Rev. Scott Kisker wrote an article in Firebrand (May 19, 2026) which raised questions about the proposed Article VIII (Scripture) of the Articles of Faith for the Global Methodist Church.  The goal of the drafting committee was to achieve four goals regarding how we speak about Scripture.  The drafting committee sought to make certain that whatever statement emerged, it should affirm Scripture’s authority, inspiration, truthfulness and effectiveness.  On those four points there is broad agreement.  The challenge is the precise language which captures these goals.  Words really do matter.  Rev. Kisker has two major objections to the proposed language.  First, he questions whether the phrase “Word of God” should be used to describe Scripture.  Second, he raises more extensive questions about the phrase “without error in all that it affirms.”   Before I respond to Kisker’s two concerns, let me express my appreciation for how his article has sparked important and lively conversations throughout the Global Methodist Church.   This is so important as we prepare for General Conference in South Africa.  While I do not agree with Kisker’s concerns, we are indebted to him for drawing attention to this important legislation which will be coming before the church in these formative days of our denomination.

Scripture as the Word of God

I realize that the revised statement now states that “we believe in the divine inspiration and authority of the Old and New Testaments in their entirety.”  The phrase “Old and New Testaments” has replaced the phrase “Word of God.”  Even though this change has been made, it is still important to respond to Kisker’s concerns about such an important phrase as “Word of God” in describing Scripture.  Kisker’s main concern is that the phrase confuses our confession about the written Scriptures with the same phrase which is used to describe Jesus Christ himself.  Kisker says that the phrase will move us closer to the Islamic view of the Qur’an.

In response, it is important to remember that Scripture itself, including Jesus, affirms the phrase.   When the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples in Acts 4, we are told that they “spoke the word of God with boldness” (4:31).   Similarly, Hebrews 4:12 says that the “word of God is active and sharper than any two-edged sword.”  Just because these texts are not explicitly referring to a canonically received text, the church has always understood that when God speaks through inspiration and it is written down – such as Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – it carries the full authority of the original revelation of God to Paul.  This conviction is based on Jesus’ own usage of the term.  When Jesus is denouncing the Pharisees for allowing their traditions to take precedence over Scripture, He concludes his denunciation by saying, “thus, making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:13).  Jesus is using the phrase word of God for the inscripturated texts of the Old Testament.

The fact that Jesus is called the Word of God in Revelation 19:13 is actually what moves us away from, not towards, an Islamic view of the Qur’an.  The Islamic view contends that Muhammad was a passive agent and was merely receiving dictations from the Angel Gabriel who was conveying the “word of Allah” from a “preserved Tablet” in heaven.  The Arabic phrase for this is Lauh al-Mahfuz.  The Qur’an also calls this “preserved Tablet” in heaven the “Mother of the Book” (Umm al-Kitab).  The reason this is important is that the Islamic view states that there is no human voice reflected in the Qur’an.  This is blasphemous to them. No Muslim speaks of Muhammad’s “writing style” like we speak about a Pauline style, or a Johannine choice of words, and so forth.  The reason we can simultaneously refer to Scripture as the Word of God (inspiration) and the word of man (particularity of authorship, though restrained from any error by the Holy Spirit) is precisely because of Scripture’s analogy with the incarnation.  Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, without sin.  In the same way, Scripture is fully inspired and “God-breathed” while, at the same time, expressing the particular thoughts and intentions of Paul or John or James or any of the other authors of biblical texts.  So, rather than the connection to the incarnation being a problem, as Kisker asserts, it is actually the glory of the Christian view of Scripture:  God speaks to us without error and yet this is expressed through men who wrote using their full style and choice of words, while being restrained from error.  Peter beautifully expresses this dual nature of Scripture when he says, “our beloved Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speak of these matters.  There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15, 16).

Without Error in All that it Affirms

Rev. Kisker also expresses concerns about the phrase “without error in all that it affirms.”  He highlights two major concerns, though it is difficult to always follow how his two concerns relate to one another.  On the one hand, Kisker seems to think the phrase is too weak.  He compares it to “a politician’s applause line with no concrete promise.”  To adopt it, he argues, would move the GMC to “big tentism” since, he argues, “any progressive bishop from our past denomination” could affirm it.   On the other hand, Kisker argues that the phrase is too Reformed and is not sufficiently Wesleyan in its expression.  He particularly cites the use of the phrase in the Lausanne Covenant as the expression of Reformed thinking and therefore not utilizing  language which is “specifically Wesleyan or Methodist.”

