Casting the Vision

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. 
Then the LORD answered me and said: 
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. 
If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:1-3

Several years ago in a sermon at Annual Conference the late Bishop Dale White talked about the lonely task of the pastor, whose job it is to always take the lead and cast a vision of justice on controversial issues.

We are supposed to be ahead of the curve. 

To be a leader is to be out in front, and it is a lonely task. If Moses had waited until his vision of freedom had broad support, the Israelites would still be in Egypt.

The Rev. Dr. C. Chappell Temple, Lead Pastor of Christ Church (UMC) in Sugar Land, Texas, seemed to take a different tack on this issue in a post titled, "Fun with Math." Writing in the Juicy Ecumenism blog of the IRD (Institute on Religion and Democracy), he points out that in the recent voting for General Conference delegates the elected clergy are more progressive than the laity.

This is not surprising, if we take Bishop White’s exhortation seriously. Pastors are supposed to be out in front. 

(Just to be clear, when we speak of the division between progressives and traditionalists in the church, we are not talking about national politics. The Progressive movement in American politics grew out of the Social Gospel in the  late nineteenth century and today’s Progressives share that heritage, but they should not be confused with the progressives and centrists in the church.)

Dr. Temple argues that although 76% of the elected delegations are progressive or centrist and more than half of the Annual Conferences passed resolutions opposing the Traditional Plan, that does not accurately reflect the perspective of those who sit in the pews.

Maybe it doesn't accurately reflect the perspective of the laity, but 76% is a big number. 

And it is significant that more than half of the Annual Conferences passed resolutions against a plan that passed by a narrow majority at General Conference.

But Dr. Temple argues that if we look more closely at the numbers they tell a different story. He points out that the Texas Conference elected a mostly progressive or centrist delegation of clergy and a wholly traditionalist delegation of laity. Eight of the nine clergy from the Texas Conference are progressive or centrist, but by our system, each one required only 50% plus one vote to be elected. If we looked at the actual vote totals we would find that the real margin was closer to 5-4 than 8-1.

And then he makes an important observation:

“The point is that in a system involving multiple candidates for multiple positions each requiring a majority vote it’s simply not possible to draw conclusions as to the true mind of the whole church when it comes to controversial issues.”

If that sounds familiar it’s because Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter made that same argument several General Conferences ago when they proposed inserting a paragraph in the Book of Discipline recognizing that we were not of one mind on the issues surrounding LGBTQ inclusion. The Traditionalists narrowly defeated that proposal because they had no problem building church law on a slim majority and using that law to punish those on the other side.

He concludes with an observation and a suggestion:

“In the end, it’s pretty clear thus that at least on the question of human sexuality that we United Methodists are far more closely divided than the delegate count might imply.  What is incumbent upon us a church thus is to find a way to honor those differences and create new communities of faith that can live side by side, though with enough separation to stop our long internecine warfare.”

He is right on both counts.

We are closely divided on the issue of human sexuality and we need to find a way to honor those differences so that we can live side by side.

I agree.

Let’s do it.

We can call it the One Church Plan.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

You Can't Pick and Choose Which Scriptures You Will Follow

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. 
Leviticus 20:13

In the ongoing debate about homosexuality one of the common arguments made by traditionalists is that “You can’t pick and choose which scriptures you will follow and which you will ignore.” The Bible, they argue, clearly condemns same sex relationships and we cannot ignore the biblical judgment.

The argument sounds good, even if you know that in order to read the Bible faithfully we have to make judgments. Very few of the most hardened biblical literalists, while arguing vociferously for the condemnation of same sex relationships believe that the penalty for such relationships should be death. As Adam Hamilton pointed out, we already agree that the second part of the verse is not to be taken literally, what makes the traditionalists think that the first part is still sacred?

But the flaw in that argument runs much deeper than that internal inconsistency.

I believe the first person to point out this deeper and more fundamental problem was the late (great) Walter Muelder.

Dr. Muelder was Dean of the Boston University School of Theology from 1945 to 1972. He was an influential theologian and ecumenist, and a major force in the development of Christian Social Ethics as a discipline. 

He was a brilliant thinker and a dedicated scholar.

Beyond that, he was in so many ways the quintessential Methodist, the embodiment of all the virtues of personal and social holiness.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Boston University to pursue a Ph.D., Muelder was Dean of the School of Theology and a Professor of Christian Social Ethics. He was one of Dr. King’s teachers, and Muelder’s ethics made a deep impact on King.

Dr. Muelder was passionate about peace and justice, and civil rights until the end of his life.

