Theological Liberalism and United Methodist Decline

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When the UMC came into existence in 1968, with the Methodist Church merging with the Evangelical United Brethren church, we had a total of at least 10.7 million members. Today we have less than 6.9 million members, a loss of 3.8 million members. What has happened to us? 

The roots of our problem did not begin 30, 40, or 50 years ago, but actually in the early 1900s. This period saw the emergence of what is known historically as Theological Liberalism. This movement touched not only American Methodism, but every mainline denomination in America.

Theological Liberalism refers to a specific, historical movement that challenged and often displaced the very substance of our church’s classical Christian doctrine. The thesis of the book I have written on this topic is this: the era of the early 1900s in American Methodism was the critical period in which Methodism experienced major doctrinal transition, revision, defection, and even denial of her Wesleyan doctrinal heritage. We continue to live with the impact of that history.

Changes at the Turn of the Century 

The beginning of the twentieth century was a time of enormous social, economic, and intellectual ferment in America. The Industrial Revolution brought major changes as Americans moved from farms to the cities. Between 1860 and 1900, the number of cities with populations of 8,000 or more increased from 141 to 547. Also, by 1900, one-third of America’s population of 75 million were either foreign-born or children of foreign-born people. Fast-growing cities experienced unprecedented new social and economic ills.

A more critical ingredient in the intellectual world at the time was the growing acceptance of the scientific or empirical method, with its emphasis on observation and experimentation in determining truth. Customary appeals to authority were challenged in every field. A new mechanistic worldview emerged, with its persistent search for cause and effect. The emphasis on natural causation left little or no room for special divine act or revelation. The concepts of miracles and the supernatural were strongly challenged, which proved devastating to the teaching of the Bible and Christian doctrine. 

Along with the New Science came the robust acceptance of the Darwinian theory of evolution by many American theologians. Since humans were seen as developing from elementary to more complex forms of life and thought, early Christianity—which had served the earlier and supposedly less-enlightened age well—could be put aside in favor of more advanced views of science and empiricism.

One further emphasis within the religious thought of the era was the growing number of American religious leaders who traveled to Germany to study in the universities under German philosophers. Of the 700 scholars listed in Who’s Who in America in 1900, more than 300 had studied in Germany. They returned to challenge the traditional views of the evangelical church in America. The Germans studied religion from a rational, scientific point of view. The miraculous in Scripture was minimized, if not eliminated altogether. Remove the belief in revelation and the Bible becomes just another piece of ancient literature reflecting the myths and folklore current at the time of authorship. 

During this turbulent period, new views were being taught concerning revelation, sin, and salvation. This created serious tensions, even a crisis, in Methodism. There was tension between the new doctrinal views of many Methodist professors and leaders versus Methodist pastors and laity. 

Theological Liberalism was not a popular movement. It was found mainly in denominational seminaries and colleges, among professors, church bureaucrats, bishops, and those in church publishing. Claiming that Methodism was not a doctrinal church, leaders gave more attention to the new disciplines of sociology, psychology, and the philosophy of religion. Historian Henry Steele Commager made a telling observation: “During the 19th century and well into the 20th, religion prospered while theology went slowly bankrupt.”

Charges of Theological Modification and Doctrinal Revision

We often hear that Methodism was not affected by the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. That is not actually true. In several chapters I cite numerous voices within Methodism that expressed deep concern that basic, foundational doctrines were being neglected, modified, and even abandoned. Here are several examples:

As early as 1904, George W. Wilson, in his Methodist Theology vs. Methodist Theologians (Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye), criticized the Methodist Book Concern for publishing volumes “in which the authors assail doctrines which are fundamental to the spirituality, growth, and perpetuity of her [Methodism’s] institutions.” He charged that they aim “to correct well-established beliefs,” and concluded, “everything fundamental to Methodism is being assailed.” Bishop W. F. Mallalieu of Massachusetts wrote the book’s introduction. He claimed the book was needed so that “our Methodism [would] become more Wesleyan and Scriptural… rather than yield to the un-evangelical, un-Wesleyan, and un-Scriptural tendency of the present times.” These were strong words from a Methodist bishop!

Wilson also criticized the writings of the popular Boston Seminary professor and dean Borden Parker Bowne. He charged that in Bowne’s writings, “Everything distinctively Methodistic is negated or denied in these pages. Sin, repentance, regeneration, the witness of the Spirit… All distinctions go down before this ‘new conception.’”

