavior across the whole denomination, there need to be explicit rules, since the scope of the denomination is too large for implicit norms to function well. That is why we have a Book of Discipline.

Yet, even though rules are necessary in a large, multi-national, multicultural, multilinguistic denomination, it is important to remember that discipleship best happens in community and discipline exists to support discipleship. Thus, making formal rules is not an end in itself. The best and most effective way to discipline members into living lives of Christian discipleship is for them to be part of communities that can create shared norms of discipleship.

Rules support this process of community norming by ensuring that these communities incorporate key behaviors when the potential risk of not doing so would be disastrous to communities and by clarifying expectations of how the communities will relate to one another in mutual support of their process of forming Christian disciples.

Rules are not the only thing that can be included in a written Book of Discipline. In my next post, I’ll look at the distinction between boundaries and ideals.

David W. Scott - United Methodist Disciplines: Discipline and Discipleship

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.

Among the many actions of the recently concluded General Conference was to approve continued work on the General Book of Discipline. The creation of a General Book of Discipline is an idea that’s been around The United Methodist Church for some time and is laid out in ¶101 of the Book of Discipline.

In short, work on the General Book of Discipline involves designating certain portions of the Book of Discipline as adaptable and certain portions of it as non-adaptable. Adaptable portions of the Book of Discipline could be changed by central conferences (and regional conferences, should Worldwide Regionalization be ratified). Non-adaptable portions of the Book of Discipline are binding on all branches of the church.

Clearly in the non-adaptable portion of the Book of Discipline is the Constitution, the Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task, the Ministry of All Christians, and the Social Principles. Work on the General Book of Discipline is thus focused on the largest portion of the Discipline, Part VI: Organization and Administration. The instructions in ¶101 call for Part VI to be split into adaptable and non-adaptable parts.

This work is primarily assigned to the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters (SCCCM) and the Committee on Faith and Order (CFO), with some additional groups consulted on portions of the work. A movement at General Conference to give the SCCCM and CFO the power to reword portions of the Discipline rather than merely categorize them as adaptable or non-adaptable ran out of time to revise the authorizing legislation.

Worldwide Regionalization was one of the major foci for General Conference, and the work on the General Book of Discipline intersects in important ways with the push for regionalization. The regionalization legislation (which still requires ratification by annual conferences to go into effect) would clarify and strengthen the power of what would become regional conferences to adapt portions of the Book of Discipline. A General Book of Discipline would clarify where that power to adapt should be focused.

For some portions of the Book of Discipline, the decision about whether to categorize them as adaptable or non-adaptable is fairly straightforward. Portions of the Discipline dealing with US clergy pension programs, for instance, are clearly relevant only to one part of the church, and other parts of the church should be able to remove them or replace them with their own clergy retirement provisions.

Other portions of the Book of Discipline are less clear. Should the order of deacons be an adaptable part of the Discipline, since some places in Africa still practice the transitional diaconate, or should that become a standard practice everywhere? Should the agencies be seen as part of the global infrastructure of the church, or are they primarily vehicles for the US church to do its work? Should the process of organizing a new congregation be the same in all places?

Such questions push the church to think carefully about theological issues around contextualization, subsidiarity, unity, and mission. They impinge upon relational issues such as trust, differentiation, control, and reciprocity. These are all good and important issues to think through.

Yet if we go one level further up, work on the General Book of Discipline raises a further question: Why do we have a Book of Discipline? What is its role in the United Methodist understanding of the Christian life? How does the concept of discipline and the existence of a Book of Discipline shape The United Methodist Church as a Christian community?

Discipline is a central concept in Methodism, dating back to the days of John Wesley. In secular meanings, discipline has connotations of instruction, knowledge, training, and adherence to rules. All of these fit with Methodism’s understanding of discipline.

But the best linguistic connection through which to understand Methodist discipline is the connection between discipline and discipleship. Discipline is, in essence, a reflection of the Methodist understanding of how discipleship should work. For Methodists, a life of discipleship is a disciplined life.

John Wesley believed, and subsequent generations of Methodists have maintained, that a life of Christian discipleship should be focused on growing in holiness through sanctifying grace. That process of growth involves spiritual and moral training, which is best carried out in Christian community through a set of regularized practices that structure the Christian life.

