United Methodist Schism and the Global Pandemic

God has made us competent 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

Sky McCracken has one of the best names ever. Obviously, he should have been an astronaut or an astronomer, but apparently he is a pastor.

He is not an in-person acquaintance nor is he a virtual “friend,” but he is an online acauaintance and a colleague. 

(Of course, I don’t really know that, but I believe it to be true.) 

My sense is that we have markedly different theological perspectives, but I very much appreciate his thoughtfulness and his willingness to dialog with others.

I don’t know him, except through his posts and comments in various United Methodist clergy groups.

Yesterday he posted this in the United Methodist Clergy group:

“It might just be me... but right now, a church/denominational schism seems the height of selfishness and hypocrisy. My hunch is, in the months to come it may even become irrelevant, and pushing such in the light of a much greater crisis will further expose our self-centeredness and false selves.”

It was, I thought, an invitation to soul-searching and reflection. A good place to start a reflection on Lent and the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of the United Methodist Church.

There were two short thoughtful reflections and then we were off into crazyland. 

I suppose I should be grateful that we didn’t immediately go to ALL CAPS. But we did get this:

“Irrelevant, selfish? Wow, neither really come to mind. Just because of the virus people are not going to all the sudden uphold the vows they took at ordination or when they became bishop! Nor begin to celebrate sin! Keep dreaming!”

Few things are more important to the world today than the fear that somewhere and somehow there are people who are celebrating sin!

And not just any sin.

This is about same sex marriage. And gay clergy.

Forget about COVID-19 and a global pandemic. We need to focus on what really matters. This is our “Bonhoeffer moment.”

I think as I write this there have been over 100 comments on the original post. Some thoughtful. Some pained. Many sincere.

But there are way too many that seem to come from some strange pseudo-Calvinist belief that the core of biblical faith is found in the total depravity of humanity and the wrath of God, which is mitigated only by right belief in Jesus and absolute conformity to the rules of the Bible as understood by the one writing the comments.

And, needless to say, the folks who write this stuff are certain (absolutely) that they are not mis-interpreting the text because the text does not need to be interpreted. They are just stating the facts.

In this view, the Bible is not a living Word. It is a dead letter. But if the Bible is a dead letter about judgment rather than grace, then we have lost everything matters in Christian faith.

I want to give the last word to Janet Gollery McKeithen:

“I agree with you Sky, but these comments really make me nauseated. Unbelievable that people believe in some kind of God that creates people who will go to eternal damnation. And they act self-righteous about it. They have pride in condemning others and causing suicides and splitting families. I am really sick again. Let's deal with the fact that the most vulnerable among us are going to suffer more that anyone else during this crisis. Let's see how we can help them and then change the oppressive system that brought us to this place. That's enough to do. The UMC is imploding on it own.”

Janet agrees with Sky and I agree with Janet.

I am especially pleased that she used “nauseated” rather than the technically incorrect though commonly used “nauseous” in that sentence.

Like Janet, I was nauseated by the nauseous comments.

(I think I used that correctly, but if I didn't then there are friends who will correct me.)





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

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.

Rebuking the Demons of a Faithless and Perverse Generation

On the next day, when Jesus and Peter and James and John came down from the mountain, a great crowd met them. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.
Luke 9:37-43

When they had come down from the mountain

Fifteen years ago on Transfiguration Sunday when I preached on this text, we had just gotten home from a Mission Trip with our Youth Group to the Rural Mission on John’s Island near Charleston, South Carolina.

John’s Island is a place of incredible natural beauty and yet it is also a place of devastating poverty. We had worshiped the previous Sunday with St. James United Methodist Church and it was wonderful, as it is every year. To sing James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with a Black congregation was an incredibly moving experience. When they sang, 

“Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died,”

I could not help thinking that the people in worship with me were, in fact, the great grandchildren of those who had been sold at the market in Charleston, just a few miles away.

I came to church on that Transfiguration Sunday emotionally exhausted from an experience that maybe gave just a glimmer of what the disciples experienced with Jesus. I think I felt some sense of what they felt when they came down the mountain.

Every great experience ends and we have to go back to life as it was. Whether it’s a retreat, or a summer camp, or a terrific vacation, or an anniversary celebration, or a graduation, or even a memorial service; eventually it ends. We go through those high moments of insight and inspiration and emotion, but eventually we have to come down. Peter wanted to make dwellings there, but you can’t stay on the mountain top. The experience ends, and you have to come down.

“Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.”

When you come down, reentry is difficult. That’s what happens for Jesus and the disciples. They come down, and they find a crowd gathered. There’s a man whose son has a demon and he wants desperately to have that son healed. “My son,” he says, “my only child.” And he describes what happens to the boy: “It seizes him and mauls him and throws him to the ground, and sometimes he foams at the mouth.” Can you hear how deeply and desperately this man cares for his son?

You know what that’s like.

One of Jesus’ great gifts and one of his expectations of us is to care just as deeply as the father. To care just as deeply as the parents; not only for that child, but for all the other children across the whole human family. 

“You faithless and perverse generation!”

The desperate father; the disciples powerless to do anything; and Jesus says, “You faithless and perverse generation! How much longer must I put up with you?” Words that are eternally contemporary. I suspect that Jesus is just as frustrated with us as he was with them.

You come down from the mountain and the world is still crazy. There are still problems and still issues to address.

I checked my email when I got home from the Mission Trip and there was an invitation to a press conference on Tuesday morning for religious leaders supporting equal access to marriage; supporting Gay Marriage.

I read that and I said to myself, “I do not want to do this.” I walked into the kitchen, and I said to Elaine, “I’ve got a decision to make.” And I explained the situation. She said, “What’s the decision?” I said, “Well, I need to decide whether or not I’m going to go.” And she said, “Why would you not go?” “Because,” I said, “I don’t like to make people unhappy. It’s a controversial issue and it will make some people unhappy.”

“So,” she said, “You don’t want people to be uncomfortable.”

And then after a pause she said, “Some people have been uncomfortable their whole lives.”

I told the congregation why I had decided to go.

I said I knew it was controversial and I knew that some people saw this as a threat to marriage. But for me the threats to marriage were lack of commitment, lack of communication, and lack of trust. The fact that there were people of the same sex who want to make that commitment was something that we should celebrate. 

It was a good thing. For years the gay community has been criticized for promiscuity and yet there has been no avenue for a legal and sacred commitment. In an age when it is so hard to get anyone to make a commitment about anything, and at a time when commitment is in such short supply in the heterosexual community, I found it incredibly moving to see gay and lesbian couples lining up to promise their lives to each other.

I asked myself, “What would Jesus do?” And the question is answered as soon as it is asked. Jesus is always on the side of compassion.

Jesus says to the people, with great frustration, “you faithless and perverse generation!” 

Why is he frustrated? It’s not because they were good when he left and they’ve been bad while he was away, and now he has to correct them and get them back on track. The problem is not that they were good and now they are bad. The problem is that they are just the same now as when he left. 

The problem is that they have not changed. They have not grown. And over and over throughout the Bible, that is the problem. The people of Israel want to go back to Egypt because they are uncomfortable moving forward through the wilderness. Growth is always uncomfortable. But, like the people of Israel, we need to move forward.

The next step is always hard. And honestly, sometimes people just need time. Over time, we meet people, we experience things and we live through it.

I believe with all my heart and soul and mind and strength that the benediction I pronounce on Sunday morning is true, “that God loves us and accepts us just the way we are.” But I also believe just as deeply that God does not expect me to be in the same place today that I was yesterday. 

The purpose of God’s unconditional love and acceptance is to give us room to grow. We cannot take the risk of growth unless we know that love is there. That’s why it’s so important that children feel loved and accepted. We don’t want them to stay eighth graders forever. When they are three and four we may feel like we want them to be preschoolers forever, but we really don’t. And heaven knows we don’t want them to be teenagers forever. We want them to grow. And God wants us to grow.

The frustration Jesus has with this group of people is that they have not changed. They have not grown. And isn’t that the problem with the Traditionalism? The wilderness is hard and they want to go back to Egypt.

Jesus rebuked the demon, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

Jesus expresses his frustration and then he rebukes the demon. The language is hard for us. It seems very strange to speak of demons, but it’s a symbolic way of speaking about the evil in our lives. And it says something that we know is true: there are demons in our lives. Materialism, greed, the lust for power, and selfishness; those are all demons in our lives. Racism and xenophobia are demons. 

And homophobia is a demon. 

