The 2018 breakup of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (“Mormons” or “LDS Church”) with the Boy Scouts of America (“Scouts USA”) ends a 100-year relationship and serves as an example of two faith-based American institutions reaching the breaking point of irreconcilable differences.
Is this breakup a portent for the United Methodist Church in 2019?
The Straw and the Camel’s Back
Noah Feldman, writing about the LDS Church/Scouts USA breakup for Bloomberg on May 13th 2018, notes that relationships between any two institutions persist only “when both sides have more to gain than to lose by staying together.”
By May 2018, the LDS Church decided they had gained enough from Scouts USA:
- The LDS Church embraced Scouting 100 years ago when they were yearning for legitimacy and recognition beyond their safe state of Utah. Today they believe they have met that need, having celebrated the “Mormon Moment” of Mitt Romney’s Republican nomination for President in 2012.
- The Scouts, facing obstacles to cultural acceptance due to some of their restrictive rules, chose to embrace LGBTQ and gender equality—even if they stood to lose the LDS Church which constitutes 1/5th of their membership.
While the above is between two separate organizations, a fascinating parallel can be made to the current struggles within The United Methodist Church. United Methodism’s “Big Tent” has persisted over the decades, allowing the largest gender-inclusive denomination in Christendom to proclaim Christ, promote social policies, and embrace massive projects (UMCOR and Imagine No Malaria come to mind) on a large scale.
However, the cultural changes over the past few decades that drove a wedge between the Scouts and the LDS Church have had a strikingly similar effect on the two warring factions of The United Methodist Church.
Mormons and Traditionalists
The LDS Church broke from Scouts USA following their inclusion of LGBTQ scouts and leaders as well as their recent inclusion of girls into what was previously an entirely boy’s program.
The “traditionalist” wing of The United Methodist Church has a lot in common with the Mormons. Both are dominated by socially conservative leadership, and both hold very tightly to traditional understandings of gender and identity that are untouched by society’s movements toward equality and inclusion (though many United Methodist traditionalists support women clergy, whereas women cannot serve in the priesthood in the LDS church).
When Scouts USA became more inclusive of gender and sexual orientation, the LDS church chose to remove thousands of boys from the troops rather than move away from their traditional stances. Likewise, Traditionalist perspectives oppose any changes that relax or relativize United Methodist opposition to LGBTQ inclusion. While many Traditionalists have come around on inclusion of women since 1956, they have refused any changes on LGBTQ inclusion since 1972.
Both the LDS Church and the traditionalist wing of United Methodism, in the words of the musical Oklahoma, have “gone about as far as they can go” and don’t believe in being more inclusive than they currently are.
Scouts and Middle Methodists
Since winning a Supreme Court case to be able to exclude gay scoutmasters in 2000, the Scouting program has reversed course and increasingly chosen to be more in harmony with cultural acceptance of women and LGBTQ persons. While Scouts USA falls far short of the equity and justice drive of the Girl Scouts of America, it is a significant cultural shift in only the past ten years.
Likewise, the middle Methodists (often moderate-to-progressive) have taken steps to be more inclusive in recent years. While the progressives have taken the lead through biblical obedience (officiating weddings for LGBTQ persons) and Board of Ordained Ministry inclusion efforts, moderates have come out in force as more and more Methodists have openly LGBTQ family members or friends.
Both Scouts and middle Methodists have suffered numerical losses in recent years, the former perhaps because of society’s shift away from institutions, and the latter perhaps because of a disconnect between local expressions and global standards–it’s hard to be inclusive and accepting of LGBTQ persons in a progressive local church when your global polity is explicitly not.
The Scouts USA controversy reveals that the cost of deciding to be inclusive on institutions that have a large section of their membership that doesn’t desire to be inclusive. Such a decision weighs heavily on middle Methodists as, leading up to GC 2019, they see growing potential for division.
As Go the Mormons…
The LDS Church and the Scouts USA tried, they really did. And in their struggles, there are some parallels to United Methodism as well.
