By Jim Brown
November 8, 2002

(AgapePress) - United Methodist bishops are divided over key doctrines of the Christian faith -- and a conservative Methodist publisher says he is encouraged that a liberal bishop is being taken to task for openly defying several basic tenets of the faith.

Since Chicago Bishop Joseph Sprague's open rejection of several basic teachings on Jesus, the bishops of Florida and North Carolina have criticized Sprague's views. But the bishop of South Carolina has endorsed them. In defense of the controversial Sprague, Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey recently said doctrines such as the Trinity and the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Christ can be taken too literally.

James Heidinger is president of Good News, a renewal ministry within the United Methodist Church. He says McCleskey takes a far too casual view of those important doctrines.

"[With] doctrines such as the deity of Christ, and the linkage of that to the virgin birth, which is affirmed in the Apostles' Creed, and the doctrine of the bodily resurrection -- there is a truth in historicity about those doctrines that have been at the heart of Christian faith for 2,000 years," the publisher says.

Heidinger says the ministry of United Methodist churches is severely undermined by the behavior and beliefs of bishops Sprague and McCleskey. That is why he is encouraged that bishops Marion Edwards (North Carolina) and Timothy Whitaker (Florida) have "graciously" critiqued their colleague with a conciliatory spirit.

"This is the first time in 35 years of ministry that I can recall a United Methodist bishop engaging a fellow bishop on matters of theology, to say 'I think you may be wrong on this,' " Heidinger says. "That needed to happen -- and it's enormously encouraging to see it happen."

Heidinger believes Edwards' and Whitaker's criticism was devastating to Sprague and "revealed his enormous weaknesses and defection from what has always been considered orthodox biblical faith." The two bishops' responses to Sprague's comments -- as well as Sprague's comments themselves -- have been published on the Internet by TheMethodistChurch.com, an advocate website not affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

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