He died at the age of 97, on June 12, 2004, from a sudden heart attack. He had not been ill. Like Moses, his mind was “unimpaired.” and “his vigor had not abated.”

On June 9, 2004, just three days before he died, after an earlier General Conference failed to advance the cause of LGBTQ inclusion, Dean Muelder addressed the retired pastors of our United Methodist Conference with this challenge:

“We retired ministers have an ongoing role to play in the conflicts, such as those on homosexuality, which threatened to split the church at the last General Conference. We are in constant dialogue with clergy and laity who are rightfully troubled by these issues. We can help hold the church together by reminding people to think comprehensively and holistically about these questions. The positions taken by militant opponents are often narrowly based by appeals to the authority of single verses of Scripture as decisively conclusive.

“We need to remind the whole church that Methodism has a fourfold basis for making authoritative positions, namely: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. It is the coherence of these explorations that is authoritative. No literal appeal to isolated scripture passages is sufficient. We have to understand the historical nature of Scripture as a whole and relate any passage to the Bible as a whole, to the evolving tradition both within the Biblical period, to historical Methodism, to the best scientific reasoning, and to a comprehensive awareness of evolving experience. This fourfold coherence is essential for maintaining authoritative doctrine and practice.

“As retired ministers we are constantly in contact with members of the contemporary church and hence we are part of its ongoing dialogue to maintain the unity of the church.”

There is enormous wisdom and insight in those brief remarks.

His first point may be the most important. Those who militantly oppose the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the life of the United Methodist Church are basing their arguments on a narrow reading of isolated texts. Those few texts can NEVER be decisive.

His second point is a reminder of our United Methodist heritage. We have “a fourfold basis” for making authoritative decisions, “namely: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.” 

In 1972 when the Book of Discipline first declared the “practice of homosexuality” to be “incompatible with Christian teaching,” Dean Muelder was basically in agreement. Over the years, his judgment shifted. Those condemnatory biblical texts did not disappear, but there was new scholarship. Evaluating that new scholarship in the context of the whole Bible caused him to rethink his assumptions. Reason, experience, a changing tradition, and new biblical scholarship came together in a convincing way. 

A third point is the very essence of Walter Muelder’s genius, and anyone who took even a single class with him will be able to hear this as if he were speaking it out loud as you read it: “It is the coherence of these explorations that is authoritative.” The Dean never jumped to conclusions and consequently he did not often change his mind. But the thoroughness of a decision never closed his mind to the possibility of change.

The idea is not to explore scripture, tradition, reason, and experience as if they were unrelated areas of inquiry and then string them together as if that constituted an authoritative result. We must search for a coherent understanding. And it is that coherence which is authoritative.

We can’t pick and choose our scriptures. “We have to understand the historical nature of Scripture as a whole and relate any passage to the Bible as a whole, to the evolving tradition both within the Biblical period, to historical Methodism, to the best scientific reasoning, and to a comprehensive awareness of evolving experience. This fourfold coherence is essential for maintaining authoritative doctrine and practice.”

Within the biblical word, we have to use the whole Bible. Isolated texts can never be decisive. In the tradition of John Wesley, we have a fourfold basis for arriving at ethical and theological insights: scripture, reason, tradition and experience. And then that wonderful sentence, “It is the coherence of these explorations that is authoritative.” 

Dean Muelder was convinced that a faithful study of scripture in the context of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, would lead us to the full acceptance of Gay and Lesbian persons in the United Methodist Church. 

After three more failed General Conferences, one wonders whether we can get there as a united church.

It Could Have Been Worse (A Reflection on Our United Methodist General Conference)

Rev. Will Green protesting the exclusion of LGBTQI persons
from full inclusion in the United Methodist Church

Once Jesus was asked when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Luke 17:20-21

When Christians argue about belief, we generally argue about things that don’t make much difference. It makes no difference whether Jesus really “walked on the water,” for example. And it makes no difference whether or not Mary was a virgin. 

On the other hand, we pay little attention to whether or not we believe in things that really matter. It makes a great deal of difference, for instance, whether we believe in loving our enemies, or forgiving the person who wrongs us, or loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

This passage from Luke’s Gospel contains one of those ideas that matter. It is in many ways a watershed question: Do you believe that, in fact, the Kingdom of God is among us?

If you believe that the Kingdom of God is among us, then you will see the world differently.

I have been thinking about this a lot as the events have unfolded at our United Methodist General Conference in Portland, Oregon, this past week.  An Associated Press story in the New York Times gives an excellent summary of what has happened and where we are.

