EVANGELICALISM AND THE
GLOBAL METHODIST CHURCH
By Dr. Riley Case
The February issue of First Things carries an intriguing article by Aaron M. Renn entitled “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.” According to the article, the first “world” was pre-1994 when society (in America) at large held a positive view toward evangelicalism. From 1994 to 2014 society held a neutral stance toward evangelicalism. From 2014 to the present, society is holding a negative view toward evangelicalism. A main thrust of the article is that evangelicalism is, today, deeply divided and its future as a coherent movement is in doubt.
The ideas are worth discussing. Methodism largely defined the word “evangelical” in its American context. Despite the vision of the early Puritans and other Christian groups, Christianity by the Revolutionary War was in trouble. Deism was the religion of preference and only 10% of the American population were church members. When Methodism organized in 1784, Asbury is said to have proclaimed, “O America, America, God will make it the glory of the world for religion.” The early preachers were charged, “You have nothing to do but save souls” (which is related but not quite the same as “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”). Methodism introduced revivalism, the altar call, the mourner’s bench, the camp meeting, and the new birth. It so swept the American frontier that by 1850 one out of every three Americans was a church member and one-third of that group was Methodist. Methodists, along with Baptists, so influenced American society that evangelicalism became the anchor of American religious culture.
Then several things happened. Methodism got respectable. Methodism originally reached poor people. Methodism was the first group which attracted African Americans, both slave and free. By 1865 seven of every 10 former slaves who joined any church had joined a Methodist Church. Methodism opposed frills and jewelry and ostentatious living, but by the last half of the 19th century this was changing. Methodism committed itself to education. Methodists became teachers and leaders in business and began moving up the social scale. By the 1920s modernism, a theology and a religious cultural expression hostile to evangelicalism, had taken over Methodism’s leadership and its seminaries.
All the same, the Methodism I knew in the 1940s and 50s was still strongly influenced by evangelicalism. Indeed, the dictionaries of that day still defined “evangelical” as “having to do with the Protestant churches that emphasize Christ’s atonement and salvation by faith as the most important parts of Christianity, as the Methodists and Baptists” (Thorndike Barnhart Comprehensive Desk Dictionary 1958). Out of the first eight churches I pastored, I would guess that 90% of my church members, by doctrine and temperament, would be counted as “evangelical” (even the ones lackluster in their practice). Our members believed in total abstinence. Some even carried over prohibitions on dancing, especially in the church. We observed Race Relations Day and Temperance Sundays and Rural Life Sundays. Some pastors were appointed as conference evangelists.
We got along much better as a denomination in those days than now. We carried on fundamentalist-modernist arguments, but we lived civilly. When I asked someone representing the Methodist seminary I attended whether there were any evangelicals on the faculty the answer was, “Of course; we are all evangelical.” I realized that he (and much of the seminary) and I had very different definitions of the word “evangelical.” But his answer did signify that the word “evangelical” was held in high regard.
In about the mid-1990s society moved from a positive to a neutral stance toward Christianity (and evangelicalism). Even through the 1980s, when Methodists identified as Republican over Democrat by a margin of 2 to 1, the majority of evangelicals identified as Democrat. In this period Christianity no longer carried a privileged status but was not disfavored. By this time it was quite apparent that while mainline churches were losing members, evangelical churches were growing. In the early 1990s the sociologists Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (The Churching of America 1776-1990-(1994)) did a study of churches in the North Indiana Conference. They compared the churches served by pastors who were on the North Indiana Evangelical Fellowship mailing list with the churches whose pastors were not on the list. Their findings? Between 1993 – 1995 churches served by pastors on the mailing list increased in attendance by 4.5%; churches served by pastors not on the list decreased by 1.3%. Of those pastors who came into the conference after 1980, the attendance increase was 7.9%. That was perhaps a high point of evangelical effectiveness, at least in our conference, and perhaps in the denomination. Evangelicalism was also growing world-wide.
