Lovett H. Weems

I was raised as a Methodist and became an atheist as a result. I do have some lingering interest in the body, and when a friend who is a pillar of the church I left told me that the Methodists are in a ferment of reinvention, I decided to read up on it. Methodism, like most of the "mainline" Protestant churches has been declining ever since the 1960's.

I thought, as such things go, this was a very readable and interesting report with a lot of practical suggestions on administrative matters. The one thing that surprises me is that the issue of increasing membership comes last in the report. Nothing else matters if the Methodists cannot build, or at least retain, their membership. I don't think that Weems really comes to grips with what can be done to make the denomination more attractive. I am, perhaps, somewhat prejudiced, being an ex-Methodist, and I probably couldn't offer much advice since I cannot think of anything that would bring me back to the fold.

First and foremost, however, I think that the Methodists need to focus the education of its children. At least they have these children as an audience. My Sunday School training chiefly worked to alienate me from the church. I was unable, for example, to find someone who could and would explain the Trinity. Yes, I know it's the Father-Son-and-Holy-Ghost, but what does that mean? How do they relate to one another. After considering the matter on my own, I decided that they were three completely separate individuals, or why else would Jesus pray to himself in the garden of Gethsemane? (Basically Arianism declared heresy in the 4th century.) During my exit interview at eighteen, when I was finally deemed significant enough to speak to the main minister, he explained that they were all one individual who assumes different masks. (He didn't explain the prayers in Gethsemane.) Significantly, there was an embarrassed silence when I asked what it meant to be a Methodist. Later that year, I was thrilled to learn, from the historical notes in a novel about the Empress Theodora, that my image of Jesus Christ (Monophysitism was declared heresy around the 6th century.) Fortunately, they don't still burn heretics. The minister who was supposed to be dealing with us children answered every question with a question. From him, I learned great sympathy for the Athenians who executed Socrates. I realize that Methodists don't want to get too bogged down in minor doctrinal quarrels, but if you teach your children nothing, they'll find somebody and something else.

Of course, it has been a long time since I was in Sunday School, so maybe it has been vastly improved, but the drain on membership continues. Until the drain on membership ends, everything else is arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.… (lisätietoja)