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Editor's note: This text comes from Rev. William B. Lawrence's presentation to the gathering of United Methodist scholars April 7-8 at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas, Tex. The text may differ slightly from his oral presentation. The accompanying photos are taken from presentation slides. Both text and images are republished here with the author's permission. The video of Dr. Lawrence's presentation can be viewed here.
"As the people gathered for the General Conference, the mood was tense. Church growth in certain regions had brought cultural diversity and, with it, new challenges. A cohort of young voices wanted a say in the decision-making process. A powerful political bloc, with enough votes to dominate legislation, was poised to control the conference. Then, when a crucial item on the agenda passed by a small majority, the tensions in the conference exploded. Some participants began packing to head home. One lamented that this might be the end of the church."
That’s the way it was at the General Conference—in the year 1808.[1]
Methodists coped with that crisis. They remained together as Wesleyans. They resisted the forces of division. They renewed the church by setting doctrinal standards. They reformed the body by taking actions, which protected church doctrine from a willful majority and protected ministers as well as members from being arbitrarily expelled.
To achieve this, the Methodists at the General Conference in 1808 devised a new strategy. They embraced wider cultures and generations, drawing a 62 year-old bishop named Francis Asbury into an alliance with a 26 year-old preacher named Joshua Soule, and electing a bishop named McKendree from the margins of the mission. They recreated Methodism for its next phase of life, with a combination of doctrinal standards and constitutional order served Methodists rather well for 160 years.
Of course, they did not reach perfection. Success in 1808 did not forestall future crises. Methodism had a dozen splits of various kinds in the century and a half thereafter. Even when they stitched themselves together, there were flaws in the fabric of unity.
They took 148 years before welcoming women to full clergy membership. They reunited northern Methodists, southern Methodists, and Methodist Protestants in 1939, but made compromises that institutionalized racial segregation in order to do it.
Yet every time there was a rift or a reunion, each new form of Methodism was a church built the way it was in 1808—on doctrinal standards that define its theological basis, and on a Constitution that defines its decentralized governance system. So, when The United Methodist Church was born in 1968 by merging The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren, our founders adopted Doctrinal Standards to protect the church from theological incoherence, and they created a constitutional system to prevent tyranny either by the episcopacy, or by a legislative majority, or by anyone else.
Some scholars like to debate what the doctrinal standards were in 1808.[2] But only two items are the Doctrinal Standards of The United Methodist Church today. The Doctrinal Standards of The United Methodist Church are the Methodist Articles of Religion and the EUB Confession of Faith.[3] The Constitution protects them from intrusion by the General Conference. There are other doctrinal statements, but these two Doctrinal Standards set the theological identity of The United Methodist Church.
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United Methodists’ doctrinal standards set “the negative limits of public teaching in the Church.”[4] They say what we cannot teach. Their purpose is not to designate what we must teach.
United Methodists have basic beliefs but have space for differences, debates, and disagreements. Ours is a distinctive theological approach. We cannot teach what our doctrinal standards prohibit, such as transubstantiation in Holy Communion. Otherwise, our Doctrinal Standards avoid a “prescription of an inflexible system of doctrine.”[5] Our Doctrinal Standards let us see the gift of salvation as a process, not a finished business. Our Doctrinal Standards say God’s grace comes in many forms, including all the sacred mysteries beyond our control.
United Methodist Doctrinal Standards revere God’s indivisible and saving grace, which is a divine gift for believers striving to be made perfect in love in this life and for others who have yet to hear God loves them.[6] Grace is not separable into personal and social; it is both. Grace is not a foe of human freedom; it cooperates with free will.[7] Grace comes by many means: some are structured into liturgies; most are deep mysteries; all convey God’s love.
Doctrinal Standards establish the church theologically. Two Restrictive Rules in the Constitution protect our doctrine from careless neglect or devious acts. To revoke, alter, or change the Doctrinal Standards of the church, Restrictive Rules in the Constitution would have to be amended by a two-thirds vote of the General Conference and by three-fourths of the lay and clergy members of the annual conferences. Then the Doctrinal Standards could be revised. All this is to prevent theological mischief by the General Conference.
But what happens if the General Conference gets mischievous? What happens if the General Conference changes our standards of doctrine? What happens if the General Conference becomes so obsessed with an issue of church policy that it enters theological territory where the Restrictive Rules say it “shall not” go?[8] What happens if the General Conference—by some legislative loophole or devious design—just ignores our Doctrinal Standards in order to express disdain about homosexuality? What happens if the General Conference, obsessed with homosexuality, violates our theology?
I want to show that such theological mischief has happened. I want to present the case that the General Conference has mischievously been violating the United Methodist Doctrinal Standards for most of the five decades that the denomination has existed. The mischief began with four words.
At the 1972 General Conference, delegates were discussing the Social Principles, which offer the church’s positions on matters of public policy. A draft said homosexuals as well as heterosexuals should have their human and civil rights protected. A delegate sought to add, “though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian doctrine.” Apart from changing only the word “doctrine” to “teaching,” the General Conference adopted his amendment.[9]
Adding the four words “incompatible with Christian teaching” changed more than a Social Principle. It damaged the three “General Rules” that are important in Methodist history. And it altered the theological foundations of The United Methodist Church.
