Where to Begin Reformation of the UMC

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“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” (H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America, 1937)

“Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1937)

“God did not grant a Reformation to American Christendom. He gave strong revivalist preachers, men of the church, and theologians, but no reformation of the church of Jesus Christ from the word of God.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Protestantism without Reformation,” 1939)

As the splintering or separating of the United Methodist Church gains momentum, the latest mantra ricocheting among United Methodists is: “The doctrine (or ‘doctrinal standards’) of the United Methodist Church will not change.” That statement is true. However, the issue for United Methodists is not whether church doctrine will change. The issue for United Methodists is whether church doctrine will be taught and learned, upheld and defended. The UMC certainly has doctrinal standards that are printed in the Book of Discipline. But in its actual faith and life, the church seldom turns to its doctrine for guidance. Instead, the church returns, by default, to its operational theology. Usually dignified with the title “Wesleyan theology” or “Wesleyan theology of grace,” the operational theology of the UMC is the theology that is spoken, written, and assumed as United Methodists go about their business of being, and doing, church. 

The District Committee on Ministry (DCOM), which exists and serves in most districts, provides a window into United Methodism’s operational theology. During its four or five meetings each year, this committee annually interviews some pastors in the district, and many of those who are associated with the district and who aspire to become pastors. In these interviews, whether they realize it or not, committee members (clergy and laity) speak the operational theology of their church. And whether they are aware of it or not, those being interviewed are being trained to speak the vocabulary of their church’s operational theology. My experience serving on a DCOM has provided me the opportunity to see this denominational theology in action. The remarks that follow are based on my observations

In its meetings, the DCOM functions like a temporary seminary. Leading the interviews, committee members repeat, and are thereby renewed in, their denomination’s operational theology. Enduring the interviews and responding to questions, the interviewed are formed into clergy who will speak, think, and write like currently active United Methodist clergy. Both those interviewing and those interviewed are constantly marinating in operational theology. Positively speaking, DCOM’s work can be understood as theological training. Critically depicted, it can be seen as denominational indoctrination.

Operational Theology Today

What is the operational theology of the United Methodist Church? At the top of the list is “the Wesleyan way of salvation.” The DCOM often asks those interviewed to describe how Wesley understood salvation. The replies are generally predictable. Most answers to that question mention grace, but more specifically prevenient grace, justifying grace, sanctifying grace, and perfecting grace. 

But there is a problem here. United Methodism’s operational theology, which the DCOM teaches and reteaches its clergy, usually gives an account of salvation with little or no reference to two crucial aspects of the ministry of Jesus Christ; his death and resurrection! What counts most, in this theology, is grace. But the focus is on the Christian, while Christ and his saving death and resurrection are not named. So the Wesleyan way of salvation is often summarized without a mere mention of Jesus Christ.

Put differently, we teach grace without atonement. We teach new life without resurrection. God has reached out to us in love while we were yet sinners. We are justified (forgiven, pardoned from sin), and God sanctifies us–makes us holier people. God will even make us perfect in love. But how is this possible? What of the effects of sin? What of the power of death? How has God dealt with these? Listening to the operational theology at work in some DCOM meetings, it seems we want to affirm the benefits of our salvation without talking about the great sacrifice God has made so that we may be saved. 

The New Testament hammers home the message of the cross. Christ understood that his vocation is inseparable from the cross (Mark 8:31). He was made perfect (complete) through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). He died for the undeserving and thus demonstrated his love for us (Rom 5:8). And because he did so, God raised him from the dead (Phil 2:9). Christ conquered death through his act of perfect obedience, and now he lives forever in the presence of the Father, just as we will in the age to come. 

The church’s operational theology is also on display when the Sacraments are discussed during DCOM interviews. Topics include: liturgical logistics, personal blessings, communal responsibilities, and the ways in which United Methodist sacramental beliefs differ from those of other traditions. But all of this is often done without reference to our Lord, and to his death and resurrection--and without the promise that he will show up and be at work during Baptism and Communion.

Without Jesus Christ at the center, salvation and Sacraments are nothing more than religious experience and rituals. With Jesus Christ at the center, salvation and Sacraments rescue captives from the relentless grasp of original sin, forgive sins, cancel guilt, transform life, instill hope, empower for battle against evil and lies, and instill a yearning for the Kingdom to come.

Time for Reform

So what can be done? Simply reform the operational theology of The United Methodist Church. No District Committee on Ministry should tolerate theological accounts of salvation that lack dependence on Calvary and the Empty Tomb. And no DCOM should accept theological explanations of Baptism and Communion that lack strong reference to Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection for the sins, and transformation, of the world. In other words, every District Committee on Ministry should be reformed and renewed by the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ.

This little reformation might begin during interviews by the DCOM’s routine references to the doctrinal standards--especially the Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith. Those standards declare the catastrophe of original sin for humanity, the absence of free will without God’s intervention, the absolute need for prevenient grace to free people to say yes to God, the radical dependence of justification on Jesus Christ, the radical blessings of sanctification received through faith in Jesus Christ, and the radical purity of perfect love received through faith in Jesus Christ. When well employed, the church’s doctrinal standards protect the church’s operational theology from degenerating into denominational conventional wisdom.

Every denomination has an operational theology. United Methodist operational theology is taught and learned and relearned. However, that operational theology has become stale, rote, and believer-centered. Reformed DCOM’s can address this operational theology and open it up by looking to church doctrine and the centrality of Jesus Christ--once crucified, once resurrected, now alive, now reigning over all, and one day returning to restore all creation. Then and only then can the DCOM teach clergy to witness most faithfully to Jesus Christ in the church and in the world. District Committees on Ministry, do not delay.

Paul T. Stallsworth is a retired elder in the North Carolina Conference, and leads the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality.