I’m married to a Methodist and my family has a Methodist background on both sides (my dad’s people were not very religious, and my mother’s family were extremely devout evangelicals who had left the Methodists around the turn of the century; so I’ve never actually belonged to a Methodist church, though I currently attend both a Methodist and an Episcopal parish, and my parents have returned to Methodism).
Here are some major points of historic Methodist belief and practice (beyond basic Trinitarian/Christological stuff, of course):
- Salvation by grace through faith, traditionally understood in terms of a conversion experience. However, Methodists have always emphasized the need to grow in grace, as well as the fact that the Holy Spirit works in the human heart before regeneration. In the past century that has often meant that Methodists were just like other mainliners (and many Catholics) in watering salvation down to a matter of being a nice respectable person. Evangelicals in the denomination (of whom there are many) of course reject this, but are still a lot more flexible in their understanding than evangelicals/fundamentalists of a Baptist persuasion.
- A belief in free will and the free offer of grace to everyone (in other words, a rejection of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination). John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, understood this in terms of “prevenient grace”–i.e., God gives grace to everyone in order to free the will to respond to the offer of salvation. Many modern Methodists, though, have crossed the line into Pelagianism.
- The doctrine of “Christian perfection.” This is probably the most distinctive and controversial Methodist doctrine, historically. Wesley believed that Christians could reach a state of “perfect love” in which they were free from sin (very similar to the usual descriptions of the state of soul necessary for receiving a plenary indulgence in Catholicism). This goes against basic Protestant teaching, and Calvinists especially are horrified by it. (Though a lot of the controversy resorted from different terminology.) Many Methodists came to believe that this would occur in an instantaneous experience; but lots of these “holiness people” (including my great-grandfather and his brother) left the mainline Methodist denomination(s) to form their own smaller groups, and most Methodists today see sanctification as gradual. But sanctification remains a strong emphasis in Methodism. Liberals tend to focus on the social justice aspects.
- A belief that the “means of grace” are essential to spiritual growth. This includes a number of practices (such as meeting in small groups), but especially the sacraments. Methodists practice infant baptism, and generally celebrate the Eucharist once a month (it used to be less often–many congregations now do it weekly, but they are still a minority). John and Charles Wesley believed that Christ was spiritually present in the Eucharist and that the Eucharist somehow united us with Christ’s eternal “pleading” of his sacrifice before the Father (“pleading” in the legal sense). Most Methodists have historically seen the sacraments as mostly or entirely symbolic, but these days there’s a revival of sacramentalism (unfortunately much of it is on the liberal end of the denomination, but there are some evangelical sacramentalists such as my wife).
- Methodists historically have believed in the supreme authority of Scripture, but have given a lot more role to tradition, as well as to experience, than other Protestants. In the 1970s the scholar Albert Outler suggested that Wesley’s view of authority could be spoken of as a “quadrilateral” of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. This unfortunately led to the idea that these four things are equal (there’s a story of a Methodist bishop applying the quadrilateral to the issue of homosexuality and deciding that Scripture was outvoted!). More recently, there’s been a lot of criticism of the quadrilateral, and the current statement is more tentative about it.
On a practical level, one thing you should bear in mind is that Protestants of a Methodist background (unlike Baptists, for instance), generally think that Catholics are too
little concerned with (real) good works. My wife’s grandfather, who was a Methodist minister, complained that the local Catholics went to Mass on Sunday and “lived like hell” the rest of the week, and I was brought up with similar ideas. Methodist disagreements with Catholicism are likely to have less to do with faith/works (though if your grandmother’s an evangelical she may raise that issue as well) and more to do with a sense that Catholics are obsessed with “rules” and have an overly complicated religion.
Edwin
OCD.) And (B) to enunciate those matters which may be used to bring charges against members. (Think excommunication and/or lesser penalties.)
annoyed when it gets treated as one by other people.
dialogue is desperately needed.
1 or 2 liberal Catholics. Every church has them;