The demons seize us and convulse us and sometimes they even make us foam at the mouth. There are times, many times, when those demons must be rebuked. 

And all were astounded 

at the greatness of God.

When the demons are rebuked and we are healed it is astounding. It is testimony to the greatness of God.

In our United Methodist Church on this Transfiguration Sunday in 2019, we are not there yet. We are still mired in the demons of a perverse and foolish generation. We need to move forward. We need to rebuke the demons.


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

Losing My Religion

Thirty years ago I mentored a young man who wanted to be a United Methodist minister.

He and his family came to the church looking for Christian education for the kids. They had no real church background. It was all new. They loved the church right away and were soon at the center of church life.

Tom (not his real name) asked lots of questions. He asked about the Bible and about theology and we had some great conversations. He was smart and inquisitive and totally captured by Jesus. He wanted to be a disciple in every possible way.

It was not long before he spoke with me about becoming a candidate for ordained ministry. I remember the excitement we felt when the congregation voted to support and affirm his candidacy.

He left his job and went to seminary full time.

I was convinced that he had the gifts and graces for ministry and that he would be a great pastor.

It soon became clear from our conversations that Tom was becoming much more conservative in his theology and that he was trending toward a much more literalistic reading of the Bible. In my mind, that was less than optimum but I still could see him as an excellent pastor.

But the Conference Board of Ministry did not see him as I did. They turned him down. They continued him as a Local Pastor but they would not recommend him for ordination.

I was outraged.

I made phone calls to everyone I could think of, including the Bishop, to plead his case. I wrote letters and the church wrote letters.

There was plenty of room for Tom, I thought, in the big tent of United Methodist theology.

And I had many conversations about it with friends and colleagues.

One of those conversations imprinted itself in my brain.

My friend and colleague Kent Moorehead listened attentively as I told him what had happened to Tom and how zealously I had advocated on his behalf.

After a short exchange, Kent smiled and told me that he admired my loyalty and my efforts. Then he said this:

“That’s great, Bill, but you do realize that if they are ever in the majority, those people will vote you out in a heartbeat.”

And yesterday in St. Louis that is exactly what they did.

Tom was not there. He drifted  around some very conservative churches in our conference and then into other denominations. But his soul mates were in St. Louis. And by a slim margin they voted to make United Methodism a rigidly literalistic and judgmental denomination with no room for dissent.

They chose law over grace.

They put the highest value on obeying the rules.

They will talk about biblical authority, but what they mean is that everyone should agree with how they read the Bible: with narrow judgment focused on the narrow issue of LGBTQIA exclusion.

That’s it.

Technically, I have not lost my religion. I can still be a Christian. But I have lost my denomination.

I will not go gently.

I will not comply with the demand for a loyalty oath.

And I will work for a new and better church rising from the wreckage.

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

Collateral Damage

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”

Matthew 23:23-24

We need to be absolutely clear that in the Christian Church’s war on LGBTQ persons, our LGBTQ siblings have borne the overwhelming weight of the suffering. The Traditionalists often claim that they have had no desire to hurt anyone, but that does not mitigate the pain they have inflicted.

But there has also been collateral damage.

And the collateral damage should not be underestimated. It is wide and deep and it will have lasting effects on the whole church.

We have trivialized our understanding of the Bible.

We are straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

There are seven passages in the Bible that are typically used to “prove” that the Bible condemns same sex relationships. They consist of a few hundred words; a small fraction of the total word count of nearly a million.

And these seven “clobber verses” are all problematic in one way or another. When Christians act as if an authoritative biblical witness can be found by lifting these seven passages out of context we trivialize the whole Bible.

Those who read the Bible this way become de facto literalists and they make it much more difficult to appreciate the Bible as a guide to faith. It becomes a rule book rather than an inspiring narrative. Instead of being a book of big ideas, it becomes a book of isolated verses.

And those who have tried to counter the condemnations of the traditionalists have typically joined the debate on those same terms. We counter one series of passages with another. We cite verses. And even though we may be using those verses as illustrations rather than as proof texts, to the secular world it looks like proof-texting.

It is more like a game of biblical trivia than an honest exploration of the biblical witness. And the result is that we diminish the meaning of the Scriptures.

