Unpublished, December 2005 

THE PERIODICAL UNITED METHODISM NEEDS
by Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth

     The United Methodist Church needs another periodical.

     Many informed United Methodists might reply to this claim: “What?  Why?  Right now United Methodists have more periodicals than we can possibly read.”

     At first glance, this reply makes some sense.  Consider the present assortment of United Methodist periodicals.  First of all, there are the congregational and district newsletters.  Add the conference newspapers and magazines, jurisdictional publications, and denominational periodicals (e.g., Circuit Rider, Interpreter, Quarterly Review, and Response).  The United Methodist Reporter -- from Dallas, TX -- is a denomination-wide weekly.  In addition, the renewal groups of various theological persuasions offer their own publications: e.g., The Confessing Movement within The United Methodist Church, Good News, the Institute on Religion and Democracy/UMAction, Lifewatch, and the Methodist Federation for Social Action have their own, in-house publications.  Also, The Christian Century, which features a wonderful array of theologically diverse articles, and Zion’s Herald publish many articles of special interest to United Methodists.  Furthermore, there are the Web sites maintained by many of the aforementioned, and United Methodist blogs are increasing in number.  As is obvious, engaged, alert United Methodist clergy and laity could easily spend forty hours a week reading through church-related periodicals and Web sites.

     Even so, there is one periodical that is needed but is not yet being published.  That is a periodical that would carry serious, thoughtful theological argument on church teaching (doctrinal and moral).

     Again comes an objection from many United Methodists: “But The United Methodist Church is currently suffering from too much theological argument.  Theological argument is all over the church, all the time.  We United Methodists do not need any more of it.”

     While apparently true, this objection does not hold water for three reasons.  First, there is a move afoot in United Methodism to limit theological argument.  For example, under new editorial leadership, The United Methodist Reporter, which used to be an excellent and fair forum for airing theological disagreements, has shifted its attention away from controversial theological matters.  Without the Reporter hosting denominational arguments, there is no other church-wide periodical that accomplishes this necessary task.

     Second, the theological arguments that are taking place most often involve one party in the church making charges against another party in the church.  Fragments of these arguments often appear in conference newspapers/ magazines, in denominational publications, and in renewal-group literature.  Unfortunately, these engagements are not as thoughtful as they should be.  Nor are they sustained and allowed to develop in a way that instructs.

     Third, it appears that no church periodical, and no one within the church, is consistently making the case for the church’s teaching.  Again, The United Methodist Church’s teaching is not being taught, in a way that constructively engages those who disagree, by leaders within the church.  Such fruitful, theological teaching is simply not happening.

     So, the claim remains: The United Methodist Church needs another periodical.

     The needed periodical might be named Doctrine and Dissent (or Doctrine, Dissent, and Defense).  It would be published quarterly.  Its prose would be theological without being academic and ponderous.  It would be written for the church -- not for the college, the university, or the divinity school.

     Each issue of Doctrine and Dissent would consist of three essays published as a brief booklet.  The first essay would present the established teaching of The United Methodist Church on a doctrinal or moral subject.  More than simply quoting The Book of Discipline, the initial essay would assert the church’s teaching and the reasons for that teaching.  The second essay would offer reasoned dissent.  Objections to the church teaching of the first essay, and reasons for those objections, would be laid out in essay number two.  And the third essay would be an exercise in the defense of the church’s doctrine: it would have the writer of the first essay meet the objections of the writer in dissent.  Again, the format of each issue would be: doctrine, dissent, and defense.

     The essays of this periodical would be written by the theologically best and brightest, not the loudest and most shrill, in The United Methodist Church.  Bishops, divinity-school professors, and pastors would be the main contributors to the periodical.

     For example, assume that significant challenges against United Methodist doctrine on the Trinity arises, as happened when Bishop Sprague was in the news a couple of years ago.  As soon as possible, Doctrine and Dissent would feature an issue on the Trinity.  United Methodism’s teaching would be presented (probably by a bishop), a dissenting case would feature the dissenting challenges of the day, and the church’s teaching would then be defended by the original essayist.  This particular issue of Doctrine and Dissent would certainly not end the dispute regarding the Trinity, but it would put it into perspective; and there would be no question about where The United Methodist Church, as Church, stands on the matter.

     In a denomination that has seemingly intractable theological disagreements and that has fragments of theological arguments running throughout its periodicals, Doctrine and Dissent would help to centralize and represent, organize and guide, the theological arguments of the day.  By allowing the church’s best teachers to step forward, this proposed periodical would help The United Methodist Church, as Church, to teach more often and more truthfully.

     The United Methodist Church needs another periodical.  Name it Doctrine and Dissent.

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Rev. Stallsworth is the pastor of St. Peter’s United Methodist Church in Morehead City, NC, and the editor of the quarterly newsletter Lifewatch.