United Methodists Experiencing a "Brain Drain"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มิ.ย. 2024
- This is from the daily briefing I am hosting on my Locals account. If you want to join us for these times, go to plainspoken.locals.com to either follow or become a subscriber. I'm not paywalling these things.
This segment dealt with a conversation hosted by Rev. Drew McIntyre on X, which asked the question in earnest if this deluge of exits from the UMC might at all impact the richness of their thinking life together. There are myriad responses that I tried to cover while doing my own thought around the question. Is an academic life really necessary for denominational flourishing? Is the GMC going to be any better than the UMC? Where are Wesleyan academics lining up with respect to their chosen denominations?
Links:
Drew's Tweet Thread - x.com/DrewBMcIntyre/status/18... - บันเทิง
If Adam Hamilton is a paragon of intellectualism in the UMC, they are in bigger trouble than they think.
I think the nail was hit on the head when the comment was made that progressive theology leans more on subjective feelings and even relativism. That is actually a problem in many people's philosophical worldview today. We are in a postmodern era where people no longer value objectivity and universal standards of truth. We all know where that leads.
Our historically orthodox and Wesleyan Seminaries will, hopefully, hold the standard for faculty, but my concern is for the students feeding into our Seminaries. North American culture is permeated by liberal/progressive education, especially in all state schools. Current graduates of colleges and universities in the USA may be genuine Christian believers, but they have been emmersed in heavy cultural Marxist indoctrination. If our seminaries are to produce the kind of graduates who will uphold traditional Wesleyan doctrine and beliefs, time spent in the classroom affirming the best of Western civilization (thank you Christianity) will be essential. Its not enough for seminaries to produce students who are ready to care for the poor - there is no shortage of social workers. What we need is men and women of strong Christian conviction, who understand that the world doesn't need a lesson on recycling, but on repentance of sin and salvation through Christ.
I have shared you concern in the education of pastors. I just graduated from Duke Divinity School not long ago and the things that are taught this day and age are wild. Unless young prospective pastors are firmly grounded in their relationship with God and Scripture they will walk out changed which is how we have gotten to where we are at. Seminaries produce liberal-minded pastors who in turn convert their churches.
I don't understand how people can so easily abandon thought patterns that they have held always.
@@amordei6999 I've spent 24 years in the UMC in NC, and year 25 as a Global Methodist. I do agree with you, that a liberally indoctrinated pastor can have significant influence on their congregations. The flip-side of that (and for the record, I'm a rare Asbury guy in Duke-heavy NC) is seminaries are doing their students a terrible disservice with slanted liberal doctrine. Why? Because, at least in eastern NC, there is zero demand for activists-in-clerical-robes. Most congregations want to hear more from the Bible than "Jesus-as-social-class-warrior." The activist-pastor better save their moving boxes, because they won't last more than two years at any church. I can guarantee the Dean of the Divinity School won't be around to help them pack when they get asked to leave - and they'll never get a dime back on all that wasted tuition money.
I can assure you that UMC is suffering a drain of experienced and successful pastors which is almost the same thing. My BIL church decided to vote on disaffiliation and 60% voted to leave. But UMC had stacked the deck and required 66% vote in favor to disaffiliate. Guess how many showed up for worship next Sunday. BIL decided it was time to retire. A pastor friend who also has over 40 years also retired this year. His progressive wife celebrated that" her side had finally won".
Curious about how the "Brain Drain" is affecting UMC seminaries. I received a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the Chicago area in 1987. It looks like Trinity is no longer an approved seminary. I was a candidate for ordained ministry, but on two different occasions I never made it past my local District Committee as a candidate for ministry in San Diego, CA for the CA Pacific Annual Conference of the Western Jurisdiction. I notice that Claremont School of Theology is totally online and I think the campus is being sold in a legal dispute! I count 15 schools from the list of approved seminaries that can done totally online. Not every school listed is 'Methodist' with the likes of Harvard, Yale, and Union Theological Seminary. There are also approved schools that are Lutheran, Presbyterian and even Moravian. I wonder how many purely 'Methodist' UMC denominational seminaries are still operating with 'in person' degree programs. For me, direct personal interaction with faculty, staff and other students is vital when preparing for ministry! Many schools are slashing their budgets, downsizing, merging, or outright closing, because of declining enrollments and rising costs. When budgets are slashed, no doubt some faculty will be let go. This might also contribute to a brain drain . Also, if a seminary is totally online, how many professors are needed? Probably not very many. With declining enrollments across the U.S. for most of higher education, I can't help but think that abortion is a factor. Most college or seminary students when I was in school in the early to mid 1980s were born before Roe vs Wade (1973). Starting around 1995, the numbers of college and seminary age students no doubt started to decline. Imagine the students, staff and faculty who were never born who could have made a difference in enrollments and made a difference in other ways as well!
I love your Channel. Im not a Methodist. I attend a Baptist Church. But i still dont understand about ConservativesLeaving and Forming GMC. The UMC kept the Seminaries,Colleges, Hospitals, Mission Organizations and the money. Whether its Presbyterians splitting up or UMC. The conservatives end up losing. I Live on the Illinois Northwest Indiana Border. There are Multiple UMC Churches near me. Lansing Illinois, Hammond Indiana, Munster Indiana , Dyer Indiana etc. NO GMC churches.
