Before the temptations of resentment, anger and suspicion arise at the 2004 General Conference, a United Methodist scholar advises delegates to look to John Wesley's writings for guidance.

Marjorie Suchocki, professor emerita at Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology and Wesleyan scholar, gave a history and Bible lesson to General Conference delegates who are also members of the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

Using Wesley's book, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, as a foundation, Suchocki said Methodism's founder "cautioned us that we should expect disagreement (and) we should expect contradiction, and that this is of God."

General Conference, the church's top legislative assembly, becomes a "testing ground of being able to move away from those temptations to those awful emotions to caring for the well-being and to actually loving and respecting those who differ from us," she said.

Suchocki provided a keynote address for the March 19-22 semiannual meeting of the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry. General Conference will convene a month later, April 27-May 7, in Pittsburgh.

Christian love is the ability to love across differences, as God loves all of humankind, Suchocki said. "It is less on what we should think and more on how we should think."

Although most United Methodists and Christians agree on the fundamentals of being saved by God through Jesus Christ and that the church is the body of Christ, questions and conflicts arise as to how the body should live, Suchocki said.

"This is where there should be both disagreement and love, and prayerful coming together, as we think about how we disagree with one another," she said.

In the United Methodist Church, the homosexuality issue has enlarged the gulf between people typically labeled "conservatives" and "liberals" and talk of schism frequently surfaces. Because differences threaten to divide, Wesley provided advice to help Methodists move toward Christian perfection, and he urged that schism be avoided, Suchocki said.

"He tells us that we should avoid pride, which is the refusal to learn from those who disagree with us," Suchocki said. "A schism is pride carried out to its extreme, where we not only refuse to learn but we also separate from."

Wesley advised not giving pride a place because it is not of God, and "therefore we must struggle to be together," she said.

As she talked about issues affecting the world today, Suchocki said the first response to disagreement is to destroy, but God calls people to something different. "We must learn to disagree in love and find ways to move together toward what God calls us to in the future and be open in it," she said. No one but God knows what the future holds, but "we have to trust enough to stay together in the process and to love one another."

Reflecting on Wesley's writings and theology, Suchocki advised the board members and General Conference delegates to turn to prayer when they feel the temptations of schism or hatred.

"If possible, we should try to find and pray with those whom we disagree with to recognize and realize their own Christian spirit," she said. "Then through prayer can they achieve the wonder of Christian love."

Suchocki's advice to the 998 delegates to General Conference is to love, pray, be aware of the temptation to go against love, wrestle together in the spirit, and respect one another in Christian love.

The Board of Higher Education and Ministry is implementing strategic plans designed to increase youth involvement in ministry, to strengthen their educational system, to form faithful leaders for the church and the world, and to tell the church's story.

Referring to the board's plans, Suchocki referred the members back to Wesley for guidance. The purpose of Christian life is that our hearts and minds are to be filled with the love of God, she said. In the Wesleyan spirit, Christians are to live together in the contradictions because in and through the contradictions, they will be Christlike, she said.

The deepest contradiction today is over feelings about homosexuality, what God is doing with homosexuality and what its role might be in the world, she said.

"Homosexuality is used as the lightning rod against hatred," she said. "We should use this opportunity to move to new heights of love rather than let it be the dividing wall that comes between us."

In her writings and speeches, she has urged United Methodists to return to Wesley's A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. "If we returned to this wise man's teachings, we would actually value theological diversity within our church as an opportunity for each and every one of us to avoid idolatry," Suchocki wrote in a paper titled, "How We Might Become Deeply Loving People," distributed to the board.

In valuing theological diversity and loving those who are different, Suchocki said United Methodists would be enabled "to practice the love which is the glory of God - not by separating from one another in the foolish name of 'my correct doctrine,' but by hanging in together for love of one another and God."

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*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.