The sad reality the matter is that the UMC’s lack of inclusion of the Nicene Creed in its Doctrinal Standards does not mean that the denomination is simply neutral. United Methodism is sometimes openly hostile to the faith of the Nicene Creed. It is simply a fact that in many cases, people who come under the influence of a United Methodist bishop, United Methodist seminary, or United Methodist congregation are wooed by this influence to reject key doctrines of the Nicene Creed! 

One important divergence already seen between the two denominations emerging from the United Methodist split is contrasting approaches to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, popularly known as simply the Nicene Creed. The Global Methodist Church is committed to the historic Christian faith of the Nicene Creed, while the United Methodist Church is not committed to the Nicene Creed.
This reflects deeper differences. Of course, there are finer, less important theological questions on which faithful members of the same church can disagree. But can there be any minimal doctrinal boundaries?
As the Rev. Dr. Chappell Temple, a long-time instructor of United Methodist doctrine, history, and polity and now a Global Methodist elder, has declared, in the GMC, “there is a set of defining core beliefs,” grounded in Scripture, which denominational leaders and congregations are expected to teach.
This is simply not the case in the UMC. In United Methodism, it has become painfully obvious that there are no clear, consistent, and effective doctrinal boundaries.
Let’s be real: if you know that someone is a United Methodist, even a minister or a bishop, that tells you little to nothing about what this person actually believes.
Here is a summary of the history of this great ecumenical creed, which dates from the fourth century A.D., in a Roman Catholic magazine.
A few years ago, some helpfully nuanced analysis of John Wesley’s own relationship with historic creeds in the founding era of Methodism was offered in inter-linked blog posts by several United Methodist scholars: Joel Watts (here and especially here), David Watson, Andrew Thompson, and Kevin Watson. They challenged simplistic arguments and selective citations painting a misleading picture of the Anglican Wesley as anti-creedal.
In any case, the Global Methodist Church includes this Nicene Creed as part of its official doctrine (see ¶105 of the Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline). Global Methodism not only affirms distinctive theology of the Wesleyan Methodist tradition, but also stands together with Catholic, historic Protestant, and (for the most part) Eastern Orthodox churches around the world who have also affirmed this core of basic, ecumenical Christian faith for centuries. This is a deeper doctrinal unity than comparing completely separate statements of faith and making extended arguments about how there are substantial overlaps in some areas. Rather, on very core doctrine about the triune God, Global Methodism is unquestionably in alignment with the ecumenical consensus, dating from the fourth century, on the same carefully worded creedal affirmations of belief.
Despite being printed in the United Methodist Hymnal and valued by many who have been United Methodists, the Nicene Creed is actually not part of the United Methodist Doctrinal Standards. The Nicene Creed is not even explicitly mentioned anywhere in the United Methodist Book of Discipline.
UMC Discipline ¶104 lists the historic Methodist “General Rules” alongside the denomination’s official Doctrinal Standards, the latter consisting of four distinct documents:

The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church (mainly what John Wesley abridged from the Church of England’s articles);
The Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church;
The Standard Sermons of John Wesley; and
John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament.

In 2015, several United Methodists who had disagreed over other denominational matters on social media came together to petition the 2016 General Conference to add the Nicene Creed to this list.
A participant in that effort noted a weakness he saw in official United Methodist doctrine: how overwhelmingly dependent it was on one fallible man alone (as awesome as John Wesley was). Before Methodism’s 1968 merger with the much smaller EUB church, Wesley was basically the main author of all of the clear Doctrinal Standards of the main part of what is now our denomination.
However, this effort went down in flames at the 2016 UMC General Conference. The three petitions to include the Nicene Creed in the United Methodist Doctrinal Standards all died in committee, rejected by super-majorities of 69 to 72 percent (see here, here, and here). Even in a relatively conservative committee in arguably the most conservative (by United Methodist standards) General Conference in history!
