ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

From the time the brothers John and Charles Wesley first convened a "holy club" of friends at Oxford University in 1729, Methodists have declared theirs a pursuit of “holiness” or “Christian perfection.”  For early Methodists, the pursuit of Christian perfection led inevitably to disagreements about what it meant to live a holy life.   As early as  1741 the Wesleys distanced themselves from their closest collaborator, George Whitefield, over his Calvinist teachings.  And while Wesley proclaimed himself to possess "a catholic spirit," his practices - not least, his own refusal to conform to the conventions of Anglican parish ministry - were widely perceived by his contemporaries to be divisive or even "schismatic." Methodism on the other side of the Atlantic retained this same spirit, which should come as little surprise since it was born in an act of separation - in 1784,  Wesley consecrated Thomas Coke as Superintendent, setting in motion the cre...

This week the United Methodist Church, in which I am an ordained pastor, gathers elected delegates from around the world for its quadrennial gathering called the “ GeneralConference .”   This year’s meeting is in Portland, Oregon, and the delegates may well define the denomination in a way that requires me some day, as a matter of principle, to separate from it.   In a  blogpost  last week Bishop Scott Jones made it clear that many General Conference delegates are prepared to throw down precisely this gauntlet in Portland. Of pastors  like me , who have presided at same-sex weddings, Bishop Jones wrote: "They are violating the rules of a church they have freely joined when other, similar churches offer acceptable ways of pursuing their calling. If I ever get to the point where I cannot in good conscience obey the key aspects of our discipline — and I pray such a day never happens — it will be time to surrender my credentials as a United Methodist bishop...