The (hopefully) only post on the state of the United Methodist church

Considering the size of the Methodist church in Scandinavia I wonder if anybody cares about what happens to it, except for the few people who currently call it their ecclesial home. Of course, this only applies to Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Baltic states. There is no Methodist church in Sweden. But no matter which country you consider it is a small church with hundreds, not thousands, in attendance every Sunday.
But since I am a pastor in the Methodist church (of Norway) it concerns me and there is currently a lot going on in the worldwide Methodist church, so here are my thoughts on the matter.
If you don't care about the Methodist church, or this particular debate that concerns every single church in the world, you can stop reading now.

As you might imagine, the Methodist church is in the middle of a very common but traumatic and dramatic struggle for its survival. It seems as if lots of Norwegians and Danes and Finns and Balts go on and live their lives just fine without darkening the doorsteps of our churches. I have grown up in the Methodist church and all my life I have heard of how people are getting more "spiritual" and less "religious"...or how there is a "re-christianiazation" happening...all the while our church has lost more members and influence and "steam", if you would. Most of the Methodists I know are tired and not a little confused as to how this downward trend can be reversed. Not everybody, to be sure, but many...myself included.
Scandinavia is the least Christian area of the western (if not the enitre) world and the secular pressure to keep religion private (as if that was possible) combined with a host of philosophical and relational opposition makes it very, very difficult to preach and teach and live Jesus Christ, not to mention that the main church in these countries is usually an uber-liberal former statechurch with massive influence and huge media exposure but usually without an evangelical flair...to say the least.

In this harsh spiritual climate there is a church called the Methodist church...and she is struggling mightily. She might not make it. She might disappear. So you would think that most efforts and money and time and prayer and work would be focused on how to reach people with the Good News of Jesus Christ and how to convert more/new people so they would (want to) become members and thus save the church from extinction. You would think...

...but it is not. The Methodist church is currently fighting a brutal civil war over whether or not its own Discipline and Beliefs are actually true and real and important or if they are not. I'm (of course) talking about homosexuality. Currently, the United Methodist church does not consider homosexual practice "compatible with Christian doctrine"...i.e. sinful. It has been democratically decided for over 40 years and yet it is the issue that takes almost all of our time and effort these days. Lots of people think that our current belief is wrong and harmful and should be changed. We spend a lot more time on this issue any other issue, including trying to figure out how we can get our "natives" converted.This issue hovers like a dark cloud over everything the church does and we simply don't know what will happen when the rain finally falls. Will it split the church in two or wash her clean?

Some people, the vocal minority, argue that this is a matter so important that no matter how it affects the church it has to be resolved along progressive lines, i.e. full inclusion of LBQTGI people and conmensurate actions and behaviors. It is all about, they say, that "God is love" and how "Nobody is incompatible with God" and that we should "do no harm" and so on.
The majority argues that the Bible is clear and that homosexual practice is sinful in the eyes of God and can not be condoned or approved of. God is loving and holy and just and some things and some behaviors and some actions and some thoughts are sinful and wrong and under the wrath/judgement of God. End of story.

However, the matter has gone far beyond reasonable debate and hostility, open defiance and deep distrust are now everywhere, even to the point of being unable to share Communion together. It has come to the point where those who write public letters for the Progressive side and those who write letters for the Evangelical side sound like they're talking about two different religions, Gods and beliefs. It is all the same words but radically different understandings. When Progressives and Evangelicals talk about, for example, the "love of God" they say the same things but mean very different things. Most important doctrines fall under this definition and it is becoming very clear that the United Methodist church (as she is officially called) is very, very divided.

This, my friends, is a tragedy of historical proportions and no pious wordplays or "think positive and let's spin this" will work. It's a disaster and I don't think it is going to get any better anytime soon. It's going to get worse.

It's currently about the church's supreme court and its upcoming vote. It will soon vote on whether an openly lesbian woman and pastor living with another woman in "marriage" can be elected bishop. This will be decided by the end of April and it will, either way it goes, start the inevitable. There are no winners here because no matter what the vote is the "losing" side will have had enough.

Sidebar: I suspect that the election of a lesbian bishop was a "Hail Mary" attempt by the progressive side of the church. They knew the election would force a vote in the Judicial Council and they knew that since the General Conference would never vote "Progressively" on this matter this was their only chance. A "yes" vote by the Council would buy them some time, and momentum, going into the next General Conference (or special conference). It seems to me that the election was an attempt to figure out how to be able to "negotiate from a position of strength". I could be wrong.

