Social Principles are basis of UMC opposition to Trump policies

Note: This is the first in a five-part series on the updated Social Principles of The United Methodist Church.

Still reeling like many Americans from the “shock and awe” of the first few weeks of the new federal administration, United Methodists are to put their faith into action in response. Those active in outreach, especially involving immigration ministries, now can rely on the denomination’s new set of Christian living guidelines that officially address many aspects of new U.S. policies.

Called The Social Principles, these guidelines were adopted last year before the 2024 presidential election and went into effect Jan. 1 for the worldwide United Methodist Church.

“The United Methodist Council of Bishops invoked the Social Principles in a Feb. 3 letter to President Donald Trump.”

In the first public use of the document, the United Methodist Council of Bishops invoked the Social Principles in a Feb. 3 letter to President Donald Trump objecting to executive orders regarding immigration. The council wrote:

Our involvement in political systems is rooted in the gospel imperative to love our neighbors, to do justice and to care for the vulnerable. As United Methodists, we acknowledge that love requires responsible political action and engagement aimed at the betterment of society and the promotion of the common good. … We further believe that God calls all members of the human family to recognize and protect the dignity and worth of all people and to work for the well-being of all God’s creation.

While some denounced the bishops’ letter as politically partisan, the Social Principles represent one of the most thoroughly researched and widely crafted set of United Methodist tenets ever produced.

Admittedly, the Social Principles have a checkered past.

They’re rooted in the social outreach of Methodism’s founders, John and Charles Wesley, whom some historians credit with saving England from the kind of bloody revolution that engulfed France in 1789. Modern incarnations of Methodist public theology began with a Social Creed adopted in 1908 by the northern branch of the Methodist Episcopal Church, influenced by the Progressive Era in the United States and ideas from the Social Gospel.

National Child Labor Committee collection by Lewis Wickes-Hine, courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress

The Social Creed rippled on through Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren branches until the previous set of Social Principles was adopted in 1972, four years after The United Methodist Church was created by the Methodist-EUB union.

A half-century of church political conflict marked the previous Social Principles from their adoption because of one phrase, a last-minute amendment declaring “homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching.”

The UMC was still fighting over that phrase when the 2016 General Conference ordered a complete revision of the Social Principles. Conservative forces aimed to uphold the anti-LGBTQ phrase and the enforceable church laws based on that voluntary guideline. However, a lot happened in the interim, from globalization, COVID-19, membership growth outside the United States, human sexuality research, and social acceptance of LGBTQ Christians.

When the Revised Social Principles came before the 2024 General Conference, they had been eight years in the making, vetted by 4,000 United Methodists in international consultations. Human sexuality was still a hot topic, but United Methodists outside the United States wanted to divest the guidelines of their U.S.-centrism and create a more international, inclusive model of Christian discipleship.

The resulting document proved to be nearly a miracle of consensus and cooperation.

Three of its four “communities” addressing creation, economics, and politics, plus preface and preamble, were adopted on a consent calendar, a parliamentary device allowing single-vote approval of multiple legislative proposals that faced little or no opposition. The remaining section, “The Social Community,” later was adopted with one amendment expanding the church’s definition of marriage to include unions between adults of consenting age as well as between a man and a woman.

The “incompatible” phrase disappeared.

After 52 years of fighting over every jot and tittle, General Conference delegates enthusiastically embraced the revised Social Principles as “the prayerful and earnest efforts of the General Conference to speak to issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation that is in keeping with the best of our United Methodist traditions.”

The Preface continues:

The Social Principles are … a call to faithfulness and to social engagement and intended to be instructive and persuasive in the best of the prophetic spirit. Moreover, they challenge all members of The United Methodist Church to engage in deliberative reflection and encourage intentional dialogue between faith and practice.

The Preamble frames the Social Principles with Jesus’ instruction from John 13:34-35: “This is how everyone will know you are my disciples, when you love each other.” The Preamble also affirms another historic Wesleyan tenet — God’s eternal, unconditional grace that leads to repentance and redemption. The preamble says, “By God’s grace, we are called to be more Christ-like, and thus to be merciful and compassionate.”

The Social Principles represent United Methodists’ highest advocacy of selfless interaction with God’s created world in all its physical manifestations. The document acknowledges the difficulties of such aspirations: “We recognize the challenges before the church to engage with honesty and compassion through deep listening, hard conversations and shared ministry, even when we do not agree on all matters.”

The Social Principles contrast United Methodist beliefs sharply with the new federal administration’s actions. Much like Jesus’ ministry, Methodism was a counter-cultural movement when it began. The ensuing two-and-a-half centuries shaped it into a religious institution that grew moribund in its bureaucracy.

Now United Methodists once again find themselves in conflict with the surrounding culture and possibly with one another other as they use the Social Principles to determine how to respond to a society undergoing radical, chaotic and often cruel changes.