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Rev. Scott Campbell June 14, 2003 Let me begin by telling you what an honor it is to be asked to be here to speak with you this morning. This breakfast has been for a number of years one of the highlights of the annual conference and a beacon of hope to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, both in the church and in the world.
I suspect that I have been invited in part because of my involvement in helping to produce a recent book United Methodism @ Risk: A Wakeup Call. Fortunately for me, your invitation was issued before Jim Heidinger, Editor of Good News Magazine, had a chance to review the book. In a prepared statement he declared that the book was "little more than a third-rate, attempted exposé with almost embarrassingly poor scholarship and numerous inaccuracies." At least we know we got his attention. He did point out in support of his analysis that he never headed the confessing movement, as the book implies. So let us apologize to Rev. Heidinger for giving him more credit than he deserves..
It is curious, however, that Brother Heidinger did not choose to dispute the allegation in the book that some 4.4 million dollars has been directed from conservative secular foundations to the Institute on Religion and Democracy over the last 20 years. Nor did he challenge the contention that the Rev. Scott Field, director of legislative affairs for Good News, made a presentation at the Confessing the Faith conference in Indianapolis last October on the deliberate use of wedge issues to divide the church and gain support for the positions Good News is advocating. Heidinger also neglected to challenge the book’s assertion that the groundwork is being laid to expel theological dissenters from the church. (That, of course, is hard to do when Good News is publishing articles by Professor Thomas Oden that declare: “Little will change until charges are stated clearly and evidence is presented in fair hearings.”)
Heidinger went on to say, "The book is a sustained attack from the old-guard denominational establishment whose views have been dominant for the past 30 or more years, during which time our church has lost nearly 3 million members." This is one of the few times that Heidinger might be guilty of understatement. The views in question have not shaped the church for the last 30 years, but for most of the last century. They were the dominant views while Methodism was growing into the largest Protestant denomination in the United States in the 1950’s and 60’s. The Methodist Church throughout the 20th century was characterized by theological tolerance and openness of spirit, qualities that have now become suspect in the eyes of the religious right and focal points for scapegoating around membership loss. If we are looking for a key event in the loss of members, might it not be every bit as plausible to hypothesize that the beginning of the membership decline in the United Methodist Church corresponds almost exactly with the emergence of Good News in 1967!?
I suppose we could continue in this vein for the time that we have left to us today, but I’m not entirely sure that it would profit us a great deal. There is a place for back and forth with those on the other side of these issues, but if we allow our agenda to be completely shaped by theirs, we might well miss an opportunity to think critically about getting our own house in order. So I want to move us in a different direction this morning. The place where I would like us to look is going to seem rather odd to you, I suspect, but bear with me please.
I want to turn back the clock some 250 years and ask you to look with me at the General Rules of Our United Societies. They are in your Discipline in case you might be wondering where to find them. For those of you who carry that book with you to breakfast every day, they begin on page 72. These were the guidelines for the people called Methodist throughout much of the formative period of our church. They are, in fact, one of the foundational expressions of our faith that the religious right is calling us to heed. This morning we will oblige them.
The General Rules have been called the forerunner to the modern Social Principles. They fall into three distinct categories. They adjure Methodists first of all to do “no harm” and avoid “evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced, such as:”
You catch the drift. The second section of the rules calls upon members to do all the good they can to others:
The final section of the rules is even more straightforward. Those who would belong to the societies must evidence their desire for salvation by attending upon all the ordinances of God, such as:
There are two things I would like you to note about the General Rules. First, they are inextricably linked with personal piety. They are social in nature, but they are understood as visible evidence of the believer’s relationship with Jesus Christ. The second thing I want you to pay attention to is that every single one of them has to do with how the believer, as an individual, will act in the world.
Hold those thoughts. Now we are going to leap a couple of centuries, all the way up to the 2000 Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, where we will find those Social Principles we mentioned a few minutes ago. They are divided, I’m sure you will recall, into six general sections, preceded by a preface and a preamble. I’m not going to go into detail as to the content of the Social Principles, but check them out for yourself when you get a chance. I want to look at them through the same lens we just used to look at the General Rules.
