The Wesleyan Covenant Association is rightly named as “fanning fears of schism” in a recent letter, but they are not the cause of it.
Bishop’s Letter & Professor’s Objection
Recently, the Bishops of The United Methodist Church released a statement updating United Methodism on the Bishop’s Commission progress (read more here). It has some good logistical updates and timelines and helpful information. But to Methodists on social media, all that mattered was one sentence:
We began by acknowledging the profound dissonance between what the Council had proposed to the General Conference in May and the reality within the church in July. The landscape has changed dramatically. The reported declarations of non-compliance from several annual conferences, the intention to convene a Wesleyan Covenant Association and the election of the Rev. Karen Oliveto as a bishop of the church have opened deep wounds and fissures within The United Methodist Church and fanned fears of schism.
In response to this section, Professor Kevin Watson at Candler School of Theology at Emory University penned a blog post in contention of the Wesleyan Covenant Association being included in a list, stating:
The Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA) should not have been included in the list of actions that “have opened deep wounds and fissures within The United Methodist Church and fanned fears of schism.” Including the WCA in this list reads like a distracting and disparaging attempt to say that both extremes in The UMC are at fault for the current trajectory of United Methodism. But this is misleading…The WCA is different in that it is not an annual conference or jurisdiction. Most importantly, the WCA has not taken any action in contradiction or violation of The Book of Discipline.
In short, Dr. Watson claims that the WCA, an organization that solicits congregational and individual affiliation in order “to uphold and promote biblical teaching on marriage and human sexuality,” should not be included in the list that the Bishops named because they have not violated the Discipline.
The Symptoms: Fears of Schism
Dr. Watson misses the general argument by failing to name why the WCA was included in the Bishop’s statement. Let’s look at the sentence again and bold the antecedent:
The reported declarations of non-compliance from several annual conferences, the intention to convene a Wesleyan Covenant Association and the election of the Rev. Karen Oliveto as a bishop of the church have opened deep wounds and fissures within The United Methodist Church and fanned fears of schism.
Context matters, even for academics. We see the Bishops were naming that the formation of the WCA either (a) opened deep wounds or (b) contributed to fears of schism. Dr. Watson objects to (a) but doesn’t address (b) in his writing. Claims to be “upholding the covenant” do not override the reality that this group is seen as a schismatic action.
Because when you look at WCA’s structure, it has several aspects that do indeed indicate a schismatic possibility:
- Membership fees. The WCA charges membership fees, whereas groups like Reconciling Ministries Network merely ask for donations. Since the first missional responsibility of a congregation is to pay their apportionments, criticism is justified of a church that pays WCA membership fees but is not 100% paid on its apportionments (or withholds them entirely like a North Georgia congregation).
- Creedal Belief Structure. The WCA requires assent to a creedal list of beliefs, whereas groups like RMN do not, trusting that diversity of theological beliefs lead to a reconciled church open to LGBTQ persons.
- Voting Delegates. The WCA functions more like an annual conference gathering with voting delegates from member churches, whereas RMN/Good News/Confessing operate as a professional non-profit with a board of directors, audits, etc.
You can see that the Bishops are justified in including the WCA in their list of events “fanning fears of schism” even if adherents do not. And if the WCA starts to operate like a parallel conference, then we see that Watson’s claim it does not “constitute a polity unit” falls flat if it actively tries to be one.
Time will tell. We’ll know more after the WCA’s constitutive meeting in October.
The Cause: 1972
While Dr. Watson and his commenters are offended at the WCA being included, the three events are actually alike in that they are symptoms of the same cause.
At the 1972 General Conference, after study of human sexuality for four years by a special commission (sound familiar?), the statement on homosexuality recommended was thus:
Homosexuals no less than heterosexuals are persons of sacred worth, who need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment, as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship which enables reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self. Further we insist that all persons are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured.”
But on the floor, a final segment was added:
though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.
We see that the reactionary language was not made by those who struggled and worked together for years to craft a common statement. And ever since, the symptoms of Biblical Obedience, Wesleyan Covenant Association, and the Confessing Movement/Reconciling Ministries/etc, and trial after trial all stem from this vote and subsequent efforts to remove it have not been successful.
What began as a pastoral statement became weaponized, and that’s the cause of our conflict.
One of these IS not like the other
In the end, Dr. Watson is correct that one of those is not like the other.
