DMC – Divided Methodist Church November 18, 2010
Posted by Dan R. Dick in Christian witness, Core Values, Critical Thinking, The United Methodist Church, Vision.Tags: Mission & Purpose, The United Methodist Church, Vision
41 comments
I have been dismayed by the recent “unanimous support” claims for our Call to Action report — since I have had personal conversations with people directly involved who are anything but fully on board. Oh, I understand the act of solidarity and presenting a unified public face and the potential promotional value. What troubles me is the level of dishonesty and surrender involved — people I respect telling me that disagreeing won’t do any good anyway because we’re “in too deep.” I heard that same logic in one place I worked when I discovered that a major research project was flawed, inaccurate, and just plain bad, but was told that we’d invested too much in it not to go ahead and use it. Integrity be damned, we’ve got to keep moving — even if it’s in the wrong direction.
Let me repeat — I don’t disagree with the findings of the Call to Action report. It says exactly what we’ve discovered at least three times before over the past thirty years. Confirmation is a good thing. However, as in each prior instance, we are claiming that this time we’re serious about changing, but all we are doing is identify a number of symptoms to treat instead of root causes to change. The identity and purpose questions are ignored — we assume that we know who we are and that we know why we exist. These, my friends, are the very questions that we cannot take for granted, and they are the questions that must be faced before we decide what tactical changes to make. We are not a “united” Methodist Church at the moment and focusing on program and structure when the relationships are damaged and the connection is broken promises nothing but disaster. The problem is, were we to use our General Conference time to clarify what it means to be United Methodist in the 21st century, to reframe and clarify our theological task in contemporary culture, to codify and commit to our Social Principles, and to recover the missional/evangelical foundation that defined our heritage, it would draw a line in the sand and every living, breathing United Methodist would be forced to answer the key question: do I want to be a United Methodist or not. And, being perfectly honest, we would probably lose a third to a half of our membership no matter which way we turn.
