A friend recently sent me a link from the official website of The United Methodist Church. Specifically, he sent me a link to a page describing our church’s beliefs about Jesus. The content I found there prompted me to offer a few reflections on proper Christology and why it matters. For those who are concerned…
At Christmas, Christians celebrate something utterly preposterous, yet utterly true: The God of all creation, who brought forth all things from nothing, and by whom all things exist, was born as a human baby. He was born to a poor young woman who lived in a backwater province on the eastern frontier of the Roman…
It’s a time of great flux in the United Methodist world. Two, three, or possibly even more denominations may emerge from the UMC in the next few years. As this takes place, various groups will ask, “How can we represent our Wesleyan heritage most faithfully?” This is a complex question. In part, our answers will…
Christians are rightly concerned with the decline of the church in North America and Western Europe. Is this a permanent trend? Can we reverse it? Are we in the postmodern West inevitably headed down the path toward secularism? I don’t believe that secularization is inevitable. That said, the church must reclaim her evangelistic mantle. How…
This semester the Doctor of Ministry group that Dr. Justus Hunter and I lead is reading the Commonitorium, by Vincent of Lerins. Writing in the wake of a very contentious Council of Ephesus (431), Vincent famously insisted that “in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been…
Last semester I taught a class called Wesleyan Biblical Interpretation. We read a considerable number of Wesley’s writings along with a couple of secondary texts. Rereading these primary and secondary sources led me to ponder anew the vast differences between the way in which Wesley read the Bible and the critical stances that emerged during…
Many have noted that what we call “contemporary” worship isn’t so contemporary anymore. It’s a feature of the “attractional” model of church growth, embodied so well in Willow Creek and like-minded megachurches that popped up in the 80’s and 90’s. The basic philosophy of the attractional model is that if we can create a church…
Last Friday night my wife and I celebrated twenty-two years of marriage by having dinner in downtown Dayton. More specifically, we ate in Dayton’s Oregon District. This quirky, semi-bohemian part of town is home to some of our best restaurants and more than a few popular bars. It’s a place where the people of Dayton…
I recently read through Scott J. Jones’s excellent book, John Wesley’s Conception and Use of Scripture (Kingswood, 1995). I’d read parts of it before, but I’d never made my way through it cover to cover. It’s a very informative work. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Wesley and Scripture. Especially since the emergence of…
A formal separation of The United Methodist Church is imminent. The only question is what it will look like. Will one group force out the other? Will one group simply become so frustrated or disgusted that it leaves? Will we go to court over property? Will there be a long string of church trials? Will…