Asking a Better Question

Demonstrators Calling for Inclusion at General Conference in 2012

The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”
Acts 10:45-47

The official United Methodist website has an article written by Heather Hahn on the 2016 General Conference titled, “How should General Conference discuss sexuality?”

A better question might be, “Why are we still talking about this?”

Seriously. If you have not been convinced by the witness of the Scriptures, from the Torah to the Prophets to the Gospels and the Letters, that the great arc of the biblical message calls us toward liberation and love and grace, and if the science is not enough, then maybe you might at least pay attention to the commonplace of public opinion.

As the great abolitionist hymn writer and poet, James Russell Lowell wrote:

New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.

We need to move on.

The article comments on a meeting held recently at First United Methodist Church in Portland, Oregon, on how the next General Conference might avoid the divisive rancor of precious gatherings. Denominational leaders brought together leaders of The Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church, Good News, Love Prevails, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and the Reconciling Ministries Network. The Confessing Movement and Good News want to maintain the current stance against homosexuality and to increase the penalties for clergy who violate those standards. Love Prevails, the Methodist Federation for Social Action, and Reconciling Ministries want the church to be fully inclusive of LGBTQ persons.

After the meeting, Rob Renfroe, President of Good News, said, “The consensus was that we all know General Conference is an emotional and hurtful process.”

“I think there is consensus that we all want to find a way to minimize the hurt and to allow everyone be heard and at the same time … to allow people to vote their conscience and keep to their principles. We happen to see some important issues in different ways,” he said.

I give him credit for his gracious manner. Clearly, he wants to be kind. He is right, we do “happen to see some important issues in different ways.” And there is pain on both sides.

But let’s be clear. The pain is not equally divided. The pain of being excluded and told that you are “less than” is not the same as the pain of being told that you have excluded and hurt people, or that you shouldn’t do any more hurting and excluding. Neither side is without fault. But again, the fault is not equal.

One of the groups working hard to keep the old exclusionary language in place calls themselves “The Confessing Movement.” One assumes that this is a conscious reference to the Confessing Church which rose up in Germany in the 1930’s in opposition to Hitler. Do they really want to compare those working for inclusion in the UMC to Nazis? And can they really believe that leaders of the Confessing Church, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, would actually be on their side today? And if they are not trying to make those claims, then they need to change the name.

We need to move on. We have inflicted way too much pain on our LGBTQ sisters and brothers. And we have done great damage to the credibility of the church. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Which brings us to another question: How many people have never gotten to know who Jesus is because we are so unlike him?

Bigotry, Homophobia and the Olympics

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 7:12

Have you seen any of the videos of gay Russians being beaten and abused because they are gay? You might assume that the videos were posted by gay activists to expose the brutality, but you would be wrong. They were posted by Russian vigilantes trying to terrorize their gay sisters and brothers. It’s frightening stuff.

The videos and the anti-gay mobs that have gathered to suppress every demonstration of opposition to the new law against “propaganda” supporting “non-traditional sexual relations” provide clear evident that the critics are right when they say that the new law is basically government sanctioned homophobia.

The measure was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin in June with overwhelming support from the Russian legislature, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Russian people. Not surprisingly, it has set off a wave of international criticism, particularly in relationship to the Winter Olympics, to be held in Sochi, next February.

The controversy has cast a long shadow over the world track and field championships, held this week. Some athletes have spoken out against the law. Nick Symonds, an American runner, dedicated his silver medal in the 800 meters to gay friends. Swedish high-jumper Emma Green Tegaro painted her fingernails in rainbow colors as a symbol of her opposition to the law and her support for LGBT rights.

But the spotlight shined brightest on a high profile Russian athlete who spoke out in support of the new law. Yelena Isinbayeva, who won her third world championship in the pole vault this week, declared her support for the law and appealed to athletes from other nations to respect her country’s views on homosexuality.

“It’s unrespectful to our country,” she said at a news conference. “It’s unrespectful to our citizens because we are Russians. Maybe we are different than European people, than other people from different lands. We have our law, which everyone has to respect.” The law, she said, reflects the culture of the Russian people. “It’s my opinion also,” she said. And then she went on to say, “You know, to do all this stuff on the street, we are very afraid about our nation, because we consider ourselves like normal, standard people. We just live boys with women, and women with boys.”

“When we arrive to different cultures, we try to follow their rules,” She explained. “We are not trying to set our rules over there. We just try to be respectable. And also we ask everyone to be respectful to our place, to our culture, to our people.”

It is an interesting argument: You respect the rules in my country and I will respect the rules in your country. Respect our culture just as you would want us to respect your culture.

There is a place for cultural relativism. But this isn’t it. The respect for diverse cultural customs and institutions does not extend to bigotry and persecution. When Jesus told us to treat others the way we would want them to treat us, he was not suggesting that we should have a mutual tolerance for each other’s bigotry.