Doctrine Isn't Faith, and Only Faith Endures
Christ alone, received by faith, is the timeless inheritance of the Christian community and timeless gift of God to humanity. Doctrines, forms of worship, and ethics are bound to culture, and thus bound to change. Until we United Methodists overcome the confusion between faith in Christ, the beliefs we articulate, the rules that guide our behavior, and the worship that expresses our praise then we're doomed to endless division. Recently a group of self-identified "Wesleyan" theologians have used a soundbite from the book of Jude (1:3) to validate their theological work; "to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people." ( https://nextmethodism.org/summit-document/ ) Reading the paper that follows it is clear that the theologian's project is to articulate a Wesleyan doctrine base on his concept of holiness. It is a good work, and well done, but the quote from Jude is all wrong as an introduction. Jude doesn't ask that peop...