Expanding on a previous post – “Can You Imagine?” A Stay UMC Presentation -with this post I want to focus on some of our core doctrines as found in our bedrock Articles of Religion. These doctrines are so much more than a “check list” for judging one’s rightness. They have the power to transform our lives and how we relate to one another.
Can you imagine a church deeply rooted in a trinitarian faith and a church that sees this doctrine of the trinity as a guide for how we are to live in relationship with one another?”
One accusation that we are hearing is that the UMC is becoming unitarian. The truth is we stand committed to the doctrine of the trinity. We love how this core doctrine reminds us that God is always bigger than any one perspective. This doctrine helps us to honor theological exploration and a diversity of interpretations, in relationships where we can learn how to love more fully.
A relationship with the triune God can also challenge our binary perspectives where life is divided into either/or, win/lose, red/blue, us/them. From this binary view, it is easy to see life in terms of division, judgement, and competition. Through the lens of a trinitarian perspective, we see something very different. We see cooperation, mutual dependence, trust, and kindness. Within the Trinity, the value is not power over others; the value is learning how to love with patience and kindness and grace, never insisting only on our own way – as the scripture says.
Every time we baptize someone, or sing the Doxology, we enter into this holy mystery where we proclaim that God is One, but not one as in a monotone voice but as harmony. God is One as togetherness, as relationship, as love itself. Can you imagine this kind of witness to the glory of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Can you imagine a church that affirms a Christ who is fully divine and fully human and seeks to understand how this doctrine transforms how we relate to one another?
As we affirm Christ’s full divinity and humanity, we acknowledge the temptation to lean one way or the other, focusing on the divine Christ who forgives and saves us for heaven or the human Christ who calls us to feed the hungry and have compassion for the poor. As United Methodists, we hold these two poles together and we are blessed by the spiritual energy that is created.
The cross is often used as a way to illustrate this faith. The vertical dimension is illustrative of our relationship with God and the horizontal dimension illustrative of our relationship with one another. We are called to love God and love your neighbor as a part of ourselves. In our current debate, some have used these two dimensions of the cross to support division, saying that our two different perspectives create so much tension that we would all be better off to go our separate ways. I have heard the call to divide the cross in this way. As United Methodist Christians, we believe that these dimensions belong together and the tensions that hold them together can give the energy we need to a light to the world. It is a good thing.
As a part of our doctrine, we are called to be a people of the “via media,” the “middle way.” In the cross, we can claim a both/and perspective – grace and holiness, knowledge and piety, evangelism and social justice, traditional and progressive positions. We know that God’s ways are always bigger than one perspective. Rooted in this doctrine, we acknowledge that the word “party” is built on the word “part.” To work to make the “part” the “whole” is among the much harmful things we can do as the Body of Christ.
“Can you imagine a church that not only affirms the resurrection of Jesus Christ but also strives to live and serve as resurrection people?”
Contrary to some accusations that are being made, belief in resurrection is at the core of our faith. We do, however, want to resist narrowing this holy doctrine to fit what we can understand. It is more than resuscitation. It is both physical and spiritual. We honor the stories of how the risen Christ appeared and disappeared, and how the risen Christ was not recognized and then recognized.
As the scriptures proclaim, our God can take what is perishable and put on what is imperishable. What is sowed as a physical body is raised as a spiritual body. This is the backdrop for us being able to truly say that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
By the resurrection of Christ, we are able to trust that life is so much more than what is right before us. God is able to take our memories, relationships, thoughts, struggles, and even our physical identities and redeem them for life in the kin-dom. Christ has opened the way. Can you imagine focusing on a witness that shares this hope for all?
Can you imagine a church that seeks the Holy Spirit through a Wesleyan lens of understanding?
Wesley shared multiple sermons and teachings on the Holy Spirit. And his teachings are a part of our doctrine! For our current context, the Holy Spirit helps us to avoid two big dangers – mere formality, on the one hand, where we go through the motions without the power of faith, and on the other hand, the “wildness of enthusiasm” where we mistake our own opinions with the witness of the Holy Spirit, when we start thinking that it is our job to get everyone to see things our way. Wesley warns against this “dreadful delusion” where we become “presumptuous self-deceivers,” “haughty and assuming,” “slow to hear and swift to speak,” and “impatient with contradictions.” Wesley calls us to “strike a middle course” between these extremes, where the fruits of the Spirit are formed – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and temperance. This is how we assess whether it is the Holy Spirit, or some other spiritual force, at work in our lives. The witness of Spirit manifest itself as we become “more meek, gentle, and teachable, swift to hear and slow to speak, ready to learn from anyone.” That is the spiritual challenge before us.
In posts about recent Conference from the GMC and the UMC, there have been lots of affirmations of the Holy Spirit’s presence. I wonder if some of this feeling is due to the lack of tension between “sides.” Perhaps the comfort of likemindedness and not having to be in conversation is confused as the work of the Spirit. Recently, our Council of Bishop gave this guidance, saying that if we are to be faithful, we cannot be a traditional or progressive or centrist church only. “Our churches must be more than echo chambers made in our own image arguing with each other while neglecting our central purpose. Instead, we must be one people, rooted in scripture, centered in Christ, serving in love, and united in the essential [of our shared faith].” With this plea, our bishops reflect a very Wesleyan view of the Holy Spirit.
Can You Imagine?
The intent of these honored teachings is influence and inspiration, not control, force, or judgment. Doctrines are meant to lead us into love. If they lead in any other direction, their purpose is perverted. This understanding is at the heart of a Wesleyan approach to doctrine.
As was highlighted in the previous post, Wesley used the phrase “think and let think.” This is not a blessing for all thoughts, as if they are all thoughts are equal and good. It can be seen as a word of encouragement, calling us to engage these core doctrines together, ask questions, and seek deeper meaning. What we discover is a diversity of perspectives and insights that bless us all and help us into faithfulness and fruitfulness.
For guidance into this thinking together, Wesley says, in many places, and captured in this quote, “This is religion, and this alone…not this or that opinion or system of opinions, be they ever so true, even scriptural….those who support this to be religion are given up to a strong delusion to believe a lie…Religion is no less than living in eternity…and hereby walking in the love of God and humanity, in lowliness, meekness, and resignation. This, and this alone, is that ‘life which is hid with Christ in God.’” Can you imagine being a part of a church that has this kind of courage?
Connected In Christ 