In Wesley’s revival, such lives of Christian discipline were initially structured through small groups – the classes and bands. Eventually, as Wesley and the preachers associated with him began to meet in yearly conferences, the minutes of those conferences wrote down “what to teach, how to teach, and how to regulate our doctrine, discipline, and practice.” These written minutes were the beginning of the evolution of the present UMC Book of Discipline.

Yet it should not be lost that the point of these formalized minutes was to assist the individual Christians who were part of Wesley’s revival in living out disciplined lives of Christian holiness. The point of disciplines (and a written Discipline) was ultimately spiritual, not administrative, legislative, or legal. Disciplines existed to standardize best practices from the revival so that people could incorporate these practices into their Christian discipleship and thereby grow in holiness.

Thus, as United Methodists think about work on the General Book of Discipline, it is critical to keep in mind the spiritual intent of having a Book of Discipline. The question is not merely, “What rules can we afford to allow variation in around the world?” Ultimately, the question must be, “How do we craft a General Book of Discipline that helps United Methodists around the world be successful disciples of Jesus Christ?”

With this lens of discipleship in mind, I will suggest a few additional concepts over the next several posts to help United Methodists think through how disciplines and a Discipline can contribute to living out lives of holiness in Christian community.

Philip Wingeier-Rayo: The Mission of the Church in the World

Today's piece is by Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo. Dr. Wingeier-Rayo is Professor of Missiology, World Christianity and Methodist Studies at Wesley Theological Seminary. This piece was originally published on United Methodist Insight and is republished here with the permission of the publisher.

Every other year I have the privilege of teaching a course for aspiring United Methodist elders and deacons entitled “Mission of the Church in the World.” Along with Evangelism, Old and New Testament, Church History, Theology, United Methodist History, Doctrine and Polity, this is one of nine courses that is required for ordination in our church.

I love the title of the class—in fact I love everything about the class. I have taught this course in various settings, modalities, and institutions over the last two decades. Before Covid-19 this course was taught face-to-face both in semester-long and intensive formats. Since the pandemic, I have taught it online and hybrid (some in-person and some online). One of my favorite ways to teach the class is experiential. I have taught the class at Brooks Howell Home in Asheville, North Carolina, and students interviewed retired United Methodist missionaries and deaconesses, as part of the course requirements.

We have combined reading and writing assignments with experiential learning and field trips to ministries that prioritize those who are overlooked by society. We have invited guest speakers participating in God’s mission around the world, and used tools like “Mission Insite” to understand mission opportunities in one’s local community. During these days of reorganizing and refocusing the mission of the church considering our colonial history, it is helpful to reflect on the mission of the church in the world.

The title of the course reflects a change in the way that mission has traditionally been understood. Historically mission has been a one-way street from the center to the periphery. The western Church inherited the traditional mission model from Christendom when the Church and the State were fused together in Western Europe. Following Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the West Indies and the subsequent “Doctrine of Discovery,” the missionaries accompanied colonial expansion to newly settled territories to teach native peoples western civilization. Mission became centered within Christendom and went out to the margins. Mission was an overseas task from “us to them.” Mission started in the Church and went out to the unchurched. This was still the missiological view at the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland with the goal to spread Christianity from Christendom to non-Christian lands.

This traditional understanding of mission started to change midway through the 20th century following World War II. Following Edinburgh a continuation committee formed and the international missionary community gathered every ten years or so to reflect on the mission of the church. There was an inherent imbalance of power between mission-sending and mission-receiving churches that gradually began to change. The self-determination movement and independence movement of formally colonized nations awakened a new understanding of mission.