Before we go any further here, let me be clear about one thing. I do not think the Social Principles are a bad thing. I think they have a very useful role to play, and I am not in favor of dispensing with them. I do believe, however, that it is important for us to understand what they are and what they are not.
The first thing I would like you to notice about the Social Principles is that the vital link between the principles and personal experience of the believer is difficult, if not impossible to discern. At no point are the social concerns that are outlined connected to devotional practice. Instead, they are grounded in a series of theological propositions about the way God is at work in the world. God is a God of grace and mercy; God loves all people; God created all that is; etc. If someone were to read the Social Principles without any understanding of the community that spawned them, that person would be hard pressed to imagine what sorts of practices might accompany such beliefs. In a word, they are what the name implies—principles to consider rather than rules to live by.
The second thing we cannot fail to see is that the Social Principles are all about how other people ought to behave. The are filled with language like: we encourage, we support, we urge, we call for. They reveal a mindset that has shifted significantly from the early days of the societies. The early Methodists would not have had the audacity to call upon anyone to do anything. Methodists were a minority sect within the Church of England. They had little if any political power. No one was turning to them for their opinions on the great issues of the day. The only persons they could influence were their own members, and they took that responsibility very seriously. They had the power to determine how they would enter into the world.
The exceptions to prescribing behavior for others in the Social Principles are found in its affirmations of faith. They are abundant. We believe is the most common form such declarations take, although other words are sometimes used. “We consider (the practice of homosexuality) to be incompatible with Christian teaching” is but one example among many.
So, how did this happen? How did we move from rules to govern our behavior in the world to principles to shape the way we think about social issues? Without claiming to be comprehensive in my analysis, let me lift up a couple of possibilities.
First, it became abundantly clear in the nineteenth century to those who were shaping church policy that systems and institutions were responsible for much that was wrong in the world. It was no longer adequate to simply live a good life. It was necessary to band together politically to have a positive effect on government, industry and social institutions. Movements were born—labor unions, women’s suffrage, temperance, foreign and home missions, just to name a few.
My good friend Bob Moore, in his Zeigler sermon a number of years ago, included an illustration which has since become well-known about people who lived on a river who noticed that babies were floating by, so they began to pluck them from the river. They even set up a rescue station. Finally someone asked the question: “how are the babies getting in the river?” At that point the people moved from mere action to politics. Something similar happened in the Methodist church in the latter part of the 19th century.
Second, by the mid point of the 20th century Methodists actually had influence in the system. When the population of the U.S. was under 150 million and more than 11 million of those folk were Methodists, there was a degree of influence that the denomination exerted in the society. The fact that a Methodist bishop like G. Bromley Oxnam was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy was an indication of the perceived influence of the church. The situation is far different today with a membership of 8 million out of a population of more than 250 million.
We have continued, however, to operate as if someone were paying attention to us long after they have ceased to do so. Our Book of Resolutions has increased in bulk tenfold in the last 30 years. In some sense, our resolutions have become a comfortable alternative to action for many of us. Our social analysis is penetrating, our grasp of the subtleties of policy is commendable, and our research is splendid. The problem is, not much changes after we’ve made our pronouncements. While it is true that these resolutions help to shape the work of the Board of Church and Society, the people in the pews don’t know, with few exceptions, that we even have a Book of Resolutions. And if they don’t know it, you can be sure that the folks on Capitol Hill aren’t rushing out to buy their copies. That is why you hear virtually nothing from the religious right having anything to do with resolutions. They’re content to let us pass whatever we want while they rewrite the Discipline.
I’m sure that we could come up with other reasons for the change from focusing on the way we act to the way we think, but the more important question is whether we are content with things as they are? Is it working? Are we making progress in our efforts to bring about a more just, peaceful, sustainable and compassionate world? My premise is a simple one, really. I believe we would be considerably more effective if we were able to better link our ideas and our actions. Let me suggest a few possibilities for moving us in that direction.