The idea that the phrase is “too soft” or is a form of “big tentism” belies its vibrant and sustaining power throughout the evangelical world and, as others have noted, we all know plenty of “progressive bishops” who could not affirm the statement.  But, since other responses (Matt O’Reilly’s response article in Firebrand and Andy Miller III’s podcast) have so ably addressed this point, I will move on to focus on his second concern.  Kisker’s comment about Lausanne was, for me, the most disturbing part of his article.  Since so many of the members of the Global Methodist church (including myself) have come out of United Methodism, we have to remember that we have been engaged in a seemingly endless fight with mainline, scripturally compromised, orthodox adverse, United Methodism.  However, this long fight has, at times, kept many of  “the people called Methodists” from being properly engaged with the wider evangelical world.  Lausanne, or any Reformed movement anywhere, did not originate the phrase “without error in all that it affirms.”  Lausanne is not a denominational type movement as Kisker seems to imply.  Lausanne is a global platform for evangelical Christians committed to world evangelization.  The official name of Lausanne is the “Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization” (LCWE).  I have been a Methodist my entire life.  Yet, I have also been deeply involved in global evangelization and have served the Lausanne movement for decades.  I, as a Methodist, chaired the Theology Working Group of Lausanne for five years while I was also President of Asbury Theological Seminary.  I served for a time on the governing Board of Lausanne.  I have attended global Lausanne events in Thailand, Cape Town, and more recently in Korea.  I have led working groups and spoken from the platform as a Methodist.   The phrase “without error in all that it affirms” is the most recognizably evangelical statement of Scripture used in the world.   Robert Coleman, another bone fide Methodist was one of the ones who helped Lausanne to adopt this phrase.  The phrase “without error in all that it affirms” is the phrase used not only by Asbury seminary’s statement of faith, but by hundreds of denominations and networks around the world who have been inspired by the Lausanne movement.  We, of course, have serious disagreements with Reformed theology on a range of issues, both in substance and in tone.  But, if the Global Methodist Church is to be truly global, then we must become active in Lausanne, learn to work alongside our brothers and sisters across many denominational traditions for the sake of world evangelization.  After all, one of Wesley’s 12 rules for preachers was to “have nothing to do but save souls.”  Adapting the phrase “without error in all that it affirms” will put us in consonance with the global evangelical movement and signal that we have finally emerged from our long night of despair and are ready to work as partners with the rest of the global church.

The post The Global Methdist Church and our discussion about Scripture: A Response to Scott Kisker appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

Psalm 22 and Psalm 69 are two of the psalms which Jesus himself quotes from the cross.  Most of us know that many of the most familiar lines of the passion are actually Jesus quoting from the daily prayer book of the Jews, which we call the Book of Psalms.  “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” is a quotation of Psalm 22:1.  “They divide my clothing among themselves and for my clothing they cast lots” is from Psalm 22:18.  “My throat is parched” and “they gave me vinegar to drink” comes from Psalm 69:3 and 21.

These Psalms give us a different perspective on the passion of Christ.  I like to call it the passion from the “inside.”  If the “outside” of redemption is the incarnation and Christ’s public ministry, the “inside” of redemption is the suffering of Christ on the cross.  Only in the Psalms do we find captured the inner thoughts and feelings of Jesus which he draws our attention to as he hangs upon the cross.  This is the story of the gospel from the first person.  This is not historians like St. Luke sharing redemptive history in the third person, this is Jesus himself crying out in the first person.  I would be so bold as to say that we cannot fully walk through the pain of this day by reading the 3^rd person account of what happened on that momentous day which we call Good Friday.  We should also read, pray and sing the Psalms which gives us the passion in the first person.

While we often hear Psalm 22:1 quoted in Good Friday services, it is not the only part of Psalm 22 which is quoted at the crucifixion of Jesus.  Remarkably, Jesus’ crucifiers also cry out, mocking Jesus, saying, “He trusts in God.  Let God rescue him” a quotation of Psalm 22:8.

Psalm 69 is particularly powerful.  Read through the first 21 verses from the perspective of Jesus on the cross.  When you get to verse 22 the Psalm changes tone for the next seven verses as the Psalmist issues a deserved curse upon the wicked who have so afflicted him without cause.  It is important to note that Psalm 22 despite all the anguish does not contain a single word of imprecation.  Psalm 69 does.  When Jesus gets to this point in the Psalm something new is inserted which changes the history of the world.  At the point on the cross when we expect Jesus to follow Psalm 69 into an announcement of judgement upon this world he instead says, “Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do.”  The imprecation is absorbed by the power of forgiveness and grace.  This is the amazing good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Christ’s word of forgiveness becomes a redemptive insertion into the passion narrative of God’s suffering servant.  We are surprised by God’s grace.  The judgement on the wicked is “interrupted” with the even more certain word of God’s forgiveness.  No one has ever seen love like this before.  This is why in the Upper Room Jesus called the command to “love one another” a NEW command.  Every Jew knew Leviticus 19:18 (Love your neighbor as yourself).  But, love is now seen in the light of the cross – the evil absorbing kind of love.  No one has ever heard words like this before.  But, God knows that we will never learn to hate our sins enough to leave them.  But, if we can be loved enough, and truly understand the depth of His sacrifice, then we can go and sin no more.  The gospel is not “God was so angry with the world, that he sent His one and only Son…” but for God so loved the world.  It should be translated, “This is how God loved the world.”  God’s love is demonstrated and lived out on a cross on Golgatha.  It is not the sentimentalized love of the cinema and romance novels.  It is the covenantal love which cost Him everything.  It is here that we meet true love face to face and go away transformed.  “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Thanks be to God.

