United Methodist Insight Exclusive
I think of myself as a traditionalist. I believe in things like the Holy Sprit. I understand the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and have preached on them. I believe in church choirs and organs and stained glass windows. I know the Bible and always built my sermons on what the Bible said. I followed the Discipline and had trustees in some rural churches furious with me over making them answer the property questions required by it. I never conducted a worship service without the Lord's Prayer . . . and an offering!
I grew up in a Sunday School on the Edward Markham poem which spoke of how circles were drawn to keep people out. "But Love and I had the wit to win, we drew the circle to take them in." That was what we learned was the meaning of "Love your neighbor as yourself."
I never conducted a worship service without the Lord's Prayer . . . and an offering!
That was what I saw as the "tradition" of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: "Experience, Reason, Tradition, and Scripture."
I was 37 years old, having been a part of the Methodist tradition since I was 7, out of seminary and under appointment for ten years, when the 1972 General Conference was threatened with the splitting of the denomination if it did not pass legislation against Gays. That was not a part of my tradition as a Methodist, "United Methodist" for three years, at that time.
So I am not happy with my "Tradition" being ignored and the word "Tradition" being used to identify the very ones who forced their view of Scripture on the UMC in Atlanta in 1972.
I know not everyone had my same experience from childhood in the church. And I'm enough of a realist to understand that the use of words can be arbitrary and even political. I respect the intent of those who offered "Progressive, Centrist, and Traditional" for the sake of offering what they hope are helpful distinctions for the sake of the discussion for the "Way Forward" work.
But before such terminological efforts become formalized, I just have to enter my challenge so that posterity might know that not everyone had the same "tradition." And that someone stood up for the tradition of grace he and many others experienced as Christians, as a United Methodists, from their childhood.
The Rev. Jerry Eckert of Port Charlotte, Fla., is a retired clergy member of the Wisconsin Annual Conference.