Leaning Both Ways at Once. Jeffrey A. Conklin-Miller

      LEANING BOTH WAYS AT ONCE

      Methodist Evangelistic Mission at the Intersection of Church and World

      Copyright © 2020 Jeffrey A. Conklin-Miller. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Pickwick Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-9146-0

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-9148-4

      ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-9147-7

      Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

      Names: Conklin-Miller, Jeffrey A., author.

      Title: Leaning both ways at once : Methodist evangelistic mission at the intersection of church and world / Jeffrey A. Conklin-Miller.

      Description: Eugene, OR : Pickwick Publications, 2020 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: isbn 978-1-4982-9146-0 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-9148-4 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-9147-7 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Methodist Church—Doctrines—Congresses.| Mission of the church. | Methodist Episcopal Church—Missions.

      Classification: BV601.8 .C67 2020 (print) | BV601.8 .C67 (ebook)

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. August 28, 2020

      Unless noted otherwise, all scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Parts of chapter 3 were previously published as “‘Peoplehood’ and the Methodist Revival,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 46:1 (2011): 163–82, and are reprinted with permission.

      To Shannon, Emma, and Ethan

      Acknowledgments

      While this project took shape first as a dissertation written in the Doctor of Theology program at Duke Divinity School, in truth, it began years before that, in the form of thoughts and questions generated by my work as a pastor. I am grateful for the many conversations with all the lay and clergy colleagues inside and outside the congregations I served who helped put words to experience and perception. If I have any desire for what this book might do, it is that it add something hopeful to the formation of theological pastoral imagination. Put differently, I hope this helps pastors do the work they have been called to do.

      I was blessed with the gift of time and space to return to school to pursue these questions and found at Duke Divinity School a wonderful community of teachers and colleagues. My doctoral co-advisors, Greg Jones and Laceye Warner, are to be thanked for their guidance, patience, and the ways they reminded me that I am part of the People called Methodist. I offer thanks as well to the members of my dissertation committee, Kenneth Carder, Stanley Hauerwas, and especially Randy Maddox, who has been a guide and support for many years now. I was blessed to have been a student among such faithful teachers.

      Crucial support for my studies was provided by A Foundation for Theological Education and the Foundation for Evangelism through the Duke Evangelism Fellowship. Both offered not only funding but also the opportunity to share in communities of friendship and support in the form of the John Wesley and Denman Fellows, and among colleagues in the E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism. I am thankful for both. Further financial support came from the Foundation of the First United Methodist Church of Escondido, California, my home church, and a congregation instrumental to my formation as a Christian, as a pastor, and a scholar. I hope for a future for the Church that reflects what makes your congregation so special.

      In the past several years, many conversations with colleagues and friends at Duke Divinity School and in the broader connection of United Methodism have meaningfully shaped my ongoing thinking in this project. Thanks here especially to Randy Maddox, Laceye Warner, Edgardo Colón-Emeric, Elaine Heath, Sangwoo Kim, Kenneth Carter, Greg Moore, and Colin Yuckman. I also want to thank the many students I’ve had opportunity to teach (and from whom I’ve learned) at Duke Divinity and in the Course of Study for Local Pastors at Duke and at the Claremont School of Theology. And for sharing with me about the Changemakers Initiative, many thanks to Kim Jones and Caryn Cranston.

      Relief from some administrative duties and support for research assistance helped me bring this project to completion, and for that I offer thanks to Greg Jones, Norman Wirzba, and Sujin Pak. Brent Levy offered valuable research assistance while grading papers, launching a new church, and welcoming a second child! Randy Maddox, Sangwoo Kim, Judith Heyhoe, and Shannon Conklin-Miller all read the manuscript and offered helpful feedback and guidance which improved the work. I am thankful to each for their time and effort. And finally, I’m grateful for the Epworth United Methodist Church in Durham, North Carolina and to pastors Karen Whitaker and Sangwoo Kim, who provided me access to quiet Sunday school rooms where I could write and remember what this book was always meant to be about: the ministry of the Church in the world.

      Lastly, and most importantly, I want to recognize my family, whose support and love have sustained me. Especially I’m grateful to my parents, Jan and Ken, and to my in-laws, Jennifer and Bob. And to those I share life with most closely, Shannon and Emma and Ethan, I say thank you, and I give thanks for you. To each of you, in gratitude for what we have given each other and in hope for all that is still to come, I dedicate this to you.

      Introduction

Next to evangelism, the most urgent task within the Christian Church—even more urgent than the much more publicized effort for ecumenicity—is the re-articulation of the Christian social ethic, of the relationship of the Christian and the church to the social order. Indeed one might well ask whether that is not essentially the evangelistic task of the day, the proclamation of a Gospel which reunites in the true New Testament sense, faith and works. . . . Such an approach of course presupposes a readiness to undergo the pre-Constantinian church-world tension and conflict.1

      Church, World, and Wesleyan Witness

      This past summer, visitors to various cathedrals of the Church of England were treated to more than the expected spires and stained glass. For example, a site for holy travelers since the thirteenth century, Rochester Cathedral invited visitors not only to climb the historic Pilgrim Steps but also to play a round of nine holes on the newly installed miniature golf course in the nave. Farther north, the Cathedral in Norwich invited all to come and worship and, for a small fee, to take a ride down the fifty-five-foot-tall slide, also known as a “Helter Skelter.”

In Norwich, the effort was part of the “Seeing it Differently” campaign, offering participants “opportunities for reflective, God-shaped conversations.”2 Such conversations also served an evangelistic purpose, as one of the cathedral clergy explained. To install a Helter Skelter in the cathedral is

playful in its intent but also profoundly missional. It is the Cathedral doing what it has always done—encouraging conversations about God. By its sheer size and grandeur it speaks of the things of God; it points beyond itself. Its sheer presence helps to keep the rumour of God alive and plays its part in passing on the story of Salvation.3