The post Good Friday Reflection 2026 appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

Most of us grew up hearing the classic Hans Christian Anderson story of the Emperor’s New Clothes.  The story valorizes a young girl who is willing to speak the truth right in the face of the masses who were all too willing to go along with the “mass deception” of the day.  There have been remarkable people all through history who have exemplified this kind of boldness.  Think, for example, about 22-year-old Vibia Perpetua who in the year 203 A.D. was willing to go to the arena and be killed by wild animals rather than renounce her faith in Jesus Christ. Remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer who in 1934 founded the “confessing Church” in the midst of a wayward national church that allowed German nationalism to eclipse fidelity to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Recall Rosa Parks, a dedicated member of the AME church, who in 1955 refused to relinquish her seat on a segregated bus in Montogomery, Alabama.  The list goes on and on.  It’s Malala Yousafzai speaking out against the Taliban in Pakistan on behalf of the right for girls to receive an education.  It’s famous people like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, and it’s people most have never heard of like John Rabe who stopped war crimes, Hugh Thompson, Jr, who protected innocent civilians in the Vietnam War, or Wang Weilin, known as the “Tank Man” who stood in front of a Tank during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

In this blog I would like to highlight a particular moment of bravery in American history which most historians believed almost instantaneously “turned the tide” in a dark chapter of American history.  This dark chapter refers to a four-year period (1950-1954) in our history when fear of communism led Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin to accuse many loyal Americans with unsubstantiated accusations.  McCarthyism, as it was called, ended up ruining careers (thousands were fired from their jobs without evidence), causing widespread fear, and restricting civil liberties and free speech across the nation.  Ordinary people feared who they might have been seen with or feared being labeled “disloyal.”  I bring this difficult chapter forward because the overwhelming sense in the country was one of fear of speaking up lest you yourself be labeled a traitor to the country.  So, the vast majority of people went along with it.  But one day the whole monster of McCarthyism came tumbling down like a house of cards, all because of the bravery of one person.  It happened on June 9, 1954.  Senator McCarthy had claimed with little more than hearsay evidence that many officers and soldiers in the military were secret communists.  Hearings were held and they became the first televised congressional hearings in our history.  They were broadcast from gavel to gavel.  It is estimated that between 20 million and 80 million people watched the hearings, which was up to half the population of the entire country at the time.  The hearings lasted for almost two months, beginning April 22nd and continuing through June 17^th.   But, it is what happened on June 9, 1954 which will be remembered in history.  On that day, the Army’s lead counsel, Joseph Welch was defending various respected military leaders from spurious innuendos when Senator McCarthy shifted his line of attack and began to go after one of the young lawyers who worked for Mr. Welch named Fred Fisher.   It was a “guilt by association” attack with no evidence.  But, at this particular moment, nearing the end of the hearings, something happened which changed history.  Lead counsel Joseph Welch turned to Senator McCarthy and famously said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?  Have you left no sense of decency?”  That one question, repeated twice, broke the back of McCarthyism.  It was like somebody had turned a light on in a dark room.  Suddenly, ordinary Americans realized how un-American all this was.  It took one statement of courage to bring down what seemed like an impregnable wall.  Before this famous question, 50% of Americans supported the accusations of Senator McCarthy.  After this famous question, only 34% of Americans supported him.  It was like the veil was lifted.  The lawyer had the courage to say, “but the Emperor has no clothes.”  Before the year was out, on December 2, 1954, Senator McCarthy’s behavior was formally condemned by a vote of 67 to 22 in the Senate.  His power and influence collapsed and in a little more than two years McCarthy had died, cementing his real legacy in the history books.

Today, there are many things which have become normalized which are not normal, and should never be regarded as normal in America.  But they go on and on because we have not reached that “have-you-no-decency” moment.  At some point, that will happen.  I don’t know if it will be this year or this decade, but at some point it will happen.

Calling Canada the 51^st State and seeking to annex Greenland through coercion is not normal….have you no decency, sir?