- The Scouting plan of allowing de facto local control (each scouting region selects their own leadership, so a heavily LDS church region would not likely elect a gay scoutmaster) has strong parallels to the One Church Plan (“OCP”) supported by middle Methodists, which also allows for regional autonomy on church leadership. Just as the Scouting plan failed to persuade LDS leaders, the OCP may not persuade traditionalists who prefer hegemonic exclusion to a unity in diversity approach.
- The LDS Church preference (continued exclusion of LGBTQ persons and women) has a strong parallel to the Traditionalist Plan, which also continues the exclusion of LGBTQ persons in the full life of the church and increases the enforcement against those who seek it (including the first-ever punishments of entire annual conferences, not just individuals). Such action risks the Church, in Noah Feldman’s words in Bloomberg, “relegating itself to a slow process of becoming a cultural backwater,” though that is worn like a badge of honor by some.
We will only know in February 2019 whether the Methodists will follow the Mormons in their footsteps.
…May Not Go The Methodists?
In closing, Noah Feldman’s (Bloomberg) writeup of the Mormon-Scouts USA breakup said their relationship used to work because it was a “federalism” between two private organizations:
“federal solutions work when both sides have more to gain than to lose by staying together, and when both sides display the creative capacity to reimagine what it means to belong and share values”
For two voluntary organizations side by side (LDS church and Scouts USA), they reached a point where their imagination ran out on how to be together. While Scouts USA imagined “what if boys and girls were a part of an egalitarian scouting program together?”, the LDS Church had drawn a line in the sand and refused to budge.
For United Methodists, the Commission on A Way Forward and the Council of Bishops were charged to reimagine what it meant to belong together, and to recreate a federal solution exhibiting how much more we have to gain from living together. Both of the proposals written by the Commission exhibit that creativity: The One Church Plan and the Connectional Conference Plan, while flawed, are both creative reimaginations of how to live together. On the other hand, the Traditionalist Plan (written by a small group of bishops) imagines a future where Middle Methodists and Progressives are relegated to affiliated conferences, without a voice or vote in United Methodism going forward.
So it is up to the General Conference 2019 delegates:
- Will they embrace the Traditionalist Plan, essentially the LDS Church’s plan that rejection of LGBTQ persons is worth the expulsion of entire regions of the church?
- Or will they embrace the One Church Plan, ala the Scouts USA hope that regional differences can still come together in an effective unity?
While there are other plans, these two have the closest parallels to the conversation at hand.
We will know at the end of February 2019 whether the Methodist tradition of a creative, tenacious unity for the sake of mission lives on, or whether cultural forces have rendered it asunder.
Your Turn
Thoughts?
Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing on social media–and with General Conference 2019 delegates! Please like “Hacking Christianity” on Facebook to be up-to-date with most United Methodist issues.
As a Cub Scout leader, a 3rd generation Eagle Scout, and a Methodist with my two sons and daughters in scouts, I hope the two groups do not go separate ways.
There seems to be very little connection between scouting groups and their charter churches. Many church leaders do not know much about their scouting programs because the two groups do not work together.
Scout leaders, reach out to your church leaders and find out how your unit can become an actual mission of the church!
Jody. I agree. Although we UMC’s are sponsors for Boy Scouts, we need more interaction. Love Scouting!
Nice words, but you totally missed that this article is NOT about Scouting. It’s about schism in the UMC. Just sayin’.
I love this article! However, although I am being very idealistic, I would love to see the Simple Plan accepted.
I believe the LGBTQ issue is merely a symbol of a deeper conflict within the UMC. Having served both former Methodist and former EUB congregations there were and remain systemic issues regarding the union, the itineracy of Elders, the role of the laity. The fundamental problem is a political issue related to control and reflects the strength of American civil religion within the UMC.
One thing I have noticed in this, as well as most “progressive” articles regarding the coming Called General Conference, is a lack of theological reasoning. If you want to explain why you believe the Church should stay together, if you want to explain why the Church should ordain actively homosexual people and bless their union, then do so using Biblical/theological reasoning. Comparing a potential split within the UMC to a separation of a purely secular organization from a non-Christian church is like comparing apples to orange crayons.