Both the non-conformity actions by creative minorities and the election of a gay bishop name that discriminatory laws dwell in United Methodism. Like excluding women from ordination or black Americans from serving white churches, we could not move forward as a Church until we removed those discriminatory laws. The tactics are different, but the conviction is the same.
The Wesleyan Covenant Association “is not like the others” because it wants that cause of strife, LGBTQ youth suicide, and institutional destruction to stay in United Methodism. Even in a schism, the symptoms would continue as a Pure 100% Wesleyan Methodist Denomination will continue to have gay children. Their own belief section states to retain the exclusionary language, like the holdouts of a war gone by.
I don’t fault individuals who don’t believe in equal marriage or don’t want a LGBTQ pastor–that’s fine. But to have that sentiment as part of a denomination for 44 years is the cause of all our conflicts, not any subsequent responses or symptoms. Removing it and replacing it with something more studied and amenable to today’s global reality is our only chance of going forward. That’s the task of the Bishop’s Commission, and it is little wonder that academics outside the local church and schismatic groups take every opportunity to derail it.
Your Turn
Thoughts? Thanks for your comments and shares on social media.
(Thanks to Drew for the blog title)
Thanks for shedding light on the fact that there are all levels to following the rules. When I read “one of these is not like the other” it very much felt like Dr. Watson just wanted to blame the victims. It takes two sides to divide.
Bravo!
Eye-opening! Excellent post.
Very astute and wonderfully written. Congratulations on the Western Conference’s foresight and inclusion of all of God’s children.
(A 25 year former UMC minister)
Amen!
Jeremy —
This is an unfortunate response to Dr. Kevin Watson’s original post that is just flat incorrect at points. Over the years it has become more and more difficult to tell whether your written analyses are willfully deceptive or just unwittingly so. Regardless, it’s worthwhile to point out to your readers those points at which you are contorting language and making leaps of logic. [As a point of full disclosure, I am a signatory on the June 30th Open Letter to the United Methodist Church that is currently found on the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s website. That said, the extent of my involvement with the WCA was reading that letter and agreeing to put my name on it; I have had no other part in the planning or organization of the WCA.]
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1) The reasoning you employ after the sarcastic “Context matters, even for academics” line involves you replacing the actual language of Bishop Ough’s report with language you apparently wish it had instead. In point of fact, the report does not use an “either…or” to describe how the groups and events mentioned have inflicted harm upon the church. The double assertion in the report is tied together with an “and.” It reads that the groups and events, “have opened deep wounds and fissures within The United Methodist Church and fanned fears of schism.” (It is thus charging each group/event named with all that is in that quotation.) Dr. Watson’s point is that the Wesleyan Covenant Association has done no such thing. The part of the report at which he specifically take exception is the statement charging that the WCA has “opened deep wounds and fissures” — a point he is very clear about, naming it twice in the second half of his post. You criticize him for the other point about “fanning the fears of schism,” but Dr. Watson never engages that point on purpose, and wisely so, since it is impossible to prove something that is entirely subjective in experience (such as whether a particular action is felt to incite fear in someone else). But here’s the important point: Watson didn’t need to engage that second part of the statement in order to prove his own point, exactly because Bishop Ough’s report uses an “and” rather than an “either…or.” (You, Jeremy, are the one who used the “either…or.”) Bishop Ough’s report charges the WCA with opening “deep wounds and fissures,” and that is a statement as inaccurate as your own. Watson was right to criticize it; it is appalling, especially given that it is equated with the schismatic actions taken in various annual conferences (to nullify the Discipline) and the Western Jurisdiction (over the election of Oliveto).
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To say that any of the Discipline’s statements about human sexuality are the “cause” of LGBTQ youth suicide and institutional destruction is outrageous. It comes across similarly to the statements of some of our more radical bishops that the UMC stance on marriage and sexuality is somehow responsible for the ISIS terrorist’s mass murder of gays and lesbians at the nightclub in Orlando. The Discipline’s statements are in line with the historic position of the church catholic, are drawn from biblical reasoning, and are intended to provide a compassionate and balanced position on delicate topics. Your characterization otherwise is unconscionable.