In this latest episode of our forty-four year soap opera we continue to wrestle with whether or not our LGBTQ sisters and brothers will be fully included in the life of the church. There is good news and bad news. The good news, not to be confused with the Good News movement, is that we did not institute severe mandatory penalties against clergy who celebrate same sex marriages. The bad news is that the delegates actually voted in favor of the mandatory penalties and we were only saved by a Judicial Council ruling that mandatory penalties violated our church constitution. 

There was serious discussion of schism, dividing the church into at least two groups, one progressive and the other traditional, with options for more. As the rumors and reports became more persistent, Bishop Bruce Ough, the president of the Council of Bishops, addressed the body to deny the rumors and acknowledge that the bishops were themselves deeply and painfully divided about how we should move forward. 

"I have a broken heart in that collectively we have a broken heart," Bishop Ough told the delegates. "Our heart breaks over the pain, distrust, anger, anxiety and disunity" among the delegates at the conference.

As the committee votes against the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons piled up, advocates for inclusion staged protests, at one point standing around the outside of the conference session with rainbow colored duct tape over their mouths, and at another point lying on the floor with their hands and feet bound.

It was heart breaking. "People are walking down the street in tears saying, 'This is not the United Methodist Church that I joined,' " said Dorothee Benz, an LGBT rights advocate and a lay delegate from the New York Annual Conference.

After a roller coaster ride of voting and maneuvering the delegates finally voted 428-405 to accept a plan advanced by the Council of Bishops to delay all consideration of LGBTQ proposals, and instead to create a commission that will devote the next two years to reviewing our present policies and attempt to develop a plan to address our differences.

This does not seem like a very good outcome unless you realize that it could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. If we had pressed for a vote on those issues it is almost certain that we would have lost every single one.

The reason that the United Methodist Church is out of step with other mainline denominations in the United States, like the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, and the Congregationalist (though each of those denominations has dissenting traditionalists), is that we are a world church. If the vote at General Conference were only among United Methodists from the U.S., we would have moved forward long ago.

As our church has evolved, the more liberal Methodist churches in South America, South Africa, and Great Britain formed their our indigenous churches and separated from what is now the United Methodist Church. Within our church, the traditionalist minority in the United States has almost unanimous support from the very conservative United Methodist conferences in Africa and together they form an immovable bloc. 

So after all of the tumult, we are left with a commission to study something that is already obvious to most of the people outside of the church. And, honestly, that is embarrassing.

But it should not surprise us.

When Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God is among you,” he was not speaking about the church. He was speaking about humanity. 

We pray that the Kingdom will come on earth because we know that it is not fully realized. And we know that we cannot point with certainty to an event or movement and exclaim, “Look, there it is.” 

But while the commission is conducting its study, more congregations will become reconciling churches, more clergy will conduct same sex weddings, more bishops will refuse to conduct clergy trials, and more openly gay clergy will be ordained.


The Kingdom of God is among us. And time is on our side.

The People We Are Called to Be

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
II Samuel 11:1

As Bible verses go, the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Second Samuel, is hardly inspiring. But it is instructive.

To paraphrase a popular TV commercial, “If you’re a king, you go out to battle in the spring. That’s just what you do.” (But that verse also tells us that in this instance the king stayed home and let his soldiers do the fighting for him. Wars have always been designed and declared by those in power, and fought by those who are powerless.)

Spring is also the time, every four years, when United Methodists go out to battle. At General Conference, every four years, representatives come from all over the world to re-write our Book of Discipline and chart the course for the church. This year, on May 10-20, that gathering will be in Portland, Oregon.

This year there will be resolutions on terrorism and refugees and climate change, but most of the energy will be devoted to more internal matters. 

There are proposals aimed at making us into a doctrinal church, stipulating that everyone, particularly pastors and seminary professors, need to believe the same thing—and attaching those beliefs to ancient creeds. Fortunately, I don’t think those ideas will get very far.

There are proposals relating to our exclusionary policies regarding our LGBTQ sisters and brothers. Some are aimed at tightening the regulations and increasing the penalties for pastors who officiate at same sex weddings and bishops who tolerate them. Other proposals are aimed at removing the exclusionary language and becoming a more welcoming church. 

Sadly, we now stand alone among mainline Protestant denominations in our exclusionary stance. We have been wrong long enough. This time we need to get it right. (For a look at the history of this conflict, click here.)

Some of those going to Portland are actively considering the possibility that the church may split, into two denominations; one in favor of inclusion and the other against it.