First, I believe we progressives need to commit ourselves to linking our personal religious experience with our social justice ministries. It is not enough to simply have an opinion about what should be done in the world. It is not even enough to have a well-reasoned theology to guide us. Our social stance needs to be grounded in our devotional practice. One of the reasons that the religious right has built such a formidable movement is that they know this to be so. Everything they undertake is grounded in prayer and scripture study. Now, you and I may disagree with their discernment, but it is difficult to question their commitment and their energy. They do not look tired and burned out to me.
I believe we have allowed the cord that binds our interior spiritual life to our social action to fray and slacken. It must be repaired and drawn tight if we are going to have the impact that I believe the gospel challenges us to have.
Wesley knew that persons working alone could not do this. He knew that Christians needed one another for accountability and support. What would it be like if MFSA chapters all across the country decided that they were going to become more intentional about being covenant communities? Imagine it for a moment—people covenanting together, praying together, listening for the Spirit among them, committing to do certain things in the world as an extension of their relationship with Christ and with one another, and then watching over each other in love as they held one another accountable for those promises they made. Would anything change? I believe it would.
I had the privilege this year of being a part of a covenant discipleship group with United Methodist students at Harvard Divinity School. Most of us would have had not difficulty in assenting to most of what appears in the Social Principles when we started the year. We all shared similar opinions about the world. But by the end of the academic year, in addition to being able to affirm those principles, two students had developed relationships with little brothers through the Big Brother/Big Sister organization, another participated in a prison ministry, another became a part of a team that was working on diversity issues at Harvard, and another volunteered in a homeless meals program. All made financial commitments to their churches (we had promised to tithe) and all were regularly in worship on Sundays. One student started a young adult Bible study at his church and another volunteered in the church office every Friday. The point is simply that where there is a means to connect faith to practice, good things happen.
Second, we must move beyond the notion that we have done our work once we’ve said what we think about an issue. Three years ago a great deal of energy in our conference went into crafting the New England Declaration. We gathered signatures and sent the document out across the country. What has been its effect in our churches? Do we know? Have we followed up? What have we preached? What have we taught? It might be healthy for us to declare a moratorium on writing resolutions until we have learned to act in concert with one another once again. True, our numbers are relatively small, but the greatest work in human history has been done by minority groups! While resolutions may well have their place, they take too much of our energy and consume too much of our vision. We need to be devising action plans based on our encounter with the scriptures and the world and we need to be holding one another accountable for moving those plans forward. Those action agendas need to come out of our common religious life—not from what our adversaries are choosing to do. Lately, we have been so busy reacting we have forgotten how to act.
Finally, we must learn to make who we are work for us. Let’s address the problem that MFSA is not nearly as diverse as we would like it to be by finding ways to forge alliances around specific objectives with others. We’ve learned to do that around GLBT issues, but we have not done nearly as much as we might around race. We ought to be conferring annually with BMCR and the Hispanic and Asian Caucuses to discover common agendas for action. And let’s honor the many callings within our body. There is a wonderful variety of differing gifts within our community. If we have those who are adept at rescuing babies, let’s empower them to do that ministry, even as we send others upstream to find out how those babies are getting into the water. Both ministries are valid. Both are forms of acting. In a word, let’s combine the best of the early years of Methodism with all that we have learned throughout our rich history to make the 21st century a century of true progress.
I am not pessimistic about what is to come. If the radical right continues its ascendance our role will become clearer and more necessary than ever. If some of us are called to pay the price of our convictions with our ordinations or our membership, how is that different from any who have been persecuted for righteousness sake throughout the ages?
I recently came across a speech by Doris “Granny D” Haddock, 93 year old peace activist who three years ago walked across the country as a witness for peace. She closed her speech with these words:
This is great work. Did you, as a child, hope that one
day it would be in your hands to save the world? Then rejoice. Is it not indeed
joyful to find yourself embarking on a life of great meaning? Yes, that is the
great peace march smile we saw on the streets of New York and Washington and San
Francisco and a thousand other cities and towns, is it not? Aren't we joyful for
this moment, when all is at stake? We are, we are. And do not stand in the way
of our joy.
And so, my New England sisters and brothers in Christ, let’s take up our small part in saving the world joyfully. It is indeed our highest calling.
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