So the United Methodist Church’s top governing assembly was explicitly invited to include the Nicene Creed in its Doctrinal Standards, and this proposal was overwhelmingly rejected.
Among other things, this failed United Methodist effort would have countered the widespread idea that “the United Methodist Church is not a creedal church.” That claim has been made widely by United Methodist clergy for many years. It has even been made on the denomination’s official UMC.org website.
It is often unclear what exactly is meant by this statement.
I have most often heard United Methodist ministers (even a relatively conservative pastor) declare “we’re not a creedal church” as a way of shrugging off concerns raised about United Methodist leaders, even at the highest levels of spiritual authority, denying such basic doctrines as the sinlessness or actual, miraculous bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. It appears to mean, “Oh well, it’s not that big a deal for even top leaders of the United Methodist Church to use their offices to teach against core, historic Christian doctrines, and no leader in our denomination can be stopped from doing this—that’s just how things are in the UMC!”
I and others have disputed this claim, pointed out how at least on paper, the UMC has the Doctrinal Standards mentioned above, and per Discipline ¶336, all ordination candidates are supposed to be asked if they will “preach and maintain” these doctrines.
But the de facto reality of United Methodist doctrine and morals has become very different from the dead letter of the words printed in the Discipline. Even in the UMC’s arguably most conservative Midwestern annual conference, Indiana, District Superintendent Saneta Maiko sent an apparent mass email on April 27, 2022, in which among other things he declared, “I am a United Methodist because our doctrines are not mandatory for clergy to preach and maintain. I am not interested in policing doctrines but asking God to redeem people when fallen s[h]ort of God’s glory.” (emphasis added)
We must not under-estimate the profound effects of erasing even minimal doctrinal boundaries, at every level of the UMC, have come from so many ministers for many years being taught and teaching others that the UMC “is not a creedal church.”
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I probably wouldn’t have deconstructed my faith if it wasn’t for YouTube. On the other hand, I don’t know if I would still be a Christian today if it weren’t for podcasts.
Growing up as an only child and experiencing tremendous suffering, I dove into my faith early looking for answers, meaning, and anything that could help me make sense of what I was experiencing.
I would come home after the final school bell rang and instead of hanging out with friends or doing homework, I would spend hours in my room watching YouTube videos of pastors, teachers, scholars, and scientists talking about the things I was wrestling with in my faith (this explains why I was terrible at school). I wanted answers and I knew someone had to have them.
One night I stumbled upon one of the original deconversion stories on YouTube. It was a series of twelve videos that chronicled the systematic deconstruction of someone’s faith from Christianity to atheism. At the time, it was more than my brittle faith could stand. My house of faith collapsed and I began a long journey through deconstruction.
My deconstruction was spurred along by many podcasts including, as I’ve written before, The Liturgists. I watched countless hours of talks from Pete Rollins, Rob Bell, Richard Rohr, and many more. I all but dropped out of my youth group and replaced my pastors with podcasters. I stopped trusting those who knew me in real life—my struggles, my propensities, my sorrows—and only trusted those who delivered spiritual goods to me in the form of .mp3s and .wav files.
Soon, however, the exact opposite path also took place. I knew my faith couldn’t be built solely on the critique of what is wrong with Christianity, but had to be built on the good, the true, and the beautiful. For all that might be good in regards to mystery and mysticism, I needed a sure and firm foundation to anchor my soul. I needed a real, bodily resurrection. I slowly but surely changed my media diet to include less The Liturgists and more Bible Project, less Rob Bell and more John Mark Comer, less Richard Rohr and more NT Wright. I realized that there was much of the Christian tradition I missed because I jumped straight from the fundamentalist environment I was raised in to the progressive side that has no use for institutions and sacred texts. My eyes were being opened—through media—to a way of being Christian that I never knew was possible.