We appear to care more about archaic and anachronistic rules than we do about actual human beings. The traditionalists may claim to be honoring Scripture. And that may be their honest intention. But in practical terms, they achieve a high view of Scripture by making a few verses more important than the people for whom the whole biblical witness is intended.

We have trivialized the meaning of sin.

Paul Tillich, one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth (or any other) century, questioned whether the Christian concept of sin could survive in the modern world. He argued that for modern people a more helpful word for sin is separation.  In his famous sermon, “You Are Accepted,” he described sin as a state of separation: separation from God, from others, and from ourselves. And he defined grace as the acceptance which overcomes that separation and reunites us with God, with others, and with ourselves.

If sin was a difficult concept in the middle of the twentieth century, it is nearly impossible now.

The traditionalist focus on the “sin” of same sex relationships is spectacularly unhelpful.

In the 21^st century we do not see sex as inherently sinful. Forced sex is sinful. Unfaithfulness we can see as sinful. But sex between consenting and committed adults is not seen as sinful. Almost every couple I have married has been living together. And those that weren’t living together were typically splitting time between houses or apartments.

Focusing on the sin of same sex relationships comes off as hypocritical.

But that is not the biggest problem.

When we try to identify sin with same sex relationships we lose focus on the sins that are central to the biblical witness: economic and social injustice. The Bible is far more concerned with how we treat poor people than with our sex lives.

The focus on sex is petty and hypocritical and it takes away from issues that really should concern us as Christians.

We have made it look like we do not believe in science.

The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental illness from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) approximately twenty minutes after the United Methodist Church declared it to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Those of us who actually believed in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience) assumed it would not be long before the Book of Discipline caught up with the science and revised our understanding of same sex relationships. But we underestimated the growing influence of right wing theology and selective biblical literalism.

We are at odds with the best insights of science and medicine.

We appear backward, primitive, and superstitious.

And United Methodists find themselves lumped together with those who think the world was made in seven days five thousand years ago, and evolution is a hoax. Not surprisingly, this costs us credibility. But it goes far beyond sex and biology. The bad science undermines the biblical witness across a broad spectrum of ethical and moral issues.

It makes us appear irrelevant.

And then. Finally. We just look stupid.

Traditionalists can talk about being counter-cultural, and that could be a good thing. We should be counter-cultural in our rejection of violence, and greed, and selfishness.

At its core, Christianity is profoundly counter-cultural.

But this. Is just. Stupid.

As a wise person once observed, “Just because you are a fool does not mean you are a fool for Christ. Sometimes you’re just a damned fool.”

Those of us who are still affirming a faith that is open and accepting might hope that we would not be affected by the loud condemnations of the traditionalists. But it just doesn’t work that way.

Those who condemn our LGBTQ siblings do not speak for the whole church. They certainly do not speak for the whole of the United Methodist Church.

They do not speak for the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalists, and others.

And in a broader faith context they do not speak for Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Judaism.

But to much of the secular world, and among many casual Christians, those voices of condemnation sound like the official voice of Christianity. And, in a general sense, condemnation seems like the singular voice of organized religion.

In the war on our LGBTQ siblings, Christianity is just collateral damage.

*It is important to read the 23^rd chapter of Matthew within the context of our understanding that Jesus was himself a Pharisee and that what he describes is an internal conflict.

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

Traditionalism: Hardened Hearts and Dull Ears

Millennial Panel at Uniting Methodists Conference- photo by IRD

"For the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”
Matthew 15:6-9

Jesus is hard on traditionalists. It is a point that seems lost on today’s traditionalists, who wear that label proudly. And yes, they do wear it "proudly" in spite of the fact that Jesus is also critical of religious pride.

And few things are more traditional in response to those who are different, and marginalized for their differences, than a hard heart.

As Jesus says:

This people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.”
Matthew 13:15

The hardened heart of traditionalism was on full display in an article posted in the Juicy Ecumenism blog of The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

In a post titled, “Uniting MethodistsPanelists: the Bible Is Wrong,” Dan Moran reports on a conference sponsored by the “Uniting Methodists” caucus and focusing on the “One Church Plan” endorsed by the Council of Bishops as a “Way Forward” for the United Methodist Church.

