I am sharing this post from UMNS (https://www.facebook.com/umnews/posts/10155451735784531) to share my own contribution to the thread on this, and you can guess, if you’ve been reading my posts over the past year, what ‘reforms’ I will suggest.
The UMNS post: “As the Reformation’s 500th anniversary draws to a close, the Rev. Alfred T. Day III reflects on what Wesleyans add to the reformers’ legacy. The reformers had five principles — Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone and the glory of God alone. Day, the top executive of General Commission on Archives and History, suggests that Methodists added a sixth idea — love alone.”
Link they shared : http://gcah.org/resources/a-sixth-sola
My comments: I truly believe that given John Wesley’s deep and spiritual appreciation for Creation , in it’s wonder and in its status as a key theological/Biblical principle, he would be leading a Reform in the Church to recognize the Ecological awareness of the Bible; not in a scientific sense, of course, but in the awareness that Creation is our home in which we live and breathe and die. Many are rising up within the UMC, grassroots layfolks, pastors, UMC agencies, and creating projects aimed at helping the church respond to our present crisis.
Here’s a quote re: Wesley and Creation from a book by a UMC pastor , Sharon Delgado:
“But as we open ourselves to sanctifying grace and allow ourselves to be transformed and restored to the image of God, all those with whom we are in relationship and creation itself are affected for the better. Michael Lodahl, author of God of Nature and Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way, explains, “This much is certain: for Wesley, to be entirely sanctified is to live in a quality of relationship to God and neighbor characterized by love, and to live in such love is to be restored to the image of God.”[34]
As we progress in love and in our ability to “image” God to the rest of creation, grace works with, in, and through us to help move creation toward renewal. Wesley holds out hope that the earth itself will be renewed as humans assume their rightful place in creation, in humility and true holiness of heart and life:
“And, to crown all, there will be a deep, an intimate, and uninterrupted union with God; a constant communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, through the Spirit; a continual enjoyment of the Three-One God, and of all the creatures in him.” —(from John Wesley, Sermon 64, “The Witness of the Spirit I,” in John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, ed. Albert C. Outler and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991)
all of the above, including John Wesley sermon quote, from Delgado, Sharon. Love in a Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice (p. 67). Fortress Press
(posted on Facebook in two posts around 11 am, 1/18/18 )
