SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF MSF
faith
Affirming within Methodism a catholic Christianity rooted in the doctrine of the Trinity
The content of the Christian faith in the British Methodist tradition is celebrated in our hymn-books, our worship books, our catechesis, our preaching and our Connexional publishing.
No one affirming the historic creeds and the fullness of Trinitarian faith in the Methodism of the 1930s would have imagined the emergence of the current justice issues surrounding gender, inclusivity and sexuality. Between 1935 and 1975 the Methodist Conference threw out the ordination of women to the presbyterate 35 times! The MSF – like the Methodist community at large – has affirmed both the presence and the gifts of women presbyters – and has loved and cherished the gay and lesbian members of its fellowship – both lay and ordained. The slow progress towards an open Methodist recognition of gay and lesbian relationships and ministries can and will continue in only one direction. After all, is it not likely that there is a fundamental inclusivity that finds its origins not only in the gospel of Christ but in the very nature of Trinitarian love? In the past thirty years there has been a huge rediscovery in Western theology of the nature of the Trinity. This has affected not only Christian ethics but every branch of theology and ecclesiology.
At one basic level we no longer feel comfortable using masculine pronouns when we speak inclusively of men and women – and even more so – of being overly masculine in our God-talk. A number of theologians – both women and men – have grappled with what Gavin D’Costa calls Sexing the Trinity. Gail Ramshaw, among many others, would bid the church move away from ‘God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ to something akin to ‘God, the Abba, the Servant, the Paraclete.’ Geoffrey Wainwright, however – among with many others – takes the view that even a listening Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed Christianity cannot find any adequate substitute for the given nature of the relational and personalised Trinitarian model of the apostolic and Nicene church. Certainly the current slide into ‘God, Christ and the Spirit’ is taking many Trinitarian Christians down a profoundly non-Trinitarian slope!
Only a vigorous Trinitarian theology can enunciate the best theories of the atonement and expose the worst ones. The MSF has found itself re-affirming the fatherhood of God, first in the stormy seasons of the more extreme forms of Protestant charismatic and Holy Spirit renewal in the 1970s, and now in the current ‘Jesus we love you’ climate that shows few signs of abating.
life
Embodying the insights of catholic Christianity in worship, education, service and evangelism
The MSF was newly founded when the 1933 hymn-book and the 1936 Book of Offices were published. For many years the liturgical programme of the MSF was to press for maximum use of the traditional 1936 Cranmer Communion Office and there was a strong attachment to The Order for Morning Prayer as an expression of ‘objective’ worship and a link to the church of the ages.
In the mid-sixties, partly under the persistent influence of one of our MSF Vice-Presidents, Leslie Orchard, the MSF consciously moved from being ‘high Wesleyan’ to being openly and consciously catholic.
This meant the MSF welcomed the new Methodist eucharistic liturgy (emanating from Raymond George and the Liturgical Movement) published as The Sunday Service in the 1975 Methodist Service Book and also the much more ‘catholic’ initiation services of 1975 – including Confirmation. The MSF delighted in the strong emphasis on the liturgical year which received a new impact with the publishing in 1999 of the current Methodist Worship Book and its very strong Eucharistic section.
The great landmarks in sacramental theology have included J E Rattenbury’s The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley (1948) – dedicated to the members of the MSF – John Bowmer’s The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in Early Methodism (1951) and Geoffrey Wainwright’s Eucharist and Eschatology (1971).
One of the flowerings of the catholic renaissance in Methodism has been the Methodist presence, from the beginning, in the ranks of The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Methodist presence began with Gordon Wakefield and Stewart Denyer and has continued with John Newton and other MSF office holders – both ministerial and lay. Neville Ward, who joined the MSF in his later years, made the outstanding Methodist contribution to Marian devotion with his classic work on the Rosary, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy.
Two major Methodist Conference Reports in recent years have re-iterated the catholic nature of Methodism’s theology and practice in relation to both eucharist and church. In 1999 – after almost ten years of work – Conference issued a vigorous 50 page statement – Called to Love and Praise : The Nature of the Christian Church in Methodist Experience and Practice. In 2003 the Methodist Conference received a major Faith and Order Committee Report on Connexional eucharistic faith and practice – His Presence Makes the Feast : Holy Communion in the Methodist Church. Here was all the founding fathers of the MSF could ask for flowing through the life-blood of our church – fine models of present practice and future hopes.
If you were to ask most current MSF celebrants whether they believe they are presiding at a Protestant Communion Service or a Catholic Mass you might well now get the answer ‘both.’ That would not have been so when the MSF was founded in 1935!
Those who formulated the revised aims of the MSF clearly intended our catholic commitment to include not only worship but education, service and evangelism.
Fresh Expressions of Church really needs to include fresh catholic and sacramental expressions of church. The Methodist publishing concern is lamentably thin on simple catechesis despite some good devotional material on its website. Where are the good quality leaflets akin to those found in many of our cathedrals as simple introductions to the Christian Faith?
