Frontier and the UMC

by

June 29, 2020

In my undergraduate studies I was introduced to this idea called “Frontier Thesis”. Upon reflection, I wish we spent more time unpacking the thesis, but we did not. Taken from the Wiki on the subject the thesis in a nutshell:

In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles. There was no landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents and fees. Frontier land was practically free for the taking. 

This thesis promoted by Frederick Jackson Turner suggests that the frontier provides a vision for a utopia. In the frontier there would be no need for bureaucracies, rent, institutions or even standing armies because the land was “practically free for the taking”. Of course the land was not free for the taking. There were millions of people living on those lands, and they were not “free for the taking.” These lands were conquered through enslavement, killing and displacement. The frontier continued to be the draw for so many people because of the perception that there would be more land and resources for everyone. If you arrived somewhere and there were already people on the land, you could kick them off with a guilt free conscious not only because of racism but also with a sense that there was more land “out there” they could go to.

We hear echos of this today when someone says, “This is America and if you don’t like it you can go somewhere else.” Even if it were possible to easily move from your home, which it is not, the assumption is that there is always “another” place that you can go. There is always a frontier, there is another place that we (or you) can expand to in order to allow for a utopia.

Frontierism, at it’s core, suggests that there is no problem that cannot be fix through expanding. Putting the double negatives aside, it assumes that every problem can be fixed by expanding. Of course there are some problems that can be addressed by expanding. For instance, expanding access to the ballot box by expanding voting measures. However, not every problem can be addressed by expanding. Additionally, expanding creates more problems than we care to admit.

In the UMC we face a set of denominational issues before us: declining of membership, aging membership, decline of finances, etc. As it stands now, the solution being offered is some version of the frontier myth. If we expanded our market then our problems would be resolved. If we had more disciples. If we had more money. If we had more churches. If we had better and more leaders. If we had more robust theological education. The assumption is that if we had more then we would not be in the trouble we are in.

It is argued that expanding can solve problems, but if we are honest we might come to see that expanding is constantly good at one thing - masking.

Expanding masks problems rather than address or fixes them. For instance, if the UMC had growing membership and bank accounts to the brim, our problems would still exist. We would not see the structural and systemic problems of our denomination. We would be too juiced up on all the new and expanding churches, and not have time or interest to the underlying and hidden problems. And here is perhaps the greatest problems that needs to be addressed:

The mythology that expanding is the solution is part of the problem because it masks.

I am reminded of the late Carlo Carretto who wrote:

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely. And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another? I would not be able to establish it without the same faults, for they are the same faults I carry in me. And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ. I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else.

We can expand by starting new denominations, but we are only continuing to mask the reality that expanding (which is a form of expulsion) only continues to divide the house. And as we know, a house divided cannot stand. The house is the myth of expanding and one of these days that myth will fall. Until we repent of our addiction to the frontier myth we will always be willing to divide the world with the false belief that the divisions will bring utopia.

Maranatha!

The Rev. Jason Valendy, along with his wife the Rev. Estee Valendy, serves as co-pastor of Saginaw United Methodist Church in Saginaw, Texas. This post is republished with permission from his blog, JasonValendy.net.