The Methodist Church is prepared to be absorbed by the Church of England if that is the price of unity, Britain’s most senior Methodist said yesterday.
The Rev David Gamble, president of the Methodist Conference, told the General Synod of the Church of England, meeting at Church House, Westminster: “We are prepared to go out of existence, not because we are declining or failing in mission, but for the sake of mission.” Methodists were “prepared to be changed and even to cease having a separate existence as a Church” if that served the needs of the Kingdom of God.
[i]Methodists were “prepared to be changed and even to cease having a separate existence as a Church†if that served the needs of the Kingdom of God. [/i]
Alrighty then! Great to hear they’re all going to cross the Tiber!
…I’m sorry, what? They’re not?
Of course they voted in favor back in the 1970s. It was the Church of England that had second thoughts.
So the Methodists WANT to jump onto a sinking ship?
What a beautiful, humbling, refreshing thing to hear a church leader say!
#3 — If the ship you on has sunk, a sinking ship is a (temporary) improvement of your situation…
This is still at the rhetorical stage but understandable and possible. The mainline denominations are sinking ships; you’ll see more of these mergers as they try to pool their resources to save themselves. Witness the Episcopal-ELCA one and the Episcopal interim intercommunion with the United Methodists. The waiver for current ELCA pastors and the interim agreement with the UMC show the requirement of the claim to the historic episcopate, the exception to the Protestant minimalism of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, is out the window. Now that women bishops have killed Anglo-Catholicism there’s nothing stopping this move.
All this is precisely my reason for leaving the Methodist Church and going Episcopalian. Not because both churches are perfect or free of error, but because Fr. Wesley’s emphasis has, in the main, been taken up by Anglicanism again. So, what need is there for the emergency provision to begin the Methodist Episcopal Church in this day?