Requiem

(with apologies to Thomas Oden, who used the title first)

The church of my youth has died. The better part of my early faith formation—from teenager to young adult, even into my first years of ministry—was in the United Methodist Church.

That church no longer exists.

The cause of death can rightly be called suicide.

The discipline of holiness of heart and life willfully cast aside for indulgence in homosexual hedonism.

The preaching of Christ crucified callously rejected for “social justice” virtue signaling.

A rich heritage of Christian hymnody gleefully trampled upon while dancing to the music of the O’Jays.

The recently completed General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Charlotte may have been many things, but it was not a gathering of faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

Not that it should matter to me that much. I moved to greener pastures some twenty years ago—a considerable head start on the mass exodus that has been taking place over the last 3-4 years—being as much dissatisfied with the conservative “resistance” as I was with the “progressive” rebels who always seemed to evade accountability for their nefarious acts of disobedience. Nevertheless, it is still hard to hold back the tears as the childhood home of my faith now lies in a heap of smoldering ruins with countless souls still trapped underneath, thinking they are the victors in a decades-long battle to rid themselves of the very truth that could have set them free.

Nearly thirty years ago, the late Thomas C. Oden penned, in the words of the dust jacket flap, “a post-liberal critique of the mainline liberal ecclesiastical establishment, especially the theological seminaries and church bureaucracies.” The book carried the ominous title, Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements. Oden himself was a former progressive who embraced the orthodox faith through his reading of the Church Fathers and, subsequently, devoted the remainder of his life to the renewal of orthodoxy within the mainline church, particularly his native United Methodist Church.

Despite what has now become the final fate of his once beloved denomination, Oden’s life work was not a failure. He inspired a whole generation of young seminarians (myself included) to embrace the thrilling adventure of orthodoxy and never to be ashamed when confronting progressives with the sheer ridiculousness of their arguments. That thrilling adventure has led his proteges in numerous different Wesleyan, Anglican, Reformed, and (dare I say) even more ancient directions. Oden’s legacy will live on, as will so much of the heritage bequeathed by the Methodist movement. Faithful churches of all denominational stripes will still be singing “And Can It Be,” “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” centuries after the echoes of the last flaccid chorus of “Love Train” have died out in an empty arena in Charlotte.

A Requiem, after all, ends with the hope of Resurrection.