05/07/2004: "So many questions..."

Catch the tone of the lead paragraph in Kevin Eckstrom's Religion News Service story headlines, "Are Methodists Headed for a Conservative Takeover?":

The United Methodist Church, with congregations in all but 133 of the nation's 3,350 counties, prides itself as the quintessential American church. Its 10 million members are black and white, north and south, George W. Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton. As someone once said, if you want to find out what America is thinking, start by asking the Methodists. But now, some in the nation's second-largest Protestant church say conservatives have planted the seeds for a hostile takeover that would move the solidly middle-America church hard to the right. It is, they say, eerily familiar to the conservative resurgence that began in the Southern Baptist Convention exactly 25 years ago.

Why do writers like Eckstrom think that liberals have a divine right to run mainline denominations? Why do writers like Eckstrom think that "conservatives" in mainline churches are the same as "conservatives" in the Southern Baptist Convention? Why do writers like Eckstrom think that the voice of the bulk of the membership in essentially representative democratic churches like the UMC is not being heard in votes taken at events like General Conference? Why do writers like Eckstrom think that there is something conspiratorial going on in the UMC? Why do writers like Eckstrom think that returning a mainline church to its historic and biblical roots is moving it "hard to the right?" Why do writers like Eckstrom think that the membership of a "solidly middle-America church" like the UMC is not evangelical, no matter what Jim Winkler of Church & Society or Bishop Joe Sprague might say?

Replies: 1 Comment

on Monday, May 10th, Lilttle Fly said

Athanasius, based on the quotation you have provided here, I am not sure that your questions follow. Eckstrom says here:

"But now, some in the nation's second-largest Protestant church say conservatives have planted the seeds for a hostile takeover that would move the solidly middle-America church hard to the right. It is, they say, eerily familiar to the conservative resurgence that began in the Southern Baptist Convention exactly 25 years ago."

Eckstrom appears to be refering to dissent within the UMC itself, not entering a liberal tirade against the UMC himself. Maybe we need other parts of the article to see the motivation for your question. Probably the more interesting question to ask is why dissenting UMC members feel that the turnover in the SBC provides a proper analogy for the UMC now? Clearly, this article suggests that not all UMC members are supportive of the recent decisions, and that there may be some fallout coming.

I hope you will treat any future exodous of disenfranchised UMC members as the tragedy that it will be. I am as concerned for their health as I am for the health of the UMC as a whole.