If the Council votes "yes, she can stay." the Evangelical side of the church will have had enough. Schism will become a reality, period.
If the council votes "no, she has to go." the Progressive side of the church will be in an uproar and, with few options left, start looking towards some sort of "amicable split".

No matter how you look at it, the court's ruling will thus set in motion the dissolution of the UMC as we know it. This, however, aligns rather well with what the church's commission on "A Way Forward" has been alluding to. This commission is working on finding a way forward in the midst of this whole debate AND they have alluded to allowing more regional leeway and independence. In other words, let churches or conferences or jurisdictions decide what they want on a range of issues, perhaps all of them save for "Jesus is Lord" and other givens.
Again, good-bye to the UMC as one church and hello to "lots of churches/conferences that are loosely connected in some vague sense while at the same time doing and believing what we want".

I left Sweden and moved to Norway because I think that is an inadequate and poor way of being a church. Trust me, lots of things happen when you switch out connectionalism (what the UMC is now) to congregationalism (lots of congregations holding vastly different views but being joined by the lowest common denominator) and most of them are bad, in my opinion.

I really wish there was some solution to all of this that could heal our divisions and allow the UMC to regain her former glory, unity and strength...that would allow us to be One church in belief and practice. God is a God of hope but in this case I just don't see it.

Do you?

What does it mean that Jesus rose from the dead...if you think about it?

My grandmother told me many times of her visit to the Holy Land with my grandfather. Not a woman of emotion and drama I remember how she vividly told me of their visit to the "Garden Tomb" and how she turned around to leave and saw a sign above the opening that read "He is not here, he is risen"...and shivered with emotion of those heavy words in that place.

They are heavy words indeed because we don't really have a way of understanding them. To be sure, we understand the syntax, grammar and letters, but I don't think we truly feel what they mean. I mean, what does it mean that a man rose from the dead? It is not entirely clear by itself, besides being very cool.

I think that is the first thing we should do when we consider Easter Sunday. Simply consider how cool it is that a man rose from the dead. Not analyze it. Not study it. Not trying to figure it out...but simply stand in awe and realize how huge it is without any deeper thought.

Second, we should consider that the man had claimed to be God...but that immediately muddies the waters because it adds enormous complexity to our moment of awe and wonder. A resurrection in itself is a massive event to take in...how much more so if we add God to the mix?

Of course, who else but God can rise from the dead, right? Well, the Bible tells us of 8 people who were dead and came back to life. Some in the old testament and some in the new (my "favorite" is Eutychus, the guy who fell asleep because Paul preached too long, and too boring I guess, and fell out a window and died.). All in all, the resurrection of Jesus wasn't the first one and not the most dramatic one either. That price would go to Lazarus, whom Jesus raised to life so publically that the Pharisées decided to kill him again(!). Resurrections were rare, but not unheard of.

So why had my grandmother of few emotional outbursts become so taken with the words "He is not here, he is risen"?

There are many correct theological answers to that question.
That Jesus had claimed to be God and rising from the dead sort of proves that.
That Jesus raised himself without anybody raising him.
That Jesus coming back from the grave meant that nothing would ever be the same.

Lazarus never had any disciples. Never founded a church. Never became a king or a religious leader. Why not? Surely he had a lot to say to people who fear death and suffering and wonder if there is an afterlife, right?
Eutychus didn't get any followers either or start a movement.
Paul probably got resurrected (after he was left for dead when he was stoned) and didn't start a church have disciples (as a matter of fact, he chastised the Christians in Corinth for thinking along those ways).

I think the difference was that for Jesus the Resurrection became the capstone, the summary and the validation of everything he had ever said or done before it happened. It was as if people, i.e. the disciples, had heard him say and do many crazy cool things in the past, among them the craziest being that he was God himself, and that now, post-resurrection, that little coin dropped.
I don't think they thought he was actually God until they saw him alive and well that Sunday afternoon. Prophet? Sure. A man sent by God? Sure. The "servant" from the prophet Isaiah? Yep.

But God?

That didn't dawn on them until post-resurrection...and it dawned on them like the light of a million suns in the darkest of days. This guy is God? Wow! Surreal, but nice (to quote Notthing Hill).

I think you and I need a little time to get past our ideas and notions and "we know how this story goes" before we can comprehend it.

If then, after we consider the evidence (which is solid and clear) come to the conclusion that Jesus was and is in fact God...well, that should make a whole heck of an impact, shouldn't it? Kind of like what it did to my grandmother...make us shiver with an overwhelming emotion that God is Jesus and he is alive!

