Ethics Considered

What takes three and a half years, four leaders, nineteen additional contributors, and grants and staff time from multiple supportive institutions? Answer: A groundbreaking book on the diaconate!

The diaconate is the ministry of service. Christians are sent by Christ to serve others, emissaries of God’s good news to the poor, spoken through actions of justice and solidarity. Diakonia is the Greek word often translated as servant or servanthood, for example, in the words of Jesus: “The greatest among you will be your servant [diakonos]” (Mt 23:11, NRSVUE). Jesus called his followers to a ministry of diakonia by washing their feet. Thus, the basin and towel are signs of diaconal ministry for the whole church. The “diaconate of all believers” is a call to service in the church and in a wide array of helping professions.

Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America explores and creates new ways of incarnating the church’s ministry, seeking to enhance connections between doctrine and daily life, service and social critique, solidarity and transformation. This book was published by Regnum Books International, October 30, 2024.

A four person leadership team (Craig Nessan, Man Hei Yip, Darryl W. Stephens, and Lori Mills-Curran, pictured below) met monthly from April 2021 to 2024 to envision, plan, and carry out this collaboration involving scholars and reflective practitioners spanning six continents.

Additionally, Ted Dodd, President, DIAKONIA of the Americas and the Caribbean (DOTAC), wrote a free study guide to accompany the book. For the study guide, author videos, endorsements, and ordering information, visit the book’s webpage. The ebook will be available as an open access publication by December 31, 2024.

This remarkable compilation illuminates the vital role of deacons and diaconal ministers throughout history and into the future. With deep theological insights and practical implications, each contribution enriches our understanding of diaconal ministry’s transformative influence in the church and the world. A must-read for clergy, lay leaders, and anyone interested in the evolving landscape of service and leadership.
—Amie Stewart, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, The United Methodist Church

Diakonia is essential to the church’s mission and ministry in North America. Ecumenical diakonia encompasses Christian motivated social service, community development, justice, and human rights. The goal of diaconal ministry is to empower individuals and communities through God to become the agents of change in their own communities for the flourishing of all creation.

This project was supported by grants from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. Open access publication was made possible in part by financial support from the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church. For more information, visit the book’s webpage.

The Revised Social Principles document approved by General Conference 2024 provides vital support for the UMC’s creation justice ministries. Read my assessment and discussion of items for further reflection and continued work in the United Methodist Creation Justice blog.

1. How should science, reason, traditional wisdom, and theology inform
our shared work of creation justice?

2. Our witness against environmental racism would be stronger if we defined racism.

3. Remember and share about our Methodist tradition of environmental witness.

4. Let’s develop a United Methodist theology of creation justice.

Source: “Revised Social Principles Focus on ‘Community of All Creation,’” United Methodist Creation Justice, June 28, 2024.

Please join us for a book launch party and celebration of the new book series: T&T Clark Enquiries in Embodiment, Sexuality, and Social Ethics. The author is El/yse Ambrose. The Editorial Board consists of Kate Ott, Monique Moultrie, and Darryl W. Stephens.

Join us to celebrate author El/yse Ambrose and the release of A Blackqueer Sexual Ethics on June 28, 2024 at noon pdt/3pm edt. The launch party will begin with a short interview of El by the editorial and advisory boards of the T&T Clark series. We will have time for Q&A to wonder together about the impact of this work from scholarly, religious, and social perspectives. Most importantly we will toast El and celebrate their work!

For more information about the series, including information for authors, visit our T&T Clark page: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/tt-clark-enquiries-in-embodiment-sexuality-and-social-ethics/.

Although their “marriage” was never very intimate, the failing merger of The United Methodist Church and the Methodist Protestant Church of Côte d’Ivoire raises significant questions regarding the “worldwide nature” of the UMC and its global ambitions.

Read more in this article featured on UM & Global.

As of January 1, 2025, deacons in the UMC will have full sacramental authority. General Conference voted 65% in favor of this change (May 2, 2024, Calendar item 554). This petition emerged from GBHEM’s ministry study (2020 ADCA, pp. 1003ff), which made several recommendations to General Conference regarding deacons. https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/general-conference-2020-advance-daily-christian-advocate.

General Conference begins tomorrow. United Methodists from around the world will convene their much anticipated and multiply delayed legislative assembly, postponed since 2020. This gathering will not be business as usual. The end is near for The United Methodist Church, at least as we have known it.  

I offer these prayers on the eve of the end of the UMC. Don’t misunderstand me: I do not pray for the demise of this church. My prayers are rooted in observation rather than preference. The end of the UMC we have known is merely the occasion—not the substance—of my petitions. Here, I offer observations and prayers.