The article is almost entirely devoted to commentary on a panel discussion led by the Rev. Mike Baughman who is the lead pastor for Union, a new church start in Dallas, Texas. The participants were four young milennials who are leaders of the worship planning tea at Union. Moran voices disappointment that all of the panelists “were fully LBBTQ-affirming,” and then concludes that, “The unorthodox beliefs shared by these ‘Uniting Methodists’ panelists appear to speak clearly to the heart and future aspirations of this caucus and its preferred plan.”

Moran centers his analysis of the discussion on a comment by Lauren Manza, “who identifies as lesbian.” She was, in Moran’s words, “unabashed in criticizing the Bible itself.”

He writes that when she was speaking about same sex marriage and commenting on “the verses that traditionalists use to argue against it,” Moran reports that she said:

“I believe if I sat down with Paul today, Paul would say ‘I’m not down for that,’ but I think the Bible’s wrong.”

The emphasis is Moran’s.

That’s the issue. She thinks the Bible is wrong.

Clearly, for the traditionalists, that was was a “gotcha” moment.

And to make matters worse, Rev. Baughman did not correct her.

“Instead of providing a counterpoint to her attack on Biblical authority, Baughman continued Manza’s train of thought.” He recalled that there were times when a member of the worship planning team would ask, “Can we just say the Bible’s wrong?”

“One of the things that’s been interesting,” said Baughman, “is I think there is this sense among a lot of millennials that just because the Bible says something, that doesn’t mean it has any authority whatsoever.”

He is talking about the saying, not the Bible. The saying does not have authority just because it is in the Bible. Which is not the same as saying that the whole Bible has no authority.

Not surprisingly, the assertion that the Bible doesn’t have “any authority whatsoever” caught the attention of the traditionalists.

At last, the progressive agenda has been exposed!

One typical comment asks, “If the Bible is wrong, why do we even have it anymore? Just throw it out with the rest of our morals and “do our thing”. And then he adds, “Satan is alive and well in the Methodist Church – I know he is in ours.”

Moran summarizes it this way:

“Baughman and the panel ultimately presented an approach of disregarding the fundamental concept of the Bible as the ultimate source of religious truth and authority. They commended this approach to their audience on the grounds that some young Americans at this particular moment in cultural history find it acceptable. . . . If there was any doubt that the agenda of the ‘One Church Plan’ and its most enthusiastic supporters is liberalizing the UMC, this panel made it clear.”

The Uniting Methodists have a very different vision for the future of the UMC than the traditionalists do. And the biggest difference is that the Uniting Methodists want to preserve a place for the traditionalists, while the traditionalists have no place for the progressives. In the traditionalist plan, the progressives, like their LGBTQ siblings, are welcome to stay only if they cease to be progressive or gay.

Which leads me to three observations, a question, and a final comment:

First, the panelists were not talking about the Bible as a whole. They were talking about a few verses. And those verses are far from the center of the biblical message.

Second, the authority of Scripture is not verse by verse. The authority of the Bible is found in its great overarching themes of grace and justice and building the Kingdom of God on earth. Individual verses or passages can never be decisive.

Third, we all know that the Bible is “wrong” at many points. Even the most devoted hard line traditionalists don’t believe in executing people for having same sex relations. And that’s just the handiest example. One of the most important tasks of biblical interpretation is separating those things which are time-bound and reflect the limits of ancient culture from those truths which are eternal.

Fourth, a question: When did United Methodists become biblical inerrantists? Or biblical literalists, for that matter? There is nothing even remotely Wesleyan or Methodist about biblical inerrantism.

And finally, just for the record, I’m confident that if Lauren Manza could sit down with the Apostle Paul today, he would agree with her.

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

The Complaint Against Jeff Sessions

"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Matthew 18:15-17

Jesus outlines a three step process for confronting sinners.

First, go to the person in private. Second, visit with the person again and bring other church folks with you. And then if steps one and two don’t work, bring your complaint to the church.

Lately we Methodists have been pretty much skipping steps one and two. Although, given the nature of recent complaints, I don’t think that matters much.

I am not really a fan of the complaint process, at least not as it has been most frequently used in recent years. Those complaints have all been about gay clergy or clergy officiating at same sex marriages. And the complaints have often been filed by folks at a distance with no real connection to the supposed offenses. 

The good thing about the complaint brought against Attorney General Jeff Sessions is that it moves us from the imaginary sins of same sex relationships to the real sins of oppression and marginalization. Mr. Sessions is a member of the Ashland Place United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama and regularly attends the Clarendon UMC in Alexandria, Virginia. The complaint is addressed to the pastors of those churches.

