This is the final post in a series on commitments that, I believe, will make the Future Methodism that remains and emerges better equipped to meet the current cultural context in the U.S. You can find the first three posts here, here, and here.
In A Time to Build, Yuval Levin (2019) uses a broad definition of institution; “the durable forms of our common life. They are the frameworks and structures of what we do together” (p. 19). Institutions can be organizations, but many more, such as family, professions, and traditions are social structures. “They structure our perceptions and our interactions, and as a result they structure us. They form our habits, our expectations, and ultimately our character” (Levin, 2019, p. 19). Christian denominations are hybrid institutions composed of organizational and social “durable forms” with an inherent purpose of forming those within them. I believe a commitment to sustaining future expressions of Methodism as formative institutions will be essential for long-term missional impact.
In a day in which confidence in the common civic, social, and religious institutions are at historic lows, it may seem odd to argue for a commitment to being a formative institution. It is often suggested that the individualism of this era in the West has fostered a wide-ranging skepticism of organizations and authority structures, including organized religion. Dwight Zscheile (2015) summarizes, “research on the functional beliefs of American adults and youth bears out the reduction of religion to moralism and the priority on individual self-expression”(p. 10). Yet, this distillation of religious belief to self-expression does not preclude a desire for that expression to be embedded within a defined institutional context. The reported dissatisfaction with or irrelevance of institutions is not due to the nature of institutions per se, but a loss in confidence that institutions do what they were meant and profess to do. Functioning institutions are formative in nature, but many institutions have been deformed to be performative (Levin, 2019).
We expect institutions to positively constrain people in such a way that they contribute to the healthy functioning of an institution in order for it to achieve its purpose. When institutions are leveraged to give a platform for individuals at the expense of the purpose of the institution (performative), confidence in the institution decreases. As evidence for this, Levin (2019) offers the examples of Congress, the presidency, and the military. In a 2018 Gallup poll, the presidency (office, not office holder) had the confidence of about ⅓ of the American public, while Congress enjoyed the confidence of a mere 11 percent of the public. In 1975, a year after Richard Nixon resigned, Gallop found the confidence in the presidency and congress was 52 and 42 percent respectively (pp. 29-30). The American public has watched as the presidency and Congress has become more dysfunctional over the decades. Rather than doing the work of legislators and executives, office holders have increasingly cast aside the constraints of their roles and used their positions for individual or partisan gain.
In contrast to the presidency and Congress, the military has had consistently (even increasingly) high confidence. The same 2018 Gallup poll found that 74 percent of the American public had confidence in the military*. It is hard to think of any other institution that has a reputation of forming people like the military. Women and men of the armed forces have a rule of life that requires the constraint of their own desires and well-being for the sake of the larger purpose of the security of the nation. The institution constrains them in order to enable them to contribute to the success of the institution’s purpose in specific and repeatable ways. In short, the military does what it is designed to do.
Formative institutions “provide the people in them with boundaries and procedures, a code of behavior, standards of integrity, and formal responsibilities that help direct their ambitions and abilities toward a broadly shared purpose” (Levin, 2019, p. 185). Institutions breakdown when these characteristics are abandoned by its members. Government is not the only example. Businesses become hostile to employees, nonprofits lose clarity of vision, and religious denominations become inwardly focused as the formative nature of an institution deforms.
The United Methodist Church as a Formative Institution
The United Methodist Church has the forms of a formative institution. Some of the forms, such as those related to mission, come from Scripture and the long-held tradition of the Church universal. Other forms come from the structures found within liturgies, The Book of Worship, The Book of Discipline, and The Book of Resolutions. The whole body of the UMC is committed to a rule of life via the mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” This mission is primarily lived out in the local church through a commitment to participate through “their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service, and their witness” (The Book of Discipline, par. 217.6). The recent A Sacred Trust report from the Study of Ministry Commission (Daily Christian Advocate, Vol. 2, pp.1003-1019) makes clear the historic and theological intention to be a formative institution, specifically for clergy;
“Ordained clergy are baptized Christians who surrender themselves to a ‘rule of life,’ known as an order, which frames their service to the church… Shaped by the church, ordained clergy help to shape the church’s contemporary mission and ministry. Initiated into this rule of life and a mode of accountability known as conference membership, the ordained serve God by engaging in an ongoing process of spiritual formation as they steward the renewal of the church through the ministries of Word, Sacrament, Order, Love, and Justice.” (p. 1008)
In both the general and specific instances, the institutional forms are apparent. The purpose of the body is explicit, the behavior standards and procedures for life together are clear, and in the case of clergy, enforceable accountability mechanisms are in place. Historically, the accountability for laity was the society, class, and band system with the General Rules as the guiding rule of life. Though the presence of the forms of a formative institution are necessary, they are not sufficient for a functioning institution. Members must live within the forms of the institution for it to function.
It is clear to me that the UMC has not been a fully functioning formative institution for some time, if ever. The crisis we find ourselves in is downstream of decades of creative expansions and narrowings of definitions, implementation of ad hoc alternate forms or exceptions, de facto consolidation of power and authority, and outright resistance to the forms and structures of the UMC. Instead of constraining and forming members at all levels, the institutional clout of the UMC has been leveraged and manipulated by some to serve the shifting agendas of various factions. The UMC has become a stage, i.e. performative rather than formative. As a result, the UMC has become increasingly consumed by internal conflict at the expense of the mission she has received from God. It is clear now, that a denominational institution in such a state cannot last.