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Having the view that marriage is what marriage has always been in the Christian church is most certainly not the “cause of all our conflicts.” You are being willfully obstinate when you make statements to the contrary (both here and every other time you’ve made it online recently). The cause of our conflicts is rebellious and schismatic action, taken in years past through disruptive protests at the General Conference and taken in recent days through official actions of annual conferences and the Western Jurisdictional Conference. You should know that, when you write things that are so baldly dishonest, you come across like the kid who looks at his mother with chocolate all over his face and protests that he wasn’t, absolutely wasn’t, the one who got into the cookie jar and ate all the cookies.
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Finally — your statements that “context matters, even for academics” and that “it is little wonder that academics outside the local church…take every opportunity to derail” the Bishop’s Commission are nothing less than attacks upon Dr. Watson’s character. You insinuate that he has intentionally ignored the context of Bishop Ough’s statement on the one hand (which he has not), and that he is underhandedly trying to derail the Bishop’s Commission (which he is not). To these insinuations you additionally make some sort of suggestion that the fact that Dr. Watson is an academic in a teaching ministry somehow makes his critiques oh-so-predictable and lacking in validity. This is a disgusting blog post, and it disgusts me thoroughly. You should offer Dr. Watson a personal apology and publish a retraction on your own site.
Hi Andrew, thanks for reading and your comments. I understand that you probably took personally comments about academics and being outside the local church. While I’m clearly not against academia, I do find it curious how often academics are found leading local churches to affiliate, disaffiliate, or endorse particular things that academics themselves are not accountable for. Take that as another unmerited comment if you will, but as a pastor in a local church, we swim in very different worlds.
To your points:
1. Your parsing out of the language in the Bishop’s letter is just as presumptive as you claim of my own analysis. You don’t know either if the Bishops truly ascribed both “and” or degrees of “either/or.” What I offered was a reflection on the “silent side” of Watson’s analysis as a possible reason why they included the WCA in it. To not address something is as important as addressing it, so now we have both sides dealt with and readers of both blogs are more informed about the possible interpretations. Unless you have a Bishop quoted as saying “this is exactly what we meant” we both conjecture but now people know the spectrum.
2. It is appropriate to name discrimination–and we do it ourselves when we look back on historical documents and stances that did not stand the test of time. Your statement “The Discipline’s statements are in line with the historic position of the church catholic, are drawn from biblical reasoning, and are intended to provide a compassionate and balanced position on delicate topics” could have been applied also to the exclusion of women, justification of slavery, and other topics. That historic or traditional stance didn’t justify denying women’s calls to serve God in ordained ministry prior to 1956, and we corrected that error. Likewise, we apply that same analysis to the LGBTQ exclusion in our Discipline–we can correct that error and move forward. I’ve written as much here: Plain Reading of Scripture and Tradition. Policies matter, and while you may argue from silence that people do not name the church’s exclusion, but there’s documented stories of that not being the case. Ask and you shall find.
3. I’m glad you called me a child–it tells me this is important to you and such emotion shows what specifically matters to you. To your experience, protests and disobedience is the root of our current conflict. To my experience, it is the spirit drain of qualified clergy better than me (which may not be much in your estimation by the writing above) to other denominations because of the named cause. It is pastors who have to look in their LGBTQ couples eyes and tell them they cannot pastor them the same way they pastor straight couples, because of the named cause. This language has stunted my ability to pastor my people in my local church and has ran qualified clergy away from bettering my district and conference. You can name a dozen church trials or actions that you perceive harm from, and for every one, I can name an individual who left the church, committed suicide…or is still here, enduring humiliation for the sake of their call to serve the UMC. I am many things, but I am not dishonest when I say that the cause of the conflict is in the 1972-2016 text. Full stop.
4. I hesitate to continue as it is evident that both of us have gotten under each other’s skin. But to barrel on towards the light at the end of this comment tunnel, I do indeed outright claim that Watson ignored half of the Bishop’s statement–and the one that really mattered. I don’t see that as insinuation when I’ve outright said it–it’s more offensive to be called “insinuating” when I actually said it, and you even admit that he did ignore it and gave your own justification, not found in the text. I fail to see how I’m attacking his character.
