An Apology to Majority-World Methodists

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

As United Methodist Church (UMC) clergy and laypeople in the United States, we should acknowledge the harm that was done by American liberals and progressives in response to the 2019 Special Session of the General Conference, which upheld the teachings of Jesus on marriage (Matthew 19). It is clear that American liberal and progressive Christians have an anti-African bias in particular, and this is evident in the colonial tropes that have been spoken by some of their clergy and laypeople in the aftermath of the Special Session, which have been overheard in private discussions. American liberal and progressive Christians believe that our African, Asian, and Eastern European brothers and sisters are not enlightened when it comes to matters of sexuality. Homocolonialism, or homonationalism, is what people in black and brown countries in the Eastern Hemisphere call it when Westerners attempt to export their sexual ethics to the rest of the world. This line of thinking centers whiteness as normative, excludes Eastern perspectives, and is thereby hypocritical to the nature of inclusion.

African and Asian countries have by and large rejected same-sex marriage, according to the Human Rights Campaign’s “Marriage Equality Around the World” report. South Africa and Taiwan are the only black and brown countries that have legalized same-sex marriage, while Slovenia is the only Eastern European country to do so. 

In short, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Shinto, Communist, Secular, and Christian countries in Africa and Asia have almost all rejected same-sex marriage. And these countries have even resisted attempts by the United Nations to legalize the practice. An astute Westerner should have known what the outcome of the vote of the Special Session was going to be prior to going to St. Louis, based upon the available research of global perspectives on same-sex marriages.

Yet, the UMC is rooted in White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) culture, which has historically excluded American minority voices in the decision-making process. However, since the 1968 merger that formed the denomination, there has been a concerted effort by some in the UMC to become more inclusive. Yet, this inclusion created a patron-client relationship, in which non-whites were given positions at the tables of power within the denomination in exchange for promoting an agenda which ultimately maintained the values of WASP culture. This kinder, gentler form of WASP culture is known as liberalism.

Liberalism is a social construct that was heavily influenced by British philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The tenets of liberalism include an emphasis on scientific inquiry, the adoption of the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation, and the rejection of the spiritual realm, among other things. In practice, everything that was developed by Orthodox Christian African, Asian, and Eastern European Bible scholars and theologians was called into question. Progressivism, which was influenced by German philosopher Immanuel Kant, goes even further than liberalism in its focus on reason and experience as essential to philosophical knowledge.  Neither Hobbes, Locke, nor Kant consulted any Africans or Asians in the development of their philosophies and their critique of tradition. They thereby centered both liberalism and progressivism in the European Enlightenment of their time. The Enlightenment would go on to influence Christianity in Western Europe and the Western hemisphere, including theological education in the United States. 

Many American Methodist clergy were trained at institutions which taught the scriptures, skimmed over the Early Church period, skipped to the Protestant Reformation, came back and cherry picked St. Augustine from the Early Church and brought him forward to the Reformation, landed on the historical-critical scholars of the Tubingen School in Germany, and regarded this German perspective as authoritative (even though there are no Germans in the scriptures), before being critiqued by liberation theologians of all stripes. While most theological institutions require an Early Church History course in order to receive a masters or doctorate degree, almost all of them also have a modern-language requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy programs in Biblical Studies, Religion, and Theology. And that modern language is German. 

Why German? WASP theological institutions adopted German biblical and theological scholarship in the 1880’s (approximately) as the foundation for their theological education. So, the research of Friedrich Schleiermacher (the Father of Liberal Christianity), as well as the tenets of the Social Gospel as espoused by Walter Rauschenbusch, became dominant in the academy. Other prominent German academic theologians include: Julius Wellhausen, Johann Eichorn, David Strauss, Rudolf Bultmann, and Adolf von Harnack. All these men rejected the orthodox biblical interpretation and theology of the Early Church, that was developed by Africans and Asians, to some degree or another. The German theologians developed the Documentary Hypothesis, Q Source, and the Historical Jesus theories to discredit the work of African and Asian theologians like Athanasius, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and the Cappadocian Fathers.

