While reading my End of 2014 books, I happened across a key moment in the history of the United Methodist Church that seems to explain the urge to schism that is currently engulfing the church today.
As it was with Women and African-Americans…
Jane Ellen Nickell’s book We Shall Not Be Moved: Methodists Debate Race, Gender, and Homosexuality is a great short(er) read that looks at my denomination’s historical engagement of race, gender, and sexuality. There’s a key moment in the debate over women’s ordination that I believe offers clarity towards what is going on today.
Women achieved the right to vote (as laity) at the 1900 General Conference, the polity-making body of the Methodist Church. After that shift, later General Conferences debated “women as clergy” in this way:
The [1920] General Conference was persuaded by the conservative forces to license women and await the commission’s report on ordination and annual conference membership four years later. The discussion continued in 1924 when that commission recommended local ordination for women but not annual conference membership, which would have guaranteed an appointment, along with voice and vote…The commission concluded that conference membership would have both social and spiritual implications, that it would introduce “peculiar and embarrassing difficulties” in Methodism’s connectional polity…[such as] finding guaranteed appointments for clergywomen, when most congregations resisted female leadership.
Effectively, this was the “local option” for women’s ordination: they could serve as clergy and live out their calling, but only to receptive congregations. In fact, such a plan denied women the chance to effect change at the global church level:
Excluding women from conference membership not only denied them voice and vote in their annual conference, but also made them ineligible as delegates to General Conference as either lay or clergy. Women would have to choose between the religious capital of ordination, albeit limited to local congregations, or the possibility of serving as lay delegates to General Conference, where they could fight for greater rights for women. Indeed, conference membership was the main point of contention, with no real resistance expressed to women’s ordination, as long as it was restricted to a local congregation.
Here’s the key point about women’s ordination when you compare it to the later debate over African-American leadership:
As we [would see] with African American leadership, the connectional nature of Methodism was a key piece of the resistance, since congregations do not choose their pastors. Racial segregation allowed for the partitioning of black pastors and congregations into a separate body…upon the merger of north and south churches in 1939; thus, unwilling congregations were not forced to accept black leadership. The resistance to women’s leadership, however, was not so easily accommodated. Since segregating women and the churches that would welcome them was not feasible, “local ordination” offered a way to rhetorically support women’s equality while denying them conference membership would limit their service to accepting congregations.
Reference: Nickell, Jane Ellen We Shall Not Be Moved: Methodists Debate Race, Gender, and Homosexuality (Kindle Locations 1558-1575)
…So it will be with The Gays
We see history repeating itself with today’s conversations about schism and unity in the United Methodist Church.
- The debate over women’s ordination led to a structural solution to license women to serve an agreeable local congregation, while denying connectional authority to them. This was the case from 1924 until full clergy rights in 1956.
- The debate over African-American clergy led to a structural solution to have African-Americans serve only in the Central Jurisdiction, a non-regional jurisdiction consisting of only African-American churches and pastors. This was the case from unification in 1939 until the merger with the Evangelical United Brethren denomination in 1968.
Today, the debate over LGBT inclusion has led to structural solutions as varied as as the local option to a re-embrace of the Central Jurisdiction–only this time for progressives and LGBT Christians. Most of these solutions have one thing in common: re-structuring the UMC to limit the possibility of a gay pastor to serve a church that rejects LGBT inclusion. While there are good people with good hearts, most of these plans for schism and unity are accommodating the desire to keep LGBT clergy out of churches that do not want them.
It took 30 years for women’s ordination and African-American leadership to move from incremental to full status in the UMC–and even today 50ish years later, many congregations still reject women pastors and persons of color. But connectionalism has taken its toll and the vast majority of congregations (though not the biggest ones) now accept persons of difference as their pastors that would have been inconceivable a generation prior. The same will be the case for LGBT clergy–the only question is whether we will accept a structural exclusion like the varied unity/schism plans or whether we will break from the past and go for a fully just and connectional church.
What will turn the tide?
Writing on unification between North and South and the creation of the Central Jurisdiction for African-Americans, Nickell draws out that overarching societal problems trumped the UMC’s differences:
In the end, MECS members allowed the power and influence that a unified Methodist Church could have on the national stage to overcome their resistance to their own loss of dominance. Even if they were swallowed up by the larger MEC, they would be part of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States at the time , which could better prevail against such modern movements as socialism and communism. Lay delegate Harry Denman expressed the ecumenical spirit that carried the day when he claimed that these churches, “consummated into American Methodism, and known as the Methodist Church, committed unto God, and possessing a heart-warming experience can, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, bring to this nation a great spiritual revival.”