In the end, you’ve named this blog post as disgusting to you. At the risk of being further misrepresented and unjustifiably maligned in a single day, let me be clear of what my value is in this conversation: schism is sin. I believe efforts to endorse, baptize, equip, or legitimize schism are to be named and warned against. Schism is disgusting to me. And I do see Dr. Watson as equipping and legitimizing an effort towards schism, and I can say that without implying he is personally for schism–I don’t know. What I do know is I can also say that with full integrity as a person who has not broken the Clergy Covenant–at least not in the ways that likely matter more to you (I forgot the Student Sunday offering in 2009, which is a violation of the Discipline. I’m sorry)–and who believes that upholding the Discipline will be much better for everyone once the discriminatory language is cut out of it. If you find this disgusting, as in actual revulsion, then we have very different experiences of the Church and the harm that it does to people–and our call to love it regardless and make it better.
Thanks for reading. Blessings on your evening.
Jeremy–
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Your reply to my comments on your post last night shows precisely the kind of subterfuge you have honed on this blog over the past several years as you’ve peddled bad history and deceitful forms of argumentation to press your agenda. I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to break this down to the degree I did yesterday, but I will mention the following:
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1. I honestly have no idea what you mean when you say in your opening comments that I probably took your writing personally, that academics (like me?) often lead churches to endorse things for which they aren’t accountable, and that you, a pastor in a local church, swim in a very different world than me. Are these comments all directed at me, or are some of them alluding to Watson? Assuming they are aimed at me, then you have no idea what you’re talking about. I am a pastor in a local church, and I am very accountable for everything I write, say, and do. I am academically trained and taught at a seminary formerly, but that has nothing to do with the reason I came to Watson’s defense. I did so because he is a man of noble character and an elder in our church who wrote an essay the purpose of which was clear for anyone who read it impartially, and you maligned both the intent of that essay and the character of its author.
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2. For you to say that I parsed out the language of Bishop Ough’s letter says that either you don’t know the meaning of the word “parse” or you are simply being obstinate. I did nothing more than point out what the letter actually says (“and” rather than “either…or”). That is, I pointed to the plain text itself. Now if you want to invent things that aren’t there and suggest that Bishop Ough and/or the Executive Committee actually imagined one thing while deciding to write something else, then go right ahead. It’s loony tunes to do so, but go right ahead.
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3. Your second point about it being “appropriate to name the discrimination” is irrelevant to the reason I made my comment about the Discipline’s statements on marriage & sexuality. You said plainly that our church’s canon law is the cause of youth suicide and institutional destruction. That is what I objected to, not the naming of discrimination generally. If you want to have a conversation about what it means for the church to discriminate and what amounts to discrimination, then that’s a fine conversation to pursue. But my objection to what you were saying at that point was much more pointed than just about discrimination. Address my argument if you want, but stop your logic leaping.
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4. I didn’t call you a child in my cookie jar analogy — you missed the point of that. What I called you was a manipulative liar. If that didn’t come across clearly enough, then please accept my apologies. But, then, perhaps I was wrong and your thinking & writing really is unwittingly deceptive rather than willfully so. If that is the case then you may not be dishonest, but you are certainly wrong when it comes to your claims about the “cause of the conflict.” Just as you don’t seem to understand what it means to parse a sentence, you also don’t seem to know what the meaning of the word “cause” is.
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5. You can write things like “schism is sin” and put it in bold faced print all day long if you want, but none of that is going to change the fact that you and I both know what schismatic action looks like. Schism within an ecclesiastical body can only be understood with reference to the nature of the covenant that binds that ecclesiastical body. Your own jurisdiction, as well as a number of individual annual conferences, have deemed that the canon law of the church, as well as the conciliar body that determines that canon law, are no longer valid and will not be followed. That is the definition of schism, and those that truly do not understand that need to look in the mirror and realize that they wear no clothes.
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As you go about your happy work of willful distortion of other’s work and relentless advocacy that the bride of Christ be torn asunder, just know that we are all in the process of reaping the whirlwind, and your part in that is not inconsiderable.
Hi Andrew, thanks for reading again. First, my apology is that I *did* think you were still teaching in a seminary. I have great suspicion of church leaders who encourage local churches to do things but are no longer majority-employed by the local church, and I erroneously put you in that same category with Watson, Arnold, Tennent, and Watson whom I argue with often. I do apologize.