The letter of complaint was organized by the Rev. David Wright, an elder in the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and chaplain at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. It has been signed by over six hundred clergy and laity of the church.

There is no doubt that these are very serious issues. And by every standard of Christian faith and ethics, the policy of separating children from their parents at the border is misguided at best. Our vilification of immigrants should be of deep concern to every Christian, and to every American. It is wrong and it is not a small matter.

But is it a good idea for us to point fingers at one another within the context of the church?

The answer, I think, is complicated.

It’s not a good idea to point fingers. And in our United Methodist context there is the very real possibility that the Sessions complaint will be seen as morally equivalent to the many complaints related to LGBTQ inclusion or exclusion. But that is a false equivalence. Our government has inflicted real harm on folks at our southern border. That is in no way equivalent to a clergy person officiating at a same sex wedding.

It is bizarre to think it might even be necessary to make that statement!

And the complaint against the Attorney General is largely symbolic. He will not lose his membership in the church or be asked not to attend. There will be no real consequences. This is only about raising consciousness and stimulating discussion. 

It is important to remember that at its core this is a moral issue. It is an issue of faith and practice. It is about our vision of the Kingdom of God. We in the church need to address the issue of immigration and the arguments surrounding it as a fundamental part of who we are. The Sessions complaint reminds us that though we must always "speak the truth in love," we must nevertheless speak the truth.

And that’s a good thing.



This is the complaint:

Pursuant to Paragraph 2702.3 of the 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline, we hereby charge Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Attorney General of the United States, a professing member and/or active participant of Ashland Place United Methodist Church (Mobile, Alabama) and Clarendon United Methodist Church (Alexandria, Virginia), with the chargeable offenses of:

• Child Abuse (examples: advocacy for and implementation of documented practices that indefinitely separate thousands of young children from their parents; holding thousands of children in mass incarceration facilities with little to no structured educational or socio-emotional support)

• Immorality (examples: the use of violence against children to deter immigration; advocating and supporting the separation of children from their families; refusal of refugee/asylee status to those fleeing gang or sexual violence; oppression of those seeking asylum or attempting to enter the United States with refugee status; directing employees and staff members to kidnap children from their parents)

• Racial discrimination (examples: stopping investigations of police departments charged with racial discrimination; attempting to criminalize Black Lives Matter and other racial justice activist groups; targeting incarceration for those engaged in undocumented border crossings as well as those who present with requests for asylum, with a particular focus on those perceived as Muslim or LatinX)

• Dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church (examples: the misuse of Romans 13 to indicate the necessity of obedience to secular law, which is in stark contrast to Disciplinary commitments to supporting freedom of conscience and resistance to unjust laws)


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

Mean and Meaner

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

On May 7 the United Methodist Council of Bishops announced the results of voting on five amendments to the church’s constitution.

The first and second of the proposed amendments dealt with promoting gender equality and both were narrowly defeated, falling just short of the two-thirds majority needed for adoption.

Our church failed to support gender equality.

I know. 

Seriously. 

You’re thinking, “Did I just get caught in a time warp? Isn’t this the twenty-first century?”

Apparently, some of those wacky Methodists are still stuck in the 1800’s. We really are a crazy bunch of folks. This is the point at which our atheist friends just roll their eyes. And the church—the whole church—takes another step toward cultural irrelevance.

To their credit, the Council of Bishops expressed “dismay” at the results.

But not everyone is unhappy. Writing in the “Juicy Ecumenism” blog of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis celebrated the vote as a victory for “faithful” and “orthodox” United Methodists.

The good news is that this clearly reveals the patriarchal bias behind the “orthodox” objections to the full inclusion of LGBTQ folks in the life of the church. The IRD and the Wesleyan Covenant Association and their allies embrace a narrow biblical literalism which leads to an anti-female as well as anti-gay agenda.

This is the full text of the first amendment, which fell short of adoption when it received 66.5% of the vote:

“As the Holy Scripture reveals, both men and women are made in the image of God and, therefore, men and women are of equal value in the eyes of God. The United Methodist Church recognizes it is contrary to Scripture and to logic to say that God is male or female, as maleness and femaleness are characteristics of human bodies and cultures, not characteristics of the divine. The United Methodist Church acknowledges the long history of discrimination against women and girls. The United Methodist Church shall confront and seek to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large. The United Methodist Church shall work collaboratively with others to address concerns that threaten the cause of women’s and girl's equality and well-being.”