General Conference is broken. This voting body that normally meets every four years has failed repeatedly to address the underlying issues of division in the UMC. The legislative process has not helped this church change and grow. Opinions have masqueraded as doctrine; majority vote has supplanted discernment; power has prevailed. Furthermore, the delegations gathering tomorrow will be incomplete. Over 100 delegates are anticipated absent due to difficulties with visas and international travel. So, I pray for wholeness in the midst of brokenness, new growth on old branches, and humility and compassion among our delegates.

The presenting issue is homosexuality. In 1988, GC commissioned a study of homosexuality and the church. Years of research, interviews, deliberations, and prayer went into this study, which was prepared for the 1992 assembly. However, conservative caucuses declared an end to debate before GC ever convened, refusing to consider the study’s findings. How can productive deliberation occur when a majority refuses to discuss? The issue is not really homosexuality, then, is it? So, I pray for an openness to hear each other and a willingness to discern—again and anew.

Queer clergy and their allies have been caucusing for over thirty years as the UMC has stood deadlocked. In 1996, delegates clashed again, this time in Denver. In 2000, nearly 200 protesters were arrested at GC in Cleveland. In 2004, proposals for regionalization were firmly rejected, and a broken chalice symbolized this broken church at GC in Pittsburgh. In 2008, demonstrators in Fort Worth again witnessed against the UMC’s unchanging discriminatory policies toward LGBTQ persons. In 2012, discussion of anything having to do with sexuality ceased at GC after delays and protests in Tampa. In 2016, the legislative assembly ground to a halt in Portland, begging the Council of Bishops to intervene. The resulting “special session” that met in St. Louis in 2019 proved more divisive than any that came before, enacting a Traditionalist Plan full of strictures and penalties for LGBTQ persons and their allies. This is also the GC that catalyzed and enabled nearly 25% of US congregations to disaffiliate. So, I pray for queer clergy, their allies, and the church that has abused and betrayed them for decades.

This week in Charlotte, historical awareness will separate the change agents from those merely swept up in the moment. The UMC is being transformed into something new, and that change requires relinquishing what is old. Active participants in this transformation must be able to distinguish new from old—a task requiring knowledge of our tradition and history. General Conference, as a whole, has a lousy track record of such cognition. So, I pray for the wisdom of history for all general conference delegates.

We are on the eve of the end of the UMC. The birth pangs of a new church are beginning. The old is passing away. Whether accompanied by a bang or a whimper, this church will not be the same UMC is was before. United Methodists, prepare yourselves for a birth or a funeral—or both—but don’t fool yourselves into believing that the UMC will continue on as it has been. So, I pray for this new church.

For a deep historical dive, see my new book Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church.

Epilogue: For an in-depth report on what happened at General Conference in Charlottte, NC, see “Methodists split and now made BIG changes this week (The Whole Story),” Ready to Harvest, May 4, 2024.

Now available in paperback! Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church is a timely appraisal of White church and society in the United States. This book seeks historical clarity, collective repentance, charismatic learning, and institutional courage as United Methodists reckon with inherited animosities, divisions, and racism. Reckoning Methodism is available at Amazon, B&N, and Cascade Books (March 2024).

If you would like to write a review of the book for your conference newsletter or other publication, request a free review copy here.

“This work is essential reading for those who care for the church.” —Kevin Carnahan
“A prophetic call . . . Reckoning Methodism is a must-read.“—Hendrik R. Pieterse
“the ‘reckoning’ is applicable to the broader society“—Kenneth L. Carder

Read more about the book: https://darrylwstephens.com/reckoning-methodism/.

It is Black History Month, and The United Methodist Church still has a lot of work to do. The current Social Principles document includes a robust statement against racism. The section, “Rights of Racial and Ethnic Persons,” clearly defines personal and systemic racism, “recognize[s] racism as sin,” encourages “oppressed people . . . to demand their just and equal rights as members of society,” and supports affirmative action (UMC, Book of Discipline 2016, ¶162.A). However, the proposed Revised Social Principles to be voted on at General Conference in April 2024 does not even mention race!

Methodism has a checkered history on race. As a White male, I must reckon with this churchly inheritance. White Methodists have supported slavery and fought for the abolition of slavery. My forebearers fought on both sides of the US Civil War. They established racially segregated structures within church and society. Some of my ancestors fought for civil rights and racial integration; others were comfortable with the status quo in which whites benefitted from institutional structures of racism. The following reckoning is adapted from my chapter in the new book, Methodism and American Empire.

