CREEDE HINSHAW: ‘New’ Methodist denomination could use some humility

Some of John Wesley’s United Methodist followers are fed up with their denomination. The twisted road to a breakup has been arduous, with churches leaking members for decades. Conservatives have blamed the loss of membership on liberal California-type Methodists, an analysis that conveniently ignores that we live in conservative south Georgia.

At any rate, a new Wesleyan denomination formed May 1, 2022. This new body promises to be pure, committed, ardent, passionate, orthodox and every other adjective they hope will attract new congregations and rally the faithful.

One wonders if a little more humility might be fitting. No church, moderate, liberal or conservative, can deliver on the promises of this website.

The news regarding the church is somewhat depressing. The Southern Baptist Convention is reeling in the aftershock of a blockbuster 300-page report detailing rampant sexual abuse by Southern Baptist pastors and staff persons and solid resistance on the part of denominational leadership. The only bright spot in the whole sordid affair is that a determined faction inside the convention pushed until the facts were brought to light.

Meanwhile the Vatican continues to face unwanted publicity over a high-visibility trial of its highest financial leaders, both lay and clergy. The corrupt use of church money and the cover-ups are the issues at stake. In a similar note, the African Methodist Episcopal Church has been rocked by fraudulent theft of its clergy pension fund.

This week’s Wall Street Journal documents the cozy relationship of the Russian Orthodox Church with Putin and his cronies. Many church historians believe the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is a former KGB agent who served with Putin. He now wears a cross, but his allegiance hasn’t changed. The Christian nationalism movement in this country has the same flavor. The carrying of Christian symbols into the Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection is one indicator that a defiant subset of evangelical Christians has tied their destiny to blatant political ends.

Local congregations are bravely and faithfully serving, often while battling severe headwinds. The tragedy is that many of the severest headwinds are caused not by secular devilry but by sin in their own denominations.

The new Wesleyan website, while portraying itself in the most positive light possible, referred to its former denomination as “dysfunctional.” I understand that. We United Methodists have creatively created our own brand of church dysfunction, of which I’ve contributed my own dysfunction to the stew.

What would be refreshing on this website (and that of United Methodism) would be for the new church, whose members were, until very recently, United Methodists, to acknowledge they had a part, too, in the dysfunction of their former church and that their new denomination, with all its freshness and fervor, would also be an imperfect body of Christ.

That’s probably asking too much of my church or theirs. Churches, like the individuals who are in them, have trouble confessing their humanity.