The three General Rules say we should be “doing no harm… doing good…[and] attending upon all the ordinances of God.” The General Conference broke these Rules. With four words that declare the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching,” the church has been harming individual United Methodists and the integrity of the institution. With those four words, the General Conference disregarded “doing good” such as fostering health attitudes about human sexuality in church and society. With four words, the General Conference deplored homosexuality without seeking any help from serious scripture studies on homosexuality before voting. With four words, delegates did harm, did not do any good, and dismissed a means of grace that could have helped them do better. But the harm was beyond immoral.
The words “incompatible with Christian teaching” were more than a new phrase in the Social Principles and more than an attack on the General Rules. They violated two Doctrinal Standards.
The doctrinal damage was subtle and treacherous. The General Conference altered the two Doctrinal Standards of the church by inventing the phrase “incompatible with Christian teaching,” insisting that we must believe it, and basing church laws upon it. In a series of steps, stretching onward from 1972, those four words altered United Methodist theology and became a basis for nasty legislation.
In the 1980 Discipline, the four words appeared in a footnote to a law.[10] In 1996, the General Conference put a new law in the Discipline that assumes the four words have theological authority. “Since the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” the law begins. Those four words became a theological norm that prohibited self-avowed practicing homosexuals from candidacy for ordination.[11] Then, in 2004, the General Conference made those four words a basis for a chargeable offense that threatens the credentials of ministers who perform same-sex marriages.[12] And in 2019, the General Conference used those four words as a theological basis for ordering a bishop to refuse to ordain a minister or consecrate a bishop who may be a homosexual outlaw.[13]
In four words, from 1972 to the present day, the General Conference has altered our Doctrinal Standards. By declaring the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching,” the General Conference declared that the practice of homosexuality was theologically prohibited. In effect, the General Conference said that the practice of homosexuality is theological heresy, like transubstantiation.
In four words, it damaged three Rules, violated two Doctrinal Standards, and severed the one grace of one Lord. Four—three—two: that is the formula for theological mischief of the sort that was launched in the words “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Doctrinal Standards provide the metrics by which all other theological statements of the church must be measured. Doctrinal Standards cannot be changed by the General Conference, according to the Constitution. But let’s look at how the General Conference has done it anyway, by enacting laws about marriage.
One Doctrinal Standard, Article XXI on “the marriage of ministers,” says, “it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness.”[14] This doctrinal standard blends the Wesleyan theological principles of freedom and holiness. When a church law limits the marriage of any United Methodist on the basis of gender, it is more than a law. It is an intrusion into doctrinal territory. A church law that prohibits same-sex marriages by clergy, or threatens clergy credentials for performing same-sex marriages, alters our doctrinal standard on marriage by limiting individual “discretion” and personal judgment about “godliness.” It alters a Doctrinal Standard about freedom and holiness. So it is a theological violation.
Any United Methodist who does not like that is free to seek an amendment to the Restrictive Rules. And, if successful, one can then try to revise the Doctrinal Standard. But wrangling a simple majority of General Conference delegates to enact a law that violates the church’s Doctrinal Standards is a serious theological error.
Yet, does doctrine matter?
Back in the 19th century, when Methodist law said women could not be ordained to preach, Phoebe Palmer challenged the legislation theologically. She said it put the will of the church into conflict with the will of Christ.[15] She asked church leaders who enforced laws against women how they could justify depriving the world of God’s grace preached by women. She demanded they answer this question: “What account will you render to the Head of the church, for restricting the use of this endowment of power?”[16]
Her questions have new importance now. Four words have threatened three Rules, violated two Standards of Doctrine, and—as Palmer prophetically shows—cut the indivisible grace of the Lord into pieces, based solely on human sexuality. In a painful progression, four words break three rules, violate two Doctrinal Standards, and reject the one grace of the one Lord.[17]
For nearly fifty years, in its obsession with homosexuality, The United Methodist Church has let the General Conference violate our Doctrinal Standards. This will persist to schism unless some group—a governing body, or a multigenerational and multicultural alliance, or a seminar of scholars, or a new majority in the General Conference—can find the courage to correct this theological error.
It will not be the Judicial Council, which determined decades ago that it has no constitutional authority to decide questions of theology.[18] But it could be the Council of Bishops, whose Committee on Faith and Order[19] can provide theological guidance. And it could be annual conferences. Their constitutional authority to judging whether candidates for clergy membership pass theological exams is final.[20] Their authority to adjudicate complaints against anyone who teaches doctrines contrary to the established church standards is final.[21]
The current crisis may end with one church or with many churches. Either way, we must halt the theological mischief that says homosexuality is merely a matter of law. For doctrinal reasons that are the foundation of the community of faith, we can remain and find unity in theology and mission, resist the theft of the Wesleyan tradition, renew the church through the power of the sacred dimension, and reform it by the grace that gives everyone protection.
A bishop named Asbury, a minister named Soule, and a preacher from the silenced gender named Palmer insisted that the church’s Constitution and laws rest on theological standards. We ignore them at our peril.