Arresting several hundred confirmed American citizens in their own homes or workplaces using masked agents is not normal… have you no decency, sir?

Renaming the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center, or the Department of Defense the Department of War is not normal… have you no decency, sir?

Using Executive Orders to individually attack law firms or academics who have committed no other crime than exercising their freedom of speech to criticize the government is not normal… have you no decency, sir?

These are just a few examples.  Citing these particular examples does not mean that there are not  other examples in this administration which could be cited that are commendable.   For example, open borders poses a threat to any nation’s sovereignty and security.  A greater clarity about gender identity is a good thing.  Other examples could be given.  Indeed, back in the McCarthy era there were communists who had infiltrated the government and needed to be exposed.  But, it was the unleashing of McCarthyism which posed an even greater threat to the otherwise normal and necessary work of any government.  In the same way, I am concerned about certain patterns which are accumulating to a point where, on a certain day, no one knows when, somebody is going to say, “have you no decency, sir?”  It will be the straw that breaks this period of temporary insanity.  It is truly tragic that the evangelical church has been seriously co-opted during this sad period.  But Walter Percy spoke wisdom when he said of the disgraced Pentecostal evangelist of his time, “just because Jimmy Swaggert believes in God doesn’t mean that God does not exist.”  We may not be able to salvage the word “evangelical” but the great, historic Apostolic faith will continue on.  In the meantime, I await the “have you no decency, sir?” moment.  We desperately need it.

The post A Tribute to Courage Hoped For appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

One of the joys of teaching is that you become the learner.  Not only do you learn by preparing lectures, but you also learn so much from the students themselves as they interact with the material.

This semester, one of my classes is the Theology and Practice of Evangelism.  I have never taught this course before, so I spent many months reading and preparing for the course.  Along the way, I learned so many fascinating things which I did not know before.   In this blog I want to share one of those with you, because it is a great lesson in the providence of God in answering our prayers.

In the 1920’s the most prominent evangelist of the time was a man named Billy Sunday.  He was born in 1862, but his active evangelistic period was mainly between 1890 and 1930.  Billy had been a professional baseball player for the Chicago White Sox and later or the Philadelphia Phillies.  But, he was converted and became a nationally known evangelist. He is really the founder of the “crusade” type evangelism.  Earlier national evangelists (Like D. L Moody and Charles Spurgeon) were less itinerant.   Billy Sunday, in contrast, would come to a city or region that was willing to construct a massive temporary tabernacle.  These were large wooden structures which were built for the occasion and, when the crusade was over they would take them down and sell the wood back to the lumber yards.  Billy Sunday is the one who started the practice of putting “sawdust” down on the floors of these tabernacles in order to reduce the noise in these structures.  Thus, people often referred to their conversion experience as “walking the sawdust trail.”

In 1924 Billy Sunday agreed to come to Charlotte, North Carolina to preach an evangelistic service.  The farmers and tradesmen in the region all agreed to build the tabernacle.  You need to realize that these were very large structures.  A typical camp meeting tabernacle you see today will seat around 500 people.  These were much bigger.  This one in North Carolina would hold several thousand.  They had to find a place big enough to accommodate such a large structure.  A dairy farmer in Charlotte agreed to let them use land on his farm to construct the tabernacle since it was fairly close to Charlotte.  That dairy farm belonged the family of Billy Graham who was, at the time, six years old.  Sunday came and preached there in 1924.  The crusade lasted a month.  These sermons sparked a small spiritual awakening in the area which led to a group of men praying that God would bring revival to the area.  Ten years later, in 1934, they decided to hold another revival there and invited another prominent evangelist of the time there, named Mordecai Ham.  He came and preached for six weeks.  By this time Billy Graham was 16 years old.  He did not attend the first two weeks of the revival, but he did the second two weeks.  It was during that revival, under the preaching of Mordecai Ham that Billy Graham came down to the altar to receive Christ.  The “altar call” song which was used that night was “Just As I Am.”  This, of course, would become the official “altar call” song for Graham’s own later work as an evangelist.  In those days, various godly people volunteered to “serve the altar.”  The one who was serving that night was a local tailor, not an ordained minister.  His name was J. D. Prevatt.  I think it is fair to say that most people have never heard of him.  Yet, think of the impact it has made on the world that night in 1934 when a sixteen-year-old comes forward and kneels at the altar and a tailor who had volunteered to serve that night found himself leading Billy Graham to the Lord.  He had no idea the significance of that night, or that we would be talking about it almost a hundred years later.

Think of the providence of God. The same dairy farm where men gathered to pray for the region to be evangelized would itself be the place where the greatest evangelist in the history of the world was raised up.   Billy Graham would preach the gospel “face to face” to 215 million people and was instrumental in 3.2 million people coming to Christ.  Isn’t it wonderful to know that it all started on a dairy farm in Charlotte, North Carolina with a group of men praying and, later, a simple tailor lay person named J. D. Prevatt whom God used to unleash this work!

