Wesleyan Logo
A graphic from The Wesleyan Church's membership kit.
As the future of The United Methodist Church continues to unfold, a telling fact rarely gets into the conversation: namely, there is no need for what the Wesleyan Covenant Association claims to be necessary. It already exists. It's called The Wesleyan Church.
Go to the denomination's website and look at their doctrinal distinctives in general and their position paper “A Wesleyan View of Gender Identity and Expression,” and it's clear that The Wesleyan Covenant Association is simply not needed. The Wesleyan Church has held the views espoused by he WCA much longer than the WCA has existed. All a “WCA-ish” church would have to do to be a manifestation of WCA views would be to become part of The Wesleyan Church. It's already there.
So….what does this tell us about the current controversy? Well, it says that something other than theology (in general and about human sexuality in particular) is underneath the WCA's efforts. There is no need to create the kind of church the WCA says is needed. It's already there.
So….it seems that the driver for the WCA is actually institutional power and control on the part of those who want to be “big dogs” in something new rather than “little fish” in something that already exists. Otherwise, the WCA would be spending its time with leaders in The Wesleyan Church to effect a merger, rather than exerting effort to effect an “amicable separation” within United Methodism. The fact they are working on the latter is a telling fact when the very church they claim is needed in the Wesleyan world already exists.
The Rev. Dr. Steve Harper
The Rev. Dr. Steve Harper is a retired seminary professor, who taught for 32 years in the disciplines of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies. Author and co-author of 31 books, his latest book is Holy Love: A Biblical Theology of Human Sexuality. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page.