This new media diet of mine made me hungry for more. The church I was attending, progressive and therapeutic, had no resources available for those wanting to grow in their faith. I had to enroll in a theological training program at a different church that was an hour-long drive from my house in order to begin a theological journey that would change my life. Ultimately, my faith would be rebuilt stronger than before and I now find myself a member of a local church.
It was media that took me out of the church and media that sent me back to the church.
It was media that undermined my faith and media that helped rebuild my faith.
It is impossible to understate—for better and for worse—the role of digital content in my faith.
Devices of Deconstruction
All of this was before “deconstruction” was part of the mainstream conversation in the church that it is today. Much of it was before most people even had an iPhone. In many ways, my story was a precursor for much of the way that tech and faith interplay with each other today.
Now, I make digital content for Christians full-time. I am on the other side of the screen from where I was all those years ago, partly because I know full well the power of media for discipleship. Our media diets have the power to form our faith and deform our faith. And the algorithms that feed us our content diet aren’t neutral. They know exactly what questions we’re asking, what life stage we’re in, what fears we have, where we live, and who on the internet is speaking to those things.
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A truly good political leader, [Augustine] argues, is one who views himself as a repentant sinner and who prefers to see God praised instead of himself. Similarly, a truly good citizen is one who refuses to flatter his political leaders or treat them as gods. Thus, both political leaders and citizens should lean heavily on God’s grace if they wish to cultivate true political virtue and true patriotism.

The early church forged its thinking about politics from Scripture and in the context of a decadent pagan Roman Empire. It grappled with how best to further the Christian mission in such a context. Should it withdraw from the political sphere, given its persecuted minority status within the empire? Conversely, should it expend the majority of its energies to political activism? Or, is it best to make a third way between these two extreme ends of the “religion and politics” spectrum?
As the early church grappled with this tangle of questions, it began to form some conclusions. Those conclusions found their fruition in the writings of Augustine of Hippo, especially from his book, City of God. Thus, given the fact that Bible-believing Americans inhabit a minority position in our own increasingly pagan nation, it is helpful for us to reflect on Augustin’s conclusions.
Augustine’s writings are the last flowering of the ancient period and the first blossoming of the medieval era. During this transitional era, Augustine wrote often about politics and public life. Early on, he embraced a Platonic view in which society was hierarchically ordered and in which individuals could attain “the good” through their own moral striving. Eventually, and especially in the wake of the Pelagian controversy, he rejected this view and revised his view of politics. No longer was social order meant to embody an overarching cosmic order, thus leading the good citizen on an ascent to the good life. Instead, it was meant, more minimally, to minimize disruptive forces and keep society from disintegrating. His mature political theology stressed the havoc that sin and idolatry wreaks on the individual and on society. Fallen individuals are possessed of inordinate love—they worship created goods rather than the God who created those goods. Moreover, the individual idolatries of a society coalesce at the political level to corrupt and misdirect the political realm.
Indeed, the backdrop for Augustine’s most significant treatment of politics—City of God—is not only the sacking of Rome but also Augustine’s emphasis on depravity and corresponding rejection of the Pelagian view. In the aftermath of Rome’s sacking, certain pagan intellectuals blamed Rome’s fall on its adoption of Christianity and its subsequent rejection of the Roman religion, politics, and philosophy. In City of God, Augustine responded to the religious objection by arguing that the Roman gods were immoral and even laughable; not even the famous historian of religion, Marcus Varro, believed in their divinity. He responded to the political objection by showing that Rome’s boasting about its political justice was a mask for its real love which was raw power and domination. Third, he responded to the philosophical objection by arguing that Rome’s philosophers, brilliant as they were, were inhibited by their pride from believing in Christ’s incarnation and resurrection, and thus were incapable of understanding the deepest truths of the world. Thus, if Roman society wished to be healthy politically, it should more fully embrace Christ and more fully reject the pagan founding narrative along with its gods and philosophies. In embracing Christ rather than idols, a person becomes a member of the eternal city of God rather than the city of man, and thus engages in the political realm with his affection set on God rather than on idols.
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