Mission and Food: A Call for Reflection

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.

Food is an elemental part of what it means to be human. Think about it: You have probably already seen, touched, smelled, tasted, and eaten food today. If not yet today, then certainly yesterday or the day before.

Food is intrinsic to the individual experience of being human. It’s intrinsic to the social experience of being human. So much of human activity is about food: producing food, distributing food, sharing food, feeding others, eating with others, etc. Food is one of the most common means by which humans connect with one another, in a variety of ways.

Food is not just ubiquitous; it is meaningful. Food is regularly used in a variety of rituals. Various types of food are used as symbols, similes, metaphors, and metonyms. From the apple of good and evil to cheeks red as apples to the apple of your eye to the Big Apple, food structures our language and our thought.

Yet for all of the significance, food is an undertheorized and undertheologized area in missiology. There is often a basic assumption that feeding people is good and hunger is bad, but too rarely are reflections about food taken to a deeper level. Yet not only is food basic to the human experience, food plays a critical role in several different forms of mission practice.

Food and feeding ministries are one of the most common ways that local congregations in the United States are engaged in mission. Congregations operate food pantries, soup kitchens, blessing boxes, and other feeding ministries in enormous numbers. Much of this congregational mission effort, however, is often done without engaging in larger questions about the meanings of food or the qualities of “good food,” whether defined nutritionally, socially, culturally, or otherwise.

Congregational food ministries include not only local feeding programs but also congregational participation in national and world-wide programs to alleviate international hunger such as the 30 Hour Famine and Rise Against Hunger meal packing. Some of these larger programs are very intentional in highlighting questions about food production, access, and consumption as part of educational materials delivered to congregations. The 30 Hour Famine is a good example. Yet other programs focus on mobilizing volunteers to assemble meal kits without much thought about how these meal kits fit within larger systems of food production, distribution, and consumption.

Beyond the local congregation, food is a key consideration in mission-led agricultural development. There is a long history of agricultural mission which continues today, especially outside the United States, mostly in developing countries. There is more attention paid within this realm of work (at least nowadays) to what culturally and agriculturally appropriate forms of food are, though perhaps not always to the theological significance of food.

In addition to its connection to questions of nutrition and poverty, food is also important for its social and theological significance in some forms of mission. Food is a key element of the hospitality that many Christians practice, both for its own sake and for the sake of evangelism.

Sometimes such food-centered hospitality can pay quite close attention to the food as symbol and to the production, distribution, and consumption of food (by, for instance, focusing on “local food” or organic food), though it is also possible to engage in food-related evangelism without much reflection on the nature of the food itself. Coffee church Fresh Expressions and beer hall hymn sings are evangelism at sites of food consumption, but the food present is often a side thought, if it is thought of at all.

In addition to each of these four forms of mission interacting with food—local feeding programs, international hunger programs, agricultural mission, and food in evangelistic hospitality—being at times undertheologized individually, they are rarely put into conversation with one another or with any of the other ways in which mission and food interact.

Yet connects are certainly possible: How can the connection between food, hospitality, and evangelism inform local feeding programs? What does agricultural development mean for evangelism? How can agricultural development work help us think about food systems and who ends up hungry and in need of feeding ministries?

To be fair, the theological intersections between food and mission have not completely escaped scholarly reflection. Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger is a modern class. The eucharist can be seen as an intersection between mission and food, and there’s plenty of theologizing about the role of the eucharist in mission. There are dissertations (such as this one and this one) and books from smaller publishers (such as this one and this one) on relevant topics. Food has also been a significant theme examined in other areas of theological inquiry, including biblical studies and the history of medieval Christianity.

Still, there remains more to be said about food and mission, and I think more needs to be said on this topic. For that reason, UM & Global is going to be hosting a series of posts on mission and food over the next several months. If you would like to contribute to this series, contact blogmaster David Scott at dscott (at) umcmission (dot) org.

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

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

Recommended Reading: Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia

The Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia launched at the beginning of the month. This online resource contains life stories of Christian leaders from Asia, both indigenous leaders and foreign missionaries. The project will continue to add biographies from across Asia, but the initial batch of biographies draw especially from Malaysia, Singapore, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Many of those biographies are of Methodists. Thus, the Dictionary makes an excellent resource for those interested in learning about the history of Methodism in Southeast Asia. There will be an official launch event online on April 17th at 8:00pm Malaysia time at which more information about the Dictionary will be shared.

What now? Europe Caught Between Crises

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. It is the third in a series examining issues in The United Methodist Church following the further postponement of General Conference to 2024. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Having looked last week at the implications of the postponement of General Conference on African United Methodists, this week I will look at Europe. The context of European United Methodism is complex and varied, as this recent summary of Methodism in Europe put forward by European United Methodists makes clear.