The problem, according to Mr. Lomperis, is in this sentence: “The United Methodist Church recognizes it is contrary to Scripture and to logic to say that God is male or female, as maleness and femaleness are characteristics of human bodies and cultures, not characteristics of the divine.”

Mr. Lomperis acknowledges that “there is some to truth to this sentence,” but he argues that “some radical United Methodists have challenged honestly acknowledging the fact that Jesus Christ is a human male,” and worries that this sentence might be used to advance “such agendas.”

It would be helpful if “traditionalists” could “honestly acknowledge” that while the historical Jesus was a male human being, that is not a proper description of the cosmic Christ, the risen one who is present to us now. When we see Christ present in the world today, that presence is not limited by gender.

But wait.

There’s more. And Mr. Lomperis puts it in bold for emphasis:

“Among older generations of seminary radicals in our denomination, there was once a strong movement to avoid using any ‘masculine words’ in reference to God – such as ‘He,’ ‘Him,’ ‘His,’ ‘Father,’ ‘King,’ or ‘Kingdom’ – no matter how awkward this could make some sentences sound. The defeat of Amendment #1 would seem to indicate that this movement has crested, and is now mercifully fading within the United Methodist Church. Thanks be to God!”

Speaking for at least some members of that “older generation,” I am flattered to be called a radical. Isn’t that what disciples of Christ are supposed to be? (If only we really lived up to that description!)

I confess that the movement led to some awkward hymn lyrics, but there are two very important points on the other side. First, the masculine language for God is part of the devaluation of women. And second, that language reinforces our tendency toward anthropomorphic images for God.

Mr. Lomperis finds the second proposed amendment, which gained 61.3% of the vote, even more objectionable:

“The United Methodist Church is part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ.  The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth. All persons shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, upon baptism be admitted as baptized members, and upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith, become professing members in any local church in the connection.  In the United Methodist church, no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body of the Church because of race, color, national origin, ability, or economic condition, nor shall any member be denied access to an equal place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church because of race, color, gender, national origin, ability, age, marital status, or economic condition.”

This, he argues, was a “sneaky” attempt to commit the United Methodist Church “to absolute non-discrimination for ALL levels of leadership (‘in the life, worship, and governance of the Church’) on the basis of ‘gender,’ ‘marital status,’ ‘age,’ or ‘ability.’”

He fears that “marital status” might be used to support those in same sex marriages and that a “transgenderist ideology” might insist on the ordination of “individuals who reject their God-given sexual identity and claim a ‘gender’ of being something other than male or female.”

I am sure Mr. Lomperis does not see the hatefulness and cruelty in his statement. 

But read it again. 

He defines transgender folks as “individuals who reject their God-given sexual identity and claim a ‘gender’ of being something other than male or female.”

When I think about the pain some people go through in understanding who they are and struggling to align what they know to be true about their deepest identity with how they present themselves in the world—and when I think about how they are often bullied by “Christians” who believe that they have “rejected their God-given sexual identity,” it breaks my heart.

Writing again in bold face, Mr. Lomperis concludes:

“The defeat of Amendment #2 shows that not only have liberals been losing ground in their efforts to get our General Conference to submit to LGBTQ ideology, but that liberals lack the strength to sneakily achieve their goals even through such a roundabout way as this innocent-sounding, hard-to-oppose proposal, which was effectively a Trojan horse.”

It is worth noting again that though we did “lack the strength” to enact these amendments, the “yes” votes were over 60% on both amendments, and significantly higher in the United States. This was not really a rejection; it was a failure of affirmation.

But beyond that, the vote and the explanation of it give us a clear indication of the motivations behind the work of the IRD, the WAC, Good News, the Confessing Movement, UM Action, and their allies. 

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

Finding the Way Forward

Bishop Bruce Ough, Preaching to the Council of Bishops

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 

Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:46-52

Bishop Bruce Ough, President of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, used that text for his sermon as he addressed the Bishops gathered in Chicago for a weeklong meeting to develop a response to the work of the Commission on a Way Forward for the United Methodist Church.