The post A Story of the Providence of God and Christian Prayer appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

It has been announced that Sarah Mullally will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.  She is the currently the bishop of London, but has had only minimal theological education and very little pastoral experience.  She appears to be a very competent administrator, as she served as a senior administrator in the National Health Service in the U.K.

Although the news has announced that Sarah Mullally is the new leader of 100 million global Anglicans, this must be understood as a kind of “public fiction.”   It is true that the liberal, so-called “progressive” voices within the Anglican communion are hailing her appointment as a wonderful step forward in the move to normalize same sex marriage and abortion rights within the communion.  But, the overwhelming majority of global Anglicans will be deeply disappointed in this appointment.

For centuries the Archbishop of Canterbury has served as the Primate of all England, but also the spiritual and moral leader of the entire global Anglican communion.   The Archbishop of Canterbury is regarded as “first among equals” among all the global Primates.  But, the explosive growth of Anglicanism globally, as well as the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) here in the USA is orthodox   GAFCON is the global fellowship of Anglicans worldwide.  Their mission statement states that they are “a global movement, gathering authentic Anglicans, guarding God’s gospel, growing orthodox leaders, and generating missional resources, for the glory of God!”  They represent about 85 million Anglicans around the world.  Their hope was that the Church of England would choose someone who could unite the Anglican church globally, reaffirm historic faith, and enliven the mission of the church.  Sadly, none of these things are possible with this appointment.

GAFCON has already issued a statement pointing our Sarah Mullally’s failure to maintain her ordination vows.  The chair of the GAFCON Primates Council issued the following statement upon hearing the news of her election:

“….due to the failure of successive Archbishops of Canterbury to guard the faith, the office can no longer function as a credible leader of Anglicans, let alone a focus of unity…. We had hoped that the Church of England would take this into due consideration as it deliberated over the choice of a new Archbishop of Canterbury… sadly, they have not done so….  She has not upheld her consecration vows.  When she was consecrated in 2015, the took at oath to “banish and drive away all strange and erroneous doctrines contrary to God’s Word.”  And yet, far from banishing such doctrine, Bishop Mullally has repeated promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.”

As a former United Methodist reading this development in Anglicanism, it sounds so familiar.  We, too, labored long and hard to bring renewal and doctrinal clarity to our beloved denomination.  When the numbers of global delegates to the United Methodist Conferences grew and it became clear that the church was not going to affirm these outlandish revisionist doctrines which re-define marriage and ordination and human identity, etc.. many of the N. American United Methodist bishops choose the path of defiance to the Book of Discipline.  They consistently refused to understand that the unity of the church has always been built on our unity in historic faith, not any kind of bureaucratic or organizational unity.  Bishop Ken Carter was one of the worst offenders in spreading this nonsense throughout our denomination.   Bishop Carter regularly stated that he had taken an oath in his ordination vows to “uphold the unity of the church.”  However, it became clear to many of us that when he referred to “church unity” he thought it referred to the organizational and bureaucratic churchly machinery known denominationally as the United Methodist church.  This is not true.  When Jesus said “I will build my church” He was referring to the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ throughout space and time of which He is the Lord and head.  Our unity is rooted in that sacred unity.  Our unity is in Jesus Christ. Our unity is in the gospel.  Our unity is with the people of God around the world and back through time.  Our unity is based on our keeping faith with the historic apostolic message as found in the inspired Word of God.

So, the fuse may have been lit by Bishop Melvin Talbert who defied the clear teaching of the church and performed the first same sex marriage. But, Bishop Carter poured gasoline on the fire by not understanding the nature of the church’s unity.  He was the President of the Council of Bishops during the crucial years when the church was facing the crisis of dissolution (2018-2020).  Bishop Carter was also one of the moderators on the Commission on a Way Forward which was tasked to recommend the “way forward” for the denomination.  In short, he was the United Methodist version of the archbishop of Canterbury.  Bishop Carter was “first among equals” among the bishops.  He repeatedly said that he was bound to preserve the organizational unity of the church, but failed to remember his own vows to “uphold the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of the church.”  In fact in one telling moment, Bishop Carter stated that we should “adapt our scriptures from what they originally stated and meant.”  His lack of leadership at that crucial moment in United Methodist history is what led to the tragic breakup of the denomination.  So, now, the Global Methodist Church (along with other faithful Wesleyan denominations) must take the lead in carrying the missional torch of our distinctive message to the wider church and world.