Six years prior to the 1938 Tambaram (India) Conference, Karl Barth read a paper at the Brandenburgh Missionary Conference where he described missions as an activity of God. A couple years later Karl Hartenstein articulated a similar understanding and coined the term “Missio Dei” to emphasize that it is God’s mission and not the mission of the church (“missio ecclesiae”).[1] The Church also shifted its understanding of mission to be God’s mission. Karl Barth was one of the first theologians to state that mission was God’s activity.[2] About the same time frame Emil Brunner wrote: “The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning. Where there is no mission there is no Church; and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.”[3]

The next meeting of the International Missionary Council in 1952 was held in Willingen, Germany in the aftermath of World War II. The conference built on the concept prevalent at Tambaram that mission is derived from the very heart of God, especially within the Trinity. The conference findings viewed God as the source of missions. Hartenstein’s concept of the “Missio Dei” or a missionary God influenced the conversations. David Bosch summarized the image of mission developed at Willingen as “…participating in the sending of God.”[4] In other words, God is the source of mission, not the church. This theme continued the movement away from an ecclesio-centric understanding of mission to a mission-centered church.[5] Instead of the church being the one who sends, the church itself is sent.[6]

One of the unexpected twists of missions in the 20th century was that the so-called “younger” or “receiving” churches grew stronger meanwhile secularism weakened the “sending” churches in the West. After the Great Depression, two world wars, and colonial wars, the West was not in an economic or moral position to claim that they had the exclusive right to do mission. In 1961 the International Missionary Committee was dissolved, and the World Council of Churches formed with younger and established churches having equal representation. A Scottish theologian and missionary, Leslie Newbigin, was the General Secretary of the International Missionary Committee and stewarded the transition into the World Council of Churches, where he became Associate General Secretary. He returned to his home country of Scotland in 1974, after serving as a missionary in India for more than three decades and was astounded the decline of Christianity and the secularization in the United Kingdom. He had left Scotland during an era of Christendom, but upon his return found a society that was post-Christian or even anti-Christian.[7] He realized that the West is a mission field. This broke down the traditional paradigm of mission “from the West to the rest.”

In 1983 Newbigin published "The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches" in which he built upon the theological consensus of the “missio Dei.” Newbigin’s work that emerged in the late 20th century with a focus on moving beyond Christendom, seeing the West as a mission field, and the Missio Dei. This is the historical background of the shift to seeing the Church as an instrument of God’s mission in the world.

As we reflect on the mission of The United Methodist Church in the aftermath of schism and division, it is important to go back to our mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” I treasure the opportunity to reflect with aspiring United Methodist clergy about the mission of the church in the world.

^[1] Hartenstein, Karl (1934). "Wozu nötigt die Finanzlage der Mission". Evangelisches Missions-Magazin. 79: 217–229.

^[2] David Bosch, Transforming Mission, Orbis Press, 1991, 389.

^[3] Emil Brunner, The Word and the World, 1931.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Bosch, 370.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Darrell Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998, 3.

Filipe Maia: Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology: Theological Engagements from the Underside of Methodism

The following is a preview excerpt from the Introduction to the recently published Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology: Theological Engagements from the Underside of Methodism, edited by Filipe Maia: https://wipfandstock.com/9781666793482/decolonizing-wesleyan-theology/. This excerpt is used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers, www.wipfandstock.com.

In August 2018, a group of scholars, pastors, and ecclesial leaders met at Wesley House in Cambridge, UK, to imagine and plot the decolonization of Methodist and Wesleyan traditions. Standing on British territory and under the shadow of the prestigious Cambridge University, the gathering embodied the ambivalent legacy of the Wesleyan tradition, birthed in the midst of British imperialism while cherished by Methodist communities in the postcolonial world. We were Methodist scholars and leaders from the Global South, immigrants in the diasporas of the Global North, all coming to Wesleyan theology via the complex entanglement between missionary movements and western colonialism.

While steeped in Wesleyan traditions, the group gathered in Cambridge embodied a Methodism that could not have been envisioned by John Wesley nor the missionaries who set out to spread “scriptural holiness” to all corners of the planet. In those corners of the world, Methodism gained new edges. Those of us meeting in British territory had returned to the birthplace of our theological and spiritual tradition with a difference. We noticed that claiming our Methodist roots demanded a reinterpretation of the tradition. The gathering showed that the Wesleyan theological tradition has been pluralized in the context of colonial and neocolonial expansion.

One of the ideas suggested by the group in Cambridge was the organization of an edited volume under the working title, Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology. This was more than a title: it was a task.

This volume is one response to that task. It gives testimony to the Methodist roots that grow in territories and bodies that uproot longstanding colonial forces. It has been envisioned, nurtured, and curated as a work of decolonial love. Authors in this volume write from multiple locations in the Global South where our Wesleyan heritage is giving new contours to the tradition.