Relative to the main focus of division within The United Methodist Church presently, there are differing views and laws on homosexuality between Western and Eastern Europe. However, views on sexuality are not the only salient part of United Methodist identity in Europe. Instead, there are multiple cross-cutting forces that pull European United Methodists, especially those in Eastern Europe, in different directions.

European United Methodists in all countries are a small minority defined against both largely secular societies and dominant churches from other traditions. In the face of such religious pressures, connections across countries have historically been important in Europe. This was even more true under Communist rule in Eastern Europe, and the emphasis on connectionalism is sustained not just by the machinery of United Methodist polity but by shared ministries and educational endeavors.

This tradition of shared ministry also recognizes Eastern European United Methodism’s financial dependence on Western European United Methodism. The church in most of Eastern Europe is not financially self-sustaining, and the sorts of social witness in which the church is engaged, including ministry with the Roma and other marginalized people, relies on monetary contributions from Western Europeans.

Based on the history of the Iron Curtain, United Methodists (and others) in Eastern Europe fear Russian domination. Therefore, even prior to the Russian invasion, the Ukraine Moldova Provisional Annual Conference had requested to withdraw from the Eurasia Episcopal Area, not because of distaste for Bishop Khegay personally but because of political realities that made being supervised from Russia difficult.

Thus, there are real differences in opinions on sexuality between Western and Eastern European United Methodisms, but there are also religious, connectional, financial, and (for countries other than Russia) political reasons why links between East and West are important.

Given that situation, Europeans have been discussing the future of the UMC in Europe even before General Conference 2019. General Conference 2019, however, certainly intensified questions about that future, with different parts of the European Central Conferences reacting differently.

Three of the four European bishops (Rückert, Alsted, and Streiff) have supported continued connection, though Bishops Alsted and Streiff have also announced their intention to retire. Bishop Khegay has previously indicated that his episcopal area would join the Global Methodist Church.

In May of last year, the bishops worked with other European leaders to lay out a timeline for moving forward as European United Methodists. How that timeline will be impacted by the further delay of General Conference remains to be seen.

Following General Conference 2019, the Germans rejected the Traditional Plan and formed a process of roundtables to discern a system by which the UMC in Germany (German initials: EmK) could remain united, despite internal disagreements on sexuality. That roundtable’s work has been completed, leading to affirmation of removing discriminatory language from the German Book of Discipline and creating a league for traditionalist Germans to support one another. This plan has been ratified by the central conference executive committee, but it has not been affirmed by vote of the Central Conference, which has not yet met due to the delay in General Conference meeting. The further delay in General Conference raises questions about whether German United Methodists will want to convene their central conference to ratify the roundtable’s work.

Both the Central and Southern Europe Central Conference and the Nordic and Baltic Episcopal Area also announced similar roundtable processes. The work of those roundtables has not progressed as far as the German roundtable, and that work remains ongoing. These roundtables have been complicated by greater variation within those areas of Europe than within Germany.

In the Central and Southern Europe Central Conference, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Romania have indicated that they may withdraw and join the new Global Methodist Church. However, Eastern Europe WCA leader and Bulgarian District Superintendent Daniel Topalski acknowledged in a WCA podcast all the factors outlined above that make the question of the future of The United Methodist Church in Eastern Europe a complicated one. He also indicated a distrust common across Europe of being treated as an afterthought by Americans making plans for the church’s future. Topalski will be wrapping up his time as district superintendent soon, though he will undoubtedly remain influential in Bulgaria and beyond.

On top of all these layers of complication, the war in Ukraine has added a new dimension of complexity. The war has further cemented Eastern European distrust of Russia (and therefore opposition to ecclesiastic leadership based in Russia). It has made connections between the church in Russia and any Western branch of Methodism—UMC or Global Methodist Church—much more politically fraught for Russian Methodists. And it has galvanized the connectional system so that European United Methodists across countries are working together to respond in generosity and compassion to Ukrainian refugees and other Ukrainians impacted by the war.

Due to the context of complicated religious, cultural, and political factors, a church split in the UMC was never going to be easy for European United Methodists. The timing of the split, coinciding with the war in Ukraine, has made it even worse. Many important questions – about central conference meetings, episcopal elections, roundtable processes, and decisions to stay UMC or leave for the Global Methodist Church – remain up in the air. But unlike American United Methodists, European United Methodists are currently confronted with something much more pressing than church politics: the largest war in their continent in 80 years.

