Considering your Number 3 - and spilling over to others - I see a need for a more biblical doctrine of grace and salvation than what we find in Wesley. With the explicit inclusion of sanctification in what we mean by "salvation," we have a clear advantage over what we find in generic evangelical discourse. When I look at scripture, however, I see an ecclesial dimension of grace & salvation that our tradition just misses. The most obvious & condensed text where I see this is Ephesians 2. In his Scripture Way of Salvation JW works from a phrase in 2:8. The "way of salvation" he and the later tradition develops is individualistic - the individual's way of salvation. But when I read 2:11ff, I see a parallel structure to what I see in 2:1-10. In the second half of the chapter the aspect of salvation in view is corporate, tying into the long concept of God's desire to create a people who are his very own.
Given this context, I reinterpret Cyprian's dictum, "Nulla salus extra ecclesiam" ("No salvation outside the church") as saying that church - being the people of God, the Body of Christ, bound together by the Holy Spirit - is part of what salvation is all about. This is different than the traditional interpretation that has Cyprian saying that the church (taken as The Roman Catholic Church) is the place where grace is available, so if you want the grace of salvation, this is the only place you can get it.
If salvation is ONLY about one's personal, intentional relationship with God, it's easy to make the case that babies aren't capable of that so they are not appropriate recipients of baptism. But what if salvation is also corporate, also inclusion in a community of faith in Jesus? Babies are capable of that. This approach opens the way to people beyond babies: those with mental incapacity of any sort are some I think of in particular.
(I also put this comment on Facebook where I saw the link to this post)
A question I'd like us to spend some time on is what doctrinal faithfulness looks like and how it happens.
The UMC had (I use the past tense because I'm speaking as a former participant) doctrinal standards. It did not, however, have a clear and shared understanding of what doctrine was and what it was supposed to do. To use Lindbeck's terms (in The Nature of Doctrine), it was most common for those in the UMC leadership to have an experiential expressivist conception of doctrine combined with a "historical landmark" view. Christian doctrines were verbal expressions of the religious experiences of Christians. With such an understanding of the nature of doctrine it made sense to say that their doctrine should not be taken "literally or juridically." The primary exception to this understanding of doctrine was infant baptism. With baptists seen as the primary enemy (the Other we were NOT), putting forth that doctrine theoretically and in practice was essential and deemed worthy of literal (though not always juridical) adherence.
Outside of denominational leadership what Lindbeck called a cognitive propositionalist understanding of doctrine was more common. The doctrines of the church were truth claims and those claims were put forth to be believed by the members of the church.
The people who currently form the GMC are mostly from this second group. Additionally, I think the GMC is much less prone to see baptists as the enemy (which might decrease our vehemence around infant baptism as essential boundary marker between us and the Other). If we are prone to take our inherited doctrine as found in the Articles and Confession "literally and juridically," we may find ourselves in a difficult place. The Articles in particular originated in a period when the rejected Other was the Roman Catholic Church and it's easy to identify the individual articles that center on saying "We're NOT Roman Catholic!"
I'm not a baptist. I'm not a Roman Catholic. Given our current cultural context, however, are these the primary boundaries our doctrine needs to identify and police? Can we find an approach to doctrine that is built on a kind of faithful adherence to our doctrine while at the same time allowing for change and adaptation as we face new contexts and challenges? If we have a simplistic view of faithful adherence we likely won't, since the key aim will be to parrot the words of the Articles, the Confession, or Wesley himself. I think we have much work to do in this regard. It's not going to be easy work: not only is it conceptually difficult, but it's also complex. I don't know if our main constituency, given the doctrinal debacle of their former denomination, can tolerate the necessary complexity and levels of nuance we'll need.
Yeah. Amazing point. It seems like a lot of our doctrinal emphasis currently is based on "schismogenesis", a word I've been thinking about a lot recently, where we create our identity based on a foil of what we are not. That does become confusing now as every major denomination and tradition is being severed along the lines of our anthropology (regards not only sexuality but also just generally the telos of the human body), so that our new theological allies, while perhaps having radically different understandings of soteriology (Reformed), sacraments (Baptists/Church of Christ/non-denominational/trad. Roman Catholics, etc), or church structure and practice (charismatics/Pentecostals), are in a sense on our side in doctrines that have become untenable to the wider secular elite culture. I think most of us in the GMC are much more concerned about keeping the claims of basic Christian orthodoxy (Nicene Christianity), and we also don't want to offend or hurt unity with people we see as theological allies--I think this leads to a really difficult problem of nuance, something American Christians have never exactly done well or wanted to do well. At the end of the day, for me, it's all going to be about intentional Christian formation. If we can figure out how to do that better, maybe some of these other things will get figured out too.
"If we can figure out how to do that better, maybe some of these other things will get figured out too."
I sure wish I had that figured out better than I do. You'd think having been doing this since 1987 I'd have a sure-fire method down by now, but I don't. More than anything else, the past several years (American politics/pandemic) have shown me how weak our (my!) work in formation of disciples has been.