That is not to say there was not a lot of disharmony within the evangelical world. Evangelicalism was (and is) a big tent and included fundamentalists, charismatics, reconstructionists, high church liturgists, low-church sectarians, Anabaptists, Calvinists, Arminians, Pentecostals, and ethnic groups of every variety. Some Roman Catholics were even identifying as evangelical. By this time, the Moral Majority was on the scene and political divisions were developing. Perhaps none were as great, in America at least, as what was developing as the “Religious Right.” Evangelicalism, which had always before put limited confidence in politics, began to divide up politically. Eventually, many evangelicals began to identify with the extreme political right and were accused of putting more confidence in politics than their faith. Some of this was in reaction to liberation and feminist theologies which were becoming enamored with the political left. During the 1980s and 90s, mainline money was being invested in such groups as the Marxists in Cuba, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe (to the consternation of many of us who had always strongly supported, say, the General Board of Global Ministries).
In 1995 the Confessing Movement was launched with the goal of re-affirming the historic truths of the faith. Within a few months and just before the 1996 General Conference, thirteen of the major institutional United Methodist activist intellectuals responded with a paper “A Critical Challenge to the Confessing Movement.” Frank Dorsey of Kansas was the convener of the group. At that time, and even today, this paper represents what I believe is the most scholarly and serious statement which outlines the differences between the accepted thinking of progressive U.M. thinkers and those we would call evangelicals or traditionalists today. The paper faults the Confessing Movement for seeing the basis for salvation in the atoning death and the life-giving resurrection of Jesus (which is, of course, exactly the core of the historic Christian faith). The “critical response” wanted to shift the criterion for salvation from the atoning death of Jesus Christ to “obedience to the will of God as expressed in the teachings of Jesus.” The “critical paper” also argued that Methodist tradition was based not on confession but on the “conciliar principle” (“truth” is changing and can be determined by conferencing and discussing). This meant, for example in the matter of homosexual practice and transgender fluidity, that “new insights,” based on science and changing cultural understandings of “rights,” meant that traditional Biblical understandings of “celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in marriage” could be superseded.
According to the article in First Things, since the early 2000s Christians in general, and evangelicals in particular, are losing the culture wars, especially in the western world. Conservative Christians believe in a unified system of truth, which modern culture says is impossible. Christians believe in the traditional family which modern culture says in outdated. Christians believe in salvation from sin and eternal life, which modern culture claims is unrealistic pie-in-the-sky fairy tale thinking. According to secular progressives, and some religious progressives as well, evangelical Christians are now hateful, homophobic, white supremacists, exclusivists, racists, and misogynists.
What is the fall-out? I received a letter from a Campus Crusade staff person our church supports in Great Britain that Campus Crusade is being banned from the University of Birmingham. Crusade does not reflect the values of the university. After some negotiation, they are allowed back on campus but cannot engage students in spiritual conversations. In Finland, two Lutheran Christians, Dr. Pȁivi Rȁsȁen and Bishop Jahana Pohjola, were convicted and fined for hate speech after they quoted the Bible on the matter of homosexual practice (a higher court just recently overturned the conviction). In the American progressive Christian version of the same thinking, Tim Keller (known for his church’s very successful and highly recognized Manhattan ministry) was slated to receive the Abraham Kuyper Award at Princeton but after student demonstrations, had the award rescinded because Keller is known to support a gender theology (this was in 2017).
Still, many churches and pastors are committed to Biblical Christianity, despite the growing hostility in the larger secular and progressive world. Within United Methodism these churches and pastors see a bright future with the Global Methodist Church. In those parts of the world where Christianity is growing. evangelical Protestantism is the religion of choice. Africa has grown from 8 million Christians in 1900 to 800 million Christians today. In America, evangelicals still represent about 25% of the population. Mainline Christianity, on the other hand, has decreased over 50 years from something like 30% of the population to 15% of the population.
Many UMs, including friends and persons we highly respect, would disagree with the analysis of this article. They strongly believe that the continuing United Methodist Church can attract new members and win disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We encourage them to make their case. We would like to see evidence of where progressive theology has brought revival, where the battle against racism is being won, where marriages between two men or two women are associated with stable homes, and where the church’s social ethics advocacy is leading to programs that overcome poverty.
These matters will be discussed in the weeks and months to come. We pray for God’s guidance.