Another voice was John Alfred Faulkner, professor of church history at Drew Theological Seminary. In his Modernism and the Christian Faith (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1921), he claimed, “One reason for the tremendous liberalizing influence of the last 25 years has been the trend which has gone forth from the potent name of [German philosopher Albrecht] Ritschl.” He was concerned that seminaries in America “are filled with professors who have either sat in the Ritschlian lecture rooms in Berlin” or had sat under professors who had studied there. His concerns weren’t about minor issues. He wrote of a “sea-change in the belief of evangelical ministers” and of new ideas that would “emasculate evangelical Christianity.” He titled a chapter “Ritschl or Wesley?” in which he claimed “Ritschl is threatening to drive Wesley out of business.” 

One further example from this period was the work of Harold Paul Sloan and the Methodist League for Faith and Life. Sloan was a graduate of Drew Seminary and pastor of the Haddonfield Methodist Church, the largest Methodist Church in the New Jersey Annual Conference. A member of the Commission on Education, he claimed 31 annual conferences had petitioned the General Conference out of concern about the liberal “new theology” reflected in those selecting the books for the Course of Study (the way non-seminarians entered the ministry). 

In 1925, Sloan and a group of pastors met in Delaware to found The Methodist League for Faith and Life. Its purpose was “to meet the Modernist current and drive which is threatening Methodism as the Unitarians did the Congregational Church 100 years earlier.” Pittsburgh Bishop Adna Leonard had won the admiration of Sloan and the Methodist evangelicals, had befriended Sloan, and even visited in his home. Leonard spoke positively of the League’s cause as being in the best interests of evangelical Christianity and suggested other bishops might unite with them. 

In February, 1927, Leonard had agreed to write an article for the first issue of Sloan’s new publication, The Essentialist. However, just days before his article was due, Bishop Leonard wrote Sloan saying, “In view of all the matters involved…it will not be possible for me to identify myself with The League for Faith and Life.” Sloan was devastated. He knew Leonard and a number of other bishops were alarmed by the church’s unfaithfulness to its doctrine. He was deeply distressed by the unwillingness of the bishops to speak out on behalf of doctrinal faithfulness, opting rather for a façade of unity.   

The next year, Sloan brought a petition to the 1928 General Conference with 10,000 signatures from 522 Methodist churches in 41 states! This was a massive grass-roots effort that charged growing disloyalty in doctrinal standards in Methodist seminaries, pulpits, and literature. Sadly, delegates refused to give it serious consideration. Later the bishops responded to Sloan’s urgings, saying “We exhort ourselves and all of our brethren to avoid controversial agitation.”

What was Theological Liberalism? 

First, a definition:

Theological Liberalism was the movement that accommodated the Christian faith to the new, anti-supernatural axioms that had quickly become widely accepted in American intellectual circles. While denying tenets basic to historic Christianity, those embracing theological liberalism believed they were helping preserve traditional Christianity so that it could survive in the modern world. 

Alister McGrath, chair of theology at King’s College, London, described theological liberalism by saying it insisted “that traditional Christian doctrines should be restated or reinterpreted in order to render them harmonious with the spirit of the age” (A Passion for Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996). 

In my chapter defining theological liberalism, I consider lengthy critiques from two professors who spoke out forcefully at the time against the new theology. One was  J Gresham Machen and the other was Edwin Lewis. (I also cite contemporary Anglican author and theologian, the late J. I. Packer.)

J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, charged that what the liberal theologians had retained “after abandoning…one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to belong in a distinct category.” Machen was convinced that the liberal attempt to reconcile Christianity with modern science had “really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity” (Christianity and Liberalism, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923).

A decade later, Edwin Lewis, a Methodist professor of theology at Drew School of Theology, agreed with Machen, charging that the only way to be considered a modern man in his day was to “eliminate from traditional Christianity everything with which the alleged modernity cannot be harmonized.” This included the supernatural events of the Christian message: divine revelation, the virgin birth, the incarnation, miracles, the resurrection, and the future return of Christ. With considerable indignation, Lewis insisted that if you want a “new religion” constructed without reference to the Great Tradition, then you ought to be quite frank and admit what you have done—substituted the new for the old. But, in that event, he insisted, “shouldn’t the next step be to give it a new name as well?” He was demanding honesty, believing this was a new religion (A Christian Manifesto: New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Abingdon, 1934).

