It is important for any organization or program to clearly articulate the values it is committed to advancing. After the United Methodist Action program of the Institute on Religion & Democracy (UM Action) was founded, we issued “A Reform Agenda for United Methodists” in 1996 outlining specific reform goals for the United Methodist Church.
In subsequent years, a great deal has changed in the realities of the UMC, which has forced UM Action to pivot in our priorities and specific goals, even as our core, driving values of biblical Wesleyan faith remain constant for UM Action.
In this new season of our denominational history, we as UM Action offer this new statement of who we are, the enduring principles for which we continue to stand, our hopes and plans for this present season, and an invitation for you to join us in our gospel-driven work, to the glory of God.
UMAction’s Hopes and Plans for Faithful United Methodists in this Season
We are longtime, devoted lay and clergy members of The United Methodist Church (UMC) who have sought to remain faithful to God and to our vows to the church. We are committed to the UMC’s historic, traditional doctrinal and moral standards. The New Testament and church history teach us that in every age and culture, the church of Jesus Christ is called to work to both advance the Kingdom of God beyond our walls and also to “contend for the faith” within (Jude 3). UMAction has worked for many years to help renew and reform the UMC. Sadly, however, recent escalations of unfaithfulness by denominational leadership have forced our denomination to this present point of division. In this context, we celebrate the launch of the Global Methodist Church. We enthusiastically support the GMC’s mission and efforts to “make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.”
We recognize that as the United Methodist Church’s leadership is rapidly becoming more liberal, the GMC is now becoming the denomination for a growing number of United Methodists who have remained loyal to the historic biblical, Wesleyan doctrinal and moral standards of The United Methodist Church. We hope that a great portion of the UMC will eventually be able to join the GMC. We call on our supporters to help us in doing what we can to strategically empower congregations who feel “trapped” in an increasingly dysfunctional UMC.
In this season of separation, we strongly support the right of every conference, congregation, and campus ministry to make their own fair, free, and informed decisions on whether the Global Methodist Church, the post-separation United Methodist Church, or another affiliation would be best for its future. We protest the heavy-handed and bullying ways in which many bishops and other United Methodist officials have recently imposed needless barriers and intimidation against freedom of speech and freedom of choice.
In faithfulness to our vows as members of The United Methodist Church, in recognition of the fact that our loyalty to Christ and the Kingdom of God must ultimately transcend any one denomination, and driven by love for our Lord and all those created in His image, we will continue promoting these values within and through the UMC as long as it remains our church, and we will continue to promote these values for the Global Methodist Church:
- All clergy and missionaries must actually believe and teach the Trinitarian doctrine, high view of Scriptural authority, miraculous birth and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the urgent importance of salvation in Jesus Christ taught in the Doctrinal Standards of the Methodist Articles of Religion and E.U.B. Confession of Faith. There must be accountability for those clergy, especially bishops, who abuse their offices to spread false teaching directly contrary to our core doctrine. Greater care must be taken to prevent those who do not believe such basic Christian doctrines from being made clergy in the first place. Furthermore, those in teaching positions in our church have a responsibility to promote a renewed “Wesleyan literacy” of deeper familiarity with our great spiritual heritage.
- Those in denominational leadership must recover the ethos of humble servant leadership, looking to the self-sacrificial example of early Methodist leaders. Bishops should be term limited.
- Our congregations shall recognize the sacred responsibilities of laypeople and the covenantal nature of church membership. We must equip and empower laity to use their gifts as partners with clergy in ministry and leadership.
- We seek to be a more authentically global church, united in doctrine and morals across every region. Denominational leadership should be composed of faithful men and women who reflect our denomination’s global and ethnic gender diversity. Denominational policies and decisions shall be made in fair, democratic, and transparent ways.
- We shall be an ethnically and culturally diverse church that stands firmly against racial or tribal bigotries. We must approach such matters with the recognition that when any one part of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer together with it (1 Corinthians 12:26) and that there is no room for any racism between repentant sinners at the foot of the Cross.
- Any official denominational schools must be unapologetically Christian institutions and must be meaningfully accountable to the church and our doctrinal and moral standards.
- Denominational agencies and structures must become more transparent, responsive, efficient, lean, and consistently accountable to, and supportive of, our church’s biblical doctrinal and moral standards.
- Our denomination shall uphold and teach the historic Christian values of marriage and sexual morality as clearly taught in Scripture: fidelity within the covenant of lifelong marriage between one man and one woman, and celibacy in singleness. Denominational agency staff shall personally adhere to this and other basic Christian standards required of our clergy. We must pursue compassionate ministry with people experiencing same-sex attraction or gender confusion, while upholding God’s compassionate boundaries for His good gift of sexuality.
- The church should be clearly pro-life, affirming the value of ALL people as bearers of God’s image from the moment of conception, defending those vulnerable to abortion, assisted suicide, or euthanasia, and compassionately supporting mothers facing unplanned pregnancies.
- Our denomination’s official public witness on social issues shall be fundamentally reconstituted to become more limited, humble, nuanced, biblically shaped, theologically grounded, morally consistent, and globally informed. Church leaders at all levels shall avoid mimicking the political partisanship and divisive rhetoric of secular political lobbies. Official church resources must not be used to promote the personal political biases of denominational staff. The church must recognize that most political disagreements amount to differing prudential judgments on the best means to advance commonly held values, and that faithful Christians can and do disagree about such matters.
We invite you to join us in promoting these values, goals, and commitments.
Adopted by unanimous vote of the UM Action Steering Committee on October 5, 2022.
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