Reading through your comments is a bewildering experience, which may be your strategy. Your summary of my work and my summary of my work are in significantly different places. We can both wear each other out and write long replies picking apart each issue, but that is a trap. I ask you to consider that Dr. Watson might be wrong, and you’ll play the man of honor and take umbrage; You tell me I’m a liar for what I wrote, I’ll play the man of maligned character (According to your comments, I don’t know the definition of words when I’m talking with a seminary-trained and former professor–do you hear how that reads?)…but that won’t benefit the greater conversation that needs to be had.
Here’s that greater conversation, as I see it. We are in two different places on these two critical issues:
The second point is how we started this conversation, but the first is valid as well.
Thoughts?
*grabs popcorn*
Jeremy—
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I’ll take your bait in the sense that I’ll respond to the questions you are posing, but I’m afraid I will have to leave it at that. Some of the points and/or questions you pose I can speak to directly, but others I disagree with based on the terms of how your phrase them. Here’s the best I can do:
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1. I do not believe that LQBTQ people or any other people should be excluded from the life of the church. That said, I do not believe they are being excluded now but are fully included just as all other people are. (My caveat here is that I’m not in favor of the label ‘LQBTQ people’ because I think it essentializes sexuality. There is a spectrum of sexuality and we’re all on it somewhere. The labels reify identities with a level of concreteness that does not seem at all warranted to me.)
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2. I do not believe that questioning a person’s writings requires one to make accusations and assumptions of a person’s character. But I do think that’s what you did with Dr. Kevin Watson, and when I wrote that I honestly don’t know whether you do that sort of thing willfully or unwittingly, I meant it. Your style of analysis strikes many of those who don’t agree with you right off the bat as confusing the truth and, at times, making statements about recent events or church history long past that are factually inaccurate. (Do you realize you are doing this?) I was educated liberally in the best sense of that word; every bone in my body makes me want to charitably interpret texts that I read (particularly when I don’t think I am going to agree with every word that is written). Yet over the past 2-3 years, I have found myself increasingly unable to do that with any essay on this site that addresses the present and future of the church. Those already inclined to agree with you no doubt cheer your style and method, but those who come with different perspectives find it repellant. I did not personally always feel that way about the material you would write, but I have for sometime now.
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3. I do agree that social location matters, and I also agree that commenting on social location does not *necessarily* equate to commenting on character. The second of those two points is tricky, though, because in our cultural milieu a frequent tactic is to invoke social location at exactly the point where one no longer wants to argue a topic on its own merits. (As someone who has spent some time teaching in academic settings, I have seen that happen more times than I care to remember.) And it is also at that point that a critique about one’s social location becomes nothing more than a dressed-up ad hominem attack. FWIW and in connection with what you wrote about Dr. Watson, there is significant difference between commenting about a person that he is an academic, on the one hand, and suggesting that the same person is underhandedly attempting to derail an episcopal commission through an essay that wasn’t even about the actual work of that commission, on the other. Watson’s essay was a critique of language used by Bishop Ough in his report; it had nothing to do with derailing something the bishops are asking the church to do. I interpreted that as a character attack because it suggested that Watson had nefarious and hidden motives in what he wrote. If that were true, it would say something not just about the content of his essay but also about the character of the man who wrote it.
The statement “context matters, even for academics” is sarcastic, that much is true. It’s up to you to decide whether the sarcasm is appropriate. Most of the time, I think it’s not. But your charge that Rev. Smith is attacking Dr. Watson’s character is itself an attack that goes way beyond anything Rev. Smith even appears to imply here. And “tak[ing] every opportunity to derail” something is what you do when you are steadfastly opposed to it. It’s a dramatic way to put it, but I don’t understand it as something which reveals bad moral character.
Speaking of leaps of logic, I do believe you have 1. Made an assumption that Jeremy is a messy eater, and 2. That he likes chocolate, perhaps he prefers peanut butter cookies, and finally 3. That younger people don’t know how to make their own cookies, when in fact, we can bake our own cookies, as stealing, (which although not named by our discipline as being incompatible with Christian teaching) is not a good behavior.
Also, who uses a cookie jar these days anyway? They just aren’t as secure as a good Tupperware container.
Wow. There’s one less book in my library I’ll be hauling around from now on. Variance of opinion is welcome, but virtue is a different matter, and I find it quite difficult to embrace works by those who indicate a lack of it. That’s harsh, and maybe not even worth saying, but I’m appalled, and sick, and tired.