There’s so many overarching problems in society: from the *isms to secular creep to poverty to homelessness to war to violence against women to the ghettoization of society and back again. We’ve already drawn out one way how the global UMC could have a real, measured impact on climate change–what other big problems in society could we take on?
So often, the inclination is to shut down this conversation of LGBT inclusion so that “we can focus on other things.” As history shows, shutting down or compartmentalizing the conversation only let it run longer than it needed to. The sooner we see LGBT persons as an inevitable and integral part of the Methodist tradition, the sooner we can move on to prevailing over society’s problems and bring the entire world closer to a great spiritual revival with a God that seeks every person, leaves no one behind, and nurtures the global community to health and wholeness. And that’s a church I can believe in.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Spectacular piece of historical research–thank you for posting this. And after reading it, I wonder how any woman or any person of color who is aware of this history of exclusion can support the continued exclusion of the LBGT community. We put ourselves in much peril when we forget our history. We put ourselves in more peril when we those who have been oppressed turn into those who are oppressors.
Jeremy, in my heart, I totally agree with where you are. We are splintered in our current state so that we cannot effectively, as a whole, do kingdom work.
But I’m going to let my mind speak to the respectful disagreement.
First, I do believe that the UMC is able to speak as a defining movement within the ecclesiastical world. If we make a change, we can move the mountain of public church opinion. But the point of disagreement is the scope you are referring to. We made great strides in past issues that transformed the church. But those great strides do take a long time. It ONLY took thirty years to change the official position of the body to include women and African-Americans. When we step back and look at the time that it takes the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church to take a bold step, we are near to spastic in our movement.
And the problem lies not within the structure of the church. It lies within the hearts and minds of the local congregation members. We can move the UMC in one great big step. But there are hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions, of little steps that have to be taken within the spirit of the local member to accept change. Can they change? Sure. But our culture is one that resists/rejects/rebels against top down implementation. The one big step of moving forward is countered by those millions of little steps that are resisting forward momentum.
Second, the ultimate sadness of your last paragraph (for me alone) lies in the reality that we have to pick and choose a focus before we can do kingdom work. The wonder of the mission of the 12 when Jesus sent them out is that they were still struggling to find their place in the society. The fishermen were still fishermen. The tax collectors were still tax collectors. The zealot was still carrying a sword. The betrayer was still the betrayer. But Jesus still sent them out to do kingdom work. They went out to proclaim the good news. They went out to heal the sick and transform lives. And by God, they did it. Even when they weren’t accepted. Even when their reputation preceded them and their past caught up with them.
Why do we have to pick the fights we wage? Especially when the issue of LGBT stunts our kingdom work? I’m not saying they don’t have a right to have their place in the structure of the church. But the mission is first priority. The work of the kingdom to change lives overrides all other agendas. If there is a calling, gifting, indwelling of the Spirit within a person’s life to touch the lives of others and bring transformation, then it should happen regardless of acceptance by the society.
That brings me to the third, and final disagreement. Forcing a structural change will not force acceptance to happen. It took 30 years to change the structure. Yet, as you passionately point out, women still are not accepted. Our churches are still, horribly, segregated. LGBT followers of Christ deserve a place in the life of the UMC. I won’t deny that some things have to change. But how long did it take to get the MEC/MECS, MC, UMC to accept the underlying arguments that women or African-Americans deserved a place? The time leading up to the structure change PLUS the time since those decisions were made tell us that this is not something that can, or will, change just because we change the way the Book of Discipline orders the life of the church.
But there is something that does change it. Developing relationships between the sides. How do churches overcome racist or sexist bias? They overcome it by developing relationships with people who are different at the local level. It happens when the voices of the established traditions that limit expression are either convinced that they have a place or convincing them that their place is elsewhere. But that happens in loving, and disciplining, relationships in the local church. It takes a long time. It takes a lot of heartbreak. It takes some passion. But it produces a healthier fruit.
Again, my heart and yours are in agreement. And I would ask that you only hear my disagreement as a respectful dialogue. I can accept being “wrong” in the eyes of an equal.
