Doctrine, Doctrine, Give Me the News (2008)

 First published as a Facebook Note on February 19, 2008.

We had a discussion this week in our (adult) church school class about United Methodist doctrine. We are a bunch of rather unorthodox Christians, so it took us awhile to get to this question, but take it on we did. Someone found us a copy of the basic United Methodist doctrine, which is comprised of a revised (1808) version of John Wesley's Doctrinal Rules, along with the 1963 Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (promulgated just a few years before their union with the Methodist Church). I've been a Methodist all my life, except for a two-year vacation in the early 1990s, and this was the first time I'd encountered either, which I think speaks volumes about the importance of doctrine in the United Methodist Church.

Wesley's rules are either hilarious or embarrassing, depending on your mood. They mainly seem designed to distinguish Methodism from the Anglican Church from which we sprang. For example, Article XIV "Of Purgatory": "The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God." Religion is missing something when it is insisting on what it is not.

The EUB stuff is more modern, almost airily so. For example, Article XI "Sanctification and Christian Perfection": "We believe sanctification is the work of God's grace through the Word and the Spirit, by which those who have been born again are cleansed from sin in their thoughts, words and acts, and are enabled to live in accordance with God's will, and to strive for holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Huh?

On a more basic level, I am bothered by reducing religion to a series of true-false statements. That seems to me to deny the mystery of God, not to mention the varieties of religious experience. (As if to underscore this point, our choir Sunday sang a lovely setting of John 3:16, which is a lovely verse... until you read as far as John 3:18, at which point I start balking.)

I grew up with very specific opinions about theology. I have shed more and more of those as I've grown older, and find God is more real to me now than ever. I can affirm the first four words of the Apostle's Creed, "I believe in God," and leave the rest to be interpreted however one sees fit. The more I try to pin God down like some sort of dissected mollusk, the less real and the less godlike God seems, and the more I start worrying about how wrong are the people who disagree with me.

So I'm living without doctrine. I believe in God, and by that I mean there is something universal and good that ties us together. This implies a rather strong other-directed ethic that is enough of a project to keep me busy and struggling. To some people God reveals godself as a person, to others a set of ideas, to others more varied manifestations or useful metaphors. All are cool. I kind of think of God as a universal harmony to which we must endeavor to tune (meaning to care for others, the environment, &c.). I'm still a Christian, because that's where I started, and I've been blessed to find a church that won't kick me out. Also I'm huge on grace and redemption.

I don't necessarily recommend this theology. There's a danger, in letting go of doctrine, of letting go of the substance of religion, of losing your anchor altogether. Also, as a 'sect unto myself,' I worry about the example I set for others. For instance, I tend to get frustrated rather easily... would I hold myself together better with a more traditional religious outlook? Or will some people think so? Thirdly, neither of my children have much religious feeling. Would a more structured, traditional religious approach have been better instruction for them?

I don't have all the answers, and never will. And never want to. I prefer seeking to finding. But wherever this path takes me, it will be without doctrine, United Methodist or otherwise.