The Global Methdist Church and our discussion about Scripture: A Response to Scott Kisker

The Global Methodist Church and Scripture

Rev. Scott Kisker wrote an article in Firebrand (May 19, 2026) which raised questions about the proposed Article VIII (Scripture) of the Articles of Faith for the Global Methodist Church.  The goal of the drafting committee was to achieve four goals regarding how we speak about Scripture.  The drafting committee sought to make certain that whatever statement emerged, it should affirm Scripture’s authority, inspiration, truthfulness and effectiveness.  On those four points there is broad agreement.  The challenge is the precise language which captures these goals.  Words really do matter.  Rev. Kisker has two major objections to the proposed language.  First, he questions whether the phrase “Word of God” should be used to describe Scripture.  Second, he raises more extensive questions about the phrase “without error in all that it affirms.”   Before I respond to Kisker’s two concerns, let me express my appreciation for how his article has sparked important and lively conversations throughout the Global Methodist Church.   This is so important as we prepare for General Conference in South Africa.  While I do not agree with Kisker’s concerns, we are indebted to him for drawing attention to this important legislation which will be coming before the church in these formative days of our denomination.

Scripture as the Word of God

I realize that the revised statement now states that “we believe in the divine inspiration and authority of the Old and New Testaments in their entirety.”  The phrase “Old and New Testaments” has replaced the phrase “Word of God.”  Even though this change has been made, it is still important to respond to Kisker’s concerns about such an important phrase as “Word of God” in describing Scripture.  Kisker’s main concern is that the phrase confuses our confession about the written Scriptures with the same phrase which is used to describe Jesus Christ himself.  Kisker says that the phrase will move us closer to the Islamic view of the Qur’an.

In response, it is important to remember that Scripture itself, including Jesus, affirms the phrase.   When the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples in Acts 4, we are told that they “spoke the word of God with boldness” (4:31).   Similarly, Hebrews 4:12 says that the “word of God is active and sharper than any two-edged sword.”  Just because these texts are not explicitly referring to a canonically received text, the church has always understood that when God speaks through inspiration and it is written down – such as Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – it carries the full authority of the original revelation of God to Paul.  This conviction is based on Jesus’ own usage of the term.  When Jesus is denouncing the Pharisees for allowing their traditions to take precedence over Scripture, He concludes his denunciation by saying, “thus, making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:13).  Jesus is using the phrase word of God for the inscripturated texts of the Old Testament.

The fact that Jesus is called the Word of God in Revelation 19:13 is actually what moves us away from, not towards, an Islamic view of the Qur’an.  The Islamic view contends that Muhammad was a passive agent and was merely receiving dictations from the Angel Gabriel who was conveying the “word of Allah” from a “preserved Tablet” in heaven.  The Arabic phrase for this is Lauh al-Mahfuz.  The Qur’an also calls this “preserved Tablet” in heaven the “Mother of the Book” (Umm al-Kitab).  The reason this is important is that the Islamic view states that there is no human voice reflected in the Qur’an.  This is blasphemous to them. No Muslim speaks of Muhammad’s “writing style” like we speak about a Pauline style, or a Johannine choice of words, and so forth.  The reason we can simultaneously refer to Scripture as the Word of God (inspiration) and the word of man (particularity of authorship, though restrained from any error by the Holy Spirit) is precisely because of Scripture’s analogy with the incarnation.  Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, without sin.  In the same way, Scripture is fully inspired and “God-breathed” while, at the same time, expressing the particular thoughts and intentions of Paul or John or James or any of the other authors of biblical texts.  So, rather than the connection to the incarnation being a problem, as Kisker asserts, it is actually the glory of the Christian view of Scripture:  God speaks to us without error and yet this is expressed through men who wrote using their full style and choice of words, while being restrained from error.  Peter beautifully expresses this dual nature of Scripture when he says, “our beloved Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speak of these matters.  There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15, 16).

Without Error in All that it Affirms

Rev. Kisker also expresses concerns about the phrase “without error in all that it affirms.”  He highlights two major concerns, though it is difficult to always follow how his two concerns relate to one another.  On the one hand, Kisker seems to think the phrase is too weak.  He compares it to “a politician’s applause line with no concrete promise.”  To adopt it, he argues, would move the GMC to “big tentism” since, he argues, “any progressive bishop from our past denomination” could affirm it.   On the other hand, Kisker argues that the phrase is too Reformed and is not sufficiently Wesleyan in its expression.  He particularly cites the use of the phrase in the Lausanne Covenant as the expression of Reformed thinking and therefore not utilizing  language which is “specifically Wesleyan or Methodist.”

The idea that the phrase is “too soft” or is a form of “big tentism” belies its vibrant and sustaining power throughout the evangelical world and, as others have noted, we all know plenty of “progressive bishops” who could not affirm the statement.  But, since other responses (Matt O’Reilly’s response article in Firebrand and Andy Miller III’s podcast) have so ably addressed this point, I will move on to focus on his second concern.  Kisker’s comment about Lausanne was, for me, the most disturbing part of his article.  Since so many of the members of the Global Methodist church (including myself) have come out of United Methodism, we have to remember that we have been engaged in a seemingly endless fight with mainline, scripturally compromised, orthodox adverse, United Methodism.  However, this long fight has, at times, kept many of  “the people called Methodists” from being properly engaged with the wider evangelical world.  Lausanne, or any Reformed movement anywhere, did not originate the phrase “without error in all that it affirms.”  Lausanne is not a denominational type movement as Kisker seems to imply.  Lausanne is a global platform for evangelical Christians committed to world evangelization.  The official name of Lausanne is the “Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization” (LCWE).  I have been a Methodist my entire life.  Yet, I have also been deeply involved in global evangelization and have served the Lausanne movement for decades.  I, as a Methodist, chaired the Theology Working Group of Lausanne for five years while I was also President of Asbury Theological Seminary.  I served for a time on the governing Board of Lausanne.  I have attended global Lausanne events in Thailand, Cape Town, and more recently in Korea.  I have led working groups and spoken from the platform as a Methodist.   The phrase “without error in all that it affirms” is the most recognizably evangelical statement of Scripture used in the world.   Robert Coleman, another bone fide Methodist was one of the ones who helped Lausanne to adopt this phrase.  The phrase “without error in all that it affirms” is the phrase used not only by Asbury seminary’s statement of faith, but by hundreds of denominations and networks around the world who have been inspired by the Lausanne movement.  We, of course, have serious disagreements with Reformed theology on a range of issues, both in substance and in tone.  But, if the Global Methodist Church is to be truly global, then we must become active in Lausanne, learn to work alongside our brothers and sisters across many denominational traditions for the sake of world evangelization.  After all, one of Wesley’s 12 rules for preachers was to “have nothing to do but save souls.”  Adapting the phrase “without error in all that it affirms” will put us in consonance with the global evangelical movement and signal that we have finally emerged from our long night of despair and are ready to work as partners with the rest of the global church.

Feedback

Please fill out the form below if you would like to provide feedback to Dr. Tennent concerning this blog entry.