Why Haven't You Left Already?

God has called us to be ministers
of a new covenant,
not of letter but of spirit;
for the letter kills,
but the Spirit gives life.
II Corinthians 3:6

In a Facebook group dedicated to dialog among United Methodists, one of the participants posed a question often asked by those who see themselves as “traditional” or “orthodox” in matters of human sexuality.

“If the rules that have been in place regarding homosexuality, good or bad, have been in place plainly since 1972, how is it that anyone after that was not aware that they were choosing ordination in a church that did not accept gay marriage or ordination?”

In other words, why are you still a United Methodist?

I take it as a fair question and I want to answer it in two ways.

The first point is about church history and the second is about our understanding of United Methodist theology and polity.

First the history.

When I was ordained on a very hot Sunday in June of 1973 in the chapel of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the Book of Discipline did not say that as a pastor I would be forbidden to officiate at same sex weddings.

In contrast to the apocalyptic pronouncements of traditionalists today, the 1972 Book of Discipline made a very mild statement about same sex marriage: “We do not recommend marriage between two persons of the same sex.”

That’s the sentence. There was no prohibition; just a recommendation.

That Book of Discipline spoke of our need to understand the gift of our human sexuality and called upon “Medical, theological, and humanistic disciplines” to combine “in a determined effort to understand human sexuality more completely."

And then after a long section affirming that “Homosexuals no less than heterosexuals are persons of sacred worth,” and insisting that “all persons are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured,” the Discipline ended with the disclaimer, “though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

That unholy sentence about same sex relationships being "incompatible with Christian teaching" did not seem nearly as harsh then, coming after a long section on rights and sacred worth and expressing an openness to continued learning.

There was nothing about penalties for celebrating a same sex marriage. And the whole section carried within it the implicit assumption that we would gain more insight as we partnered with social scientists and clinicians in the study of human sexuality.

The second point is about how we do theology.

The Discipline has always been an evolving document and on that hot June day in the Mount Holyoke chapel, I was confident then that we would find our way in this matter just as we had eventually found our way on slavery and segregation and the rights of women.

I was not under any illusions about the nature of the church. I knew that I was taking part in an imperfect human institution. But I also knew that the church had done great things in the past and I believed that we would do great things in the future. I believed that part of my responsibility as a United Methodist was to lead the church into the future.

And I still believe that.

Aside from one bad sentence and one less than positive sentence, that 1972 Book of Discipline is an amazing document. There is a whole section affirming “theological pluralism” and a broad sense of the spiritual journey as unfinished business. When I read it I am reminded of why I became a United Methodist pastor in the first place.

The traditionalists are correct when they point out that across two millennia of Christian history the church has generally condemned and marginalized LGBTQ persons.

That is a sinful miscarriage of our responsibility as followers of Christ, for which we must repent. And we must ask the forgiveness of our LGBTQ siblings.

But we should remember that the church also condoned slavery for most of those same centuries. The future is supposed to be better than the past. We are supposed to learn and grow.

As Jeremiah proclaimed God’s vision: “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)


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

*Portions of this blog were originally published on 11/13/15

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.