Readers will most likely notice that the language of decline, so common in Methodist circles in North America, is rarely, if ever, mentioned. This is no indication that Methodism flourishes without difficulties in the Global South, but rather a statement about how contributors are less interested in thinking about the numerical decline of Christendom and more committed to a renewed Wesleyan theology that meets the harsh realities of a world still embedded in the structures of colonialism.

The decolonial approaches to Wesleyan theology offered in this volume give witness to a tradition that gains strength and vitality in decolonial struggles and in the engagement with traditions and ways of knowing that have been suppressed by western modernity.

The essays in this volume offer perspectives into a Methodism that lives and flourishes on the underside of colonial powers. From all corners of the planet, communities of faith in the Wesleyan tradition experiment with theological imaginaries and ecclesial practices that are transforming the face of global Methodism. Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology gives voice to these experiments while seeking to deepen the reflection in decolonial theologies and spiritualities.

As authors revisit the history of the Methodist movement, they witness to the different shapes Methodism gained in the colonies—old and new. As they revisit Wesley’s own writings and other important themes in Wesleyan theology and practice, they inhabit the cracks of our founder’s theology and turn it in unforeseeable directions.

It is worth mentioning that the volume that you are now engaging is but one element of the ongoing task of decolonizing Wesleyan theology and traditions. In fact, it is appropriate to approach this volume as a snapshot of an ongoing conversation. This book is the fruit of a larger project that involves monthly conversations among a global network of Methodist theologians and leaders.

The “World Parish Webinar” has been a platform where we have been shaping conversations in the direction of a decolonial Methodism. Since January 2020, we have been gathering monthly and our group has grown into a global parish, a “people on the move,” to borrow the expression from J. C. Park, developed in his essay later in this volume. This group has been called out as an assembly—an ekklesia—to retrain our theological ways of knowing and to conjure up a decolonial Wesleyan theology.

We have been put on the move through these webinars: we have become a migrant church, pilgriming through many locations as we pursue the task of decolonizing the Wesleyan tradition. The World Parish Webinar became a Pentecost of sorts, a place where we share good news with the accents of a multitude of locations, where we do not pursuit the homogeneity of Empire, but relish on the difference that resists the colonial dream of sameness, of a single voice, of one Wesley, of one homogenous church body. The webinar is ongoing and is convened through Wesley House in Cambridge. If you would like to join the conversation you are welcome to do so. Information can be found at Wesley House’s website.

Decolonizing Wesleyan theology entails the appreciation of difference and alternative forms of knowledge production, different modes of theological imagination, the recognition and negotiation of alternative inheritances. The essays included in the volume embody these principles as they construct a decolonial Wesleyan theology. Combining Wesleyan theology and decolonial theories, this volume offers a unique contribution to Methodist studies, global Methodism, and decolonial theologies.

Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology presents eight reflections that lead readers into deeper engagements with Methodism. They are as follows:

Filipe Maia: "The Wesleyan Quartet: Wesleyan Theology in the Decolonial Turn"

Pablo Guillermo Oviedo: "Grace that Liberates and Unites in the Mission of God: Liberation Theology and Wesleyan Theology in Latin America"

Pablo Manuel Ferrer: "A Decolonial Physic: Medical Science, Healing, and the Ecology of Knowledge in Methodism"

Elvira Moisés Cazombo: "Wesleyan Methodism and the Interruption of Ancestral Bodies in Angolan Liturgical Practices"

Virgínia Inácio dos Santos: "Ministering While Single: An Angolan Perspective on Methodism and Marriage"

Lilian Cheelo Siwila: "Trapped between the Pew and the Altar: Wesleyan Traditions and Decoloniality; An African Feminist Perspective"

J. C. Park: "Decolonizing the Church of Empire: The Church on the Move for Justice, Peace, and Life"

Amelia Koh-Butler: "Water and Sand: Illuminating Native Theologies with a Wesleyan Lens of Spiritual Experience"

Jae Hyoung Choi: St. Basil, Charity, and Justice

Today’s post is by Rev. Jae Hyoung Choi. Rev. Choi is Missionary in Residence with the General Board of Global Ministries.

