The UMC Headed for a Split Over Holiness | First Things
The United Methodist Church is going to split. No one knows the exact contours of the split, but everyone seems confident that it is coming. There is a gulf between traditionalists and progressives in the UMC regarding same-sex marriage, and that gulf is widening: several Methodist bishops have performed same-sex weddings, defying official UMC teaching; and Karen Oliveto was elected as the first Methodist bishop in a same-sex relationship. At the root of these divisions is the fact that the UMC has always been made up of believers with distinctly different theological trajectories.
The UMC was formed as an experiment in “big tent” theological pluralism, eventually guided by the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” formulated by Methodist scholar Albert Outler: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Over the years, much of the Wesleyan tradition that guided the early Methodists has been lost; the future of United Methodism depends upon recovering Wesleyan catholicity.
The division in the UMC over sexuality was the immediate occasion for the recent Next Methodism Summit. Last month, over sixty Wesleyan scholars met in Alexandria, Virginia, to discuss how to recover the Wesleyan tradition and shape the Methodist future. Under the direction of Ryan Danker and the John Wesley Institute, the attendees crafted a theological statement entitled “The Faith Once Delivered: A Wesleyan Witness.”
Source: The Future of United Methodism | Dale M. Coulter | First Things
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