Embracing the Wideness: The Shared Convictions of The United Methodist Church
About this ebook
In addition to our divergent understandings of holiness in The United Methodist Church, we apparently have two distinct conceptions of church. These two conceptions of church present in American Methodism grew from seeds planted in the earliest practice of British Methodism:
A separatist church, which views holiness as a calling that separates us from the world—“come out from among them and be separated” (2 Corinthians 6:17). Here holiness is a quality that distinguishes Christians from the world.
An activist church, which understands holiness as a movement for change in an unjust world. The boundaries between church and society are blurred, with the “wheat and tares” growing together (Matthew 13) until God’s final judgment.
At times, a denomination is able to hold these two conceptions of church in tension. And at times, as in recent experiences of American Christianity, there is fragmentation and division. The division may finally be the result of clearly articulated values that are not compatible. And the division may also be the result of how leaders do harm to each other.
What great things could be accomplished if we rediscovered orthodoxy in service of the healing, instead of dividing, of our bodies—our churches! Such a generous orthodoxy would help us not to become immersed in the emotional processes that pit people against each other. Such a generous orthodoxy would keep us from becoming stuck in cycles of harmful collusion and escalating conflict. Such a generous orthodoxy would know that the source of our capacity to be healed of our schisms is a miracle beyond our human power or goodness or intelligence.
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About the author
Will Willimon is a lifelong Methodist. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke University Divinity School and retired Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church, after serving for twenty years as faculty member and Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. As Bishop, he led North Alabama's 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors. He has authored roughly a hundred books and is widely recognized as one of Methodism's most insightful, inspiring, and challenging voices.
Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at the Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He has written a voluminous number of articles, authored and edited many books, and has been the subject of other theologians' writing and interest. He has been a board member of the Society of Christian Ethics, Associate Editor of a number of Christian journals and periodicals, and a frequent lecturer at campuses across the country.
Kenneth H. Carter Jr. is resident bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. He gives pastoral and administrative leadership to more than 1000 congregations, fresh expressions of church, campus ministries, and outreach initiatives. His episcopal area stretches across the 44 western counties of the state. He served for 29 years as a pastor in Western North Carolina and is the author of several books.