The purpose of this post is not to make a theological judgement on the evolving agendas of the various factions that have contributed to the current institutional crisis. My intention is to argue that the remaining and emerging expressions of Methodism must take seriously the path that has led to this moment. After whatever resolution is reached in the effort to divide or restructure the UMC, both the remaining and emerging expressions will have a diversity of positions to navigate. In order to maintain the institutional stability necessary for prolonged, healthy ministry, future expressions of Methodism will need to be clear and consistent about the expected rule of life and the forms to support and enforce it.
The forms of future expressions of Methodism will be, at least, the combination of doctrine, praxis, and polity. These forms must be compatible with each other. Currently, the doctrine and polity of the UMC are not compatible enough. It is true that there is an element of a pluralistic experiment in the institution of the UMC, however, I believe this point is often overstated by members of all the current factions. The early General Conferences make clear that there was not the appetite for the doctrinal diversity hoped for by some factions. This relatively rigid doctrinal approach was paired with a polity that is not equipped to maintain praxis aligned to the doctrine. The distributed nature of the UMC polity with accountability designated to regional bodies and leadership without an ultimate enforcement mechanism combined with a widespread unwillingness to use available avenues of accountability has allowed conflict to continue with no clear path to resolution. The distributed authority of semi-autonomous UMC agencies and seminaries has exacerbated the ongoing conflict as well.
The current UMC institution operates somewhat like a communion of mostly autonomous dioceses (conferences or jurisdictions) like that of the Anglican Communion, with a de jur authority like that of a pope to maintain doctrine and praxis (General Conference), but without any mediating structures to execute the authority. The discontinuity has made possible, or even inevitable, that the UMC would devolve into a performative institution and a denomination that has become increasingly inward focused. The remaining and emerging expressions of Methodism will have learned from this decades-in-the-making crisis if they intentionally bring doctrine, praxis, and polity into alignment. This alignment will potentially look quite different between the future expressions of Methodism, and I will not attempt to lay out what that alignment could look like in any particular expression here. It will take a great effort by each expression to consider all stakeholders and create a functional shared rule of life.
Institution Does Not Equal Bureaucracy
My call for a commitment to formative institutions is not a call for a complex bureaucracy. In fact, I have discussed the role of the evolving complexity and ambiguity of UMC polity in the current crisis. Some of the current proposals, such as the one offered by the Connectional Table, to resolve the institutional conflict involve creating more levels of bureaucracy. Unless this is an effort to prepare for an eventual split and isolation of the post-separation UMC in the U.S., such proposals will fail to resolve the conflict of a global denomination. I believe simplicity should accompany the efforts to establish formative expressions of Methodism. The bureaucracy and polity of the remaining post-separation UMC will probably look fundamentally the same as the current UMC. The emerging expression(s) may look fundamentally the same as the current UMC, they may be fundamentally different, but most likely they will be recognizable to those familiar with the UMC with some significant differences. In any case, a process for simplification of the polity would allow an opportunity to discern what will be essential to the mission and therefore, rule of life for the expression, and the structures and boundaries which will be necessary to focus the passions and ambitions of members towards the mission as defined by the totality of institutional forms.
Formative institutions also do not require a rigid centralized leadership structure. Some of the most rapidly growing movements like Fresh Expressions, Ecclesia, and KC Underground are structured as networks focused on training and resourcing missional leaders. These are formative institutions even though they have loose leadership structures. Leaders emerge as needs are discerned. The forms of the networked institution are maintained through training, resourcing, and sustained partnerships. The essentials of the institution are minimal allowing for a great diversity in achieving the mission of the institutional movements. Bureaucracy is low, but relationships are robust. These institutional forms could not replace those of denominations such as the future Methodist expressions, however the principles of networks and shared leadership could potentially be adopted to streamline polity in ways that align with doctrine and practice.
God Bless you if you have made it this far into the post. To be sure, discussions of this nature can be dry. Yet, these are the discussions that are necessary and will be happening one way or another. I believe it benefits all of us to be intentional about recognizing and establishing the forms of institutions that will bind us rather than to be ad hoc. Even as Zscheile (2015) argues for the need to decentralize religious organizations he asserts,
“without institutionalization, movements tend not to last. Christianity, Judaism, and other faith traditions will have an institutional future in American life if they are to survive. Those who deny the institutional character of the church tend either to celebrate uncritically the expressive individualism of late modernity or to promulgate romantic notions of primitive community that negate the faithfulness of established congregational life.” (pp.26-27)
The task before us is for all our UMC siblings, no matter the theological faction with which one is affiliated. Our common mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ will be better served with healthy remaining and emerging expressions than with expressions with new, crippling conflicts.
This ends the four-post series on what I believe are four commitments that will be essential to all future expressions originating with the current United Methodist Church. Laity mobilization, intentional discipleship, a culture of multiplication, and formative institutions are not the only characteristics that will impact the health and success of future Methodist expressions, but they represent core aspects of growing missional movements of the church. I do not believe that Christian denominations are irrelevant to the mission of God today. They are the vessels of important theological traditions that benefit the Church universal. At the same time, they will need to continually adapt to the missional context as they offer the wisdom of the saints that came before. The four commitments discussed in this series are crucial for adaptive missional engagement, and will aid in our awakening to the abundant gifts and graces granted by the Holy Spirit for this time.
*This should not be construed to mean that 74% of Americans agreed with how the military has been deployed.
Levine, Y., (2019). A time to build: From family and community to congress and the campus, how recommitting to our institutions can revive the American dream. Basic Books.
Zscheile, D., (2015). Disruptive innovations and the deinstitutionalization of religion. Journal of Religious Leadership, Vol. 14(2), pp. 5-30.