Benjamin L. Hartley: Remembering Celilo Falls

Today’s post is by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley. Rev. Dr. Hartley is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity at the Seattle Pacific University School of Theology. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/.

On March 10, 1957, over a span of just over four hours, the waters of the mighty Columbia River flooded and silenced the Celilo Falls. The Dalles Dam would now provide electricity to the growing population of the Pacific Northwest, but the cost was dear.

Celilo Village, the oldest continuously inhabited village in North America (for which there is archeological evidence, anyway) remains today, but it has been moved further away from the dam-swollen river. For 15,000 years Native Americans fished, traded, and made cross-cultural connections with one another at this place. It was perhaps the continent’s best fishing spot with millions of salmon swimming through the narrow channels around and through the Falls. It was also a place where, for thousands of years, thousands of Native Americans gathered, their languages and customs mixing from many cultures throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Last week, on the 65^th anniversary of Celilo Falls’ silencing, I joined about three hundred Native Americans to mark the occasion at a park near Portland, Oregon. Yakama, Nez Perce, Cowlitz, Umatilla, Cayuse, and other tribal groups were well-represented. Some traveled hundreds of miles to be there. So far as I could tell, I was among just a handful of people who were not Native American.

I observed a sacred ceremony and heard testimony from elders who recalled their own parents weeping when Celilo Falls was flooded. At several points in the service, a flock of several hundred Canadian geese flew overhead, their calls almost drowning out the sounds of speakers, drums, and singing. In my own imagination, I couldn’t decide if the geese reminded me of the wailing of elders so many years ago, or if their call was reminiscent of a more confident reminder, “We are still here, and we shall not forget!”

I spent the day mostly being quiet, watching, and listening to what was happening around me. The mood was celebratory sometimes. After two years of Covid-canceled gatherings, people were once again able to meet across diverse tribal cultures. I learned about gill net fishing from a Yakama fisherman who still fishes near the once-Falls. I learned about the good work of the Confluence Project that is seeking to educate Oregon and Washington citizens about the people of the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

The dominant narrative too often remains that of Lewis and Clark’s voyage on this river in the early 19^th century rather than the story of peoples who traveled, fished, and loved the river for the 15,000 years before and two hundred years after Lewis and Clark passed by.

I attended this event for several reasons. Honoring a place like Celilo Falls that has brought different people, beliefs, and customs together for 15,000 years seemed important as I prayed for a divided United Methodism during this Lenten season.

I wrote an academic article a couple years ago about Methodist missionaries who lived a few miles downstream from the Celilo Falls (but still in the midst of smaller falls and rapids). It was the Methodists’ most successful mission outpost in the Pacific Northwest, and the missionaries there, Dan and Maria Lee and Elvira and Henry Perkins, were some of the best missionaries of their age. They had their blind spots and ethnocentric arrogance, of course.

But Henry and Elvira both became proficient in Sahaptin, an important language of the river. Henry’s detailed descriptions of the sacred salmon ceremony in the late 1830s (and still practiced at multiple sites along the river each April) is one of the earliest written accounts of the ceremony. His journals even suggest that Native practices and beliefs challenged his own interpretation of the Bible he was translating into Sahaptin. This willingness to have his ideas challenged is one of the things I admire about Henry, and I seek to follow in his footsteps on that.

I was also present at this 65^th commemoration of the silencing of the Celilo Falls because I am still trying to live out the desire for reconciliation and repentance that my Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference expressed at a service of worship in 2015. It described repentance “as a journey and not a destination.”

That is true, of course. But Blue Lake Regional Park outside of Portland, Oregon was one destination on March 10, 2022 where I needed to show up to remember, repent, and also bear witness to my desire for right relationships and reconciliation in the present and future. I am trying to do that where I live and work at Seattle Pacific University in the Puget Sound. It is far away from the Columbia River in some ways, but as I learned last Thursday, the silencing of the Falls affects us all. It can also still bring people together.

Recommended Reading: Deaconesses in Methodist History

As part of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women (GCSRW)'s celebration of Women's History Month and its own 50th anniversary, it has published an excellent historical overview of the office of deaconesses in the Methodist tradition, written by Rev. Emily Nelms Chastain. Interested readers looking to supplement Chastain's overview can also check out these biographies of significant early leaders of the deaconess movement in the United States: that of Lucy Rider Meyer, that of Dr. Jane Bancroft Robinson, and that of Belle Harris Bennett. These biographies come from the Methodist mission bicentennial collection. Chastain writes about the spread of the deaconess movement to India, and Isabella Thoburn was an early leader among deaconesses there. She also writes about the significance of the deaconess movement in the Philippines. Institutions like Ka Onang Bible Institute and leaders like Prudencia Fabro helped cultivate the movement there. The deaconess program in present-day United Methodism is overseen by United Women in Faith, formerly United Methodist Women.

