Conversation 2: Wesleyans and Membership

Tom: So what were you saying about the Discipline Monday, Jane? Something about things being in strange places?

Jane: Yeah, to start off with, it's very difficult to change things like the Articles of Religion or covenant membership requirements because things not only have to pass the General Conference by two-thirds majority, they have to pass a two-thirds majority of all the districts in the North American General Conference, as well as other full General Conferences like the Caribbean and Philippine conferences. They have a status equal to the North American General Conference when it comes to the World Wesleyan Fellowship.

Matt: I think that's a good thing. A rogue general conference can't do away with the virgin birth, because it would never pass muster with the church at large.

Mary: And I think that makes the drinking issue somewhat of a moot point. Things like this don't change unless the church does its homework, gets buy in, gets widespread support. When the church has made significant changes in the past on issues like divorce and tongues, it has commissioned four year studies.

By the way, you still haven't convinced me that drunkenness in the Bible just refers to alcoholism.

Tom: So what were you thinking, Jane?

Jane: Well, because of the way it's set up, it's fairly easy to add things to the membership requirements that people feel strongly about. Just a few years ago, we added the idea that marriage was between one man and one woman, for example.

Matt: But it's really hard to take things out.

Jane: Right. So we still have as a membership requirement that Wesleyans will have family devotions every day. But we don't have any statement on abortion in the membership requirements.

Matt: Isn't there a statement on abortion in the "special directions," the place where we used to have stuff on social issues like dancing and going to movies?

Jane: Yes, but not in the membership commitments.

Mary: Are you telling me a person could be a member of our church and have an abortion?

Jane: They could be a member and perform abortions.

Jack: But they can't drink, and they have to have devotions with their families every night.

Matt: It's what happens as we change as a denomination over time. Some things become more important issues; other things recede into the background.

Sally: If I and my friends were to write the membership stuff today, we'd probably put in some things about taking care of the environment and taking care of the poor.

Jack: Try to get my generation to pass that! We don't see things like that as sin.

Sally: We will (smiling)... when we're in charge in a few years.

Jack: I tell you, we shouldn't have anything as membership requirements that isn't basic Christianity, not one thing more than the Bible itself requires of all people.

Matt: But what about things like polygamy and slavery? The Bible never mentions abortion. I don't think Paul or Jesus would have approved of it, but they never say anything about it. No verse in the Bible says anything about it.

Sally: What about the Trinity? I guess Christians worked on that question for almost 400 years after the New Testament was done.

Tom: Actually, I think the issue of polygamy raises a good question, Matt. What do we do when we bring the gospel to a culture where polygamy is accepted? Do we require new converts to divorce two of their wives?

Mary: We should at least have them pick one and stop having sex with the others.

Sally: Tough luck for two of them. What have we actually done in those situations? Keep them out of leadership but keep their families intact as they are?

Tom: I'm not sure any of us in this room are in a position to really understand what we're talking about, let alone that we should be deciding all these sorts of things for them.

Jack: Sure we can.

Matt: Spoken like a true Boomer (smiling).

Tom: But when it comes to things like drinking. If our stance on drinking is weird to some people in our larger churches now and to the younger generation, you can imagine how odd it is to Wesleyans in Australia.

Jane: It seems to me that several different things are going on. On the one hand, half the Wesleyan Church today is like the Wesleyan Church of the past, a group culture where membership requirements mirrored a fairly monolithic "culture." We wouldn't allow men to go around without their shirts because that's what most of us looked like.

Sally: And my generation doesn't get any of that. We think that we need to blend in, make friends with others. We don't think Christians should look different than other people, as if we're better than they are.

Mary: Then how will anyone know you're even a Christian?

Matt: This is way too complex to hammer out in a few minutes.

Jane: I think it's too complex to hammer out in a General Conference. Someone needs to do some serious study of the assumptions in our current membership structure--things those who designed the Discipline may not have even realized they were assuming.

Jack: What makes a person a member? Is it attending and being a Christian?

Mary: Or is it our historical understanding of what the Bible teaches, including special understandings we have on things like drinking?

Matt: Or is it less absolute and more a matter of what we as a group affirm, without claiming that other groups are less Christian because they do things differently?

Tom: And let's not forget that we are no longer a monolithic group. I personally think membership requirements should be more "local" than universal.

Matt: ... because the universals of the gospel play out differently in different contexts.

Sally: I personally think they should revisit membership requirements every other decade or so, because things change so quickly.

Jane: Maybe they could write that into the Discipline.

Matt: We'll see soon enough whether anything changes.

Jane: Oh things will continue to change... it always has... whether officially or unofficially.