News and Views

The following statement was signed by members of the Wesley Theological Seminary community.

“We were in seminary with TC”

And we could not be more saddened or disappointed with this vote today. We were colleagues with TC as we were all discerning our calls and preparing for them. Together we sacrificed hours in study, prayer, and reflection. Yet today the church refuses to recognize the giftedness we all know, have seen, and have benefited from, while living into our calls—calls the church has recognized. TC is a colleague. TC has just as many and more gifts and graces and much more preparedness to bring to the clergy than we had when we were commissioned. Why the church has decided to entrust its care to us and not to her baffles and shames us.

She is one of the most qualified candidates we know—in faith, fire, and fruit—and the fact that we were not falling over ourselves in this session in excitement to work with one such as TC is a sin against our own calls.

Before us is a question of calling that is as old as the church. Peter stood before his order of believers in Jerusalem for having eaten with uncircumcised men and then having baptized Cornelius and all his house. Peter spoke to the faith he had witnessed in Cornelius, how the Holy Spirit had changed his own heart, how seeing the evidence of the same spiritual gifts with the Gentiles as he had with his fellow Jews, convinced him it was God at work. Upon hearing this testimony, those who once gathered to accuse Peter joined with him in claiming—“If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

It is worth remembering both that the strength of the people called Methodist has often lain in the variety of ways for a variety of people to live out their calls, and that we have not always been certain of that. In many United Methodist Churches, licensed local pastors and district superintendent appointed lay speakers preach on Sunday mornings. Yet in the early days, John Wesley tried to maintain a separation of “preaching” for those who were ordained, and “exhorting” for those who were not. In response to Wesley’s complaint about Thomas Maxfield, a particular lay preacher, Susanna Wesley advised him, “Take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach, as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him also yourself.”

After hearing him, John Wesley could only conclude, “It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.”

Similarly, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of full clergy rights for women, and often brag that we have allowed women lay preachers from the beginning, we should remember that Wesley was also very cautious about female preachers. Historian Richard Heitzenrater attributes this caution to both the social attitudes of the day and Wesley’s desire to avert schism with the Church of England. Much like in the early church, women were finding a new freedom to answer God’s call among the early Methodists.

In 1771, Mary Bosanquet first exegeted the usual Scriptures being raised against her preaching, then appealed to Wesley’s reason about her experience. She made an argument that rings true yet today: “I do not believe every woman is called to speak publicly, no more than every man to be a Methodist preacher, yet some have an extraordinary call to it, and woe be to them if they obey it not.” Unable to deny this, Wesley continued to carefully allow women lay preachers.

Without going into the full history here, the inclusion of both women and lay preachers in general was a matter that continued to be debated. We think we face a similar situation here: we are faced with the fruit of a person—no, many people—who do not fit neatly into our rules, and whose inclusion seems to threaten schism. But perhaps, once again, our fear can be turned into strength as we once again accept people who evince an extraordinary call to do God’s work in transforming the world.