The two longest serving of our MSF Presidents – Ernest Rattenbury and Donald Soper – were renowned for their commitment to evangelism and advocacy. How to win others for Christ and how to proclaim an effective gospel need to find their way on to the agenda of the MSF.
unity
Working and praying for the visible unity of the Church
The first decade of the MSF was partly given over to making the 1932 Methodist Union work. There were MSF members – both ministerial and lay – drawn from all three of the branches of pre-union Methodism! There were also some bitter years of opposition to the Fellowship – not least from some of the Connexional hierarchy. There was an official inquiry into the MSF which more or less exonerated the Fellowship of trying to Romanize a newly united Church. The presentation of the findings of the inquiry into the MSF – at the Methodist Conference of 1938 – culminated in Dr Rattenbury’s famous and spirited Conference Defence of the MSF.
After the Second World War came Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher’s 1946 invitation to the Free Churches to consider taking episcopacy into their systems. Only Methodism responded. The abortive Anglican-Methodist Unity Conversations lasted from 1955 to 1970. They gave Methodism the chance to say ‘yes’ to the historic episcopate, which it did again at the time of the Ten Propositions in 1980, and as it has done again in the current Anglican-Methodist Covenant. Though British Methodism is now in the last chance saloon regarding its embracing of the historic episcopate and one more significant hesitancy from the Methodist Conference will rightly send to the Church of England the message that – in the end – British Methodists are not interested in visible unity. If this were to happen a number of MSF members would have to consider their position very carefully. We should be somewhere we have not been before!
There is a constant chorus from those who believe visible unity is all about the grass roots. Ironically there scores of places where a Local Ecumenical Partnership of united congregations – mostly Methodist-URC or Anglican-Methodist – has grown and so one aspect of local visible unity has in fact prospered.
Since the founding of MSF there has come into being international and national inter-church consultations involving Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. Some have produced iconic statements on such issues as Mary and Justification and Papal Primacy that will stand future ecumenism in good stead and other consultations have already laid a firm foundation for the coming into full communion of, for example, the Episcopalians, the Methodists and the Lutherans in the United States. Some prophesy that, apart from Orthodoxy, the only surviving and vibrant versions of Christianity will be Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism – a sobering thought. Alongside that we might also ponder that the average Anglican – world wide – is black, female, under forty and doesn’t use a printed text in worship!
Almighty God,
who raised up your servants
John and Charles Wesley,
to proclaim anew the gift of redemption
and the life of holiness;
pour out upon us
the gift of your Holy Spirit,
that we may honour you in word and sacrament
and serve you in the needs of our neighbour;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Norman Wallwork
faith
Affirming within Methodism a catholic Christianity rooted in the doctrine of the Trinity
The content of the Christian faith in the British Methodist tradition is celebrated in our hymn-books, our worship books, our catechesis, our preaching and our Connexional publishing.
No one affirming the historic creeds and the fullness of Trinitarian faith in the Methodism of the 1930s would have imagined the emergence of the current justice issues surrounding gender, inclusivity and sexuality. Between 1935 and 1975 the Methodist Conference threw out the ordination of women to the presbyterate 35 times! The MSF – like the Methodist community at large – has affirmed both the presence and the gifts of women presbyters – and has loved and cherished the gay and lesbian members of its fellowship – both lay and ordained. The slow progress towards an open Methodist recognition of gay and lesbian relationships and ministries can and will continue in only one direction. After all, is it not likely that there is a fundamental inclusivity that finds its origins not only in the gospel of Christ but in the very nature of Trinitarian love? In the past thirty years there has been a huge rediscovery in Western theology of the nature of the Trinity. This has affected not only Christian ethics but every branch of theology and ecclesiology.
At one basic level we no longer feel comfortable using masculine pronouns when we speak inclusively of men and women – and even more so – of being overly masculine in our God-talk. A number of theologians – both women and men – have grappled with what Gavin D’Costa calls Sexing the Trinity. Gail Ramshaw, among many others, would bid the church move away from ‘God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ to something akin to ‘God, the Abba, the Servant, the Paraclete.’ Geoffrey Wainwright, however – among with many others – takes the view that even a listening Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed Christianity cannot find any adequate substitute for the given nature of the relational and personalised Trinitarian model of the apostolic and Nicene church. Certainly the current slide into ‘God, Christ and the Spirit’ is taking many Trinitarian Christians down a profoundly non-Trinitarian slope!
Only a vigorous Trinitarian theology can enunciate the best theories of the atonement and expose the worst ones. The MSF has found itself re-affirming the fatherhood of God, first in the stormy seasons of the more extreme forms of Protestant charismatic and Holy Spirit renewal in the 1970s, and now in the current ‘Jesus we love you’ climate that shows few signs of abating.
life
Embodying the insights of catholic Christianity in worship, education, service and evangelism
The MSF was newly founded when the 1933 hymn-book and the 1936 Book of Offices were published. For many years the liturgical programme of the MSF was to press for maximum use of the traditional 1936 Cranmer Communion Office and there was a strong attachment to The Order for Morning Prayer as an expression of ‘objective’ worship and a link to the church of the ages.
