More Mainline than Methodist
A Critique of American Cultural Christianity and Eschatological Ignorance
If you grew up in a United Methodist Church, or any mainline church for that matter, chances are you’ve never even heard of Biblical Eschatology - a study of the “end times”, or final state. You’ve been taught to dismiss the topic and ignore it based on television Christianity and the poor thinking represented there. You have had leaders who claim to be “Pan-Millennialists” because it will all “pan” out in the end. Haha. Get it?
Most Methodist pastors and members don’t think correctly about biblical eschatology because they don’t think about it at all. And that is a big mistake.
Biblical eschatology is the study and research around the topic of Jesus Christ, as a resurrected human being, returning to planet earth to do three key things:
Bodily resurrect dead believers from both the Old and New Testament eras and reward them for their life choices with which they will live upon this present earth in a renewed state forever.
Destroy and judge evil, both human and divine, with finality.
Establish a messianic global government which will endure forever on this planet.
Friends, this topic is basic Christian doctrine. Its fundamental. The idea of a bodily return of Jesus Christ to this same earth we are on now to resurrect believers to live in a new heaven and physical new earth is a part of the A, B, C’s of Christianity. No orthodox church of any tradition debates these tenets of biblical and apostolic teaching. It is right alongside of belief in the virgin birth, the incarnation, the crucifixion, etc.
I realize this means that there are many of you who may have grown up in church all your lives and haven’t been instructed in basic Christian doctrine. Or maybe rather, while you’ve casually heard these precepts alluded to, you’ve never been developed in how to think about what it actually means. So you haven’t thought about it at all. There are large portions of scripture that one cannot understand unassisted, and have never been properly instructed in by the church.
But think about this, you pray this message all the time when you say the Lord’s prayer,
“your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
It’s in the Nicene Creed:
“He is to come (where?) with the same body and with the glory of the Father, to judge the living and the dead; of His kingdom there is no end.”
It is found in the United Methodist Church’s articles of religion:
Article III — Of the Resurrection of Christ
Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.
What did you think the doctrine of the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the dead meant? To where have you understood Jesus Christ to be returning?
Look at what our father in Methodism, John Wesley, taught his followers and preachers about the subject.
“We look for a new heavens and a new earth, raised as it were, out of the ashes of the old.” Wesley NT Notes, 627 (2 Peter 3:13)
“But they shall "hear a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men: And he will dwell with them (where?), and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be their God." (Rev. 21:3, 4.) Hence will arise an unmixed state of holiness and happiness far superior to that which Adam enjoyed in Paradise (which was a place on the earth).” (Wesley’s sermon 64, “New Creation”)
To think this core doctrine is even new with Wesley would be a mistake. Wesley didn’t teach any new doctrine or theology at all. It wasn’t even new with the New Testament church. The entire Old Testament is about this subject, the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants. It is found extensively even in intertestamental literature,
“the expectation of a messianic earthly reign . . . is present before the time of Jesus in the literature of late Judaic apocalypticism. It held a strong conviction that the world as we know it is being readied for the consummation of God’s purpose” (1 Enoch 91, 93; Pss. of Solomon 17-18; 2 Esdras 7:28 ff.; 13:34; Apocalypse of Baruch 29:1-8) ~ Thomas Oden “Life in the Spirit” p. 421.
The Kingdom In the Intertestamental Period
The doctrine of a literal earthly reign of Christ as Messiah with resurrected believers is found extensively in the early Church fathers. Consider this, John the Apostle wrote the book of Revelation. An early church father named Polycarp was discipled by John the Apostle himself. An early church father named Irenaeus was discipled by Polycarp. Here is what Irenaeus posited,
“Christ will appear, the saints will be resurrected, and the kingdom will be established on earth” (Ag. Her V 28:3; 33.2). ~ Thomas Oden “Life in the Spirit” p. 426.
I regretfully say that it has been my experience in my years of belonging to the United Methodist Church (this would be true of any American mainline protestant denomination) they mainly function to lull people to sleep spiritually, and keep them busy socially. Here is what Wikipedia says about mainline protestant churches:
“Mainline churches share an active approach to social issues that often leads to cooperation in organizations such as the National Council of Churches. Because of their involvement with the ecumenical movement, mainline churches are sometimes given the alternative label of ecumenical Protestantism. These churches played a leading role in the Social Gospel movement and were active in social causes such as the civil rights movement and the women's movement. As a group, the mainline churches have maintained religious doctrine that stresses social justice and personal salvation (and regretfully in that order of priority). Members of mainline denominations have played leadership roles in politics, business, science, the arts, and education. They were involved in the founding of leading institutes of higher education. Marsden argues that in the 1950s, "Mainline Protestant leaders were part of the liberal-moderate cultural mainstream, and their leading spokespersons were respected participants in the national conversation."
When you hear me refer to “American churchianity”, this is what I am talking about. Lazy, lukewarm, half-hearted American Protestant churchianity. Mainline Protestant white liberal secularized American churchianity. And many of those raised in these socially respectable institutional religious environments have been inoculated against the formation of authentic Biblical Christian faith, which was the entire point of the original Methodist movement. The United Methodist church is more mainline institution than it is historic Methodist. Her members have been given just enough institutional religion to comfort them and save them from hell, but not enough of the meat of scripture to turn them into the heroic men and women of faith her people are called to become. What historically they once were.
Her members have been formed into indentured serfs made servants of the religious nobility - clergy and bishops. Her secularized liberal seminaries that trained her clergy are also to be blamed, to take the Bible seriously, yes, but not too seriously. And for that, as a representative of what is left of United Methodism and its clergy, I deeply apologize. We have failed you. What John Wesley predicted has to a very large extent come about:
“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” - John Wesley “Thoughts Upon Methodism.”
Church, this is a fact, American mainline Protestant churches are dying and will soon become completely irrelevant. That isn’t to say that Christianity is dying, or that the church is dying, just this sanitized, defanged and declawed version of it is dying. Since it is under this kind of judgment, along with much of the rest of secularized America, it is time to,
“go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord.” (2 Cor 6:17)
But it is also a summons:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. 2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. 3 And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” (Isaiah 60)
Our father, John Wesley believes you were called to a much higher place than to serve as passive serfs, left in the intellectual dark by ineffective stewards like myself. He wrote,
“by faith I know that, besides the souls of men there are other orders of spirits; yea, I believe that Millions of creatures walk the earth, unseen, whether we wake, or if we sleep. These I term angels, and I believe part of them are holy and happy, and the other part wicked and miserable. I believe the former of these, the good angels, are continually sent of God "to minister to the heirs of salvation;" who will be "equal to angels" by and by, although they are now a little inferior to them.” (Sermon 110, On the Discoveries of Faith by John Wesley).
The apostle Paul wrote that you aren’t just called to be equal to angels, but to stand in judgment of them (1 Cor 6:3). By the grace of God, we’ve got to get better together. The church is called to be enthroned at the very side of Christ himself (Eph 2:6).