I visited Kenya recently as a member of Global Ministries' core team for Global Mission Fellow (GMF) training. During the program, we had the opportunity to visit Kibera. A Kenyan guide mentioned that Kibera is one of the largest slums in the world, along with Soweto in South Africa, where I had a chance to visit during the 2019 Africa regional missionary gathering.

Observing GMFs engage in programs with children in Kibera brought back memories of Parola, an informal settlement in Manila, Philippines. Parola served as a refuge for those initially arriving in Manila to escape poverty, owing to its proximity to the bustling market called Divisoria. While Parola was smaller than Kibera, the living spaces were considerably narrower. Due to the illicit practice of electricity tapping, known as “jumping,” Parola often experienced fires.

I recalled a grandmother who tragically lost her beloved grandson in one such fire. While she went to the market to buy food, locking the door from outside for the child’s safety, the fire consumed her home. I also knew a woman raising nine children, three of her own and six brought by her husband from other women, who made ends meet by doing laundry in other people’s houses. Despite outward smiles, it seemed they might be silently shedding tears, enduring unspeakable suffering.

I pondered the meaning of missionary work for individuals facing ongoing poverty, injustice, and discrimination. What does it truly mean to “participate in God’s mission” amidst these challenges?

In recent months, I studied Basil, a figure from the fourth-century Cappadocian Fathers. While renowned for his Trinitarian theology, my focus delved into his social teachings and his acts of charity. 

His Christian ownership principles, rooted in natural law and the Scriptures, offer profound insights into contemporary socioeconomic and structural issues. Perhaps his concern for land issues in his homeland, Cappadocia, led him to advocate the Christian ownership principle based on the biblical mandate, “The land belongs to God (Leviticus 25:23),” which underscores a commitment to distributive justice and equitable resource access, promoting communal responsibility.

However, the historical evaluation of Basil’s charitable activities is divided. In 369 AD, a severe famine left many in poverty, some even starving to death. Basil mobilized his assets and connections to aid the poor, establishing the Basiliad, a massive complex dedicated to caring for the poor and sick, which moved Emperor Valens to donate land.

Yet, the church’s charity, including Basil’s, during that time is now facing reassessment in a new light. Historian Peter Brown notes that the eastern church during Basil’s time earned the title “Lovers of the Poor” not only due to its active charity but also because it was an era when the Roman Empire’s unjust economic system mass-produced the poor.

Some wonder whether Basil’s words were prophetic but his deeds were priestly. Why did Basil, who approached the core of social justice through his land ownership teachings, focus only on charity in practice?

Basil’s charitable work was intertwined with his ascetic monasticism, which was based on Hellenistic dualism. At that time, the monastic movement’s ultimate focus was the coming kingdom, emphasizing helping the poor rather than solving poverty itself.

The fundamental reason seems to be his dichotomous worldview dominating his ascetic monastic movement. Ioannes Karayannopoulos comments that Basil’s ultimate orientation was “to the other real life [heaven],” so “Basil does not consider it his duty to try to change [the present system].”

Today, charity remains essential to the church's mission. However, the church must hear that the world is voicing criticisms of its charity. Books like “Toxic Charity,” “When Helping Hurts,” and “When Charity Destroys Dignity” illustrate this phenomenon. Kibera, Soweto, and Parola call for justice beyond charity.

An Open Connectionalism and Change as Perfection

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.

A pastor I know used to refer to The United Methodist Church as "perfecting the church of the 1950s." While I think he intended this comment to critique backward-looking tendencies in the church, I think it also highlights a danger in how United Methodists think about perfection.

Perfection is an important concept for Methodists historically. For John and Charles Wesley, "Christian perfection" was a synonym for "entire sanctification." Both terms denoted a state in which believers were completely filled with God's love such that all their actions expressed that love and not sinful impulses. Thus, early Methodists were asked whether they were "going to to perfection."

Perfection was a concern for theologians long before Wesley, mostly for those theologians drawing on Platonic philosophy. But this Platonic heritage in Christian theology is the source of a danger in how United Methodists think about perfection.