God is not love

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” - Dostojevsky

It is Easter and everybody living in the post-Christian west is forced to at least hear the word and perhaps for a fleeting moment consider why they get time off work or what all the fuss is about. Well, there isn't actually that much fuss. There are feeble attempts to make it a "normal" holiday with bunnies and eggs and, in Sweden, pickled herring (yum!), but compared to Christmas I would argue that Easter doesn't get much secular attention. How could it?

But let's assume that some people have been exposed to the Christian faith. What kind of faith would that be, I wonder? I don't think I am way off if I claim that it is a faith mainly or solely concerned with some variation on the theme that "God is love". I can't tell you how many times I have heard this phrase from people with anything from a very shallow faith to a very deep faith. It pops up everywhere, from deep theological debates to Twitter-wars.
Of course, this is all very understandable. Who can have anything against a God that is love? Love is, after all, what all of us want and many of us struggle to find. It is our deepest desire (that we can control). It permeates everything from the highest to the lowest. We know it can't be bought and we know that it is all we need.

First of all, however, let's make something very clear. The Bible does say that God is love. However, that doesn't mean that "Love is God". Do you see how that is important? If not, ponder it for a moment and it'll come to you.

Second, even though the Bible does say that God is love, I am saying that He isn't. No, I am not stupid or full of myself. Here is my point:

When the Bible says that "God is love" it doesn't say what you think it says because the word "love" doesn't mean what you think it means. We all have a skewed understanding of eternal things, like love, because we are fallen. Further, nothing that we experience or think about or do is the same as it is with God simply because we use the same word. Basically, though there are similarities between what we call "good", for example, and what God calls "good", they are not identical.

BUT, this is not some fancy interpretive dance on my part to get rid of some Scripture that I don't like. I know that many people believe that evangelical Christians like myself are love-less and cold and all about Law and Order. That is neither true nor my point here.

Let's examine the facts, shall we?

What is love?

Let's see, in almost every single movie we see love is about sex. How long does it take for the actors who fall in love to have sex? It's usually the next scene after they kiss. I can't think of a movie where love didn't turn into sex within seconds, 50 Shades and all that. Maybe you can, but they are the exception.
Second, how many songs have you heard recently that included love and not more or less obvious innuendo to sex? Right, neither have I. There is even a song about sex being "taken to church", imagine that.
Third, what is all advertisement about (that has anything to do with love)? Sex or the intent to produce the desire for sex. I could go on.

This is not some atypical Christian rant about how sex is everywhere and we need to throw out our televisions and computers. I am simple stating that all of us have been indoctrinated that love equals sex...which is neither true nor good.
But God is not sex. So, when we hear the words "...but God is love!" or (the more neutral) "God is love." we must realize that what the Bible says (through John) is that God is NOT sex or has anything to do with sex as something identical with love. To say that "God is love" and then assume that one can partake of all kinds of sexual activities is just dumb.

To continue, if we can move on to the next point, I would like to point out that in the Biblical context love is not a feeling. This is harder to process because surely love is a feeling, right?
True, love has to do with feelings. I feel something that I call "love" when I see my wife or my kids (or if I tap into my American side: when I see chocolate, steaks, pro-football or anything in between :)). You also feel something when you see someone you love or talk to them or make love to them. Feelings, it seems, are very important to our understanding of "love"...but feelings aren't love. We are commanded by Jesus to love our enemies, for example. Do you think he meant that we should feel loving towards them? Clearly, no.
The Bible is not saying that our feelings of love is the same thing as love. In fact, in the one place where it says that God is love it doesn't say anything about feelings at all. At. All.

So, what does all of this mean? It means that we, you and I, must make a little extra effort to understand exactly how God is love. It doesn't involve sex and it doesn't involve feelings.
What then?

I think we should avoid some hot-potato topics for now and move on to what the Bible actually means when it says that "God is love".

What the Bible (in John chapter 4) says about God is that he is "agape"...which is Greek for love. Well, one of saying "love". It is not primarily a feeling or even an action based on a feeling, such as erotic love. It is not primarily a friendship love. It is not primarily an altruistic love. It is something new.

Agape is a love that, as the context for the passage in the Bible makes clear, is primarily a choice and something that creates worth in the receipient (It is also how we can understand that God is Trinity, but we'll leave that one for now). It is, as the Bible says, that Jesus died on the cross for the propitiation (to regain the good-will of God) for our sins. In short, to make things right between God and us. By being torture and murdered and dying. For our sins.

"God is love" is the Cross.