Considering your Number 3 - and spilling over to others - I see a need for a more biblical doctrine of grace and salvation than what we find in Wesley. With the explicit inclusion of sanctification in what we mean by "salvation," we have a clear advantage over what we find in generic evangelical discourse. When I look at scripture, however, I see an ecclesial dimension of grace & salvation that our tradition just misses. The most obvious & condensed text where I see this is Ephesians 2. In his Scripture Way of Salvation JW works from a phrase in 2:8. The "way of salvation" he and the later tradition develops is individualistic - the individual's way of salvation. But when I read 2:11ff, I see a parallel structure to what I see in 2:1-10. In the second half of the chapter the aspect of salvation in view is corporate, tying into the long concept of God's desire to create a people who are his very own.
Given this context, I reinterpret Cyprian's dictum, "Nulla salus extra ecclesiam" ("No salvation outside the church") as saying that church - being the people of God, the Body of Christ, bound together by the Holy Spirit - is part of what salvation is all about. This is different than the traditional interpretation that has Cyprian saying that the church (taken as The Roman Catholic Church) is the place where grace is available, so if you want the grace of salvation, this is the only place you can get it.
If salvation is ONLY about one's personal, intentional relationship with God, it's easy to make the case that babies aren't capable of that so they are not appropriate recipients of baptism. But what if salvation is also corporate, also inclusion in a community of faith in Jesus? Babies are capable of that. This approach opens the way to people beyond babies: those with mental incapacity of any sort are some I think of in particular.
(I also put this comment on Facebook where I saw the link to this post)
A question I'd like us to spend some time on is what doctrinal faithfulness looks like and how it happens.
The UMC had (I use the past tense because I'm speaking as a former participant) doctrinal standards. It did not, however, have a clear and shared understanding of what doctrine was and what it was supposed to do. To use Lindbeck's terms (in The Nature of Doctrine), it was most common for those in the UMC leadership to have an experiential expressivist conception of doctrine combined with a "historical landmark" view. Christian doctrines were verbal expressions of the religious experiences of Christians. With such an understanding of the nature of doctrine it made sense to say that their doctrine should not be taken "literally or juridically." The primary exception to this understanding of doctrine was infant baptism. With baptists seen as the primary enemy (the Other we were NOT), putting forth that doctrine theoretically and in practice was essential and deemed worthy of literal (though not always juridical) adherence.
Outside of denominational leadership what Lindbeck called a cognitive propositionalist understanding of doctrine was more common. The doctrines of the church were truth claims and those claims were put forth to be believed by the members of the church.
The people who currently form the GMC are mostly from this second group. Additionally, I think the GMC is much less prone to see baptists as the enemy (which might decrease our vehemence around infant baptism as essential boundary marker between us and the Other). If we are prone to take our inherited doctrine as found in the Articles and Confession "literally and juridically," we may find ourselves in a difficult place. The Articles in particular originated in a period when the rejected Other was the Roman Catholic Church and it's easy to identify the individual articles that center on saying "We're NOT Roman Catholic!"
I'm not a baptist. I'm not a Roman Catholic. Given our current cultural context, however, are these the primary boundaries our doctrine needs to identify and police? Can we find an approach to doctrine that is built on a kind of faithful adherence to our doctrine while at the same time allowing for change and adaptation as we face new contexts and challenges? If we have a simplistic view of faithful adherence we likely won't, since the key aim will be to parrot the words of the Articles, the Confession, or Wesley himself. I think we have much work to do in this regard. It's not going to be easy work: not only is it conceptually difficult, but it's also complex. I don't know if our main constituency, given the doctrinal debacle of their former denomination, can tolerate the necessary complexity and levels of nuance we'll need.
Yeah. Amazing point. It seems like a lot of our doctrinal emphasis currently is based on "schismogenesis", a word I've been thinking about a lot recently, where we create our identity based on a foil of what we are not. That does become confusing now as every major denomination and tradition is being severed along the lines of our anthropology (regards not only sexuality but also just generally the telos of the human body), so that our new theological allies, while perhaps having radically different understandings of soteriology (Reformed), sacraments (Baptists/Church of Christ/non-denominational/trad. Roman Catholics, etc), or church structure and practice (charismatics/Pentecostals), are in a sense on our side in doctrines that have become untenable to the wider secular elite culture. I think most of us in the GMC are much more concerned about keeping the claims of basic Christian orthodoxy (Nicene Christianity), and we also don't want to offend or hurt unity with people we see as theological allies--I think this leads to a really difficult problem of nuance, something American Christians have never exactly done well or wanted to do well. At the end of the day, for me, it's all going to be about intentional Christian formation. If we can figure out how to do that better, maybe some of these other things will get figured out too.
"If we can figure out how to do that better, maybe some of these other things will get figured out too."
I sure wish I had that figured out better than I do. You'd think having been doing this since 1987 I'd have a sure-fire method down by now, but I don't. More than anything else, the past several years (American politics/pandemic) have shown me how weak our (my!) work in formation of disciples has been.
So you're saying at the end of my ministry I'm not going to say, Sweet! I've finally figured everything out? Man...disappointing. lol.