Plenaria | November 22, 2025
I am one of those preachers who sometimes gets called an agitator. More often than not, friends do the agitating, sending me articles and links they know will light me up.
So it was last week when a longtime friend and ministry colleague sent a late-evening text pointing me to a new book published by the Council of Bishops: Building Beloved Community: The Courage to Love in the Face of Tyranny. After replying, “So the episcopacy is speaking out against authoritarianism?”—and receiving nothing but a laughing emoji—I ordered the book immediately.
Cokesbury.com Image
Over the years, I have written on fair process, appointment security, ordination standards, equitable compensation, cultural diversity, transparency, democracy, and schism. These topics all revolve around the same axis: the relationship between power and integrity within the life of the church. Building Beloved Community speaks directly into this space.
A Clear and Courageous Framework
The book responds to the worldwide rise of populist, nationalist, and authoritarian movements. With welcome clarity, it deconstructs the abuse of people and power, an analysis often missing from diplomatic or overly pastoral communications. Here the Council of Bishops presents beloved community not as sentimentality but as a political and ecclesial norm rooted in justice, inclusion, and democratic commitments.
The bishops structure the book as a teaching resource. It is accessible, pastoral, and suitable for congregational use with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Its four sections, Deceptive Detours, Empowered by Grace, Staying Alert, and Seeds of Change, offer a theological and practical roadmap for Christian advocacy and community building in contexts distorted by authoritarian power.
Prophetic Strengths
The book’s political orientation is unapologetically progressive, egalitarian, liberal, democratic, and pluralistic. These commitments mirror the revised Social Principles and the identity of a post-2024, post-separation United Methodist Church.
The bishops do not shy away from naming specific historical and contemporary antagonists. They cite sources, identify authoritarian actors, and then analyze the tactics used to dominate, marginalize, and oppress vulnerable groups and dissidents. This clarity is refreshing and in many ways overdue.
Most significantly, the Council of Bishops invites United Methodists into a form of political activism grounded in love, shared community, and prophetic sacrifice. By their encouragement and example, they assert that political engagement for the sake of justice is a Christian responsibility rooted in ecclesiology and distinct from partisan loyalties.
Broadening the Scope
The primary crisis identified in the text is global populist authoritarianism and ethno-religious nationalism (with white Christian nationalism named clearly in the U.S. context). Several governmental examples are cited. The crisis is framed as both external to the church and toxic to it. This is true but incomplete.
Scapegoating, harassment, and marginalization are not merely external threats. They exist within our beloved community. Systemic efforts to weaken transparency, fair process, employment rights, equity, governing structures, shared accountability, and safety nets are as prevalent inside the UMC as beyond it. Where nationalism fractures a pluralistic nation, congregationalism has fractured a connectional church. Both concentrate authority and privilege in fewer hands.
Additionally, while the book focuses on xenophobic populism and racialized grievance politics as expressions of authoritarianism, the most common forms encountered by Christians are internal: theocracy, clericalism, elitism, and monarchy. Our own tradition is not immune.
If we are to speak truth to power, we must also speak truth to ourselves. Beloved community cannot flourish without honest self-examination and credible institutional and individual repentance.
A Troubling Regression
That need is evident even within this text. For most of the book, LGBTQ+ persons are correctly named as a vulnerable group harmed by both civic and ecclesial authoritarianism. This aligns with the revised Social Principles and actions of the 2024 General Conference.
Then, without explanation, Chapters 19 and 22 return to the logic of the Commission on a Way Forward, an approach that frames debates on human sexuality as the source of distraction and disunity rather than naming and addressing the harm inflicted by decades of discriminatory policy. Blaming those who cry out for justice for the scandal felt by the unjust is itself an example of scapegoating.
Fortunately, this is no longer an open question within the UMC. In 2024, the most grassroots and diverse General Conference delegation in our history overwhelmingly removed all exclusive language targeting LGBTQ+ persons and those who serve them. The church has repented, and many of us have fully joined in that repentance. The football chains have moved forward to 2025. It is now first down and goal.
A Word of Hope
Despite these very human shortcomings, Building Beloved Community is compelling, engaging, and ultimately encouraging. Its truthful boldness, keen analysis, and consistent pastoral concern provide a meaningful resource for congregations and leaders seeking a faithful path through turbulent times.
Personally, I hope this text signals a broader cultural shift in the UMC from the merely pragmatic toward the theological, pastoral, and prophetic. The practical wisdom it shares can bring healing to the brokenness of the world and our to own beloved community in a spirit found within our earliest mission statement: “to reform the nation, especially the church, and spread scriptural holiness throughout the land.”
Best of all, this book may represent some of the first intellectual fruits of our post-2024 United Methodist Church.
So let’s pick this up and run with it.
The Rev. John P. Feagins
Photo Courtesy of Manchaca UMC
The Rev. John P. Feagins is senior pastor of as senior pastor of Manchaca UMC in the Austin, Texas area after previously serving for 11 years at La Trinidad United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his blog, Plenaria.