This was an interesting response, but the Church has had years to address this issue already. Pastors are, in all too many cases, “scared witless” (yes, sh**less was my first choice) to move people towards a different (i.e. “deeper) level of spiritual formation, or further along on the spiritual continuum which James Folwer (ironically a Methodist clergy person) because so many of those conservative folks are paying the bills and filling the pews, which keep the clergy employed and feeling (and increasingly inappropriately so) relevant.
The movement towards missional ministries, and the realization that the Universe really isn’t a three-part (Heaven, Hell, with Earth sandwiched in between) model with some heavenly, and presumably male, parent figure offering edicts with the psychotic inconsistency, that the BOD does, is moving an entire generation, and bringing along older generations, to the realization that the whole organizational thing is complete and total nonsense, outside of the collective buying power a “connectional” (which is anything BUT connectional) organization has for COSTCO memberships and group insurance.
“But there is something that does change it. Developing relationships between the sides. How do churches overcome racist or sexist bias? They overcome it by developing relationships with people who are different at the local level. It happens when the voices of the established traditions that limit expression are either convinced that they have a place or convincing them that their place is elsewhere. But that happens in loving, and disciplining, relationships in the local church.”
Nice thought – but if no LGBT folks choose to attend any more (and seriously, who, with any self-esteem, would?) just how is that going to happen. It took a long time for previous changes, accepting women, blacks, etc., to happen. That’s true. The organizational church doesn’t have that long to live if they keep it up.
I withdrew my church membership (and resigned my paying position as a church musician) the day Frank Schaefer was “convicted”. I love my former church community deeply, but the institutional church could cease to exist tomorrow and, with a much increased realization of the emotional violence that institutional church perpetrates on existing LBGT clergy, membership and those looking for a “spiritual home” by the national policies – I wouldn’t lose an ounce of sleep over it and might even offer up a little “happy dance”.
Scott, I don’t disagree. Institutionalized church is facing a level of criticism and scrutiny that does beg the question: does it serve a relevant purpose in the current culture?. And I hate everything about the church that has left you feeling as you do. I hear the frustration and pain and suffering in your words. I wish the church could be better.
And I think Jeremy, and I, are hoping that could be the case.
My counterpoints are only brought forward as someone who is looking at 2,000 years of church history across multiple cultures. The issue of inclusion of LGBT has had, comparatively, little time to foster spiritual development. Unfortunately for humans, we compartmentalize life too easy. Just because we have talked ourselves into different positions on women or race, it doesn’t mean that we will apply what we have learned across the spectrum of human experience. That is human development, not institutional blindness. And some day, we may pull our collective heads out.
As far as pastors who are too scared to challenge the church to spiritual formation, I would argue that deeper and different are not the same. Spiritual formation is tinted by worldview. A pastor can only lead a person deeper spiritually as far as their bubble of reality will extend. When we reach the end of that bubble, there are a whole new set of personal development that must take place. And in many cases, most pastors are not trained or adept at handling those in their own lives, much less the lives of people who will not trust their shepherd to lead them.
Thanks Todd, for this thoughtful reply. We can look back at 2,000 years of church culture, but the real motion is to look forward. And your observations about not learning from the past and exactly correct.
Ditto the comment about the inability of many UMC clergy folks to even have conversations with folks who are at different points of the developmental spectrum. The vocabulary just isn’t there. It’s sad when I speak to recently ordained folks of ANY denomination who have never heard of stages of faith development, or are familiar with any of the developmental models.
Perhaps this is the reason other kinds of spirituality is so attractive. The difference between being a spiritual leader and a “clergy person”. I personally like my former “shepherd”, but you’re so right, I wouldn’t trust him to lead me further than coffee hour.
“I do not worship Jesus, nor do I wish to follow him. I only want to find out who he became, and become that.” [Tom Thresher]
Scott, I will confess that I had not encountered the stages of faith development. Thank you for pointing me toward that. Interesting thoughts there.
“…but if no LGBT folks choose to attend any more (and seriously, who, with any self-esteem, would?)..”
*Raises hand* I would.
I occupy TWO of those letters, and I recently joined a Methodist congregation.