I found it to be a bit of retreatism, but once most strong traditional voices left, the UMC that remained was not open to traditionalist as was promised. It was made clear time and time again in this short period that if I wasn't going to go along with their new way that in time I would be miserable. God wins in the end, and I felt I could do more for winning with God by leaving myself when my church showed little interest in the conversation even after the general conference. But I do think the fight should have been made stronger. But grace was attempted and the progressives abused it fully.
Who's going to be buying all of those '50s-era church buildings from the UMC? Today, there can only be so many former churches to convert into gay bars; that novelty is fading fast. Besides, those buildings will be needing new light fixtures, bathroom overhauls, new roofs, repairs of exterior walls, needing new mortar, new HVAC equipment, new flooring, parking lot repaving, etc. And how long will the money last that they'll get through extorsion of their formerly "brothers and sisters" in the faith? Those arrogant, greedy bishops will go through that money in no time. I'm guessing that they'll be looking hard to find other victims.
I was never a student at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, MS, however, it has a reputation (and a growing record) for the kind of high Wesleyan/Methodist scholarship you are describing.
I deeply appreciate the role and "office" you fill in raising these questions and in leading Wesleyan/Methodists to think more seriously about the critical issues associated with our unique mission "to reform the nation--especially the church--and spread scriptural holiness across these lands." May the Lord continue to use you to spread the fame of Jesus and to encourage the hearts of His people everywhere.
Thanks for your kind words, brother. I love serving the Lord, and I hope I am pleasing him in this capacity. I also nakedly hope to be of benefit to the Methodists. It would be so exciting to see us rise up and reclaim our heritage!
"They take themselves seriously academically, but not for good reason." Yea, and Amen!
Went to the Corum Deo Pastor’s Conference this year at Christ Covenant in Charlotte. I was, perhaps, the only Arminian in the sea of Reformed pastors but let me say, the Reformed Churches are on a different intellectual level than Methodists or Baptists. Some of the lecturers were admittedly painful to pay attention to, but the overwhelming majority of Reformed speakers were light years ahead of Methodist Scholars (even those eggheads at Boston University- where I also studied).
The biggest problem of a group feeling like they are righteous and being driven by that righteousness is that it’s easy to fall over the line of self-righteousness.
It is a hard thing to guard against. However, we must. Pride is a deadly sin. Jesus' story of the Pharisee and the publican is before my eyes continually.
While I was studying at Perkins, one of our professors, Bruce, Marshall - whom Stanley Hauerwas called the best Theologian in America - converted from Lutheran to Roman Catholic. Certainly the UMC lost David and Kevin Watson, Andrew Thompson, David DeSilva, Scott Jones, Tim Whitaker, Timothy Tennent. I think the “brain drain” is real and all the more challenging since (even i will admit) the Methodists have been known more for missional zeal than careful systematic theology. For the UMC to lose so many of those theologians that they actually did have is a big deal. My impression is that many “scholarly” pastors in local churches - who continued to study serious theology after seminary- have also left.
Plus they lost Billy Abraham, of course.
Matt O'Reilly is a valuable GMC theologian
The loss of theological diversity; people within a tradition willing to ask one another tough questions, and challenge one another for the sake of depth, is always a pathway to stagnation and death. A room full of people patting one another on the back is standing water.
I don't think we will be saying that when we are all together in the Kingdom, all sharing the mind of Christ. I think we have to work towards that ideal this side of heaven. I believe it is possible to have a rich fabric that we all share in, which is based in conformity to Christ. I do not agree that the waters always grow stagnant when they flow from the living waters of Christ. I'm not nearly as concerned about variety or diversity as I am with faithfulness and uniformity. It is true that the UMC is losing diversity of thought. I don't think that is a bad thing in itself. I think it is very sad that they are losing the most faithful and doctrinally sound people in their midst. That way lies damnation.
We left the UMC 50+ years ago when the "God Is Dead" concept was being bandied about at their Candler seminary in Atlanta, with the thought in mind that this wasn't going to end well. Clearly, it hasn't.
The brain drain, of which I was speaking of to many in my circles, is mainly due to the fact that the majority of Methodist scholars and theologians are thoroughly evangelical and historically orthodox, and from that they knew there was no future within the progressive UMC.
14:10
I do think Hal Knight takes Wesley and Wesleyan Theology seriously. I remember a class where we went to the chapel and sang Wesleyan Hymns to look at their theology. We finished one and a student said, "Isn't there a lot of blood in that hymn?" Dr. Knight looked a bit puzzled at first and then said, "Well, as I understand it there was a lot of blood involved in the cross." OK, that wasn't brilliant scholarship but I have found his books on Grace and his constant cautions against the church falling into "cheap grace" to be cogent. Now, this was 20 years ago and I haven't read recent (in the last two decades,) work by him. Had I not been able to choose classes by him I probably would not have made it through seminary. He was on my committee for graduation - after two bad experiences - in one committee the two professors took to arguing with each other about theology more than they talked to me. Their views were so different it was impossible for me to reconcile and make both happy. Also, I found Dr. Young Ho Chun to be one of the smartest scholars that I took classes from there...i wouldn't call him Wesleyan but he is a fine systematic theologian.
