Wishing the United Methodist Church a Happy Death

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Methodism was born as a movement of renewal from within the Church of England. Its founders, the brothers John and Charles Wesley, understood their mission to be that of "raising up a holy people" and "spreading scriptural holiness over the land." Holiness was the “marrow” of the Bible, John Wesley argued, and he described his teaching about holiness as “the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists.”

For the Wesley brothers, the basic task confronting ordinary Christians was that of "working out their own salvation," toward the end that they might become more and more holy through the practices of Christian discipleship. The Wesleys believed that eventually, the truly faithful might be "perfected in love," and they believed the most likely place to find instances of such true holiness was at the end of life.

For this reason the early generations of the Methodist movement made a practice not just of visiting the dying, but of recording "accounts" of what they witnessed at the deathbeds of their friends and loved ones. Accounts of "happy deaths" or "holy deaths" were featured articles in the early Methodist magazine, THE ARMINIAN, which John Wesley edited personally through much of the 1770s and 1780s, until his death in 1791. Wesley took good deaths as the purest possible sign of true holiness, of a fully realized Christian faith.

All of which brings us to the current state of the United Methodist Church. At its sessions in February 2019, the Church's governing body, the General Conference, doubled-down on prohibitions against the celebration of same-gender weddings and the ordination of openly gay and lesbian clergy. A stricter regime for enforcing these prohibitions will soon become the official policy and practice of the church.

The legislative actions of General Conference -- approved by a margin of 53 to 47 percent -- confirm a terminal condition. The conflicts and controversies first lodged within the body of the denomination decades ago have metastasized and proven entirely resistant to cure. Even if one faction or another holds on to the apparatus of the church, and to its logo, the cross and flame, the body that has been the United Methodist Church cannot survive. It is no longer a question of "if," but rather a question of "when" and "how" the United Methodist Church will die.

It is not too late, however, for United Methodists to behave like Methodists as the denomination winds down (or "dissolves" or "splits" or "cell divides"). To that end, those charged with forging new directions for Methodism in the United States should look to the tradition of the happy death.

A useful rubric for this practice can be found in Charles Wesley's triumphant Easter hymn, CHRIST THE LORD IS RISEN TODAY! The third and fourth verses of the hymn invite our active participation in the divine work of death and resurrection:

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia! Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia! Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia! Following our exalted Head, Alleluia! Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia! Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

The final line of this fourth voice provides an outline of a simple three-fold challenge:

  • to acknowledge the pain that comes with the death of the denomination ("the cross")
  • to commemorate that the United Methodist Church is no more ("the grave")
  • to open a new chapter in which multiple futures are considered ("the skies")

The deathbed accounts published by the early Methodists make clear the difference between a happy and an unhappy death. In unhappy deaths, people go to the grave kicking and screaming, bickering with God and bickering with their neighbor, resisting the saving work that God is trying to accomplish in their final days of life, and in their deaths. In happy deaths, the dying enter into the "way of salvation," participating fully in acts of repentance, pardon, reconciliation and sanctification. Happy deaths bear witness to the goodness of God and to the promise that no death represents the end of God's working for good in the world.

So how will the leaders of the dying United Methodist Church move forward? Will they engage in conversation against the backdrop of foreboding and pessimism and worry and conflict? Or will they enter a different kind of conversation, a holy conversation cast against the backdrop of assurance that for the God made known to us in Jesus Christ, death is not the end of a story, but an invitation to resurrection.

A physician once remarked to Charles Wesley, "Most people die for fear of dying; but, I never met with people such as yours." When Charles shared this in a letter to John, the older brother wrote back, "Our people die well." To the Wesley brothers, this was a point of pride. They believed good deaths could be holy occasions, the sources of great "happiness" even. It is time for the leaders of a dying denomination, the United Methodist Church, to embrace this proud inheritance.

The Rev. John Fanestil, Ph.D., is a pastor at First United Methodist Church of San Diego. He is the author of Mrs. Hunter's Happy Death: Lessons on Living from People Preparing to Die (Doubleday, 2006).