Platonic theology states that what is perfect is eternal and unchanging. Change, in Platonic philosophy, is seen as problematic and imperfect. This notion that change is imperfect raises various problems in theological philosophy ("How can an unchanging God really interact with a constantly changing world?"), but it also potentially creates problems in how we understand Christian perfection in humans and in the church.

If we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48), and part of God's perfection is God's unchanging nature, then we may assume that Christian perfection should imply that Christians, or at least the church, should be unchanging as well.

However, Wesley's notion of perfection wasn't about being unchanging; it was about love. Christian perfection is perfection in love. And love is never static. Recent insights into Trinitarian theology have highlighted how even within Godself, the three members of the Trinity are always engaged in active (not static) love with one another. Many metaphors are used to describe the relationship within the Trinity, but a helpful one here is a dance. Dancing involves movement. It is anything but static and unchanging.

If the Trinity is involved in an active and ever-changing dance of love and we are called to be perfect in love just as our heavenly Father is perfect in love, then we may expect that perfection in love is not static but active, not immutable but modulating, ever responding in new and delighted ways to how others are moving in the communal dance of our collective Christian life.

This insight, I believe, can be extended from individuals to our understandings of the church as well. If God is perfect in an active, loving sense, and if individual Christians can be made perfect in an active, loving sense, then does it not make sense to hope that the church will be perfected in an active, loving sense as well? And if the church is being perfected in an active, loving sense, then we must expect that the church will be ever changing, ever responding to the movement of the Holy Spirit and God's call to engage the changing world around the church.

This claim is more than saying that church structures need to be reformed every now and then. It is saying that our fundamental understanding of what the church is must be open. It must expect and even eagerly anticipate that the church will continue to shift and change as it continues to strive for perfection by reaching out in love to God and the world as it presently is (and not as it was decades ago!). As the church experiences new insights into God's love and as it responds in new ways to the ever evolving needs and nature of the world, the church itself will change.

For United Methodists, an important concept that describes our understanding of our church is "connectionalism." Connectionalism refers to the relationships, structures, and theologies that connect the various components of the church (congregations, conferences, agencies, etc.) to one another as together they join in God's mission to the world. 

An open and dynamic understanding of Christian perfection calls us to an open and dynamic understanding of connectionalism.

Of course, changes in what constitutes the United Methodist connection are a historical fact. The number of annual conferences and the number of levels of conferences have been in constant flux over the 239 years of history of the UMC and its predecessors. Practices of conferencing and who attends conferences have altered. Geographic areas have been added to and departed from the UMC. Agencies have been created, merged, and reconfigured. Relationships among United Methodists have shifted.

But beyond these historic facts, which we may accept or bemoan, a theology of an open connectionalism reassures us that such change is a necessary and important part of the church adapting to its ever new missional call to spread scriptural holiness and reform the world. Therefore, we may expect, even demand, that the church continue to change and adapt for the sake of better loving God and neighbor. Moreover, such changes are not a betrayal of our faith but an expression of it -- an expression of our deepest convictions about the nature of the Christian life.

The end of one year and beginning of another is always a time of taking stock of the changes of the past year and anticipating the changes of the year to come. As United Methodists engage in this spiritual work, may we keep in mind that our connectionalism must be open, and may we eagerly look forward to how Christ will lead our church in new steps in the dance of love in the year to come.

Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana: A Journey of Solidarity: Ruth and Naomi’s Story, Part II

Today’s post is by Deaconess Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana. Marquez-Caramanzana is an Area Liaison for Asia and the Pacific with Global Ministries. It is the second of two parts. This post was originally developed for the World Methodist Council Consultation on Migration.

In my previous post, I introduced the story of Ruth and Naomi’s relationship and named the resonances that it has for our ministry with migrants in our time and locations. I raised the question of Ruth and solidarity.

Ruth’s story is instructive of the who, the why, and the how of solidarity. Despite her own vulnerability, Ruth embarked on the unknown because of her deep love for Naomi. She did not look on her personal struggle as a vulnerable woman solely, but she grabbed the opportunity to show to Naomi, who was then desperate and surrendered to her lot, to see that it is better if they are together in the journey. It was radical love professed in this mother-in-law – daughter-in-law relationship.

