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Dr. Denny Wayman

dwayman@fmcsb.org

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THIS ONLINE DISCUSSION IS PROVIDED BY THE STUDY COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE – SCOD. In the life of the church there are three levels of authoritative documents. Within the Free Methodist Church we define the three levels in this way: First Level is the BOOK OF DISCIPLINE: Official documents approved by the delegates at the General Conference. Second Level is the STUDY COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE: Guidance provided to the church by those assigned the task. These are not personal opinions, but are vetted by scholars who have various expertise. Though not binding on the church, they are meant to be helpful scholarly works. Third Level is this FREE METHODIST CONVERSATIONS. This online discussion is where various individuals express their own opinions about a variety of issues. These are not authoritative, nor are they necessarily meant as guidance, but God may use them to do so. There are SCOD documents on this site and the members of the SCOD will be participants. We are inviting the entire church to join the discussion. Our intention is not to limit discussion but to elevate it by assuring that God’s love and respect is always expressed. We will therefore post those comments which further our mutual understanding and assure that every person is being treated with dignity even when disagreement is being voiced. Specifically: 1. The SCOD encourages respectful, intelligent and impassioned discussion and debate. 2. The SCOD encourages a Wesleyan method of looking at the topic from a Scriptural perspective as well as that of Reason, Tradition and Experience. We recognize the Revelation of God in Scripture is our primary source of truth, with Reason, Tradition and Experience serving as supportive resources. 3. Any personal attack will keep the entire comment from being posted. This includes not only attacking others within this SCOD conversation but anyone within the larger secular or Christian world. 4. Any libelous, defamatory, profane, vulgar, threatening, harassing abusive, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable comments will not be posted. 5. Any invasion of another’s privacy or any post that emulates or pretends to be someone else will not be posted. 6. This online conversation is not to be used to solicit or advertise personal blogs. 12. The SCOD, in our sole discretion, retains the right to remove individual posts or to revoke the access privileges of anyone who we believe has violated any of these standards. For more informal conversations with Free Methodists: LIGHT AND LIFE CONVERSATIONS – Facebook page LIGHT AND LIFE MAGAZINE – Facebook page – Online Issues FM RADIO – Facebook page or iTune episodes If there are any questions contact our moderator, Dr. Denny Wayman: dwayman@fmcsb.org.

HONORING GOD’s COVENANT: Caring for the Earth

January 18, 2022 By dwayman

Free Methodists and Creation Care

Honoring God’s Covenant: Caring for the Earth

Howard A. Snyder

Introduction

God has an everlasting covenant with His earth, as well as with His people. Since we humans are God’s stewards on earth, called to care for the garden (Genesis 2:15), God’s earth covenant is our stewardship commission. This is particularly true for Free Methodists, called to “maintain the Bible standard of Christianity.”

God’s Covenant with the Earth

The Lord God brings salvation to earth through a series of revealed covenants, culminating in the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ. The first of these covenants, following humanity’s fall into sin and after the flood, is revealed in Genesis 9.

God says to Noah after the flood, “I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark” (Genesis 9:9–10 NRSV). God makes it clear that this covenant is “with every living creature” and is “for all generations.” It is in fact an “everlasting covenant” — true and to be observed throughout all history. God calls this simply His “covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:12–16). All covenants have a sign, and the sign of this covenant is the rainbow.

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CALLED FROM HATE AND DISDAIN TO LOVE

January 10, 2022 By dwayman

At the beginning of 2022 the Word of the Lord came through Jim Wright to all of us.  Representative of the thousands of sermons given on January 9th, Wright provides us with God’s guidance in times when we often look to others far less helpful.  A lawyer and professor, his message to us is that we are called away from hate and distain to love toward all.

His text is 1 John 3:16-24:  We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17 How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who obey his commandments abide in him,

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PANDEMICS AND THE CHURCH AND STATE IN HISTORY

January 7, 2022 By dwayman

It is helpful to hear from a Christian scholar from Nigeria as we often get caught up in our individual nation’s politics and lose sight of our global Christian witness, purpose and history.  Here Dr. Bernard B. Fyanka, Redeemer’s University Ede, Osun State Nigeria, provides an insightful analysis of the church and state as both encounter a pandemic.

