1.
This course is not about learning the basics and the fundamentals of the
Christian faith, if there is anyone following this course who has never been to
church or knows little of the Christian faith, this may not be the course for
you - that said, hopefully the essence of the Christian faith will be present
in all that we talk about. And also, if you entered this course with no
knowledge of Christianity, and attended each of the four sessions, hopefully you
would be able to give a reasonable description of what a Christian is, and what
Church is by the end of the course
2.
This is not a course about how Methodism is better than the other
denominations. We will confront some of the flaws in Methodism, and there will
also be many good things about other denominations that we will not cover here.
We won't cover those things partly because there wouldn't be enough time to
look at all the denominations in proper detail; partly because there are other
people who would be better at talking about the nuances of those denominations.
But more importantly, because this is a course about what Methodism brings to
the ecumenical table. And this may be a new way of thinking for many people.
3.
This is not a course that is advocating denominationalism, nor is it saying we
are done with denominations. There are those people who see their particular
church tradition as the be all and end all of Christian experience and are therefore
far too entrenched to think about genuinely working together with other
denominations. There are also those who see the denominations that we live with
today as nothing more than an unfortunate hangover from a history of divisions,
that we should simply forget about and move on. The thinking is that surely if we
are all following the same God, we should all be part of the same church. After
all, what do any of these details matter, as long as we all love God and love
our neighbour?
In
many ways this course sits more comfortably with the second way of thinking
than the first. We should instinctively be more for working together than
working separately, but neither viewpoint fully confronts the reality of where
we are. There were reasons for the divides in the denominations and though some
of those reasons have been resolved over time, others still remain. Some
differences are trivial or simply about personal preference, others are
significant and important. Some differences are ancient history and others are
current and raw. When negotiating the world of ecumenical relations, it is all
the more important to have a good understanding of the essence of our
differences. Not so that we can remain separate but so that we know what is at
stake; so we know when to treat each other with gentle grace and when to be
firm, when to say our differences are of no significance and when it is time
for us to learn from the wisdom of our fellow Christians. If we are truly to
work in unity then we need to be honest about our differences and if we are to
learn from each other then we need to know ourselves. If we don't know what we
have as Methodists then we will be unable to share it with our neighbours of
other denominations.
So who is this course for? It is
for those seeking membership, for those already in membership, for those
deliberately avoiding membership and for those thoroughly confused by Methodism
in general. Most of all it is for those seeking to be serious and relevant
disciples of Jesus Christ in the 21st century and who happen to be seeking it
through the Methodist Church.
This
course is very much rooted in a statement made by John Wesley back in 1786. He
said ‘I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to
exist, but I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the
form of religion without the power.’[1] This statement is a vitally important one because it shows that John Wesley
himself understood the complexity of the ecumenical landscape. Denominations
are necessary because they carry particular religious identities, they allow us
to experiment with what it is to be Church; what it is to be God's people; to
explore the nature of the Kingdom that is coming, but denominationalism can
never be our ultimate goal. John Wesley's statement is also important because
it is brought painfully into focus by the continued decline of the Methodist
Church over recent years.
In
March 2014, Rev David Flavell posted an article on the internet called 'Year
Zero'[2],
which shows statistically how, without change, the membership of the Methodist
Church will hit zero in the year 2033, that's just 19 years away.
30 year decline
in Methodism
This is the graph of membership statistics that David
included in his article which shows the fall in figures from 1984 to 2013. And
whilst this is a major issue for Methodists, let us not imagine that this is a
Methodist only issue.
Respondents attending church at
least monthly, 1983-2008 (%)[3]
This
graph, from the organisation British Religion in Numbers shows a drop in
monthly attendance figures across all denominations from 20.9% in 1983 to 14.9%
in 2008. On the basis of that graph, year zero for the Church as a whole in
England and Wales is 2068.
Here
are two graphs showing the change in Methodist Church membership since the end
of 18th Century.
Members of Methodism from
1791 - 2011[4]
The
first shows the membership from 1791 to 2011 in ten year gaps. It shows our
numerical peak in the 1940s-50s, and whilst it shows that we are in a fairly
desperate down trend, there are still significantly more of us than when Wesley
died in 1791. However if we plot our membership as a percentage of the ever
increasing population we get a very different picture.
Members of Methodism as % of Population of England
In
this graph we see that, relative to the whole population our peak was way back
in the 1840's and we now have around half the cultural influence we had when
Wesley died. Why is this relevant as an introduction to a course on Methodism?
Because whatever we do, the face of Christianity has changed and will continue
to change significantly in the near future, it will change either with us or
without us. These numbers are relevant because how we go about being Church is
important and over the next 50 years we could all but disappear if we fail to
pay attention to how God is calling us to be Church. And we begin this by
looking at what is good and worth keeping in our current way of being Church.
[1]
Rupert E. Davies, The Works of John Wesley, Vol 9, The Methodist Societies:
History, Nature and Design (Abingdon Press, 1989) 547
[2]
David Flavell, Year Zero http://davideflavell.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/year-zero/
Posted on March 25, 2014
[4]
Both of these graphs are based on stats provided by David Flavell http://www.flavell.vispa.com/methodist%20membership.xls
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