In the mid-sixties, partly under the persistent influence of one of our MSF Vice-Presidents, Leslie Orchard, the MSF consciously moved from being ‘high Wesleyan’ to being openly and consciously catholic.
This meant the MSF welcomed the new Methodist eucharistic liturgy (emanating from Raymond George and the Liturgical Movement) published as The Sunday Service in the 1975 Methodist Service Book and also the much more ‘catholic’ initiation services of 1975 – including Confirmation. The MSF delighted in the strong emphasis on the liturgical year which received a new impact with the publishing in 1999 of the current Methodist Worship Book and its very strong Eucharistic section.
The great landmarks in sacramental theology have included J E Rattenbury’s The Eucharistic Hymns of John and Charles Wesley (1948) – dedicated to the members of the MSF – John Bowmer’s The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in Early Methodism (1951) and Geoffrey Wainwright’s Eucharist and Eschatology (1971).
One of the flowerings of the catholic renaissance in Methodism has been the Methodist presence, from the beginning, in the ranks of The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Methodist presence began with Gordon Wakefield and Stewart Denyer and has continued with John Newton and other MSF office holders – both ministerial and lay. Neville Ward, who joined the MSF in his later years, made the outstanding Methodist contribution to Marian devotion with his classic work on the Rosary, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy.
Two major Methodist Conference Reports in recent years have re-iterated the catholic nature of Methodism’s theology and practice in relation to both eucharist and church. In 1999 – after almost ten years of work – Conference issued a vigorous 50 page statement – Called to Love and Praise : The Nature of the Christian Church in Methodist Experience and Practice. In 2003 the Methodist Conference received a major Faith and Order Committee Report on Connexional eucharistic faith and practice – His Presence Makes the Feast : Holy Communion in the Methodist Church. Here was all the founding fathers of the MSF could ask for flowing through the life-blood of our church – fine models of present practice and future hopes.
If you were to ask most current MSF celebrants whether they believe they are presiding at a Protestant Communion Service or a Catholic Mass you might well now get the answer ‘both.’ That would not have been so when the MSF was founded in 1935!
Those who formulated the revised aims of the MSF clearly intended our catholic commitment to include not only worship but education, service and evangelism.
Fresh Expressions of Church really needs to include fresh catholic and sacramental expressions of church. The Methodist publishing concern is lamentably thin on simple catechesis despite some good devotional material on its website. Where are the good quality leaflets akin to those found in many of our cathedrals as simple introductions to the Christian Faith?
The two longest serving of our MSF Presidents – Ernest Rattenbury and Donald Soper – were renowned for their commitment to evangelism and advocacy. How to win others for Christ and how to proclaim an effective gospel need to find their way on to the agenda of the MSF.
unity
Working and praying for the visible unity of the Church
The first decade of the MSF was partly given over to making the 1932 Methodist Union work. There were MSF members – both ministerial and lay – drawn from all three of the branches of pre-union Methodism! There were also some bitter years of opposition to the Fellowship – not least from some of the Connexional hierarchy. There was an official inquiry into the MSF which more or less exonerated the Fellowship of trying to Romanize a newly united Church. The presentation of the findings of the inquiry into the MSF – at the Methodist Conference of 1938 – culminated in Dr Rattenbury’s famous and spirited Conference Defence of the MSF.
After the Second World War came Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher’s 1946 invitation to the Free Churches to consider taking episcopacy into their systems. Only Methodism responded. The abortive Anglican-Methodist Unity Conversations lasted from 1955 to 1970. They gave Methodism the chance to say ‘yes’ to the historic episcopate, which it did again at the time of the Ten Propositions in 1980, and as it has done again in the current Anglican-Methodist Covenant. Though British Methodism is now in the last chance saloon regarding its embracing of the historic episcopate and one more significant hesitancy from the Methodist Conference will rightly send to the Church of England the message that – in the end – British Methodists are not interested in visible unity. If this were to happen a number of MSF members would have to consider their position very carefully. We should be somewhere we have not been before!
There is a constant chorus from those who believe visible unity is all about the grass roots. Ironically there scores of places where a Local Ecumenical Partnership of united congregations – mostly Methodist-URC or Anglican-Methodist – has grown and so one aspect of local visible unity has in fact prospered.
Since the founding of MSF there has come into being international and national inter-church consultations involving Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. Some have produced iconic statements on such issues as Mary and Justification and Papal Primacy that will stand future ecumenism in good stead and other consultations have already laid a firm foundation for the coming into full communion of, for example, the Episcopalians, the Methodists and the Lutherans in the United States. Some prophesy that, apart from Orthodoxy, the only surviving and vibrant versions of Christianity will be Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism – a sobering thought. Alongside that we might also ponder that the average Anglican – world wide – is black, female, under forty and doesn’t use a printed text in worship!
Almighty God,
who raised up your servants
John and Charles Wesley,
to proclaim anew the gift of redemption
and the life of holiness;
pour out upon us
the gift of your Holy Spirit,
that we may honour you in word and sacrament
and serve you in the needs of our neighbour;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Norman Wallwork