This remembrance of the recent history of the United Methodist Church is a good indicator of what we can expect to see in the next seven years in the Anglican communion.   GAFCON will continue to emerge as the de facto leader of the global Anglican movement.  The Archbishop of Canterbury will wear beautiful robes and stoles, and preside over various ecclesial functions, and will use a lot of fancy religious language to push a few million Anglicans further down the road of heresy.  But there will be 85 million Anglicans who will continue preaching the gospel, planting new churches and believing the Bible.  Based on my experience with the United Methodist Church, here is my advice to global Anglicans all over the world:  regard the see of Canterbury as vacant.

The post A Former United Methodist to Global Anglicans:  The See of Canterbury is Vacant appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

It has been announced that Sarah Mullally will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.  She is the currently the bishop of London, but has had only minimal theological education and very little pastoral experience.  She appears to be a very competent administrator, as she served as a senior administrator in the National Health Service in the U.K.

Although the news has announced that Sarah Mullally is the new leader of 100 million global Anglicans, this must be understood as a kind of “public fiction.”   It is true that the liberal, so-called “progressive” voices within the Anglican communion are hailing her appointment as a wonderful step forward in the move to normalize same sex marriage and abortion rights within the communion.  But, the overwhelming majority of global Anglicans will be deeply disappointed in this appointment.

For centuries the Archbishop of Canterbury has served as the Primate of all England, but also the spiritual and moral leader of the entire global Anglican communion.   The Archbishop of Canterbury is regarded as “first among equals” among all the global Primates.  But, the explosive growth of Anglicanism globally, as well as the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) here in the USA is orthodox   GAFCON is the global fellowship of Anglicans worldwide.  Their mission statement states that they are “a global movement, gathering authentic Anglicans, guarding God’s gospel, growing orthodox leaders, and generating missional resources, for the glory of God!”  They represent about 85 million Anglicans around the world.  Their hope was that the Church of England would choose someone who could unite the Anglican church globally, reaffirm historic faith, and enliven the mission of the church.  Sadly, none of these things are possible with this appointment.

GAFCON has already issued a statement pointing our Sarah Mullally’s failure to maintain her ordination vows.  The chair of the GAFCON Primates Council issued the following statement upon hearing the news of her election:

“….due to the failure of successive Archbishops of Canterbury to guard the faith, the office can no longer function as a credible leader of Anglicans, let alone a focus of unity…. We had hoped that the Church of England would take this into due consideration as it deliberated over the choice of a new Archbishop of Canterbury… sadly, they have not done so….  She has not upheld her consecration vows.  When she was consecrated in 2015, the took at oath to “banish and drive away all strange and erroneous doctrines contrary to God’s Word.”  And yet, far from banishing such doctrine, Bishop Mullally has repeated promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality.”

As a former United Methodist reading this development in Anglicanism, it sounds so familiar.  We, too, labored long and hard to bring renewal and doctrinal clarity to our beloved denomination.  When the numbers of global delegates to the United Methodist Conferences grew and it became clear that the church was not going to affirm these outlandish revisionist doctrines which re-define marriage and ordination and human identity, etc.. many of the N. American United Methodist bishops choose the path of defiance to the Book of Discipline.  They consistently refused to understand that the unity of the church has always been built on our unity in historic faith, not any kind of bureaucratic or organizational unity.  Bishop Ken Carter was one of the worst offenders in spreading this nonsense throughout our denomination.   Bishop Carter regularly stated that he had taken an oath in his ordination vows to “uphold the unity of the church.”  However, it became clear to many of us that when he referred to “church unity” he thought it referred to the organizational and bureaucratic churchly machinery known denominationally as the United Methodist church.  This is not true.  When Jesus said “I will build my church” He was referring to the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ throughout space and time of which He is the Lord and head.  Our unity is rooted in that sacred unity.  Our unity is in Jesus Christ. Our unity is in the gospel.  Our unity is with the people of God around the world and back through time.  Our unity is based on our keeping faith with the historic apostolic message as found in the inspired Word of God.

So, the fuse may have been lit by Bishop Melvin Talbert who defied the clear teaching of the church and performed the first same sex marriage. But, Bishop Carter poured gasoline on the fire by not understanding the nature of the church’s unity.  He was the leader of the Council of Bishops during the years leading up to the dissolution of the church.  He was the United Methodist version of the archbishop of Canterbury.  He was “first among equals” among the bishops.  He repeatedly said that he was bound to preserve the organizational unity of the church, but failed to remember his own vows to “uphold the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of the church.”  In fact in one telling moment, Bishop Carter (now retired ) stated that we should “adapt our scriptures from what they originally stated and meant.”  His lack of leadership at that crucial moment in United Methodist history is what led to the tragic breakup of the denomination.  So, now, the Global Methodist Church (along with other faithful Wesleyan denominations) must take the lead in carrying the missional torch of our distinctive message to the wider church and world.

