Are you, as clergy or laity of a United
Methodist Church, looking for a way to transform the world?
I encourage teaching the Social
Principles of the United Methodist Church.
While the Social
Principles “are not church law”, meaning that a member is not obligated to
subscribe to each and every position stated, neither are they to
be brushed aside as irrelevant or unworthy of serious attention.
They are not merely
incidental adjunct material with which the Conference chose to consume excess
time. They are expressions of actions that have as their inspiration the social
emphasis and personal example of John Wesley, and the teachings and example of
Jesus himself.
They carry substantial
General Conference approval as evidenced by the vote tallies on the various
sections of the document…
Yes No Percentage
Preface 663 60 92
Preamble
667 54 93
The Community of All
Creation 667 54 93
The Economic
Community
667 54 93
The Social Community 523 161 76
The Political
Community
671 57 92
A rough analogy may be:
The Articles of Religion (changeable only by Amendment process), and other quadrennially
legislated parts of the Book of Displine can be equated with an employee manual
of a corporation or institution which becomes a contract when signed by the
employee, the Social Principles may be equated with the Best Practices of the
divisions of corporations.
Upon passage of the
Social Principles at the 2024 General Conference Bishop Dyck commented “It is
for Sunday school classes, preaching from the pulpit, for seminary classes and
as a guide for all of us to use right now.”
And I provide the
following suggestions:
*Sunday School classes:
The teacher can approach the material in different ways. One way is merely to
bring them to the attention of the students and encourage discussion. Another
way is to advocate for their application. Yet another way to present the Social
Principles would be as a forum to which you can invite the public as a way of
“getting to know our United Methodist beliefs”.
*Preaching from the
pulpit: Paragraph 403.d of the Book of Discipline states “The role of the
bishop is to be a prophetic voice for justice in a suffering and conflicted
world through the tradition of social holiness.” While that makes a charge to
the Bishop, by extension it arrives to all clergy at the pulpit. I advocate for
preaching the principles as practical illumination of the Gospel.
*Seminary: Develop
information by which students and congregations can leverage their
congregational resources to meet the challenge of taking broad, generalized
statements in the Social Principles and Book of Resolutions and by them forming
congregational goals.
*A guide for all: During
Membership classes, they should be presented. One church member may be
motivated to engage local government. Another may be inspired to advocate for
solving homelessness. It is likely that there is a Social Principle that would
move any member to action.
We acknowledge that the
world, of which God has given us stewardship, is full of problems. The Social
Principles, and the accompanying Book of Resolutions, offer means of practical
divinity by which we may do more than merely “send thoughts and prayers” with
our faith sequestered to our sanctuaries, but we may also affect positive,
useful transformation of the world.
I encourage classes.
There is a teaching guide at the end of the book.
The paperback version is available
at cokesbury.com for $9.99
It is also available for
free at this link:
https://www.umc.org/en/who-we-are/what-we-believe/our-social-positions
A report of the passage
of the Social Principles can be viewed here:
https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/all-sections-of-the-revised-social-principles-officially-adopted