Also I hit reply in the wrong place. : / sorry about that.
Nathan — In my last reply to Jeremy (just posted) I explain further the reason I interpreted his statement about Kevin Watson being steadfastly opposed to the episcopal commission as an attack upon his character. It may not make a difference to you, but I wanted you to know it is there.
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I know Kevin personally; he is a good friend. We communicate with one another frequently. Nothing he has ever said has ever made me think for a minute that he is steadfastly opposed to the commission. He works tirelessly for the church, and he has undertaken more than one project at the request of UM bishops that have required much labor from him. Kevin’s original essay is about language Bishop Ough uses to describe the WCA in his report; on the surface it isn’t actually about the work of the commission at all. So if it is true that his essay is actually an underhanded attempt to derail the commission, then that would indicate something pretty nefarious about Kevin’s character, wouldn’t it? That, it seems to me, is the plain suggestion in what Jeremy wrote.
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I am truly sorry if my back-and-forth ripostes with Jeremy make it appear to you that I lack virtue. I knew before I first commented on this blog post that there was a danger in doing so, in that engaging debate with an interlocutor can require very direct critique and response. The public nature of the forum means that there will inevitably be onlookers who could be avoided if the communication were private. But Jeremy himself does public theology and commentary by his own choice; he specifically invites engagement at the end of every post. I wish him well in his life and ministry, and most of the time I’ll be content to read his material without responding. That changes, though, when he does what he did to a man I consider a friend and colleague. If you thought that my tone and language lacked virtue in my responses to Jeremy, I hope you’ll consider that there is virtue of another sort in defending the intellectual work of one I know as both a fine scholar and a fine pastor.
If you interpret what he has written as an attack on your friend’s character, I understand how you would be inclined to react in that way. It’s not clear, at least to this reader (as someone on the outside who doesn’t know anyone personally here), that it’s anything more than talk about people championing different views. It is indeed a public exchange, I understand that. And after a while to think about it, I think I overstepped my bounds. I find myself at times exasperated and weary from these kinds of interactions. It’s not my business to deny the virtue of others. I’m sorry for my knee-jerk reaction.
Let 2018 come based on GC16 the vote with the African Bishops and a minority of American Churches (lets say 40%). The only question is how do we split. Is it with a new BOD for those leaving that they have wanted for 44 years and a agreement on asset’s based on mediation or do we have by GC20 over 7,000 church trials.
There are so many willful misrepresentations that Andrew could not get to them all, but one more whopper is trying to connect WCA with withholding apportionment. This group (and I will likely become a member) has from day one issued statements encouraging there own constituency to remain faithful to all aspects of the BoD especially continuing with apportionments, Can you imagine how empty some treasuries would be right now if not for the campaign by WCA to keep the money flowing.
We are accustomed to the practice of parsing words in these discussions, but inserting words that were never there and then parsing them….that must fall in the academic arena of re-imagining the statement.
I haven’t seen a public statement specifically about apportionments. Can you point me to them?
Thank you Jeremy for naming the schismatic elephant in the denomination. While the newly named Wesleyan Covenant group, it’s legacy is based in all the actions of the past 44 years, which you so aptly laid out in your previous writings. I’ve been a Methodist since being born to live in a parsonage 62 years ago and ordained for the past 38 years. Clearly the Good News Movement, the Mission Society, Bristol Books, and Asbury Seminary were first developed as parallel structures and potential takeover instruments and have now been seeking schism since before Tampa in 2012. Thanks for naming their intentions out loud!
From an essay of Dec. 6, 2011, by Thomas A. Lambrecht on the Good News website: “In 1999, the Judicial Council ruled in Decision 871 that “a local church or any of its organizational units may not identify or label itself as an unofficial body or movement. Such identification or labeling is divisive and makes the local church subject to the possibility of being in conflict with the Discipline and doctrines of The United Methodist Church.” The decision goes on, “Certainly, an annual conference has the right to correct what it determines to be actions by its local churches identifying or labeling themselves as unofficial bodies or movements which are not in compliance with the Discipline and the Constitution.” The Judicial Council quotes its earlier decision 847 that such action would be “divisive and destructive to the life of the church.”” If the Wesleyan Covenant Association is not an organization of the type against which the Judicial Council ruled, it’s hard to say what kind of group it is.
