When you come to the fork, choose the right way

Yogi Berra, the famous manager of the New York Yankees, was also a homespun philosopher. Four years after he died in 2015, USA Today published a list of the 50 greatest Yogi Berra quotes. Some of my favorites: “If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.” Good advice. “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.” I’ve seen that happen. “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” Men, pay attention! “The future ain’t what it used to be.” You can say that again. “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” I’ve practiced that advice for years. “It ain’t over till it’s over.” I have made use of that one. And, number one on the list: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I have been chewing on that saying lately. Let me tell you why.
The two churches I pastor, Crossroads Methodist just over into Bollinger County, and Perryville Methodist, have come to their fork in the road. As a minister in the United Methodist Church, I came to the fork in the road as well. I am very thankful that my churches and I, when we came to that fork, and knowing we had to go one way or the other, all chose to go the same way. What did the churches do?
They decided to leave the United Methodist denomination, a denomination they had been part of for the entire 55 years the United Methodist Church has existed. What did I do? I left the United Methodist denomination as well, after serving in it the past ten and a half years.
The churches have both joined the Global Methodist denomination, and I have been accepted as a minister in that denomination as well. The story of why we did these things is a sad one, but it serves as a warning to us all.
The destruction of the United Methodist Church began about 75 years before it was founded. Around the start of the twentieth century, in the predecessors of the United Methodist Church and the other mainline denominations (American Baptist Church, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church [USA], United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church), a great shift, a sea change of thought, took place. The European model of education, with its emphasis on rationalism, began to take over in American universities and seminaries. More clergy were educated in Europe, and more European scholars came to America to teach. As society modernized, so did the church. But what the church failed to maintain was its emphasis on, and belief in, God and the authority of the Scriptures. Hear me very clearly.
I have no problem with education. I have earned two masters degrees, and they were a lot of work. I’m glad I did it. There is a lot of good theological and other work being done in Europe. That’s not the issue. The issue is when we replace God with ourselves and, instead of God and the Bible standing in judgment over us, we try to stand in judgment over God and the Bible.

I deeply believe in learning more about God and the Bible. I freely admit there is much I do not understand about God and the Bible. But I refuse to substitute God and what he has said and written with my or anyone else’s wisdom, because that is a recipe for disaster. What began around 1900 was the rise, in a systematic way, of standing in judgment over God and the Bible. This view infected the clergy and, through them, the churches.
You may have heard the last few years that the United Methodist churches have been fighting over homosexual, transgender, and other persons who are not heterosexual. That is true in a limited sense, just as it is true with the other denominations mentioned above. United Methodists have been arguing over the performing of same sex weddings, and whether clergy can be in an active same sex relationship. This is an ongoing battle in more and more of the more conservative denominations as well. But in truth, that’s only the surface issue. The foundational issue is that so many no longer believe the Bible has any authority over them. I know that several of the churches around here have been in denominations that already had their fights over these kinds of issues. The United Methodist Church is only the most recent place where these issues have come to a boil. It’s not the first denomination, and it sure won’t be the last.
As I said, it’s a sad tale. But it does give a warning to us all. Once we decide that God and the Bible have no authority over us, or we have more authority than they do, the fate of the church is sealed. Christianity serves no purpose. Some people in the last year have told me I was courageous to do the things I did. I don’t think so.
I simply had no other choice. I have chosen to follow God and obey his Word, so when I came to that fork in the road, I went one way and not the other. When you come to the fork in your road, I pray you will choose the right way as well.
Kevin Barron is the pastor of Perryville and Crossroads United Methodist churches. He can be reached by phone at 573-547-5200 or via email at kdbarron@gmail.com.