I’m not so much making a point with this post as asking a question. I have been in dialogue with a friend who asked: Is the unity of which we speak in the UMC a baseless unity? In other words, what is the common thread that runs through the UMC and holds us together?
Our unity does not lie in doctrine, though I believe that it should. But there are many clergy, including some bishops, who seem to have little regard for the Doctrinal Standards in the Discipline. They would point, rather, to the section called “Our Theological Task,” which articulates the method we have come to call the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.”
That leads to the question: Is our unity in this theological method? Clearly, it is not. The method is so broad that it is virtually useless. To say, for example, that we consider scripture as primary is not a very helpful claim when we have so little agreement on the nature and function of scripture.
I’m not even going to suggest that our unity is in ethical issues or commitments to social justice. We’re all over the map here.
Is our unity, then, confined to matters of polity? Are we only held together by the trust clause and our pensions? I really, really don’t want the UMC to split. I would consider that a great tragedy. Yet what are our main reasons for staying together?
I’d appreciate receiving your comments below.
Oh, and be nice.
David F. Watson 
I would like to say that, too. And that would be enough for me.
These are all hard but excellent questions. I too wish we had some doctrinal standards which could serve as a unifying factor, for without them we become nothing more than a social service agency. The very words United and Methodist have clearly become an oxymoron, since we can't even find unity on what it means to be a Methodist, let alone the often opposite understandings of what it means to live in holiness of heart and life. Despite these deep frustrations, I hope that our unity is based in a mutual trust that God's grace will work through the tensions as a process, perhaps as a type of ecclesiological sanctification. In order to work, such unity ultimately has to be grounded in humble relationships with God and one another.
David, a thought prompted by your blog today: Maybe in the midst of an overly atomized culture we should start not by specifying what holds us together, but instead by asking “Does any of this warrant breaking the Body of Christ.”
Great question! I'm glad you asked that.
I love the term “ecclesiological sanctification.”