The conclusion to his analysis states:

” In my opinion, the central agitation of the church with regards to this pandemic and possible pandemics in the future should have been over the designation of the churches as entities providing essential and emergency services. This characterization should be based on the original basis of the relationship between the church and state in which the church is viewed as a charitable organization providing medical, social and spiritual relief to communities.The emphasis of the church should not have been on rights to congregate but rights to work inparallel status with doctors, nurses, police, and other emergency services in providing much-needed relief. Finally, as opined by the catholic church, ‘the Church has direct authority fromGod Himself over the exercise of religion and the meaning of faith and morals. But this authority does not preclude cooperation with legitimate governmental entities in fostering the common good, which in fact is required by the Church’s own moral teaching.”

Free Methodist Bishop Emeritus David Kendall notes:  “Dr. Fyanka’s point, as I understand it, is that the church is not called to protect and advocate for its own rights,

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BAPTIZED CYNICISM by Matthew Ruszynski

October 18, 2021 By dwayman

Rev. Matthew Tuszynski

I’ve never read the ‘Left Behind’ series, but I grew up around the time it was most popular.  That meant that, even without reading so much as the first page of the first book, I already knew most of the major plot points just by virtue of being around people who were entranced by the books.  If you are old enough to remember the 90’s and early 00’s (and I still haven’t fully processed the fact that some of you reading this might not be), you’ll already be familiar with the eschatological hysteria of the period.  It’s a hysteria that had been building since World War I, but something about the turning of the millenia, and some nonsense about the Aztec calendar that was all over the History Channel for some reason, got a good portion of the populous to believe that any moment now we’d live through that ‘empty clothes left where my husband/wife/brother/second-cousin twice removed was sitting just a moment ago’ scene from those novels.

That hysteria imbued much of western Christianity with an almost Gnostic nihilism about the physical world and its problems.  Somewhere along the way the phrase ‘in the world, but not of the world’ was spawned, and it’s become such a fixture in Christianese that we sometimes forget that no such phrase appears in the scriptures.  There are two near analogues; the first is John 17:16–18 (NASB95) 16“They are not of the world,

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THE SUFFERING WITNESS by Ayebale Barigye

October 14, 2021 By dwayman

The necessity of hearing the Word of God preached by a variety of unique pastors is vital to a full understanding of the Gospel. Each pastor not only comes from their own place in history but also in geography and culture.  Pastor Ayebale Barigye was born in Uganda and raised in the United States.  He is a graduate of Greenville University.  This blend of international and national experience not only causes Pastor Barigye to have a clear understanding of the justice our faith requires, but the importance of following our Suffering Savior as we also pick up our own cross and follow him.  This sermon is a part of the series on Suffering preached at St. Paul’s Free Methodist Church in Greenville, IL.

This sermon was given on October 10, 2021.  The audio is available on YouTube by clicking here.

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LOVING FROM WHERE WE STAND

October 11, 2021 By dwayman

When John wrote that the mark of being a Christian is by our love for all, (John 13:35) he established what is our clear Free Methodist understanding of the social concerns of our day.  This truth, also called the Theology of Love by Wesleyan authors such as Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, defines the dynamic power of love that is central to our Wesleyan heritage.

It is therefore appropriate that Supt. Bruce Cromwell was asked as a member of the Study Commission on Doctrine to write about the love we are committed to expressing to the LGBT community as we stand upon the teachings of Scripture.  His guidance has been published under the title Loving From Where We Stand and can be ordered here.

To understand his heart, this interview on FM Radio is a shared conversation with the Rev. Dr. Cromwell and Elijah Drake.  You can listen to the podcast here.

 

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THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A COLORBLIND CHRISTIANITY

August 19, 2021 By dwayman

With the 2020 Census revealing that we are increasingly a multicultural nation and therefor must be a multicultural denomination if we are to reach this and future generations, this article provides both an analysis and a call upon us.  Written by Amar D. Peterman in August 17, 2021 the author begins:

“In its early stages, the multiracial church movement felt promising. Inspired by the 2004 book United by Faith, this movement held bold aspirations of a racially reconciled, Revelation-like worshiping community. While many questioned whether this elusive dream might become a reality, I wanted it to be true.