Ruth’s story is instructive of our missiological task of ministering to those who need God the most, those whose only hope is God.

When we talk about mission these days, and when we talk about the plight of migrant men and women and gender minorities, are we not supposed to be talking of how deep our solidarity is with them?

With Ruth and Naomi embracing a journey together, I see two individual women charting their own future and deciding for themselves the outcome of that future rather than just waiting for others to dictate their course. It was a journey of mutual support that challenged how people and society looked at and treated them. It was a risky journey but a worthy one to undertake.

I don’t have any intention to romanticize the story of Ruth – it was truly, definitely a difficult journey.

But her story speaks to every one of us – as individuals resisting cultural impositions and anything that denies us of our full humanity. It speaks to struggling migrants and immigrants actively looking for ways out of poverty, dehumanization, and insecurity. It speaks to us as churches seeking to be in solidarity with those who are vulnerable.

And I would like us to focus on the last: Ruth’s story speaking to us as churches seeking to be in solidarity with those who are vulnerable.

Part of Global Ministries Theology of Mission Statement says:

The Church experiences and engages in God’s mission as it pours itself out for others, ready to cross every boundary to call for true human dignity among all peoples, especially among those regarded as the least of God’s children, all the while making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world.

In solidarity we have to empty ourselves. It is in emptying ourselves that we are able to identify with our struggling and distressed brothers and sisters. We cannot claim to journey in solidarity with them when we ourselves are limited by our own impositions and claims to correct knowledge and expertise.

Our readiness to cross boundaries defines the way in which we incarnate our faith. Emptying ourselves is a pre-requisite in crossing boundaries. More than geographical boundaries, we focus ourselves on crossing the boundaries of race, class, gender, age, and others. We cross our own personal boundaries of individualism, egoism, privilege and comfort. We break down the walls that keep us apart from the suffering of others. We break down the walls that render us numb to the pulsating pain brought about by oppression, dehumanization, and marginalization.

To be in solidarity is to recognize that people are decisive in charting their course. To be in solidarity with them is to provide them support as they affirm their agencies and build their capacities. We share our resources with them – yes. But it is not the determining factor in regaining their humanity. Our roles should be to render our presence in their journey in such a way that obstructions are eliminated and they are able to regain their power. To be in solidarity is to embody the hope that they themselves are capable of rising up.

We will need to take into full account that our understanding of the plight of migrants and immigrants should be our primordial concern. Their context defines the response that we as churches or mission agencies can learn from. Their journey, their struggles, their hopes and aspirations should inform our perspectives, practice, and theology of mission.

Ruth may have undergone a lot of self-emptying so that the essence of solidarity was incarnated in her accompaniment of Naomi. Solidarity was not just a word or concept for Ruth. It was in flesh, lived out in her decision to be with Naomi until death. Her solidarity resulted in hope. A hope that assured Naomi that her battles were not just hers. A hope that enabled their community to see Ruth and Naomi on a different light.

As churches we participate in the emancipatory struggles so that we, too, become ambassadors of hope. For those who are not able to see light clearly. For those struggling to get up on their feet. Ruth became a beacon of hope for Naomi. And so must we. For the sake of the least, the last and the lost.

Our theme for the consultation is “On the move.” As the spirit, as Ruah, is with us, we must we be on our feet, on the move. We can’t just tarry in the garden. We need to move. We need to do something. Our faith compels us to serve. Our God is calling us to move. But let me also affirm that as we move, God is also in the movement or movements of people, in movements where we participate meaningfully so that life abundant becomes a lived reality for the world’s most vulnerable people. Amen.

Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana: A Journey of Solidarity: Ruth and Naomi’s Story, Part I

Today’s post is by Deaconess Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana. Marquez-Caramanzana is an Area Liaison for Asia and the Pacific with Global Ministries. It is the first of two parts. This post was originally developed for the World Methodist Council Consultation on Migration.

