ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 17, 1996 TAG: 9602190003
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DALLAS
SOURCE: DEBORAH KOVACH CALDWELL DALLAS MORNING NEWS
William Abraham doesn't seem like someone who wants to turn the United Methodist Church upside down. He chats in a chipper Irish brogue, wears a gentle-looking beard and likes to be called ``Billy.''
Get him going on theology, though, and the good cheer gives way to sober discussion.
Abraham, a professor at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology, is a leader of the Confessing Movement, a new Methodist group whose goal is to return the 8.6 million-member denomination to its doctrinal roots and make the church more conservative and evangelical.
The Confessing Movement has held all-night sessions in hotels to write position papers and plot strategy. It's sending literature to the approximately 1,000 delegates to the denomination's April quadrennial convention, where it hopes to compel debate on Methodist theology. Ultimately, the group plans to transform the church by molding seminary students in Confessing Movement thought.
Already, the movement has caused a simmering debate at a church in the Dallas suburb of Garland. The church's members are split on joining.
``There has to be a major reformation in our self-understanding,'' said Abraham. ``What's at stake for Methodists is whether we're going to [hold onto] the core of Christian tradition.''
The movement has about 15,000 members in 45 states.
Critics say the group is trying to establish a doctrinal litmus test for Methodists and is therefore a threat to the denomination's tradition of tolerance. They say the situation has worrisome parallels to the Southern Baptist Convention, which was riven in the 1980s by a power struggle stemming from disputes over scriptural inerrancy. In response, the Confessing Movement has taken out an ad in Methodist publications calling its critics intolerant.
``This is a time in which I think people in the church are taking their participation in the church a lot more seriously ... really participating in the making of its theology, and the Confessing Movement is one example of that,'' said Robin Lovin, dean of Perkins School of Theology.
``It reflects a seriousness about theological issues that especially among the United Methodist Church has not always been there,'' Lovin said. ``That's an important development, but not one I see as revolutionary.''
But if the Confessing Movement mounts a fight, observers say, the conflict could suck life out of the United Methodists, who've been losing membership for more than 25 years. That puts them in the same company as other mainline denominations. In most of those denominations, conservatives are organizing groups to battle what they consider the too liberal tilt of their national leadership.
``It would appear that conservative groups have found strength, have found their voice, have started to flex their muscles, and they view the culture as in fact being involved in a culture war, and they're willing to duke it out,'' said Robert Wuthnow, a religion sociology professor at Princeton University and an expert on Protestant mainline denominations.
``Under that analysis, this Methodist group would be very similar to what is happening among conservative Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Catholics,'' Wuthnow said.
Confessing Movement leaders said they named themselves after the German churches led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that stood up to Hitler and the Third Reich, a stance that cost Bonhoeffer his life. The Methodist movement's leaders say they want to model their actions, on a smaller scale, after the German Confessing Church.
Their position papers describe the centrality of Scripture and the need to reground the church in its historic doctrine. They also repudiate the church for various controversies revolving around gender and sexuality, such as its abortion-rights stance, tolerating homosexual behavior and experimenting with what it calls paganism.
Last summer the denomination was jolted when the Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, a top church executive, announced she is a lesbian. Powers helped plan the controversial 1993 Re-Imagining Conference, which drew criticism from moderates and conservatives for promoting what they called neo-pagan worship through worship of a female personification of God.
The conference and its fallout are perhaps most emblematic of Methodism's problems, according to Abraham.
``We've gotten into bed with the culture,'' Abraham said. ``We'll give you a theological rationale for anything you want to do.''
Nonsense, said the Rev. Rex Kaney, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Atlanta, which is spearheading the effort to rein in the Confessing Movement.
``This group seeks to challenge the diversity and inclusivity that has been part of our denomination for years,'' he said. ``What we're saying is that while we have to be sensitive to that issue, we have to be just as careful about moving in the other direction and becoming so rigid that we have doctrinal litmus tests.''
Kaney said trying to apply Scripture alone to modern believers is inadequate.
``The human community is at a much different place than it was in 1500, or in biblical times,'' he said. ``It's obvious that we need to be able to take the gift God has given us of being able to learn and reason together.''
For example, he said, Scripture was used until 30 years ago to prevent women from being ordained and to justify racism.
``Who is going to decide for us once and for all what is the interpretation of Scripture?'' Kaney asked. ``I think one of the consequences of the Confessing Movement could be to put us in the same place as our friends in the Southern Baptist Convention found themselves.''
A Dallas pastor said she worries that the Confessing Movement is so male-oriented that it ignores the feminine parts of God.
``There is biblical evidence to indicate that the pronoun for the Holy Spirit can be used in such a way that we can interpret the Holy Spirit in the feminine dimension,'' said the Rev. Georgine Blanton of Casa View United Methodist Church. ``It appears to me in the Confessing Movement there's not a place for that because it's only filtered through the person of Christ.... I'm convinced some of these issues have the potential for dividing the church.''
A Dallas bishop is taking the long view.
``I think a denomination like ours affirms diversity, and therefore has to accept disagreement,'' said the Rev. Bruce Blake, bishop of the United Methodist Church's North Texas Conference. ``I certainly don't find that startling or disturbing.''
Blake said worried folks should remember that the Confessing Movement is part of a long line of conservative groups within Methodism. And, he said, a generation ago there were liberal groups such as the Methodist Federation for Social Action that critics thought would turn the denomination into a social action agency.
That doesn't calm Rudy Mueller, a layman who is a member of St. Philip United Methodist Church in Garland. Last month, members debated how they would respond to the Confessing Movement.
The pastor and nearly half of the church's governing board wanted to sign up St. Philip and add ``A Confessing Movement Church'' to its stationery. Other members, including Mueller, contended that many congregants didn't agree with the movement. Ultimately, they voted to allow members to join as individuals. In the process, a few members dropped away. The issue is expected to resurface.
``We have a church in the center, which allows people to express themselves on both sides,'' said Mueller, an engineering physicist turned stockbroker. ``What I find is that conservatives are saying that if we're in the center and we allow both sides, then the church is liberal - when, in fact, it's even-handed. We're concerned about a hidden agenda.''
His pastor, the Rev. David Rucker, said the tough theological issues are too important to sweep aside.
``We want to call the church back to its center and be consistent with Scripture and its heritage,'' he said. ``Maybe there are some who need to leave the church, and we're not volunteering to do that, and we're not willing to kick anybody out. We ought to have a clear enough stance that people say, `I believe' or they don't. The bad image of Methodists is that you can believe anything you want. We've let that become true by not consistently teaching and living out the theology we say we believe.''
Abraham, meanwhile, is in his office, writing, thinking, talking and planning.
``We're not heresy hunters,'' he said. ``There are not even many rabid conservatives among us.... The only way there would come a split is if the radical elements in the church override the conscience of a vast majority of people. If they make it impossible for conservatives and moderates to stay in the church with good conscience, that's when the church breaks apart.''
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