Yet in all of this theological training, American Methodists seem not to have been taught that the creeds that we recite in the back of our hymnal have the fingerprints of African and Asian theologians of the early church all over them! In fact, after the Christians were blamed for the Great Fire of Rome by Emperor Nero in 64 C.E. and expelled from Rome, and the Jews were defeated in the Jewish War in 70 C.E. by Roman Commander Titus and expelled from Jerusalem, it was the School of Alexandria and the School of Antioch that saved Christianity! The Alexandrians maintained the “literal and allegorical” biblical interpretation, while teaching orthodox Christian theology, advocating for the concepts of the trinity, as well as the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. The Antiochians introduced the “historical contextual” method of biblical interpretation to counter the over-dependence on the allegorical method. These schools flourished under indigenous Coptic and Syrian leadership respectively, in addition to Roman and Jewish scholarship of the Early Church.

With all that said, American Methodists were taught the philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and the theologians of the Tubingen School as normative. In other words, American Methodists were taught that Western theology was rooted in the liberalism and progressivism of the European Enlightenment. And thus, they were inherently taught to center whiteness in theology. African and Asian theologians of the Early Church were whitewashed during the Reformation, and made European. Africans and Asians were officially excluded from theological curricula in the academy until liberation theologies were introduced. Unfortunately, liberation theologies, which are dependent upon whiteness, seem to be rooted only in race, class, and gender categories. While the Coptic and Syrian Christians in antiquity were writing classical theology; very few liberation theologians are writing on the topics of the trinity, divinity, and the miraculous, sans sociology. While some reading this may question the use of Western terminology such as “classical” to describe the theologians of the early church, I question the exclusion of African and Asian theologians of antiquity from the theological curricula of American Methodist institutions.

Additionally, inter-ethnic squabbles among European Americans over the scriptures have occurred periodically, and nothing brings that home more than the Scopes Monkey trial, and the subsequent Battle for Princeton Theological Seminary. This time period was known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, and the remnants of this era still affect American Methodists today. Here, an American Methodist and former theology student states that there is an uncritical acceptance of liberal and progressive theological perspectives in the approved UMC seminaries, while tradition is characterized as unintelligent.

With all that said, the UMC is a global denomination, and American Methodists are a minority within it. Yet American liberal and progressive Christians believe that the Western Christian perspective is superior on matters of biblical interpretation and theology, which is contrary to the teachings of our founder, John Wesley. When John Wesley was trying to revive the Church of England, he studied African and Asian theologians in the early church, and adopted many of their theological perspectives and practices. A Greek Orthodox theologian from Marietta, Georgia, even praised John Wesley for his adoption of Orthodox Christian teaching. In contrast, most of our American liberal and progressive Christians have adopted the theology and practices of 19th century German theologians, which centers whiteness by specifically excluding African and Asian theologians of antiquity.

Therefore, we, the traditional American Methodists, embrace the Primitive Christian biblical interpretation and theological perspectives of John Wesley, in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. And more specifically, we reject the theological/ philosophical musings of Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and the Tübingen School as authoritative teachings. And I speak for many when I say that we apologize for the hatred that has been shown to you by American liberal and progressive Christians. We also apologize for our public silence as you have been attacked by Western Christians who claim to be inclusive in their theology. Please understand that we have been attacked by the same forces, who call us colonialists for seeking solidarity with you, after they were rejected by the Africans. We, the traditional American Methodists, stand with you and will defend your perspective, and ours, against exclusive American liberal and progressive Christians who refuse to be in fellowship with you, and us, unless it is on their Western terms. Please accept this apology.

Odell Horne is a Lay Servant at Impact Church (East Point, GA). He has a graduate degree in African and African American Studies and is a Doctor of Theology candidate.