The Limits of Connectionalism

There was a looooong comment thread over at WesleyBlog that I linked to earlier. It started with Shane objecting to an interfaith prayer service, and then the liberals and conservatives going at it head-to-head. The root of the debate was pantheism vs. monotheism. The liberals were saying that the faith experiences of other religions were just as valid as Christian ones and should not be dismissed. The conservatives argued that this view was heretical as it denied the exclusivity of Christian salvation.

Now the United Methodist Church is supposed to be a big tent where we can all bring different points of view to the table, yada, yada, yada. A lot of us conservatives are getting sick and tired of having to defend core Christian beliefs, let alone Methodist beliefs, and are talking about 'amicable separation' -- coded language for schism. Commenter Neil Simpson wrote:

Dwight, the notion of "amicable" is that non-believers - i.e., those not believing in the essentials - have an opportunity to leave peacefully, or they should be pushed out. Do you expect the NAACP to have Klansmen as leaders? (I'm not equating you with the Klan; feel free to switch the roles in the analogy if you like).

You seem to think we're dealing with shades of grey and that your beliefs are a little outside ours. When we say, for example, that Jesus is THE way, and you say there are other ways, that isn't a little different - that is an opposite! Just because you went to the same building, the same meetings, etc. for a while doesn't mean we believed the same thing.

Implying that the exclusivity of Jesus is something the church hierarchy is "forcing" on people is laughable. Do you realize how that mocks the blood of the martyrs and the work that missionaries do? Why should someone suffer for Christ if they can take an easier route?

Neil wisely said that debate is not only tiring, but wasteful:

Yes, I was quick to make a line, because I think that we have wasted way too much time debating the essentials within the church. This time could be better spent on service, evangelism, study, etc. [emphasis added]

I mean, really, why are we having this debate? People who believe in other gods are not Christian. Period. We are wasting time trying to find some common ground in the house of Methodism for pantheists. There is the work of the Kingdom of God before us -- evangelism, worship, and service -- and we can't win the game if half of our players are on the other side.