For decades the United Methodist Church has been willfully blind to the cries of our LGBTQ siblings and their allies. Bishop Ough did not say that to his colleagues, but he came close. You can read the whole sermon by clicking here.

“Dear colleagues,” he declared, “the church is watching. The world is watching us. The eyes of the entire denomination, and many of our ecumenical partners, are upon us as we gather this week. An anxious, schismatic, yet profoundly hopeful church is watching, waiting, wondering what will be our response to the final report from the Commission on a Way Forward.  What will we recommend?  What will we discern?  What will we decide?”

For better or worse, the world is not watching. I don’t even think most Methodists are watching, though perhaps they should be.

This is a momentous time for us as a denomination. And Bishop Ough challenged his colleagues:

“We will have to determine – individually and collectively – if we are seeking a win for the whole church, particularly those on the margins of the church and society and the generations yet to be reached and yet to be born – or if we are only seeking an immediate, short-term win for our constituency, caucus or conference. This is the only way we will have a chance to become a leadership group.”

Are we “seeking a win for the whole church, particularly those on the margins?”

Will we finally end our discrimination against our LGBTQ siblings, or will we double down on exclusion by increasing the penalties against LGBTQ pastors or pastors who officiate at same sex weddings?

Bishop Ough told a story about the first time he served communion as a student pastor. As soon as he gave the invitation, his son Stuart, who was five or six at the time, jumped up from his seat and raced toward the communion table. A woman in the front pew reached out at the last possible moment, grabbed Stuart, and sat him down beside her. Stuart was in tears.

On the way home from church, Stuart sat in the back seat of the car, crying. Bishop Ough and his wife “tried to explain to him why the congregation’s tradition of not having children participate in communion was to be respected for the time being” (emphasis mine.)

Not surprisingly, those explanations “were hollow and did not heal his broken spirit.”

In between sobs, Stuart repeatedly asked, “Why can’t I come and have some of Jesus’ bread and juice?”

And that story led the bishop to this conclusion:

“Friends, there are tens of thousands of persons within our churches, and many hundreds of thousands more beyond our churches, who are sobbing uncontrollably today because in one form or another, intentionally or simply mistakenly, we have kept them from the table of the fullness of God’s grace, love and healing presence.”

I don’t know whether or not his colleagues said, “Amen!” but they should have.

As I understand it, at this point the United Methodist Church has four choices.

We can get rid of the discriminatory language in the Book of Discipline and become a fully inclusive church.

We can embrace the idea that more severe  punishments will solve the problem. Under this plan there would be mandatory suspensions and expulsions for rule violations in terms of same sex weddings and LGBTQ clergy.

We can structure an amicable divorce. There would be a denomination for those who want to continue a practice of LGBTQ exclusion and another one for those who don’t.

Or we can allow for a local option in which Annual Conferences will decide whom to ordain and Pastors will decide whom they will marry.

The first three plans will all result in schism. The Wesleyan Covenant Association and its allies will not stay in a denomination that does not allow for discrimination. If we go with more severe punishments, some progressives may leave and others will continue to defy the rules, which will then lead to more WCA defections. And in the third option, the schism would be planned.

The problem with the local option is that it allows for both inclusion and discrimination.

Allowing for discrimination is not enough for the WCA  and it is too much for many progressives. The traditionalists want discriminatioin to be mandatory and the progressives want it to be prohibited.

What all four options have in common is that changes to our Discipline and structure will not change hearts and minds. Some folks will continue to exclude and others will continue to include. The debate is not really about what people will do or believe; it is about whether or not they will continue to call themselves United Methodists.

When the United States Congress passes a law against discrimination, everyone has to obey it. But church policy is a very different matter. If people don’t agree with a policy; they can leave. Churches and pastors don’t have to change their behavior; they can leave.

If it is not completely obvious in this post, regular readers of the blog know that I am passionately in favor of full inclusion for all of God’s people. In terms of Christian social ethics, this issue was settled years ago. But I also care deeply about local churches. Deciding whether or not a local church will support same sex weddings may be painful, but it will not be as painful as deciding whether or not to leave the denomination.

The traditionalists will change their minds on this issue, just as they changed on slavery and segregation and women’s issues. Times change. The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. 

Change will come whether we separate or stay together. But I believe that change will come sooner if we stay together than if we separate.

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