United Methodists as Christians – where are we theologically?

As you may or may not be familiar with United Methodists, here are some tidbits of our theology and tradition …

Basic Christian Affirmations

• We hold in common with all Christians a faith in the mystery of salvation in and through Jesus Christ.

• We share the Christian belief that God’s redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit, both in personal experience and in the community of believers.

• We understand ourselves to be part of Christ’s universal church when by adoration, proclamation, and service we become conformed to Christ.

• With other Christians we recognize that the reign of God is both a present and future reality.

• We share with many Christians communions a recognition of the authority of Scripture in matters of faith, the confession that our justification as sinners is by grace through faith, and the sober realization that the church is in need of continual reformation and renewal. 

The Nature of our Theological Task

Our theological task is both critical and constructive; individual and communal; contextual and incarnational; and is essentially practical.

Our Ecumenical Commitment

            We see the Holy Spirit at work in making the unity among us more visible.  We have entered into serious interfaith encounters and explorations between Christians and adherents of other living faiths of the world.  Scripture calls us to be both neighbors and witnesses to all peoples.  Such encounters require us to reflect anew on our faith and to seek guidance for our witness among neighbors of other faiths.  We then rediscover that the God who has acted in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the whole world is also the Creator of all humankind, the One who is “above all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).

            As people bound together on one planet, we see the need for a self-critical view of our own tradition and accurate appreciation of other traditions.  In these encounters, our aim is not to reduce doctrinal differences to some lowest common denominator of religious agreement, but to raise all such relationships to the highest possible level of human fellowship and understanding.

            We labor together with the help of God toward the salvation, health, and peace of all people.  In respectful conversations and in practical cooperation, we confess our Christian faith and strive to display the manner in which Jesus Christ is the life and hope of the world. 

                                                            -All taken from The UMC 2000 Book of Discipline