Isaiah’s call to speak is found in Isaiah 6:8-9, where God asks, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” and Isaiah answers, “Here am I. Send me!”

This will probably be one of the more difficult blogs that we have written over the years. The Pew deals in scripture, it’s what we try and share with you every week. We have kind of sat back on the side as this issue developed beginning back in 1972 progressing all the way forward to a couple of years ago when it finally came to ahead so to speak. A lot of good people were hurt and a wonderful church was severely wounded, but we must remember we were told that the word would stand firm from the very gates of hell. The Pew was finally moved to speak out or to write out however, you want to put it about this issue a little more forcefully than we’ve done in the past. We do not serve a God of condemnation, but one of restoration. But as Isaiah said so long ago, “Here am I. Send me”… Lord, we don’t pretend to be of the caliber of Isaiah, but we are able to at least join him by saying “send me too”. It is time to speak up in defense of the faith.

The United Methodist Church (UMC) removed Asbury Theological Seminary from its list of approved schools for ordination candidates. The UMC cited Asbury’s traditional views on marriage and lack of UMC faculty teaching required polity. Current UMC students or those enrolling in Fall 2026 are grandfathered for ordination.  

Key Detail of the Separation:

• Reasons for Delisting: The UMC’s University Senate determined that Asbury’s institutional ethos statement regarding traditional marriage is incompatible with the UMC’s newly amended Social Principles. Additionally, the seminary lacked a full-time UMC faculty member teaching church history and doctrine.  

Over the last few years, the pew has addressed the elephant in the room for at least the last 10 years. This elephant in the room to be more pacific is a subject that has destroyed many churches or at least has changed their overall doctrines and their order of worship. When you see it close up and you realize what’s happening it’s not a very pretty thing. For many we were raised to believe the stories of the Bible that shaped our emotional and moral character and the strength of faith and fellowship all changed by a small group of overly loud social justice warriors. This elephant in the room has changed the church I grew up in. At the heart of all of these disputes is the LGBTQ+ individuals and their campaign to be considered equal within the faith. This is a very, very sensitive subject, and one thing that The Pew wants to do is to stay out of the politics of it and look at it instead from a faith angle. The first point I would like to make is that all people are equal in God’s eyes. What we were asked to do, and I say this as a point of fact…we were not asked, we were told that one of the core beliefs of our faith was wrong it had to go. And now enter the Elephant. Next we have to be familiar with certain biblical scriptures, not the ones that people pull out to beat somebody to death with but the ones that our Lord God and Savior said himself and the words of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. It is not the policy nor the wish of The Pew to condemn anyone, the judgment of all of us will be by God himself, and we will stand before him individually and be judged. I thought maybe I could write this in a one week blog but it looks like it’s going to end up being a two week endeavor. To be thorough and fair to promote understanding and not agendas it’s necessary that we try to understand exactly what we’re dealing with. We’re gonna be looking at the biblical verses from the Bible that stated as well as I can say the position of most Christian believers. We are going to look at a couple of things that get left out of these debates and I think are very important. We’re going to look at theologians versus theology, and what part they actually play in the decisions that are being made today, if any at all.

The best place to start would be to look at a couple of words that are going to play a big part in our summation of all of this. Ask a simple question. How does a theologian differ from a theologist? 

To many of us it would be nothing more than just a matter of terminology, but if we look at the historical meanings and development of certain words attached to all of this we can find some noteworthy differences. Both of these disciplines, engage scripture study for divine truth, and seek to articulate the principles about God and faith. Now we don’t want to get too deep into this, but the basic truth is its vocabulary, context, and that the emphasis can set them apart in various ways. Trust me now this will make sense as we get deeper into this subject. Let’s look at the definitions for these two words, and then they’re responsibilities. When we speak of theologian were generally speaking of someone who systematically studies and is an expert in theology – the study of God, his nature and attributes in relationship with Humanity. Overtime if you’re in the business of theology, you’re engaging in a rigorous analysis of biblical text and doctrine. There’s a less commonly used term theologist. It can suggest a person that’s concerned primarily with theoretical discourse around God or religion often with an academic or physiological  framework. Now I’m really having to struggle with all this because The Pew never intended itself to be some kind of an intellectual read. We just want to pass on scripture in it’s purest form. A lot of what we have shared with you today comes from the publication BibleHub and I think they wrapped this up pretty good. Here is a direct quote from their materials I’ve been studying. 

“Yet over time, “theologian” has emerged as the robust, standard term for those who apply a disciplined approach to biblical truths, while “theologist” can appear as a more general descriptor of someone dabbling in religious thought.”

I guess I’d say that’s pretty straightforward.

So for a quick review, let’s look at the responsibilities of a theologian. Theologians will typically undertake in depth research on scripture, church history, and Creed. One thing about the theologians would be that they thoroughly engage with source documents, they look at original language, manuscripts, early translations, and archaeological evidence like the Dead Sea scrolls, the historical reality of biblical text. Interesting thing about the theologian is that they often serve within seminary universities or churches, teaching others to revere the word of truth. We can look at second Timothy 2:15 for a little deeper understanding of that statement. When we look at a theologist, we might get a little broader or more philosophical methods, possibly addressing spiritual realities from a less confessional or less specific denominational perspectives. A theologist is more prone to discussing general concepts of divine rather than committing to the doctoral positions shaped by biblical authority. I’m not too sure where we have come from but I know where we’re going so join us next week here in The Pew when we confront that Elephant in the pew. So we’ve looked at two parts theologian and theology and now we’re going to look at the third leg on that stool the Bible, the word of God. And we will turn to 2Timothy 3:16… “all scripture is God breathe and is useful for instruction for conviction for correction and for training in righteousness” 

Hope you will join us in the pew next week, looking forward to sharing the rest of this interesting confrontation with you.

Life is Good

jk