The supreme legislative body of the United Methodist Church (The General Conference) has finished its work—for now. It is their job to meet periodically and tweak both the rules and the bureaucracy. And in the UMC, we have plenty of regulations and bureaucrats, all up and down the denomination.
While the rest of us wait for the fine print of the General Conference legislation to seep its way toward us, one big news item is already making the rounds. The rules that singled out “homosexuals” (and those who minister to them) for purposes of censure and punishment have been rescinded.
This decision has provoked radically different responses among our members—ranging from ecstasy to fury. I’m hearing from friends who are all over the emotional spectrum.
But a few days of gracious listening is enough for me. I’ll be 70 this summer, and I don’t have time anymore to just sit on things. So, here are a couple perspectives to jam into this conversation.
First, for those who want to move beyond the emotion—into clear-headed thinking—it will soon be clear that neither ecstasy nor scandalization over the General Conference decision is actually warranted.
For those who believe that this is the Year of Jubilee and the coming of God’s Kingdom—the real world and the real church are still here. Huge convocations (like General Conferences) tend to aggrandize themselves and their work. But conference-goers must eventually come down off the mountaintop and deal with real life: systems that resist change, bureaucracies with a life of their own, fears and anxieties that crystalize into bigotry, unforeseen backlash, apathy, bullying, and hard-heartedness. Neither real people nor systems are much changed by what a group of conventioneers decides in North Carolina.
Furthermore, most of those individuals who might be served by a church that is more open and progressive have already left the building. And they aren’t coming back. No way.
And one more thing: while progressives now seem in control of the highest legislative body in the United Methodist Church, there is nothing for conservatives to fear. Have you ever seen progressives try to get their act together for more than a short spell? Liberals are constitutionally incapable of organizing sustained progress. If you are a progressive—your team may be ahead at the moment—but the game is far from over. Trust me—I’m also a Cub fan. Just a month into the season now and the Cubs have found a way to blow eight games in late innings after having the lead. Progressives do politics like the Cubs do baseball. Enjoy the party—for now. But plan to go back to the drawing board on Monday.
As for those who are scandalized by relaxing the “homosexual” rules, would you like to be calm and find out what really changed? Or are you already determined to be offended and honked off regardless?
Here are some specific things the General Conference did not do. It did not change the Bible. It did not throw the Bible out the window. It did not advocate any non-heterosexual life style or activity. It did not force churches to take an LGBTQ pastor. (Churches can still work with the bishop to have pastors appointed who will be compatible with a congregation’s take on this matter.) It will not force a congregation to host same-sex marriages—or pastors to perform them.
Some people have decided to stop paying their apportionments (money to the annual conference and general church) because they don’t want to support “gay causes.” Let’s look closer. Apportionment money goes to the church bureaucracy. What role do church bureaucracies play in the overall system? Most church members don’t actually care about what their bureaucrats think? Even a bureaucrat who wants to support a cause is too tied up in institutional matters to change anyone’s heart.
The dull truth is—our apportionment money goes to keep the system grinding away—trying to help churches love people where they are, how they are, in whatever ways people need. The system is simply trying to train and deploy pastors to love people and build up churches—in all sorts of diverse settings.
I have lots of complaints about how ineffective the system is. But for better or worse—money given to the system does not result in prophetic change, moral persuasion, or softened hearts. (No red-blooded girl-crazy boy is going to turn gay because the Director of Conference Connectional Ministries thinks it’s okay to have lesbian pastors.) The reality simply doesn’t justify being so scandalized.
If you still don’t want your offerings to go to conference apportionments, then just mark this on your offering envelop: “To be used locally—not to be sent to pay conference apportionments.” Your request will be honored.
Finally, whether you are conservative or liberal, old-school (like me) or contemporary and up-to-date, the words that were struck from the Discipline needed to be eliminated. They weren’t doing any good anyway—and they were doing a great deal of harm. No demographic of people should be singled out by a denomination as the only ones deserving of condemnation and mandatory punishment by the entire church. For fifty-plus years, the UMC has singled out only “homosexuals.” We have not identified any other type of behavior or belief for exclusion: not domestic abusers, not war criminals, not serial adulterers, not white nationalists, not KKK members, not white-collar thieves, not dead-beat dads. Only “homosexuals.” The whole thing was a bit hypocritical.
In all other troublesome or controversial or awkward situations, we trusted our general principles and our local and conference leaders to use their wisdom and empathy—and their local knowledge to do the right thing.
With the actions of this year’s General Conference, the UMC is now neither pro nor anti-gay. We acknowledged that the Bible says many things—and while there are verses in the Bible that prohibit same-sex activity, there are also verses in the Bible that prohibit people from judging and restricting those whose sexuality digresses from the conventional. In other words, in trying to figure out what the Bible wants us to do or not do—we’re still working on it. And God’s spirit is still working with us.
In other words—there is a time to celebrate and a time to get real. There is a time to be scandalized and a time to get over it. Count me among those ready to move on.
Repertoire 