In 2013, Joanna Demafellis’ home in Leyte was among those torn and decimated by Typhoon Yolanda (Hayan). The raging flood stripped down the family home to its frame. In 2014, through the help of an aunt, Joanna was able to fly to Kuwait to work as a domestic helper. As a domestic helper, she was promised a monthly salary of $400. Under the kafala system, foreigners entering Kuwait need sponsorship to act as a bridge to the country. The employer got to keep her passport and confiscated her mobile phone, and she was only allowed to use it every 3 months. In 2016, her family sensed a problem when they couldn’t find two of her Facebook profiles and her roaming number became out of reach. In 2018, Kuwaiti authorities found Joanna’s body by chance, kept in a freezer of her second employer.

Jullebee Ranara was a domestic worker. She could not send her 4 children to school because she was poor. In her desire to offer better lives for her children, she decided to work abroad. Perhaps also a victim of illegal recruiters or human trafficking, she ended up working for a family in Kuwait. On January 21, 2023, she was reportedly raped, murdered, burned, and thrown in the desert. News reports would point to her employer’s 17-year-old son as her tormentor and killer.

We remember their stories as we engage in Bible study on the Book of Ruth. I would center our thoughts on the part of the Book of Ruth that is focused on Naomi and Ruth’s relationship.

Ruth’s story resonates with me as a deaconess engaged in mission work through Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. How does her story deepen my commitment to be in solidarity with those who need our significant presence, and what is the role of mission agencies as people journey in risky situations in foreign lands?

Ruth’s story also resonates with the many women, like Joanna and Jullebee, who leave our country everyday by the thousands to find a greener pasture in foreign lands so that their families here in the Philippines may live.

Naomi’s family, along with daughters in law Ruth and Orpah, left Judah to go to Moab because of famine. In Biblical narratives, the most common consequence of famines is involuntary migration. This was evident in the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel and their sons. They would usually migrate to Egypt to seek food, even if it meant being subjected to exploitation by Egyptian masters and rulers. Most of these people’s lives were turned upside down by the realities of famine during their time. Their stories speak of the vulnerability that migrants face as they rely on the mercy of people to help them and yet are in turn subjected to abuse and exploitation of those in power.

Mijal Bitton, a teacher, writer, and leading thinker on questions relating to Jewish American identity, pluralism, gender equity and sociological diversity asserts that “starvation is not a function of scarcity, but rather a function of how societies distribute food.”[1] This is confirmed by economist and philosopher, Amartya Sen whose “work demandsthat instead of examining food availability, we should be investigating whether individuals can gain access to food and control food resources. This shift is borne out by the Genesis stories. The Mesopotamian region and neighboring Egypt could potentially feed everyone. But Abram, Sarai and their children must fight to get access to food, and must confront the dangerous vulnerability embodied by economic migrants.”[2] This is also the same context that prompted Naomi’s family to move from Judah to Moab.

As I reflect on the stories I earlier shared about Joanna and Jullebee – I can’t help but also point out that if we talk of resources, my country, the Philippines, has enough resources to feed and provide for all of its people. But the question remains: why do people need to migrate, and why are people poor?

Let’s go to Ruth . . .

In the story, Ruth showed a deep faithfulness to Naomi. In losing her husband and two sons, Naomi is resigned to the kind of life awaiting her. She knows that nothing is left for her but to wallow in poverty and shame. She blessed her two daughters-in-law and sent them home. Orpah obliged. Ruth did not. And to this Ruth pledged to never leave Naomi and spoke of a beautiful, poetic commitment:

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried (v.16 NIV).

As for Mijal-Bitton, “Ruth’s persona is intersectional: she embodies the vulnerabilities of women, of widows, of economic migrants, of foreigners, of stigmatized strangers (she is a Moabite).”[3]

In their time it was not easy for Naomi, Ruth and Orpah to lose their husbands. They have to bear the brunt of a difficult life in a patriarchal world – without property, without status, without economic power, non-existent.

When Ruth decided to leave her all and be with Naomi, she put to risk her own life. Her decision meant that whatever happens to Naomi would also happen to her.

This story raises questions for me: How did Ruth embody solidarity with Naomi? How does this solidarity challenge us as churches to do our ministry with struggling migrants and immigrants? How do we see the image of God in Ruth’s decision to accompany Naomi? What image of God do we want to profess or give witness to as we engage in ministry with migrants?

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[1] The Book of Ruth: A story about famine offers a powerful lesson for a pandemic – The Forward

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.