California-Nevada Annual Conference Evangelical Renewal Fellowship
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ERF?
ERF is a decades-old fellowship of evangelical pastors and laypeople in the California-Nevada Conference. We gather once or twice during the year for renewal and education. We also sponsor pre-Annual Conference briefings and meet for a banquet during the Annual Conference. ERF sometimes functions as an unofficial evangelical caucus, but most times it is an informal fellowship. Some members of ERF are affiliated with Good News and the Confessing Movement, many are not. Some are former liberals. We just established an unofficial web site at www.newpathways.com. Since we're new at this stuff, we'll also be using the Unofficial Confessing Movement web page .
What is your definition of an evangelical?
Our definition is admittedly imprecise. Generally speaking, however, evangelicals believe in the affirmations of the Nicene Creed, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the authority and reliability of Scripture, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the necessity of conversion to experience salvation by grace through faith, the reality of heaven and hell, and salvation through Jesus Christ alone.
Why only 43 signatures when the vote was approximately 74-1?
Again, we're not sure. Some report that they did not sign because they did not see the papers in the narthex after the meeting. Others may have been pastors in the middle of appointment changes who felt the need for caution out of respect for former and future congregations. Some were probably just afraid. For us, the miracle is that such unanimity could be achieved on the vote in the first place.
Is ERF against working within the system?
No. Some of us have as much as a 50-year history of working within the system. Sadly, we have few successes. Three of those were the birth of Transforming Congregations here, the election of three evangelicals, one clergy, two lay, to the 1992 General Conference, and success in eliminating anti-evangelical bias in our Board of Ordained Ministry. Yet, mostly, we have failed. Most recently, the pro-homosexual stance of our Bishop and the Cabinet has become unbearable. We are kept off of General Conference delegations because liberals feel that ``we need to balance out all the conservatives from the South." Several years ago, we worked very hard to move a recommendation for a special appointment for a colleague to join the Mission Society for United Methodists. Though the clergy session supported the appointment, the Bishop refused, forcing a great friend to transfer to a Conference where he would be appointed. We are currently alarmed at how unwise pastoral appointments are gutting our largest evangelical churches. We're dying fast trying to work the system.
We support all those who feel that there is hope in working within the system. Unfortunately, that route will not work for us.
Is the California-Nevada Annual Conference really different than other places for evangelicals?
We believe so, but we really don't know. We certainly are a mess.
The UMNS reported on 3/3/98 that when,
before the Creech verdict, Rev. Creech was out here speaking at the Metropolitan Community Church, one DS present offered ``If Nebraska kicks you out, we'll find a place for you here." That DS reported the Cabinet's ``unequivocal"support for pastors who perform same sex unions. Another DS repented of the church's sin toward sexual minorities. The pastor of a San
Francisco church was quoted as asserting that her church had been doing homosexual unions ``for decades". Knowing the pastor and church, this is not hyperbole. And of course, most are aware that our current and previous
Bishops signed the 1996 document, which spoke of their opposition to the Discipline's stand against homosexuality. Throughout
our history, sexual immorality by pastors has been ignored or tacitly approved. One evangelical pastor remembers attending a continuing education program sponsored by the Conference in the 60's at which a pastor and his spouse advocated the virtues of spouse-swapping. Approximately ten years ago, a conference agency co-sponsored what was in essence a ``marriage enrichment weekend" for gay and lesbian couples.
Numerous evangelical churches withheld their apportionments to no effect. Several years ago, the conference youth program held a retreat at which youth as young as 13 participated in learning how to put a condom on a banana and viewing
nude pictures from pornographic magazines to ``desensitize" them to porn. The incident was reported when the students complained about the sexual ethics of the retreat. Although
not currently practiced, veteran evangelical pastors recall the days when overt attempts were put in place to move evangelical churches to moderate and then to liberal while driving evangelical pastors out of the Conference. Our document really should be revised to state that in
over 40 years, no evangelical DS has been appointed. All this from our ``tolerant and inclusive"
leadership. Meanwhile, several gay and lesbian pastors are ordained and appointed in our Conference; others are lay employees of the Annual Conference. There is no point in bringing charges because the cases would never get to trial. Of course, all evangelicals in the UMC probably have horror stories. These are but a small sampling of ours. Certainly, liberals have their own catalogue of pain inflicted by evangelicals, though since we have little
power in California-Nevada, it is hard to believe that their list equals ours. Perhaps, it is the same in every Annual Conference, but we no longer have the heart nor energy to fight.
Is ERF premature in seeking a separation process?
Some would say that we have waited too long already. Last year, one evangelical congregation in an appointment dispute after years of a liberal pastor had its members removed from the rolls by the pastor. A nearby fellowship church was brought in to take over the building that those biblical people had build and used for decades. This year, a large evangelical church was given a very liberal pastor. It is currently half the size it was. We're losing the equivalent membership of over one church per year in evangelical churches. An informal survey of 6 younger evangelical pastors found that 3 had recently talked with an official of an evangelical denomination about the possibility of transfer; all 6 admit that they frequently have serious thoughts of leaving. Most stay because they can't bear to leave their churches to liberal pastors coming in.
We do not believe we have much time left. Waiting so we can divide up seminaries and General agencies means nothing to us. We are only concerned with survival. Those within the safety of more moderate conferences will have to fight for the goodies of a fractured denomination. We do not have the luxury of waiting for the study and dialogue recommended by the ``Dialogue on Theological Diversity" nor for more Judicial Council Rulings and special sessions of General Conference. By then, we will be gone. We feel compelled to act now.
What are the Scriptural underpinnings of your action?
Titus 3:9-11- 2 Timothy 3:1-9 - 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
Titus 3:10 says to warn a divisive person twice
then have nothing to do with them. We will be accused of being divisive, but we are not. We have not brought this on. We are simply the ones who openly acknowledge division exists. The divisive ones have been wrned more than twice. They
have been warned for twenty five years, yet they persist. It is past time to have no more to do with them. 2 Timothy 3:5 was prophesied by
*John Wesley warned on August 4, 1786:
``I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out."
2 Corinthians 6:14 warns against being mismatched with unbelievers. While it is the Lord's, and only the Lord's, prerogative to separate the sheep and the goats, we still can, and must, judge unbelieving behavior. In the name of tolerance we have help pay for, and shared our name with the support of atheistic communism, sexual ethics which promote fornication and homosexual practice, Sophia worship, huge increases in mission spending with huge decreases in missionary work, seminaries which major in undermining core Christian orthodoxy and steadily declining churches with no emphasis on reaching the lost. If this isn't a mismatch with unbelief what is? The admonition is to come out from them. (2 Cor. 6:17)
What do the witnesses of tradition and experience have to say?
We
believe that we stand in the tradition of John Wesley, Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. Though not seeking to promote schism, they followed their biblical convictions and caused separations from their former churches. Experience tells us that the fruits of their actions were blessed by God once the separation was complete. As Protestants and as Methodists, we stand in a tradition of separations. And while our history does not allow license for recklessness, it does assure us that when the time comes, God uses schisms to build the Kingdom of God.
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