Abstract
Trite efforts at humor aside, The United Methodist Church took steps in 2019 to become an “untied” church after little more than fifty years of existence. Different sorts of explanations have been offered for a possible disintegration. This is an essay about an overlooked element in the story—the deterioration and the neglect of theology. In blending thematic and chronological elements, this essay seeks to identify and repair that deficiency within a revised narrative that examines a long, tragic process toward a break.
Any attempt to discuss a twenty-first century schism in The United Methodist Church has to give serious attention to the ways the church has separated itself from the theological basis on which the denomination is built. Factions of the divided church have advocated their own theological perspectives. But this essay explores how The United Methodist Church has suffered from an absence of serious attention to its own Doctrinal Standards, doctrinal definitions, and theological methods. The issues are not about points of view represented by conservative or progressive brands of theology but about official doctrine.
A schism in the organizational unity of the denomination will cause damage of many kinds to missional, institutional, and personal relationships. But a separation from its identity as a church founded upon Wesleyan theological standards and doctrines has already damaged—and will further damage—the soul of Methodism.
Parts of ecclesial bodies get untied from one another periodically, as Christian history shows. But this denomination has untied itself from its own theological basis. That is the story this essay strives to tell.
Authors who publish with Methodist Review agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright ownership and all intellectual property rights to their work, and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal but prohibits modification or commercial use of the work without the permission of the author.
- Authors are free to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), in whole or in part, on the condition that its initial publication in this journal is clearly acknowledged.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.