Faithful Witness

December 21, 2019

My United Methodist denomination that has been in turmoil for the entirety of my forty plus years of ministry is finally reaching the breaking point. Dissension over matters of human sexuality has been growing since the denomination was forged in the union of the former Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist Episcopal churches in 1968. The old EUB Erie Conference of which I had recently become a member joined the merger in 1972, and shortly thereafter, the rumblings started.

It began with feminism and the ordination of women, which though taken for granted today, was controversial back then. Over time, we followed the culture wars as they pushed for acceptance of homosexuality, and now the full LGBTQA+ agenda. The Western church has largely bowed to the prevailing culture, while the African and Philippine contingent remains traditional. Since the Western church (USA and Europe) is in precipitous decline and the African and Philippine branch is growing, the gradual acceptance of the culture’s agenda was brought to a screeching halt in the last two General Conferences where the official stance of the denomination is forged.

The liberal Western church has resorted to ecclesial disobedience and defiance of our church law, the Book of Discipline, which has led us to the brink of dissolution as a denomination. I’ve watched this play out for the entirety of my pastoral ministry, and it would be discouraging but for one factor—the words of St. John in the opening scene of the Revelation. In it, John hears a voice behind him, and turns to face the speaker. 

“Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band...The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.” —Revelation 1:12-13, 20 NKJV

In the verses between 13 and 20, he names the churches among which Jesus walks; the very same churches to which the revelation is to be given. They are like churches everywhere; a combination of faithful witness, cultural accommodation, hearty endurance, and slothful carelessness. In short, they are us. And where I would be tempted to write some of these churches off as not worth the effort, or too far gone to save, Jesus walks among them, holding their leaders in his hand and refusing to abandon any of them, no matter how apostate or depraved they had become.

I’m grateful tonight that I’m not the one who gets to make the decisions about who is worthy and who is not. That’s Jesus’ job, and he continues to walk among us, no matter how far we drift from the Gospel. Denominations will rise and fall, but the Church of Jesus Christ will remain, and he will remain faithful to us even when we are faithless towards him. That is grace, and it is our only hope. Thankfully, it is enough.