The real problem isn't that the UMC will not have intellectuals; it's that the UMC is losing its theological diversity. It's becoming an echo chamber of liberation theologies informed by critical theory.
The real problem is they have abandoned God's Holy word and become 100% absorbed in their own understanding. Ecc 12:8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
“Theological diversity?” So, let me get this straight, diversifying the Truth, the Word of God, is a good thing? Thats blasphemy. That’s exactly what the UMC has done, they have blasphemed against the Word. Diversity is inter-sectionalism, and inter-sectionalism is radical Communism, and Communism is by definition anti God.
I think it only stands to reason that the majority of theological expertise has or will have left the UMC, and consequential to the UMC embarking upon a course for which there is no foundation (a point of embarkation ) and no chart upon which to navigate to a destination, one desired of God as given in The Word. The UMC will be making up a course as they proceed, but all of it will be through dangerous, uncharted waters for which destruction is inevitable as all other radical denominations have discovered and each doing so without regard to the consequences of those that preceded them.
The Lord does sometimes bless the work of ungodly people and institutions. I believe he does so for his own glory, though sometimes I scratch my head at how the flourishing of death can bring glory to the Lord of Life. A number of biblical authors were likewise perplexed. Even so, I have a hard time seeing how the UMC is going to flourish after these moves. I don't think we see any institutions heading this direction doing very well...
We as Christians and as Methodists need to go back to embracing a culture of scholarship and deep thought if we’re to reverse course. I’ve seen far too many people who have disaffiliated and desire to “get back to the basics” but adopt an anti-intellectual approach in response that’s sadly becoming a common trend (but certainly not a majority) among many who lean right. We need a language to describe and understand our theology if we are to stand out from all of the other denominations out there. Just because the GMC exists and is growing does not mean that the work is over.
Where’s Ben Witherington in all of this?
I don't know if Witherington III is (still) United Methodist, but it would be logical to assume that he will leave the UMC at some point. I haven't seen any evidence that he will be leaving Asbury Seminary, and I'm wondering if ANY professors there who have been part of the UMC will remain there. JMHO.
Ideally a church would be actively serving others including the poor like the Methodists are great at doing. Plus they would be actively teaching great deep Biblical theology like the Calvinist types are doing. Seems like too often churches are unbalanced in one or the other extreme. ( I realize Calvinists differ from Arminian/Methodists in some important theological areas.)
Yes, balance is hard. I think we have to do what is hard. I believe we can only do what is hard because of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. I worry about people getting content with something far less than what God expects, spelled out in the scriptures. As I wrote in a recent Substack piece (open.substack.com/pub/jeffreyrickman/p/methodist-nature-holy-first-compassionate), any good works done rightly must flow out of a genuine saving faith, marked by holiness and purity. Otherwise they are an affront to God. I hope Methodists remember this, and soon.
Jason Vickers?
Yeah I don't know his denominational affiliation. Do you?
I don’t.
lol, I felt I had to log on to make my comment heard...big surprise that...however, miniprepper8284 already said what I wanted to say. Hamilton is successful (in being able to provide a gospel that is "pleasing to the ear") but he is not, by any stretch of the imagination a scholar.
The theological scholarship at Saint Paul's theological school, where I attended, is very weak, especially in biblical studies. Good Wesleyan professor, thou.
And, sadly, you have a true Methodist scholar like Richard B. Hays (author of "The Moral Vision of the New Testament") changing his theological stance on homosexuality. In "The Moral Vision" Hays was very orthodox in his interpretation of scripture on human sexuality; recently he has reconsidered, and moved left. Very sad and disappointing.
Yeah I never read Hays, otherwise I would be more upset about it. I just don't notice Christian faithfulness corresponding at all to IQ or accreditation. People of all walks of life seem equally inclined towards falling away. It terrifies me.
My precious brother, go to Ausbury and do your PhD. Your church needs you. This is your bent.
Oh I can't imagine that. I'm pretty darn happy doing what I do. As long as I understand what they are saying and what the implications of their words are, I'm pretty content. Getting me into the academy would be a great way to get me to shut up and start repressing things. No thanks! I'm grateful to the folks who have the stomach for it. As it stands, I couldn't be happier to be where I am. Thanks for the kind words, though.
@@plainspokenpod you can do BOTH nowadays. We need guys who are scholar/pastors and pastor/scholars. I have had the great joy of being a Dean and a Church Planter. The impact on your students is multiplied. You will give an account of how you steward your mind. You have a great mind.
If whatever is being taught doesn’t apply to reaching, teaching, winning and developing men, women, boys and girls for Christ, then it is not worth 10 cents. Scholars, teachers, students, whatever … if they are not focused on evangelism, they need to leave the keys on their desk and go across the street to the folks who simply want to fiddle around with whatever is the civil cultural flavor of the day concern.