William B. Lawrence
The Rev. Dr. William B. Lawrence is former president of the Judicial Council and former dean of UMC-related Perkins School of Theology. (Photo by Photo by H. Jackson/Southern Methodist University.)
The Rev. William B. Lawrence is Professor Emeritus of American Church History, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University and Research Fellow, Duke Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition. He served as 2008-20016 president of the United Methodist Judicial Council.
[1] John J. Tigert, A Constitutional History of American Episcopal Methodism (Nashville: Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South; Smith and Lamar, Agents, 1904), pp. 297-298
[2] For a concise summary of the dispute, see Thomas Edward Frank, Polity, Practice, and the Mission of The United Methodist Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 2006 edition), pp. 147-148.
[3] The Constitution, Division Two, Section III, Articles I-II, ¶¶ 17-18, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2016)
[4] “Doctrinal Statements and the General Rules,” Part II, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 1968 (Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1968), p. 36. This specific phrase only appeared in the 1968 “Preface” to the Doctrinal Standards and General Rules.
[5] Loc cit. In the 1972 Discipline, the prefatory material says that the purpose in writing doctrinal standards “was not to impose an inflexible system of doctrine or to inhibit responsible intellectual freedom, but rather to provide a broad and flexible framework of doctrine which would define the outside limits for public teaching in the societies, in disputed cases.” Part II, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 1972 (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, ¶ 68, Section I, p. 41. On April 23, 1972, the Judicial Council ruled in Decision 358 that such prefatory material is a “legislative enactment.” Hence, unlike the Doctrinal Standards themselves, the prefatory material can be amended by a simple majority vote of the General Conference and is not protected by the Restrictive Rules. The Judicial Council concluded Decision 358 with this sentence: “In order to keep this matter clear and unambiguous it is required that, either in the Preface or as a footnote to Part II [now Part III] of the Discipline there be a statement to the effect that Sections 1 and 3 are legislative enactments and neither a part of the Constitution nor under the Restrictive Rules." In the 1972 Discipline, Section 1 is titled “Historical Background,” and Section 3 is titled “Our Theological Task.”
[6] See: Article XII, The Articles of Religion; Articles IX and XI, the Confession of Faith, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2016, pp. 68, 74-75.
[7] See: Article VIII, The Articles of Religion; Article VII, the Confession of Faith, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016, pp. 67, 74
[8] The Constitution, Division Two, Section III, Restrictive Rules, Article I, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 ¶ 17, p. 31.
[9] Don Hand, “Sharing in Faith: Did the Conflict Begin with the Language?” United Methodist News Service, July 22, 2014
[10] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 1980 ¶ 404, footnote 2, pages 182-185.
[11] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 1996 ¶ 304.3, page 172.
[12] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2004 ¶ 2702.1(b), page 719
[13] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016, May 17, 2019 Addendum ¶ 415.6. p. 341
[14] The Articles of Religion, Article XXI, Part Three, Section III, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 ¶ 104, p. 70. The Judicial Council addressed Article XXI in Decision 1185, which it published in April 2011, in a matter involving a resolution from the New York Annual Conference that reached the Judiciary. The Judicial Council decided, without dissent, to view the Articles of Religion “as ‘constitutional’ in importance and application” and to view Article XXI “as having the weight of a constitutional provision” in Decision 1185 but not to view it as a theological matter. The Judicial Council began as an entity of governance in The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and became a body established by the Constitution of The Methodist Church in 1939. At the formation of The United Methodist Church in 1968, the Judicial Council was established as a unit of governance for the new denomination. Throughout this history, the Judicial Council has consistently maintained that it is authorized only to address matters of constitutionality and law, not matters of theology or doctrine. Hence, when the judiciary discusses topics involving theology or doctrine, it does so only through the lens of the church Constitution or church law.
[15] Margaret McFadden, “The Ironies of Pentecost: Phoebe Palmer, World Evangelism, and Female Networks,” in Methodist History, vol. 32, no. 2 (January 1993), p. 67
[16] Phoebe W. Palmer, The Promise of the Father, (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015) reprint of 1859 edition published by W. C. Palmer, p. 23
[17] See: Article IX, the Articles of Religion; Article V, the Confession of Faith, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016, pp. 67, 73.
[18] See rulings by the Judicial Council, specifically these: Judicial Council Decision 59, May 6, 1948; Judicial Council Decision 243, November 9, 1966; and Judicial Council Decision 358, April 23, 1972. See also Judicial Council Decision 1185, which discusses Article XXI in the Articles of Religion but does so from the perspective of the Constitution and the laws of the church, not as a matter of theology.
[19] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 ¶¶ 443-450, pp. 359-362
[20] The Constitution, Division Two, Section VI, Article II, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 ¶ 33, pp. 35-36
[21] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 ¶¶ 2702.1(e) and 2702.3(d). The Constitution, Division Two, Section VI, Article II, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 ¶ 33, pp. 35-36, specifies that the annual conference “shall have reserved to it” the authority to judge all matters concerning clergy membership and ordination. Paragraph 2703.3 describes the procedures in an annual conference for processing a theological complain against a layperson.