"God is love" doesn't mean that your or my understanding of what love is, is God. That is a fatal mistake and wrong thinking.
"God is love" doesn't mean that whatever we think is loving or "a loving relationship" is God or of God. (For example, I know of a man who truly believes that he loves little boys and girls. Clearly, this isn't God.)
"God is love" doesn't mean that God is loving feelings or some sort.

God is not that kind of love.

God is, as we should expect, a different kind of love. Something that we could see traces of and feel glimmers of in what we usually consider love BUT that is at the same time altogether different. This is one reason why the secular world doesn't get Easter and tells us to buy things nobody needs. It doesn't get love (for all its infatuation with it). It doesn't get love that hangs, literally, on a cross battered and bruised. It doesn't get that "love" involves sacrifice and death...does it? Shouldn't "love" mean flowers and unicorns and puppies?

No, it doesn't.
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
1 John 4:10-11.

Of course, God is love.

Just a different love.

Now, let's take a moment and ponder how this understanding of "God is love" impacts us. Tomorrow is Good Friday, after all.

Don't waste a tragedy

Only a believer in God can claim that there are absolutes since if there is no God everything that we believe is just people believing stuff. Evil, for instance, is just what some people think is evil. It's all opinions. Since most swedes are not believers most swedes can not believe in absolutes and therefore can only offer opinions.

Then tragedy strikes, such as a horrible terror act, and all of a sudden people talk about absolutes as if they exist. Of course, most people do this all the time without realizing that they can't (since they don't believe in God), but tragedy makes it so much more obvious.
I once had a friend who was a staunch non-believer. he realized that only a believer can believe in absolutes, to the point that Hitler wasn't evil, only wrong according to my friend's opinion. However, one day his friend's grandfather was brutally assaulted in his apartment and he called the act "evil". I pointed out his error a little later and he denied that he had ever called the assault evil.

Which is weirder? To not call something "evil" evil or to deny doing so?

When swedes jettisoned their ancient religion of Christianity they didn't really think it through. It just sort of happened as if it would have little to no consequence. When life is good what need is there for God? I mean, it's not like atheistic humanism has anything enticing to offer, is it? Here is the truth (that we proclaim without proof)...that there is no truth. Just opinions and whatever you make of life. You don't really matter. Comparatively, you are nothing. There is no God. There is no purpose to your life, except survival (and hollow comforts and pleasures). There is no such thing as good and evil, right and wrong, just what the majority currently decides (which means those in power).

Yeah, and these people call themselves free. Some freedom. The worst sales-pitch in history...unless you subtly tell people that no God=do whatever you want, without the dire consequences.

But my point is, what do people do when almost all vestiges of true Christianity are gone and there is obvious evil happening? How do people deal with absolute and objective truth about evil (and good, for that matter) when all such categories are gone? When an entire country has decided that right and wrong and good and evil are all relative attributes, not objective realities, then how do they process senseless evil?

Ok, so they gather for "love manifestations". Hold speeches about unity and We shall overcome and put flowers on the ground. Change a profile picture on Facebook. Good things, to be sure, but do they work?

No, they don't because they don't deal with the reality of evil, properly understood. They are reactions, not actions; bandaids, not cures. Driving a truck into a crowd and killing children is evil, pure and simple. That man is going to Hell unless he repents and turns to Christ, which is unlikely but preferable. It is not a matter of poverty or lack of education or hopelessness or poor parenting or any other such thing. The crux of the matter is that an adult male (or two) decided, out of their own free will, to murder innocent people. Period.

That is evil.
That is sinful.
That is damnable.

The only thing for people to do when faced with such a reality is to realize that there is good and evil, right and wrong. Their innate tendency to claim that the terror attack actually is evil points that out. That truth in turn points to God, the only source for objective truth and good/evil, right/wrong.

I repeat, godless people can not talk coherently about absolutes, such as good/evil or right/wrong. They don't, can't, talk like that because to them it's all people's opinions. Only a believer in a supernatural Creator God can do that because only a supernatural Creator God who is outside our reality can step in and say this is right, this is wrong, etc..

Therefore, let's not waste a tragedy with only flowers and Facebook pictures. Let's find a way for people to productively turn this horrible moment of clarity (into the reality of objective truth) into a possibility that they may be able to find the source of objective truth, Jesus, and be saved.

After all, this is Holy Week.
This is the week when a horrible act of state-sponsored terror murdered an innocent man to instill fear in a nation and hope to extinguish all hope.
We who believe in a risen Christ will do well to help our neighbors to not only see the reality of evil but also the empty tomb of a good God.