What now? African disaffiliation

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. It is the second in a series examining issues in The United Methodist Church following the further postponement of General Conference to 2024. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

With the postponement of General Conference, the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation is, at best, on hold for another two years and, at worst, a dead proposal. Therefore, Traditionalists have announced that they intend to proceed with the launch of the new Global Methodist Church on May 1st, thus beginning the process of forming that new denomination.

The Protocol would have allowed not just individual churches but entire annual conferences to transfer into the Global Methodist Church. Without the Protocol, Traditionalists are focusing (for now) on encouraging individual churches to make plans to join the new denomination. The plan is for United Methodist congregations to use ¶2548.2 of the Book of Discipline, which allows for transfer of congregations into “another evangelical denomination,” in this case, the Global Methodist Church.

However, as the Council of Bishops’ recent request for a declaratory decision from the Judicial Council shows, there is still interest in entire annual conference departing The United Methodist Church. The Judicial Council has agreed to hear this request.

Four out of the six questions that the bishops asked the Judicial Council focused on annual conferences in the United States, where it is unclear whether whole annual conferences can leave by any means. Question 2 asked about annual conferences outside the United States where, as the question acknowledged, there are disciplinary provisions for annual conferences to leave the UMC. As the request thus highlights, this is an area in which important differences exist between the church in the United States and the church elsewhere.

This is significant because, while a lot of the focus in US conversations has been on Traditionalists in the United States leaving the church, various Traditionalist leaders outside the United States, especially in Africa, have expressed their intention to join the new Global Methodist Church. (This applies as well to some United Methodists in Eastern Europe, though I will explore the situation in Europe in a subsequent article.) As indicated by the very name “Global Methodist Church,” including Methodists from around the world has been important, at very least rhetorically, for Traditionalist leaders, even as the plans for the new denomination have at times presumed an American context.

For Traditionalist-aligned United Methodists in Africa, there are significant advantages to joining the Global Methodist Church as entire annual conferences, not as individual congregations. Annual conference-wide decisions better reflect more collectivist cultural traditions, the greater power of African bishops relative to US bishops, and the administrative challenges of collecting and communicating church-by-church decisions in rural areas with limited infrastructure.

Annual conference wide decisions would also allow African United Methodists to retain control of schools, clinics, and other institutions which are an important part of the United Methodist brand in Africa. Such institutions sometimes already struggle financially; legal and financial battles for control over them could cause them to founder.

Thus, the COB’s question about the departure of annual conferences in the central conferences is significant for the future of United Methodists in Africa.

Question 2 references ¶572 of the Book of Discipline. As previously detailed on this blog, that paragraph allows annual conferences outside the United States to request autonomy in a four-step process:

1. The Central Conference containing the departing part of the church (the entire central conference or just one annual conference therein) must approve autonomy.

2. That decision must be ratified by a 2/3 or greater majority of all votes at all annual conferences within the central conference in question.

3. The departing conference must work with the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters to develop a statement on why they’re choosing autonomy and mutually agree on a statement of faith and a constitution for the new church.

4. General Conference, on the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters, must vote by simple majority to grant an enabling act that bestows autonomy.

Once an annual conference from the central conferences had become autonomous by following these steps, presumably it could then negotiate with the Global Methodist Church to join that denomination.

The process outlined above is a lengthy one that involves decisions by annual conferences, the Central Conference, the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters, and the General Conference. Thus, the earliest a portion of the UMC in Africa could leave under these provisions is in 2024 after the next meeting of the General Conference, and that presumes that the relevant central conference and the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters would have met previously, which is not guaranteed. Disaffiliation under ¶572 would be a slow process lasting 2-7 years.

Therefore, the bishops have asked whether the provisions of ¶572 must be “viewed as minimum standards” for the depart of an annual conference outside the United States. In other words, does an annual conference outside the United States that wishes to leave the UMC and join the Global Methodist Church have to follow the rules of ¶572 to do so, or is there a quicker and easier way for them to depart?

The Judicial Council’s answer to this question will have significant implications for many. It will, of course, impact those African branches of the church seeking to leave. It will impact the Global Methodist Church as it figures out how to constitute itself so as to live into the first word in its name. And it will impact the remaining United Methodist Church, as the presence or absence of African Traditionalists at General Conference 2024 (and possibly 2028) will greatly affect the shape of discussions at that event.