A key characteristic of Theological Liberalism was that it defined itself over against the doctrines of historic Christianity—citing doctrinal claims it no longer believed.This involved six negations: the need for salvation, original sin, the virgin birth, the deity and resurrection of Christ, the mandate to ‘go and make disciples,’ and the authority of Scripture. Liberalism often spoke of a “non-incarnational Christology,” which Lewis, Machen and other evangelicals realized was a completely different way of understanding who Jesus was and why He came. It was as if nineteen centuries of Christian tradition were being put aside for a totally new understanding of Jesus. 

The Longevity of Theological Liberalism

Theological liberalism cast a long shadow and resulted in the trivialization of doctrine in the United Methodist Church, relegating it to a secondary, marginal place in the life of the church. Not all pastors embraced the “new theology,” especially those who came into ministry through the Course of Study rather than seminary. However, most who moved into leadership positions did embrace it. Consider three brief vignettes:

First, in July 1944, James G. Gilkey was invited to be the main speaker at the Texas Pastors’ School at Southern Methodist University. He was a graduate of Harvard and Union Theological Seminary and was a popular pastor of a Congregational Church in Springfield, Massachusetts. Well-known Methodist pastor Robert P. Shuler, an evangelical, protested the Gilkey invitation. He charged that Methodism was bringing into Methodist pastors’ schools men who were experts at denying the basic doctrines of classic Christianity.

Shuler called attention to controversial theological claims in Gilkey’s book, A Faith to Affirm. Gilkey was quite candid. He wrote, “We liberals believe five things about Jesus. He was a human being, like all the rest of us in quality. Second, He was born in the normal way, the eldest child of Joseph and Mary. Third, the miracles attributed to him are in reality legends which sprang up during and after his life. His most important act was not to die on the cross, but to live and teach our race its most significant set of religious and ethical beliefs.” He also denied the bodily resurrection.

He wrote, “We cannot think that by dying Jesus purchased for human beings the forgiveness of sin; to us Jesus’ death is tragedy, nothing more.” And again, “We liberals regard them (teachings of Jesus) as the most precious elements in Christianity; and we propose to take them, combine them with new truths and insights gained since Jesus’ time, and then offer this combination of teachings to the modern world as a new form of the Christian faith” (emphases mine). Little wonder Shuler protested Gilkey’s speaking at a Methodist pastors’ school. Note also that the ethical teachings of Jesus were all that basically remained as the substance of liberalism’s message.

Second, in the Spring 1969 issue of United Methodist Teacher I and II, United Methodist Sunday School teachers would have read these troubling words: “The drama of Jesus would be far stronger and make a far greater appeal to this post-Christian age without all this supernatural claptrap brought in at the end with a dead man suddenly brought back to life again.” It went on to say, “Wouldn’t the story of Jesus of Nazareth be more powerful and truer to itself in being less self-centered, if his life had ended in death?” Unbelievably, this was from the official denominational Teachers’ Manual! 

Third, Professor Claude Thompson, an esteemed professor of systematic theology at United Methodism’s Candler School of Theology, spoke at the first National Good News Convocation in Dallas, TX in 1970. He charged that theological seminaries may be doing more harm than good. (He spoke of all mainline seminaries, but did not exempt Candler.) He said, “What can we expect from our pulpits when men are trained under teachers who profess no faith in God; who doubt His existence; who regard Jesus as only a good man—not a Savior; who have no place for prayer; who minimize the authority of the Bible; who have dismissed any idea of spiritually transformed lives under the Holy Spirit; who do not believe in life after death; and have long since come to regard our Wesleyan heritage—both theologically and evangelically—as out of date.” This incredible charge would have been descriptive of professors who had accepted the new teachings of Theological Liberalism. 

In conclusion, those of us who are clergy promised at our ordinations that we would “faithfully proclaim the Word of God and defend the church against all doctrine contrary to God’s Word.” The latter task is not as pleasant and takes courage. But someone has noted that “Luther didn’t tremble before the Pope because he had already trembled before God.” May God give us the courage “to present ourselves to God as those approved, workers who do not need to be ashamed, who correctly handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).  

Dr. James Heidinger is a retired clergy member from the East Ohio Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He served as president and publisher of Good News from 1981-2009. This essay summarizes some of the central arguments in his book The Rise of Theological Liberalism and the Decline of American Methodism (Seedbed Publishing: Franklin, TN, 2017).