My hope is that we can agree to disagree; that we can remove the offensive exclusionary language from the Discipline, but recognize that we do not all think alike on the issue. One of the great strengths of United Methodism over the years has been our diversity. Since the days of John Wesley, we have agree to “think and let think.” 

When our United Methodist Church in East Greenwich voted to become a Reconciling Church, we adopted a statement affirming the full inclusion of all persons in the life of the church, and we concluded with the affirmation of a core Wesleyan principle: 

“While we recognize that there are differences among us, we believe that we can love alike even though we may not think alike. It is in this spirit that we invite all people to join us in our faith journey.”

Historically, we have not always been that people. But at our best, that statement is a description of who we are and who we are called to be.

I Was Wrong

Confess your wrongs to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed.
James 5:16

I don’t like to be told that I’m wrong.

I always listen. I pay attention. I try to listen closely and I always try to learn something new. And then I reexamine my assumptions.

But I also often push back pretty hard.

Last week I wrote a blog post about my hope for compromise at our United Methodist General Conference this May. I wanted us to find a way to go forward and live with our disagreements around the issue of homosexuality.

In order for us to agree to disagree, I suggested that two things would need to happen:

“First, those of us in favor of inclusion need to give up on changing that grotesquely offensive statement about “homosexual practice” being incompatible with Christian teaching. Maybe we can modify it slightly and maybe not, but we probably cannot eliminate it, and we just need to let it go. 

“And second, those in favor of the continued exclusion of LGBTQ persons need to give up on the penalties for pastors and bishops who celebrate same sex marriages and appoint LGBTQ pastors. Just let it go. We don’t have penalties for any other comparable infractions.”

I didn’t get any comments on the second point. My guess is that there are not very many folks in favor of exclusion who read what I write, and that those who do read it don’t think it is worth commenting.

But I received a lot of criticism on the first point. Some of it was pretty impassioned. The language in the Discipline was wrong and hurtful, they said, and we could not just “let it go.”

I was surprised by the vehemence of the critique. 

After reflecting on it, I thought maybe I ought to clarify what I meant when I said we should let it go. I didn’t mean forever. I meant for now. Eventually, we would get rid of it, but maybe by backing off this year we could find a way forward. 

Then I had an extended conversation with a young gay friend.

We often discuss social justice issues. The friend regularly reads the blog. So I asked about it. 

I explained what I was trying to do and described the push back I had received. My friend was not surprised. I lamented the ways in which the church has fractured over this issue and talked about how much I wanted us to avoid schism.

My friend expressed real appreciation for the ways in which local United Methodist churches had provided a strong spiritual and ethical foundation, but then went on to say that we should not compromise on this issue.

You have to realize, said my friend, that those people made me want to die.

“They made me want to die.”

In evangelical language, I was convicted.

In truth, this was not new to me. I was wrong and I have no excuse. I wanted (and want) so much to “preserve the union,” that I forgot two critical points:

First, there is no moral equivalence on this issue. This cannot be overstated.

The pain of exclusion is not equivalent to the pain of no longer being able to exclude. Our exclusionary policies do real harm to real people. I don’t know how many people have spent years in therapy or perhaps even committed suicide because of the United Methodist position on homosexuality, but I do know that across the Christian church such exclusionary and condemnatory policies have caused unfathomable death and destruction.

And a second point is related to the first. This is not an academic discussion. It is about real people in the real world and it has real life consequences.

Listening to Ted Williams

Ted Williams hits one of his 521 Home Runs.

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:13-15

Ron Fairly had a fairly good Major League career. He played 21 seasons in the majors and then was a broadcaster for 27 more. His lifetime average was .266. He led the USC baseball team to a College World Series championship in 1958, and then helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win three World Series in 1959, 1963, and 1965. He was an All Star. He is also the answer to a baseball trivia question that will stump all but the most obsessed fans: Ron Fairly is the player who hit the most career home runs without ever hitting as many as twenty in a single season.

Fairly was good, but he wasn’t Ted Williams. Of course, no one was Ted Williams other than the man himself. But there is a vast gulf between Ron Fairly’s exceptional talents and the best hitter who ever played the game.

Years ago I heard a story about Fairly talking to Williams about hitting, and he told the Hall of Famer that there was a particular pitch, that he just couldn’t hit. Williams responded by asking him, “Then why do you swing at it?”

If you can’t hit it, Ted told him, then don’t swing at it.

In baseball and in life, that is good advice. 

It’s not perfect, of course, there are times when you have to swing even if your chances of getting a hit are not very good.

But in his twenty-one seasons, Ron Fairly struck out just 877 times.

As I contemplate our upcoming United Methodist General Conference, I find myself thinking about Ted’s advice.