This remembrance of the recent history of the United Methodist Church is a good indicator of what we can expect to see in the next seven years in the Anglican communion.   GAFCON will continue to emerge as the de facto leader of the global Anglican movement.  The Archbishop of Canterbury will wear beautiful robes and stoles, and preside over various ecclesial functions, and will use a lot of fancy religious language to push a few million Anglicans further down the road of heresy.  But there will be 85 million Anglicans who will continue preaching the gospel, planting new churches and believing the Bible.  Based on my experience with the United Methodist Church, here is my advice to global Anglicans all over the world:  regard the see of Canterbury as vacant.

The post A Former United Methodist to Global Anglicans:  The See of Canterbury is Vacant appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

Today, we are experiencing a new wave of attack known as Christian Deconstructionism.  This new movement is driven by people who grew up in church, but found the Christianity on offer wanting.  This is the legacy of the “dumb down” environment of so much of contemporary Christianity, mostly propelled by the so-called “seeker sensitive” churches and all the “health wealth” pablum which fills the airways around the world.  The central idea of the seeker sensitive churches was to make the church look and feel so much like the culture that you would feel “comfortable” and “at home” in church.  The messages were designed to always “put the cookies on the lowest shelf.”  In these environments you would eschew any discussion of theology, or church history, or the grand vision of Christianity, the eschatological marriage of heaven and earth.  Christianity became a kind of self-help movement, but with God as your coach.   It was all about you.  Your style of worship.  Your emotional support to get through life.  You receiving blessings from God, and on and on it went. The “health wealth” so-called gospel is in the same vein, but they don’t hide behind the mask of the Reformation, they are overtly preaching a new gospel.  There is certainly no “deny yourself and take up your cross” in these cheapened versions of Christianity.  It is no wonder the Decontructionists started wondering about the viability of Christianity since they had mostly been exposed to very anemic versions of Christianity.  But, as I used to say to our students at Asbury (quoting my former colleague Peter Kuzmic), “it is wrong to get as many people as possible, to acknowledge as superficially as allowable, a gospel which is theologically unsustainable.”

The “deconstructionists” have emerged as the leading voices in their goal of attacking and discrediting the Christian faith.  They have started Tik Tok Videos and YouTube Channels and podcasts around the hashtags “exangelical” (note the merger of “ex” with “evangelical”).   The term “exvangelical” was coined in 2016 by Blake Chastain who also has a podcast with that same name with millions of views per day.   Many of these “ex” evangelicals are people who were once well known Christian solo artists such as Kevin Max (of D. C Talk), Derek Webb (Caedmon’s Call) or Jon Steingard  (Hawk Nelson).  They had huge followings on social media which has magnified their departure from Christianity.  However, their playbook is very similar to the “New Atheist” playbook: Either create a straw man of Christianity and knock it down or find a fresh way to re-articulate the “problem of evil.”  The straw man is generally some abuse in Christianity (crusades, southern Christian support for slavery in the 19^th century, the disenfranchisement of women, Christian nationalism today, etc….).  Sometimes it hits closer to home by pointing out pastors who were control freaks or unstable or uncaring, or sexual predators, etc.. and then claiming that because the pastor is like this, God must be like this.

The “problem of evil” charge, of course, has a long history in seeking to discredit Christianity.  The problem of evil posits the question, “How can God be all good and all powerful? If he is all good, then there would be no evil in the world, if he is all powerful, he would act to stop it.  Therefore, since evil is in the world, it means that God is either NOT good or NOT all powerful, he cannot be both.”  The force of this charge is that however you respond, God can be put in the dock.  If God does nothing about evil in the world, then he is distant, uncaring, “not good,” or “impotent” and therefore worthy of our rejection.  If God acts and judges the world, then he is a trigger-happy tyrant, void of grace, who at a whim is out to punish people.  I sometimes tell my students that the main difference between Demas in the New Testament (who left the faith) and a podcaster like Derek Webb (who also left the faith) is that Demas didn’t have social media, and today social media can magnify any random person’s unbelief into a following.

But, let’s be clear, these new exvangelicals are not about shifting to a “better theology.”  It is not about “switching beliefs.”  It is about jettisoning beliefs and theology all together and engaging in a personal journey to find your true “authentic” self.  Derek Webb summed this up well when he said, “I’ve stopped trying to “construct”… belief is such a heavy term.  I’m done ‘believing.”   He writes,  Hypothesizing in real-time + permanent uncertainty = a start.   These new exvangelicals are seeking to replace any external authority (scriptures, church, tradition etc..) with personal autonomy.   As Rachael Slick (deconstructionist daughter of apologist Matt Slick) said, “Freedom is my God now, and I love this one a thousand times more than I ever loved the first one.”

