Dear XXXXXXXX,

Eventually, I would like to return to the issue of hermeneutics, especially how you appear not to have grasped the conservative understanding of inspiration (even inerrancy). You are not alone in misapprehending what people like me believe, but it is problematic because you set up a straw man when you think you know what my brethren and I believe and [you] set out to disagree. I hope that what I'm writing about in this e-mail will be more easily grasped. It is really a series of pointed questions, which comes at the end of this e-mail after I have set before you a few things.

You wrote

However, you already know that I would not interpret even the gospel accounts literally in the same way that you do.  I do have questions about whether or not the virgin birth is a literal historical happening [underscore mine--Doc], or as I said in one e-mail, whether the birth of Christ accompanied by an announcing angel and a heavenly choir is descriptive of an actual historical event or not.

<snip>

I agree…God could have arranged the virgin birth, visited the shepherds with angels, as well as flooding the whole earth, and the rest. I consider the possibility that all this could be true. It is simply the substance of my own inner conviction that God does not primarily work in this way.

The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church contains the doctrinal standards for the [my brother-in-law's] denomination. Rather than merging the Methodist Articles of Religion and the EUB [Evangelical United Brethren] Confession of Faith, the merged church [the United Methodist Church] accepted both statements.

The second article of the Articles of Religion reads as follows:

Article II--Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin [underscore mine--Doc]; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.

The second article of the Confession of Faith reads as follows:

Article II--Jesus Christ

We believe in Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, in whom the divine and human natures are perfectly and inseparably united. He is the eternal Word made flesh, the only begotten Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit [underscore mine--Doc]. As ministering Servant he lived, suffered and died on the cross. He was buried, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to be with the Father, from whence he shall return. He is eternal Savior and Mediator, who intercedes for us, and by him all men will be judged.

If you do not believe what your church says it believes and that its members ought to believe, why have you stayed in it? Why have you even more egregiously maintained your ordination credentials? How is harboring doubts about a Christological point that is the standard for your denomination not a serious breach of integrity and a reflection of a dissimulating character? How, in short, is it not dishonest for you to have retained your eldership and membership in the United Methodist Church when you cannot bring yourself to agree with its stated Christology?

Thanks,
Doc