I was reading “The Renewal Agenda for General Conference” proposed by the ironically named “Good News” movement, and I found myself feeling physically ill. It’s an agenda which is apparently aimed at making us more rigid than the Southern Baptists. And then it occurred to me that the “Good News” people probably feel the same way when they read about the agenda proposed by the Reconciling Ministries Network. 

This is a pitch we United Methodists just can’t seem to hit.

We can’t even agree on what sort of a pitch it is. One side calls it “the issue of homosexuality.” The other side talks about the exclusion of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers (although we are not really comfortable with the gender binary).

Both sides believe that they are very serious about biblical authority and each side believes that the other is profoundly and perversely wrong.

We can’t hit it. We need to stop swinging at it.

To my mind, that would mean two things.

First, those of us in favor of inclusion need to give up on changing that grotesquely offensive statement about “homosexual practice” being incompatible with Christian teaching. Maybe we can modify it slightly and maybe not, but we probably cannot eliminate it, and we just need to let it go. 

And second, those in favor of the continued exclusion of LGBTQ persons need to give up on the penalties for pastors and bishops who celebrate same sex marriages and appoint LGBTQ pastors. Just let it go. We don’t have penalties for any other comparable infractions.

My guess is that plenty of people on both sides of the issue would find this idea deeply offensive. But it would be better than where we are.

Sexuality, Celibacy and Ordination

Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind. 

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

I Corinthians 7:5-9

The Apostle Paul has a dim view of marriage. “It is better to marry,” he writes, “than to be aflame with passion.”

Even better, I would say, would be “to marry” and “be aflame with passion.”

Paul holds out celibacy as a higher status than marriage, but he concedes that “each has a particular gift from God.” Citing that passage, a clergy friend in another denomination once confided that she had told her bishop that “celibacy was not a gift that I had been given.”

She laughed as she told the story. It was typical of her joyful boldness in affirming the good gifts that God has given us in this life. And that joyful boldness is part of what makes her a wonderful pastor.

That scene came back to me as I read a blog post by Talbot Davis, an elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Davis takes issue with an anonymous blog post by a United Methodist clergywoman on the Methodist Federation for Social Action website on the issue of universal access to birth control.

“I chose to go on birth control, she writes, “because I didn't want to get pregnant and I wanted to have sex. Because I am a clergy woman in The United Methodist Church, and I'm single, that information could get me brought up on charges, and I could lose my ordination. . . . It strikes me as ridiculous in 2016 that this is necessary, but being a person who is sexually active while single is against the rules.” 

Davis argues that the writer is endorsing an ecclesiology of “me” and “now,” and intentionally confusing the commandments of God with petty “rules” and regulations. And he worries about “a future for the United Methodist Church in which sacrifice-making, cross-taking, self-denying holiness has gone the way of garters and petticoats.”

“Garters and petticoats”? In this context, I find that reference wonderfully amusing.

But seriously, have we really come to a place where our witness of “sacrifice-making, cross-taking, self-denying holiness” is expressed in a sexual ethic of celibacy? No wonder secular people think the church is irrelevant.

Davis fears that if the prohibitive language around homosexuality is changed then we will be dismantling our whole understanding of sexual ethics.

We won’t be. The issues are fundamentally different. The “homosexual issue” is about civil rights and inclusion. It is not really about sexuality (in the narrow sense) at all.

The only change to our sexual ethics would be to apply those ethics equally to everyone. We could still maintain the ordination expectation of “celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage,” but apply it to gay and straight persons equally. Nothing else would need to change.

But let’s get back to the issue of sexual ethics.

The anonymous clergywoman says that she didn’t want to get pregnant, but “I wanted to have sex.” 

I think some of her critics have assumed she meant that she wanted to have casual sex whenever it suited her desires. And she could have meant that. But my guess is that she phrased it that way to make a bold statement and get our attention. She was more likely talking about wanting to have sex with someone whom she loves and to whom she is deeply committed.

Since my ordination in 1973, when everyone gave a wink and a nod to the notion that we would not smoke or drink, I have married hundreds of couples. It is possible that one or two of those couples waited until they were married before having sex. But I don’t think it’s possible that there were more than two. And I don’t believe that my clergy colleagues are any different.

And.

When we fuss about sex before marriage, what are we talking about? Do we mean intercourse, or are we including oral sex? And do we really want to go there?

Sexuality is a good gift from God. It is meant to be enjoyed. We receive that gift best when we exercise it in the context of a mature, loving and committed relationship. 

It's not that complicated.