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11/24/2003 Entry: "What is a Methodist?"

What does it mean to be a Methodist?

The person who asked this question may regret it! It isn't the easiest question to answer in a few words. Perhaps the best place to start is with the document that re-united the Methodist Church in Great Britain (and I can only really speak about the British context), the “Deed of Union”. This sets out the doctrinal standards of the Methodist Church in the following way:

The Methodist Church claims and cherishes its place in the Holy Catholic Church which is the Body of Christ. It rejoices in the inheritance of the apostolic faith and loyally accepts the fundamental principles of the historic creeds and of the Protestant Reformation. It ever remembers that in the providence of God Methodism was raised up to spread scriptural holiness through the land by the proclamation of the evangelical faith and declares its unfaltering resolve to be true to its divinely appointed mission. The doctrines of the evangelical faith which Methodism has held from the beginning and still holds are based upon the divine revelation recorded in the Holy Scriptures. The Methodist Church acknowledges this revelation as the supreme rule of faith and practice. These evangelical doctrines to which the preachers of the Methodist Church are pledged are contained in Wesley's Notes on the New Testament and the first four volumes of his sermons. The Notes on the New Testament and the 44 Sermons are not intended to impose a system of formal or speculative theology on Methodist preachers, but to set up standards of preaching and belief which should secure loyalty to the fundamental truths of the gospel of redemption and ensure the continued witness of the Church to the realities of the Christian experience of salvation.

Christ's ministers in the church are stewards in the household of God and shepherds of his flock. Some are called and ordained to this sole occupation and have a principal and directing part in these great duties but they hold no priesthood differing in kind from that which is common to all the Lord's people and they have no exclusive title to the preaching of the gospel or the care of souls. These ministries are shared with them by others to whom also the Spirit divides his gifts severally as he wills. It is the universal conviction of the Methodist people that the office of the Christian ministry depends upon the call of God who bestows the gifts of the Spirit the grace and the fruit which indicate those whom He has chosen. Those whom the Methodist Church recognises as called of God and therefore receives into its ministry shall be ordained by the imposition of hands as expressive of the Church's recognition of the minister's personal call. The Methodist Church holds the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and consequently believes that no priesthood exists which belongs exclusively to a particular order or class of persons but in the exercise of its corporate life and worship special qualifications for the discharge of special duties are required and thus the principle of representative selection is recognised.

All Methodist preachers are examined tested and approved before they are authorised to minister in holy things. For the sake of church order and not because of any priestly virtue inherent in the office the ministers of the Methodist Church are set apart by ordination to the ministry of the word and sacraments. The Methodist Church recognises two sacraments namely baptism and the Lord's Supper as of divine appointment and of perpetual obligation of which it is the privilege and duty of members of the Methodist Church to avail themselves. The Conference shall be the final authority within the Methodist Church with regard to all questions concerning the interpretation of its doctrines.

So there!

The practical upshot of all this is that there is no ‘statement of faith’ to which all Methodists are expected to subscribe, beyond the basic historic documents which are shared by the whole Church - the Bible and the Creeds. The unique contribution of the methodist tradition is in its particular emphases, holding in tension what are sometimes regarded as opposites - personal salvation & social holiness, liturgical and extempore worship, the centrality of both preaching and the sacraments.

Instead of a systematic setting out of doctrinal standards, Methodists have expressed their faith in the poetry of hymns. If it is true that Methodism ‘was born in song’, it is also true that Methodists have learned and celebrated their faith through singing. What began with Charles Wesley has been continued in every generation since, most notably this century by F. Pratt Green, many of whose hymns are to be found in Hymns and Psalms, the hymn book of the Methodist Church. It continues to be true that it is the hymn book which stands next to the Bible as the ‘yardstick’ for many Methodists. I regularly post examples of Charles Wesley's hymns, and a search on "Wesley" of the site will turn up more than a few.

Finally, the first sentence of the Deed of Union is absolutely vital. The Methodist Conference remains committed to the search for visible unity in the whole Church of Christ. The distinctive emphases of methodism do not mean that we are a sect claiming to have an exclusive grasp of truth. We claim only that through the Methodist Church God has given gifts to his whole Church, and that as we continue in faithfulness to him so he will continue to bless the Church through the Methodist people.

Posted by Richard @ 11/24/2003 03:34 PM CST

What is social holiness? What is extempore worship? Could you define these?

Posted by Swan @ 11/24/2003 04:55 AM CST

Richard, Since Methodists and Moravians have some important common history, I appreciate what you wrote at the end. It would be a good historic description of the Moravian Church as well. Thanks.

Posted by Barry @ 11/24/2003 04:23 AM CST