'Methodism and American Empire' in its Ecumenical Context

Book Review

by

A United Methodist Insight Exclusive

For its international assembly in 2004 the World Communion of Reformed Churches had produced a document, The Accra Confession. Meeting at a location where African slaves had been held prior to being put on ships for the fateful trip across the Atlantic, these Christian leaders from both the Global North and the Global South toured the sites: two "castles" on the coast of Ghana. These facilities held the African slaves in the lower-floor dungeons. But above this were the quarters of the enslavers, including a chapel where they held their Christian services.

Appalled by the signs of their religious tradition’s participation in the oppression and exploitation by colonial empires of previous centuries, they called upon their various denominations (Presbyterian, Congregational, United Churches etc.) of more than 100 million followers to repent of the sin toward their fellow humans of color.

Subsequent documents were written in the following several years by some of their organizations such as the Council for World Mission, and the United Church of Canada. Relevant to my research, a couple of those documents' titles and content acknowledged today’s presence of empire and for the need of the church to oppose it: Mission in the Context of Empire  and Living Faithfully in the Midst of Empire .

In the meantime, the World Lutheran Federation, composed of more than 80 million adherents, had likewise produced a book length document, Being the Church in the Midst of Empire. Each of the chapters is written by a different Lutheran scholar and covers a wide spectrum of issues concerning empire today.

It is obvious that these church leaders, many with offices in the headquarters of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, must have been in conversation. For in the midst of the aforementioned documents, the World Council of Churches produced their own, AGAPE: Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth. In it, AGAPE’s writers acknowledged the presence today of "empire." They went beyond that, first, by giving that empire a name, Neoliberal Globalization or Neoliberal Capitalism, but they then set about spelling out an alternative based not on growth and profit or wealth disparity, but one undergirded by Christian values.

(I shall discuss these documents in more detail later.)

How is this information relevant for us as United Methodists and how does it relate to the book Methodism and American Empire?

Answering that requires us to look more closely at the World Council of Churches and its constituent bodies. There are six major families that make up the half a billion people of the WCC: the Reformed family (World Communion of Reformed Churches, 100 million constituents), the Lutherans (Lutheran World Federation, 80 million), the Anglicans (also 80 million), the Methodists (World Methodist Council, 70, million), the Baptists (?), and the Orthodox (?)

As noted above, the Reformed family produced several documents (by the World Council of Reformed Churches the Council for World Mission and the United Church of Canada). The Lutherans produced a book. Even the Greek Orthodox Church got involved with its For the Life of the World: Toward the Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church.

What do we have from the Methodist family? From the World Methodist Council? Nothing. From the United Methodist Church? Nothing. Readers, please correct me if I am wrong. All that the United Methodist Church did regarding its colonial past was when the Council of Bishops assigned retired Bishop Rosemarie Wenner of Germany to be a liaison to the WCC's AGAPE project.

We who have prided ourselves in the past on being in the forefront of social justice with our Social Creed now are silent on the role of empire in globalization. How sad.

There is no excuse for this silence but there are probably explanations. Noting that the Anglicans share our silence, it seems appropriate to point out that the Anglicans share a turmoil in their family as well over matters of non-acceptance of LGBTQ persons. In our case, this has brought us to the point of schism. It can be distracting.

This, then, is the significance of the appearance of Scott and Maia's Methodism and American Empire. It is not an official statement of either the World Methodist Council or the United Methodist Church. But it is at least a voice in the Methodist camp raising the relevance of discussion of empire today.

We United Methodists owe thanks to David Scott and Filipe Maia. Whatever else their book does – and the contribution is huge – the book makes this United Methodist less embarrassed by the official silence on our complicity with the injustices of our past colonialism.

The Rev. H. A. "Bud" Tillinghast is a retired clergy member of the California-Nevada Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. He serves as curator of the special project, Preparing a Digital Resource Library for the UMC's Future, sponsored by United Methodist Insight.