wfn.org | Consultation brings Methodist family members together

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Feb. 26, 1999	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-71B{114}

By United Methodist News Service

A family reunion of sorts took place recently in Dallas, but its focus was
on examining stereotypes and re-learning history rather than picnicking and
picture taking.

The Consultation on Wesleyan-Holiness Traditions brought United Methodists
and a Christian Methodist Episcopal bishop together with representatives of
the Free Methodist Church, Wesleyan Church, Church of the Nazarene, Church
of Christ (Holiness) USA, Korean Holiness Church, Church of God (Anderson),
Pentecostal Holiness Church and Salvation Army.

"These are churches that were thrown out of the Methodist church in the
nineteenth century. This is the first formal contact we've had with them,"
said the Rev. Bruce Robbins, general secretary of the United Methodist
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the agency that
organized the Feb. 18-20 event. United Methodist-related Perkins School of
Theology at Southern Methodist University served as host.

The Rev. William J. Abraham, a Perkins professor, called the consultation of
30 participants "a reunion that's been long wished for on the part of the
children and grandchildren." But, he added, "there's been this internal
family dispute and we've never really talked to these people."

Among some, there has been a deep desire for conversation. "Some of us have
been talking about pulling this off for over 25 years," said the Rev. Donald
Dayton, a Wesleyan and professor at Drew University.

In his opinion, part of the problem was that "Methodism was a little bit
insecure about its own identity" in finding its way among the ancient,
mainstream churches and focused more on that than dealing with the newer
traditions.

The Rev. Minerva Carcano, also at Perkins, found the meeting to be
particularly important because "our church is so involved in the ecumenical
dialogue. We need to reclaim our own family and our roots to be able to
continue that ecumenical dialogue with integrity.

"This was a dimension of my own history as a United Methodist...that I was
not aware of," she continued. The consultation jolted her into recognition
that "this is the immediate family." 

Abraham pointed out that United Methodists have had a "deep
misunderstanding" of the traditions. The stereotype was that they are
"really fundamentalists in disguise" who neglect social issues such as
racism, women's rights and concern for the poor.

In fact, Abraham said, it  was the United Methodist forebears who "dropped
the ball on women, race and the poor and it was these groups that kept it
alive in the nineteenth century."

Carcano admitted that she came to the consultation with the assumption that
the holiness tradition churches were conservative, not in tune with her
social agenda "and offered very little in terms of resources and support for
things that I value. I discovered I was wrong."

Instead, she found the churches had done "valuable work" promoting the
ordination of women and dealing with racial issues going back to slavery.
"We have such stereotypes of each other that we lose out on a lot," she
said. "Some of them just come out of sheer ignorance."

According to Dayton, the divisions in the nineteenth century "were not so
much theological as they were a struggle over the class location of
Methodism." Even today, he said, United Methodists often represent the upper
middle class and middle class, while the Holiness congregations tend to be
lower middle class or upper lower class.

"Most of the Holiness churches were founded over social issues," he added,
noting that the Free Methodists and Church of the Nazarene emphasized their
priorities to the poor long before the Methodists did.

Both Abraham and Dayton acknowledged that these priorities don't get as much
attention from  the Holiness churches now. "They're having difficulties
sustaining their original impulses," Abraham said.

Now that United Methodists are officially acknowledging these churches, it
might be easier, Abraham added, "to deal with the theological diversity in
our own tradition."

According to the professor, "not all the holiness people left" the Methodist
church when some of those traditions split off. He said there is a need to
come to terms with the more evangelistic, "the more broadly conservative
side of our people."

The Commission on Christian Unity will consider further possibilities for
conversation, according to Robbins. One suggestion from the consultation was
that local churches become involved.

Dayton said he would encourage United Methodists to get acquainted with
members of the Holiness traditions. One way of doing that, he added, would
be to look for camp meetings in their area. Ocean Grove in New Jersey and
Indian Springs in Georgia are two examples of established camp meetings.
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