The conservatives in the UMC foisted the incompatibility clause on the denomination 16 years before the denomination even realized it needed to form a committee to study the phenomenon. Then, the conservatives sidelined that committee’s report by getting GC1992 to order its publication for study in local churches, which the General Board of Discipleship did in 1994; but 10 years after the materials had been made available, fewer than 50,000 study books had been purchased in a denomination of over 7.5 million members – meaning that most UMs didn’t care to study what the committee had found, because most of them had their minds made up that they hated homosexuality and didn’t care to learn anything like the truth about it, because they loved the lies they preferred to believe.
Just because one cannot prove a direct relationship between the UMC’s pronouncements in the Book of Discipline about homosexuality and the deaths of many LGBTQ young people does not eliminate the fact that the BoD statements and the attitudes toward homosexuality within the UMC that such statements engender and support project the image of an angry Jesus who hates the same people – not behaviors, but people – the conservatives of the UMC hate, and that Jesus has no “good news” for anyone who identifies as LGBTQ. Conservatives claim they “don’t hate” LGBTQ persons, but they know as well as anyone that it’s not what the sender of the message “means” by what they say and do but what the recipient of the message interprets the sender to “mean” by what is said and done. To deny this flies in the face of the well-supported and widely understood principles of human communication. Words matter, and intentions don’t unless they take into consideration the effect of the words used to convey the intentions on the recipient.
The web of lies continually perpetrated about LGBTQ persons and the stereotype implied by the language they use (“predatory,” “promiscuous,” “against nature,” “recruiters to the ‘gay lifestyle’,” “unprotected sex,” “diseased,” “dying young,” “congenitally unfaithful,” etc.) by the anti-LGBTQ conservatives in the UMC and the Church of Jesus Christ at large are the primary cause of the deep wounds and fears of schism in the church, not the efforts of those who seek to break the Church free from the stranglehold those conservatives have on the policy-making bodies of the Church. History will vindicate the Freedom Fighters and will place their opponents in the same category as Scripture places the Sanhedrin and others in the Jewish leadership who colluded with the Romans to have Jesus killed.
There is still time for our modern Pharisees to repent; but sadly, they think themselves righteous, while ignoring Paul’s admonition in Philippians 2.5-11. I will continue to pray for them, that they might put off their cloaks of self-righteousness and, instead, put on Christ.
Bravo on another great post. I enjoy your postings and writings immensely. I take one issue — are you really fine with someone who doesn’t want equal marriage and/or LGBTQ pastor? While this is a very long time problem, their inability to learn and grow and understand who and what LGBTQ people are is a huge factor in this issue. They stay rooted in their ignorance. To me, it is just as bad as my white brothers and sisters who stay rooted in racism and presumptuous beliefs on who and what they are as a race. Keep writing! Keep the good fight going!
Thanks for this, Jeremy. You’ve done what I was preparing to do myself, having had a long history of observing the primary actors behind the Wesleyan Covenant Association do similar schismatic things in the past (e.g., the Houston Declaration of 1988, the Memphis Declaration of 1992, the Confessing Movement, etc.). Your commentary is much better than what I had in mind, and so I’m picking it up for United Methodist Insight with much appreciation.
Advocating for adherence to our BOD can only be labeled schismatic in a world where everything is backward. This is the kind of linguistic nonsense that angers the traditionalists.
The critical error in your linguistic strategy above is that the WHY is not the issue, it’s the HOW. The HOW of the WCA is problematic.
I will be sending WCA a check
Great. Thankfully, my purpose is to inform the Methodist Middle, not convert the already convicted.
I can’t think of any scientific reason to oppose homosexuality. Our species is doing okay in the Darwinian sense. Where then does violence against LGBTQ persons arise? Where does the self- hate and higher suicide rates among LGBTQ people come from?
According to the CDC, acceptance or rejection by parents is a major determining factor whether LGBTQ young adults attempt suicide. Those rejected by their parents are 8 times more likely to attempt suicide. This has led me to a clear conclusion that shame internalized among LGBTQ young adults comes from outside themselves. It comes when people who are supposed to love them decide to NOT love them. I put churches in the category of those who are supposed to love. When people love and accept LGBTQ persons, they overwhelmingly choose life.