Yet, as Tom Gjelten reported for NPR last year, the multiracial church movement failed. While the movement succeeded in racially integrating congregants, many multiracial congregations remained steeped in a Christian faith governed by whiteness. Congregations grew in diversity, yet governance and meaningful decision-making power was safeguarded by cohorts of predominantly white male leadership.

For all its promises, the multiracial church movement was unequipped and under-resourced to deliver. Most importantly, this movement failed to address the distorted imagination of belonging.

To understand this, one must start with a core interpretive assumption held among mainstream evangelicals. The task of hermeneutics, as I was taught at an evangelical Bible college, is a process of ridding oneself of the baggage — the “bias” and “presuppositions” — we bring to the text: our experiences,

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BT. Roberts’ Up-to-Date Vision of Earnest Christianity

June 11, 2021 By dwayman
  1. T. Roberts’ Up-to-Date Vision of Earnest Christianity

© Howard A. Snyder [Used by Permission]

Author, Populist Saints: B. T. and Ellen Roberts and the First Free Methodists

Visiting Director, Manchester Wesley Research Centre

Manchester, England

Roberts Wesleyan College – September 21, 2016

Introduction

Benjamin Titus Roberts always insisted that the mission of the Free Methodist Church was “twofold—to maintain the Bible standard of Christianity, and to preach the Gospel to the poor.”[1] He never lost sight of this throughout his many years of life and ministry.

I invite you this morning to consider the relevance of this mission for our lives personally and for the church today.

  1. B.T. Roberts and the Free Methodist Church were in a broad sense part of the Holiness Movement within American Methodism. This movement was committed to the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification as taught by John Wesley and as interpreted by leaders in the nineteenth-century Holiness Movement.

Roberts shared this concern with sanctification—that is, holy living in every dimension of life. Not everyone in the Holiness Movement however shared Roberts’ particular concern with the poor. In general, early Free Methodists embraced a more radical understanding of holiness as well as a more radical commitment to the poor. Sociologically speaking, the energy that powered early Free Methodism was somewhat separate and distinct from that of the broader Holiness Movement which in the 1860s,

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YOUR POLITICS MAY BE RUINING YOUR MINISTRY

April 29, 2021 By dwayman

Rev. Dr. Michael Traylor – May, 2021

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29)

“As people of faith, our challenge is to rise above political ideology and lead on moral grounds.  Don’t go right, don’t go left, go deeper.  (Jim Wallis – On God’s Side)

This last election cycle was among the most polarized and divisive election that I have ever witnessed. The degree of violence and vitriol revealed just how sick society is. Too often the dominant political narratives of our regions and family heritage often define our church culture, which in turn defines and informs the church’s mission. In other words, many churches have become co-opted by political agendas and have lost their true identity.

University of Notre Dame Political Scientists recently published a study which sought to analyze the phenomena of the rising population of people who have no religious affiliation over the past decade (Campbell, Layman, Green, Secular Surge, 2021). What they found was that often those who described themselves as non-religious often did so in reaction to political identities of religious movements,

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LOVING MUTUALITY AS GOD’S PLAN FOR CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

March 14, 2021 By dwayman

LOVING MUTUALITY AS GOD’S PLAN FOR CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

The Study Commission on Doctrine Free Methodist Church-USA 2021

Free Methodists celebrate God’s original creation of humans in the divine image. Bearing the Divine Image, among the many particulars we might note, characterizes humanity as male and female, and does so especially when together they fulfill their vocation as co-stewards and governors of the creation (see Gen. 1: 26-31, and the note that “it is not good for the human to be alone,” in 2:18). Both accounts of Creation stress the mutual, collaborative nature of the original human vocation.

Subsequently, the humans disobey the Lord and bring upon themselves and their world multiple forms of disorder and distortion (Gen. 3). Rather than blessing, the world experiences curse; and instead of ruling together over the world, the man and woman suffer brokenness in their relationship. Now, she will desire the man, but the man will rule over her (Gen. 3:16). This hierarchical pattern characterizes human history from that point on and manifests the consequences of human sin. The impact of this altered or broken relationship for women has been bleak. Men take multiple wives. Women are objectified and valued for their ability to produce children and to provide sexual pleasure. As objects, girls are less desirable than boys, except as dowry for the household. As objects, girls are promised and given in marriage to expand the family’s social capital. And, as objects, girls and women are raped as a means of humiliating the enemy and taken as part of the spoils claimed by victors.

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