I need a church, and the United Methodist denomination needs me and my fellow travelers who carry a pink triangle with a cross. Who remember that these two symbols are those arising from hatred, persecution, and execution made into something affirming, living, loving, and graceful by owning our histories and carrying the memory of oppression then into lives of love and grace today.
Why did I become a Methodist? Because the Methodist church needs me as much as I need it.
I don’t know much about the Book of Discipline. I’m not educated much in the Wesleyan tradition. But I do know a Christian life is one not of easy love and effortless grace, but of hard love, seemingly impossible grace, and praying for those who persecute us. And I know there is more healing in truth and reconciliation than in division.
Wow, you gave me so much to think about. For me the historical references are really enlightening. I don’t have any stunning conclusions but more questions; which always is good.
Just because we had to do a two step process to change in the past do we have to again? I think as we evolve, things that used to be true don’t still have to be. Is it possible to “do the right thing” the first time? I always hope so and believe in that possibility.
On the other hand, in my work I want us to learn to allow people to be where they are without forcing them to change, even when the change is what I personally believe in. That’s really hard. No matter how right I know full inclusion is I want to respect others. That is why I would hate to see a schism because that is both sides not being able to hold ALL forms of diverse thinking in one set of hands.
I know that Third Way conversations get very contentious, but to me The Third Way is when you hold the belief that everyone gets to have their personal convictions—without having to change them, but holds all others with love, respect and dignity.
For me the win-win would be for the denomination to take the full inclusion move and then allow individual congregations to make their own choices-and if there be schisms, let them be at that level. That moves control out of the top-down model that does not work.
Thanks Jeremy for hosting this great conversation
“On the other hand, in my work I want us to learn to allow people to be where they are without forcing them to change, even when the change is what I personally believe in. That’s really hard. No matter how right I know full inclusion is I want to respect others. That is why I would hate to see a schism because that is both sides not being able to hold ALL forms of diverse thinking in one set of hands.”
People can be where they want but as a spiritual leader, isn’t the point to push folks forward? But we don’t have “Spiritual Leaders”, we have “clergy”. When the views of one of those sides creates a space where such extreme hardship, emotional turmoil, teen suicide are common results – just what about that is worthy of respect? It is a belief system – it is an outdated belief system. It is a belief system based on ignorance, bigotry and perhaps deeply rooted personal issues. There just isn’t a lot to respect there.
Do we “respect” folks who still use the “N” word with regularity? Or refer to all hispanics as “Mexicans” because “that’s where they are?” … isn’t pity more the word – because it sure isn’t “respect. My personal background is focused in transpersonal psychology. I don’t want people to solidify who they ARE, as much as who they have the potential to be. While the focus of Jesus was definitely to meet people where they are, his challenge was to move way, way beyond those levels of comfort and security. Huge difference.
No LBGT person wants to be the subject of a congregational “vote”- any more than you would like to go back to a place where a congregation could “vote” on whether they wanted to have their minister be a woman – and, if that were the model, who would really want to be a part of that kind of church culture?
Todd, as Diane alludes to, one of our problems is that the structure prevents acceptance by anyone. This is why I like what I’m hearing is going to come from the Connectional Table (which is very similar to something I’ve already proposed). Simply eliminating most of our references to homosexuality (which in our backwards BoD is a synonym for LGBT) would give Annual Conferences the space to make decisions that should be theirs to make. It wouldn’t be a real structural change; it would be giving local authority for interpreting the morality clauses we already have. Or maybe to say it a different way, it’s not a solution to the problem (which I think we all agree will ultimately take a number of years) but it gives us space to be together as a denomination while we continue to struggle together.
Buying into this line of thinking would require the acceptance of sexuality as a human attribute equal to race and gender. Sexuality is a behavior, not a human attribute. We have always accepted that many human behaviors are unacceptable in a Christian lifestyle. Do you feel that sexual behavior should get a pass, simply because it is so pervasive in our present culture? Try again and don’t compare apples to oranges next time.
James Colley says that, “Sexuality is a behavior, not an attribute.” Unfortunately, this has NOT been definitively proven, or concluded. This is simply one individual’s “opinion”; and we all know about “opinions”.
It is this kind of ‘subjectivity’, or cynicism, and mentality, that has been the major deterrent that has had to be overcome relative to the major ‘historical’ events previously mentioned. It is this kind of cynicism that is the ‘albatross around our necks’ as Methodists