1. Don’t criticize the article for not doing what you want it to. Criticize it for not accomplishing what it set out to do. I didn’t set out to do a theological or biblical treatise, so I’m not offended you didn’t get satisfied in that way.
2. Buuuuuuut if you want to read a theological claim, here ya go: The Church, not the Bible, Determines Sin
3. The Boy Scouts are a religious organization. “God and Country” are part of the Boy Scout Pledge I would do as a Tenderfoot.
Hi, I wanted to read that blog post you mentioned above about the church determining sin, but it didn’t come up when I accessed the link. Thank you.
Whoops. Mobile HTML sucks.
https://www.hackingchristianity.net/2014/04/the-church-not-the-bible-determines-sin.html
1. The criticism was not directed solely at this post, but this article “as well as most ‘progressive’ articles regarding the coming Called General Conference.” The only part that specifically points to this article is the criticism of figuratively “comparing apples to orange crayons.”
2. Thank you, Jeremy, for providing that link, in which your theological discussion was completely trashed by the comments of John Meunier and Preston.
3. If you believe that “The Boy Scouts are a religious organization [because] “God and Country” are part of the Boy Scout Pledge,” then you must also feel that the USA is a religious organization since “In God we trust” is printed on all our currency and Presidents are sworn into office with their right hands placed on a Bible.
I believe you to be smarter than this, Jeremy. Just being reactionary wins very few arguments.
Hi Randy, thanks for returning to the conversation. I’ll ask for #3 whether you have affinity or affiliation for the scouts. For five years I was invited to a God and Country dinner where the religious affirmations of the Scouts were named and affirmed. Do they have those in your experience? I know there is a variety of Scouting so I wouldn’t be surprised if their affiliation is more tenuous in your experience.
While some of the issues are in common, to suggest there is a parallel between LDS going its own way the UMC thinking of canning Scouting is a huge overreach. (1) LDS’ stated reason was it wanted a young persons program that would advance its evangelizing. (2) What the UMC delegates decide (or not) in February will likely not be any of the three advanced “ways forward.”
As the Chartered Org. Rep (person who is link between our local UMC and our BSA scouting units) I have tried to make scouting a mission of the church. We were the first unit with a registered gay scout leader (after they were officially allowed). We were also the first unit to have a girl register for cub scouts and are prepared to have a girl BSA troop this spring. I live in an area that has high LDS population and we could lose our local council when they leave scouts next year. Does this bother me…. no it does not. We will continue to be scouts and do all that needs to be done to accept all to our program.
If you have lived in a predominantly LDS scouting environment, you know that the LDS Church has adapted (changed) the program for decades and this has made it hard for the rest of us to lead scouting the way it is designed. We have been left out and learned to survive on our own with connections to other non LDS units.
Things will be different for us in scouting after 2020…but I believe it will be better. Both because scouting is changing to meet the needs of today’s families/youth and because we will be able to follow BSA guidelines without the distraction of one group making it their church youth program and expecting us to do things their way.
I’m not sure the comparison between BSA and the UMC work…it doesn’t from my perpesctive as a scout leader in an LDS area. And … the LDS church and BSA are not one organization. The UMC is one…and splitting up is much different than a major donor leaving.
Disagreement with the Biblical readings that underpin calls for LGBTQ inclusion does not render this theology non-existent.
It exists. You simply disagree with that understanding of God.
The exodus of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is fuelled by three issues, none of which relate to LGBTQ issues.
At core there is a move by Church leaders to accelarate the deveopment of youth. This has led to increased emphasis on the temple and youth participation there a more home centered curriculum and other changes. Boy Scouts is not easy to change and not intent on the same goals. The issues involved here are complex and almost no one fully understands them.
Secondly there is a need for one program worldwide. This is less an issue for Methodists because they have not internalized scouting so much.
Lastly the unequal spending for boys and girls plays out.
The issues of changing policy by the boy scouts are way less than changing visions of a more international Church of Jesus Christ that wants a youth program more attuned to its goals.