Imagining new Methodism: A denomination that prioritizes small churches

by Allen T. Stanton

These days, we hear a lot about the need to imagine how The United Methodist Church will be different in the years to come. On the one hand, the whole of society will be reshaped by the realities of COVID-19. Already, companies are transitioning to more remote work, customs like handshakes are no longer a given, and churches have figured out that they must employ a variety of techniques, like live streaming, to provide access for worshippers.

At the same time, our denomination is coming to a watershed moment. Whenever the delayed General Conference takes place and the inevitable divorce happens, both the new Global Methodist Church and The United Methodist Church will have to build new organizational structures to support their ministries.

In the midst of that reorganization, I hope we will prioritize small membership churches, building our new denomination around the reality that these churches will make up the majority of its congregations. READ MORE

There's more to living than surviving

by Jake Owensby

“Are you really a cannibal?”

Ellie was one of the regulars during my office hours. She showed up mostly to pitch ideas back and forth with fellow humanities students. They liked hanging out together. And I think they could tell that I enjoyed their company.

This time Ellie came alone. Having heard something appalling about me, she was feeling betrayed. In Ethics I had taught all this stuff about the inherent worth of every human being. And I eat people—even if only symbolically—as my weekly religious practice?

“What makes you ask me this?”

“Professor B said that Christians admit that they are cannibals!” READ MORE

What a baker from ancient Pompeii can teach us about happiness

by Nadejda Williams

In a testament to its resiliency, happiness, according to this year’s World Happiness Report, remained remarkably stable around the world, despite a pandemic that upended the lives of billions of people.

As a classicist, I find such discussions of happiness in the midst of personal or societal crisis to be nothing new.

“Hic habitat felicitas” – “Here dwells happiness” – confidently proclaims an inscription found in a Pompeiian bakery nearly 2,000 years after its owner lived and possibly died in the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed the city in A.D. 79.

What did happiness mean to this Pompeiian baker? And how does considering the Roman view of felicitas help our search for happiness today? READ MORE