If the upcoming General Conference of the United Methodist Church is taken over by those who are "certain, " the atmosphere will be contentious, the results will not be pretty or holy, and folks will leave thinking they have done the will of God when they will have only enthroned their will and imposed it on the denomination.
Like so many United Methodists in these days leading up to General Conference, I am wondering what might shed light on the pathway to get us past our present circumstances and into a future filled with abundant life. The wondering (praying) we are doing for the UMC is what so many more are doing with respect to the challenges we face in our nation and world. All around we find ourselves in the whirlwind of contention, partisanship, and separatism.
Like so many others, whether in the church or society, my wondering brings me to love–the essence of what it means to live as God intends. Of course, love is the way through our dilemmas. But like many other words, love can be something we all affirm, but leave dangling in the winds of controversy. Like many other words, concepts will not get us through the mess, only conduct will.
Pondering the conduct of love in relation to the UMC General Conference, and with respect to our national and international challenges, I would propose the relinquishment of certainty as a crucial ingredient in finding a way forward. In the history of Christian spirituality, the saints have always distinguished between conviction and certainty, embracing the first and eschewing the second.
On one occasion Mother Teresa was approached by John Kavanaugh, who told her that he had traveled to Calcutta to ask her how he could have certainty in his faith. Without hesitation, she told him not to seek certainty (she called it 'clarity')--that it is an idol which leads us away from truth rather than into truth.
Why in the world would she tell him that? And why do the great cloud of witnesses confirm her counsel? Precisely because certainty breeds arrogance (egotism/ethnocentrism, the essence of the original sin) which leads us to speak and act as gods rather than as human beings. Certainty establishes hierarchical thinking, with a group's certainty alleged to be better than anyone else's, which of course is a manifestation of the deadly sin of pride. Certainty creates the in/out judgmentalism which believes it can achieve something never-before achieved: a "pure church." Certainty spirals downward into a mindset where motives and methods crave power and divide a community into "winners" and "losers." In short, certainty is idolatry, and Mother Teresa was right to name it as such.
Certainty eclipses wonder and mystery. It asphyxiates love. Certainty replaces relationships with regulations. Certainty turns people into issues to be addressed and opponents to be overcome. Certainty accepts and fellowships only with those who agree. Certainty eclipses life together.
Conviction, on the other hand, is offering each other the best we have and know about something, and receiving from others the best they have and know. And more than that, conviction is openness to the Holy Spirit, who can invade our space with wisdom no one has by their own effort and expertise. Conviction is present at the round table of holy conferencing. Certainty is not.
Conviction leaves things unresolved at some levels. It does not codify or clean up everything. It allows for what Mike Yaconelli called a "messy spirituality." But it leaves all of us as we really are, "sinners saved by grace" moving together into further Light as pilgrims making progress rather than as Pharisees who claim to have arrived.
If the upcoming General Conference of the United Methodist Church is taken over by those who are "certain, " the atmosphere will be contentious, the results will not be pretty or holy, and folks will leave thinking they have done the will of God when they will have only enthroned their will and imposed it on the denomination.
Wondering (praying) about a way through and a way forward, let us join with the saints of the ages in decrying the deformative and dangerous aspects of certainty, and pray that a spirit of conviction (which not only affirms faith, but also expresses it with humility, and in community) will define deliberations in St. Louis--a conviction that leads the UMC to be an institutional expression of the Body of Christ where love prevails, where the fruit of the Spirit grows and is shared in abundance, and where all the means of grace and ministries of Christ are offered to everyone in the world.
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. He is author and co-author of 31 books and a retired Elder in The Florida Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page.