What bases would a parent have to reject their child? It’s ideological and it starts with a bastardization of my Savior’s teachings. Parents hear in church the church’s teachings, from dishonest interpretations of Sodom to the incompatibility clause and face certain heartache when they learn their son or daughter is not straight. Do I leave my beloved church? Do I stick with my child?
So there you have it: One case where the church is complicit in the self destruction of LGBTQ persons. This is a much more dire matter than schism. And I say this fully agreeing with Jeremy’s defining schism as sin.
I grieve at the distance theological liberalism has taken Methodism from its Wesleyan foundations, especially in the areas of viewing Scripture as infallible and authoritative, and of personal holiness. I grieve at the millions who have left because of it, and at its arrogance and unwillingness to admit that. I grieve at the necessity for Wesleyan groups to rise up and attempt to bring our listing ship back to where it once was headed. I grieve over those who claim the ship is sinking because of the crewmen who are breaking out the lifeboats and trying to save people. I grieve at the harassment and persecution the Wesleyan Covenant supporters will endure (as reform groups always have) from the theological left, which prides itself on its inclusiveness and tolerance. I have given my life to the United Methodist Church, and I grieve over what it has become.
Are you saying this blogpost constitutes harassment and persecution toward “Wesleyan Covenant” (how does that work? Is it written down somewhere? How is this defined?) supporters?
Jeremy and other commentators, both progressive and traditional,
The UMC already has a model of inclusion that I think you, Jeremy, should use more often: divorce and remarriage (to a person other than the first spouse). I will use D&R as a shorthand.
In the 1930’s the Book of Discipline stated that clergy who divorced and then wished to marry someone else would have to surrender their credentials. Clergy were also discouraged from performing the second wedding for divorced persons. Finally, many D&R people were not welcomed in many Methodist congregations. The reason: Adultery, a sexual sin. Here is a link to an article published by the Methodist Review several years ago. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86411849/60-326-1-PB.pdf (Jeremy, if this link doesn’t work, let me know.)
Does all this sound familiar. After struggling with the fact that divorced clergy were getting remarried the Discipline was changed and the excluding language was removed. This in no way negates the fact that Jesus and the other New Testament writers called D&R adultery. In the thinking of many, this adultery is an ongoing sin. Yet we learned to deal with D&R with grace. Clergy are allowed to perform second marriages for the divorced. People who are D&R can enter the UMC as licensed or ordained clergy with no fear of being rejected. Clergy who D&R are no longer charged and tried and asked to either live a celibate life or surrender their credentials. Does any of this sound familiar in our dealings with our LGBTQ sisters and brothers?
I have posted this scenario on Rev. Ritter recent post and Dr. Watson post at UMReporter. Dr. Watson did not respond. Rev. Ritter did. His argument was that the two were not alike (I don’t agree), that the adultery is not ongoing (not quite sure of that), and just because we overlook one sin doesn’t mean we should overlook another (which makes it hypocrisy in my mind).
In my mind, if we treat D&R with grace, welcome, and inclusion, why can’t we welcome our LGBTQ sisters and brothers with the same grace? So, Jeremy, any time you mention women’s ordination and the ending of slavery, why not include our changed attitudes and Discipline toward the D&R.
Thank you for hearing me out. Peace in Christ.
Gary
Think about it from this perspective: What I see is you are too focused on one subset of people when in God’s eyes, ALL LIVES MATTER even those who disagree with you! As I have experienced it, the progressive sexuality agenda is its own proof that when you try to make things “fair” for one group of people, things become very unfair for everybody else. With the election of Karen Oliveto, the Western Jurisdiction has now forced their specific beliefs on the rest of the church. Give me one example where Jesus FORCED others to accept his teachings. What happened after Jesus told the rich young ruler he had to sell everything he had? Jesus allowed him to walk away sad! Jesus ate with the “unclean” but give me one example where he forced anybody else to do what he was doing. For Jesus it was never about forcing people to accept his teachings, it was about allowing people to choose to follow him! Methodism is not in existence because John Wesley forced anybody to even listen to his message about God. It is in existence because he stood in a field or on a street and started talking, people came to listen and then some of the people came to him with the question “What does this mean for my life?” and he endeavored to answer the question. Since 1972, you have spoken your message, the church as a whole is not convinced, I am not convinced, so you decide to work outside the designated processes and hijack the church. How would you respond if the situation was reversed? You are in the driver’s seat, where do we go from here?