It is very likely that you will begin to hear the word “exvangelical” more often. Their mission is to declare evangelicals as nothing more than a group of homophobic, misogynist racists.   The best advice as we prepare for this new wave is to dig into the grand Christian story with even more depth and vigor.  After all, once the latest wave of bluster has died down, Jesus Christ is still the Risen Lord, redeeming the world and ushering in the New Creation.

The post Christian Deconstructionists and the Rise of the Exvangelical appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

We navigate that liminal space between being “in” the world, but not ‘of” the world by living as “resident aliens” (to borrow the phrase from the book by that title by Hauerwas and Willimon).  To live as resident aliens means every Christian should feel a moral tension inside which can only be fully resolved until Christ returns and sets all things right and ushers us into the New Creation.  In the meantime, we are the community of those who seek the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33) and who live under the righteous rule and reign of Jesus Christ right in the midst of “the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). We are called to engage this evil world and be an outpost of the New Creation in the “here and now” not just the “sweet by and by.”  This means that we must help the society to think better about the complex moral issues which swirl around us masquerading as easy-to-swallow political slogans, or a 30 second commercial without adopting the small, “this world” focused vision of any party, whether “left” or “right,” whether “red” or “blue.”

Indeed, the moral vision of the New Testament is far more complex than can be possibly understood by any of the normal political processes, because our whole moral framework is framed around the Risen Lord Jesus Christ who has conquered sin and the grave.  At root, we don’t believe we have merely “political” or “social” problems, we have a much deeper problem known as sin.  And, the faithful church through the ages agrees that sin is a nasty contagion which everyone has caught, both by birth and by choice.  The only One without the contagion of sin is the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.  This means that all human structures, including political parties, are marred by sin and are often morally inconsistent.  This is why many citizens who are Christians leave the voting booth, not with enthusiasm, but with a grim sense of feeling morally conflicted or, even worse, that they were forced to vote for the “lesser of two evils.” You leave the booth reminding yourself that a “vote” is not necessarily an “endorsement.”  It might just be the next best move on a chess board which looks increasingly like we are headed for checkmate.  Well, this is a good time to remember that every kingdom (political system) in this world is headed for checkmate.  The last headline will be:  The Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever (Rev. 11:15).  Nations and systems of government rise and fall.  Leaders come and go.  But, His Kingdom is forever.

The post What’s the Christian position on gun control, border security, immigration, and tariffs? appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

We must always remember that our primary identity is as one who belongs to Jesus Christ.   This is the  wisdom of Polycarp to us and to all Christians through time:  you will never be martyred for being a Methodist, or being a Pentecostal, or being a Baptist.  We are martyred because we are followers of Jesus Christ.  As we approach increasing opposition to our faith, we must recognize the common faith we share with all true believers in Jesus Christ.

We are Trinitarian Christians, saved by and through His redemptive plan, and united with the whole company of the redeemed through all ages who are united to one another through the mystical body of Christ.  This is always our first and leading identity.    I am, by confession,  also an evangelical Protestant who affirms and practices Wesleyan theology  But, that is my second identity, not my primary identity.

The Global Methodist Church has wonderful gifts to offer the wider church of Jesus Christ.  We are not merely “generic” Christians.  We have a particular embeddedness in a specific tradition, with particular insights and understandings of the Word of God and the apostolic witness.   But, that particularity must be seen within the larger context of our Christian identity.  If we understand this we will, simultaneously, become better Christians and better Methodists at the same time.

The post What is Your Primary Identity? appeared first on Timothy Tennent.

We must always remember that our primary identity is as one who belongs to Jesus Christ.   This is the  wisdom of Polycarp to us and to all Christians through time:  you will never be martyred for being a Methodist, or being a Pentecostal, or being a Baptist.  We are martyred because we are followers of Jesus Christ.  As we approach increasing opposition to our faith, we must recognize the common faith we share with all true believers in Jesus Christ.

We are Trinitarian Christians, saved by and through His redemptive plan, and united with the whole company of the redeemed through all ages who are united to one another through the mystical body of Christ.  This is always our first and leading identity.    I am, by confession,  also an evangelical Protestant who affirms and practices Wesleyan theology  But, that is my second identity, not my primary identity.

The Global Methodist Church has wonderful gifts to offer the wider church of Jesus Christ.  We are not merely “generic” Christians.  We have a particular embeddedness in a specific tradition, with particular insights and understandings of the Word of God and the apostolic witness.   But, that particularity must be seen within the larger context of our Christian identity.  If we understand this we will, simultaneously, become better Christians and better Methodists at the same time.

The post What is your Primary Identity? appeared first on Timothy Tennent.