The concept of human rights is a central aspect of Methodist social witness. Not only were Methodists heavily involved in creating and supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UMC and its predecessors have displayed an unwavering public commitment to human rights. As a matter of doctrine, the UMC asserts within its Confession of Faith, “We believe . . . governments should be based on, and be responsible for, the recognition of human rights under God” (¶ 104). Furthermore, the current Social Principles document shares substantive commitments with much of the UDHR and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Thus, it is no surprise that the proposed Revised Social Principles also voices support for a wide variety of individual human rights.

Assertions of rights in the proposed Revised Social Principles are based on seeing others as bearers of the image of God—an equalizing premise amid differences of power. Consistent with prior editions of the Social Principles, proposed document “affirm[s] the important work of the United Nations” and upholds the UDHR as a definitive explication of basic rights. The document grounds “basic human rights and freedoms” in “God’s gracious act in creation” and pledges “to protect these rights and freedoms within the church” and society.

The “dignity and worth” of every person is mentioned eleven times in the proposed Revised Social Principles, functioning as a shorthand for the UMC’s commitment to human rights grounded in God’s good creation. This connection is made explicit in the section on Basic Rights and Freedoms: “We condemn all attempts to deny individuals their basic rights or freedoms or to strip human beings of their inherent dignity and worth.” Ten subsections in this draft document assert rights pertaining to various groups and contexts, including women and girls, men and boys, “indigenous, native, and aboriginal communities,” and “sexual orientations and gender identities.” However, the proposed Revised Social Principles fails to guide the reader in understanding when or if the language of rights applies to race.

The proposed document upholds basic rights and freedoms for all individuals but does not employ the language of rights to address race specifically. The document condemns “racism, ethnocentrism, and tribalism” and rejects laws and practices that discriminate on these bases, but it does not use the word race at all. How is one to understand the proposed stance against environmental racism, for example, in the absence of any definition or discussion of race? Admittedly, the label “racial and ethnic persons” does not translate well from the United States to a global context. However, eliminating any mention of race leaves the problem of racism inadequately addressed.

Given Methodism’s past complicities with empire in the form of White supremacy, particularly by condoning slavery and supporting racially segregated structures in church and society, a steadfast commitment to the rights of persons regardless of race cannot be taken as a given. The draft statement on Basic Rights and Freedoms asserts, “in the face of historic wrongs perpetrated against indigenous peoples, enslaved African peoples and other marginalized groups, we call for forthright confession and repentance as well as concrete acts of reparation to redress past and present forms of social injustice.” However, this call raises more questions than it answers.

Why is the called-for “forthright confession” left unstated in the proposed draft of Social Principles, particularly when it was so elaborately stated in the 2016 Social Principles? How does this call to repentance differ from the UMC’s prior act of repentance for racism? Which current resolutions support reparations, as envisioned here? Why are the “past and present forms of social injustice” against “enslaved African peoples” not named as racism?

Antiracist commitments could have been communicated with references to the UMC’s constitutional commitment to racial justice (¶ 5), its Act of Repentance for Racism (adopted in 2000 and renewed in 2008), and its numerous resolutions on race relations and racial justice. Speaking out against discrimination is not a sufficient substitute for asserting human rights.

The struggle for racial equality is not over. Racism continues to plague our church and US society. This is why it is so important that the UMC promote equal rights regardless of race or ethnicity and maintain a clear, public stance against racism.

What are the United Methodist Social Principles? What is the nature of Methodist social witness? John Hill and I discuss these questions as guests on the Un-Tied Methodism podcast: “The UMC and Social Witness: A Legacy to Carry Into Our Future.”

Episode Description

The United Methodist Church has a legacy of social witness. Join Dr. Ashley Boggan D. with guests the Rev. Dr. Darryl Stephens and John Hill, interim chief executive of the The UMC’s General Board of Church and Society, to discuss the history of the Social Principles and the new Revised Social Principles coming before General Conference 2020 to be held in April 2024.

Read More

Want to reckon with the divisions in past and present Methodism? Pre-order my upcoming book, Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church (Eugene, OR: Cascade, forthcoming March 2024). Read description and early reviews here.

Just received word today . . . I have been accepted as a full member of the 2024 Oxford Institute of Methodist Studies! This conference includes select Methodist scholars from around the world and is only held every 5–6 years. I will present my research on “A Wesleyan Ethic of Response to the Trauma of Climate Crisis.”

This research will build on https://darrylwstephens.com/trauma-informed-ethics/ and https://darrylwstephens.com/environmental-ethics/.