Non-conformity, far from being just about protest, creates space for transformation within The United Methodist Church–and may be our best hope for transformation.
Non-Conformity with the Majority
Throughout United Methodism in the past month, the pushback against the actions of General Conference that harm minorities (LGBTQ persons and women) has a name: non-conformity.
- Non-conformity looks like New England, Desert Southwest, California-Pacific, California-Nevada, and Pacific Northwest conferences passing “Acts of Non-Conformity” that state in various ways that they will not comply with the prohibitions against LGBTQ inclusion in the Church.
- Non-conformity looks like several conferences passing resolutions in support of (and joining, in some cases) the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, from which the General Conference divested of its voice when women’s reproductive health is being discussed.
- Non-conformity looks like multiple conferences in the West and North Central that have nominated LGBTQ candidates for Bishop, with elections to be held in July.
Non-conformity is not some secular idea: it comes directly from Jesus. As Rev. John Helmiere, pastor at a new church plant Valley and Mountain in Seattle, explains in his prologue to the passed legislation in PNW:
Trusting in the Author of Life who makes no mistakes when creating her children, inspired by the nonconforming Christ who taught us to defy oppression in all its forms, and led by the Holy Spirit who continually liberates us from our addiction to law and into a life of grace, the PNWAC as a body affirms our commitment to a radically hospitable church.”
But make no mistake: the purpose of these actions is more than protest.
The purpose is to create space for a new vision of the Church to breathe.
Carving out Creative Space
Arthur Toynbee was a British historian who coined the term “creative minority”: a small segment of a church or society whose outsized influence transforms the whole. John Allen, Jr., in his book The Future Church, uses the term when writing about the diversity of groups within the Catholic Church:
Toynbee believed that when a civilization goes into crisis, its prospects for recovery are dependent upon its creative minorities—subgroups which, because of their passion and vision, exercise influence beyond their numbers. For that to work, these creative minorities must have a solid sense of their own identity and a strong degree of internal cohesion. (page 58)
The key is “solid sense of their own identity and a strong degree of internal cohesion.” Progressives within The United Methodist Church may not have had this sense for most of the 80s and 90s when the Traditionalists were coming into their own. However, from the 2000s on, progressives have both these qualities in increasingly powerful ways, resulting in actions such as the named acts above.
These creative minorities may be statistically insignificant, but given the amount of vitriol lobbed at the Western Jurisdiction which holds less than 8% of United Methodist membership, then we know that the creative minorities are working. In the midst of crisis, it is the creative minorities who will strongly influence if we continue towards chaos or community.
Side note: Little wonder that caucus groups such as the IRD regularly use wedge issues like sexual ethics or polyamory or even calling theological school madrassas in order to try to drive apart progressives. When we are divided, we are not as strong. Realizing this is their purpose (riling up the base and dividing the opposition) gives clarity to their writings and inoculates Progressives to their actions.
Our Traditionalist Predecessors
In a connectional church, all sides learn from one another. It is without irony and only with gratitude that one of the models for this discontent and desire to create space to create something new can be traced, actually, to the now-dominant Traditionalists.
Since the 1980s, the Traditionalists were the ones who refused to participate in the mainline United Methodist Church and created their own parallel structures.
- For decades, conservative evangelicals operated parallel denominational resources without oversight or accountability. Through the Mission Society (1984 parallel to the General Board of Global Missions), Bristol House Books (1987 parallel to Abingdon), and the RENEW network (1989 parallel to UM Women), they created their own parallel structure that provides books, women’s fellowship, and missionaries for congregations to support outside of United Methodist oversight, accountability, or connectional leadership.
- For decades, churches that were considered conservative evangelical have withheld their church tithes, and one of the Top 100 churches has withheld them for two years–with no consequences. Who exactly is upholding the Discipline? It’s important to note that withholding apportionments was originally part of non-conformity legislation, but progressives wisely removed it.
- Far from the post-2012 Biblical Obedience movement inciting a schism, these structures and others like them have been syphoning off the evangelical spirit from the UMC since they began.
And yet we see that it worked. Partially by their carving out of their own regions and institutions alongside and within United Methodism, they strengthened their slim-majority perspective into the dominant majority perspective.
In all these ways, we thank our predecessors for teaching us the value of creative minorities. While the tactics will be different, it is further evidence that the progressives are a minority voice in the Church.
So if the current Traditionalist majority complains about non-conformity actions, they only need to scroll back about 30 years, and they’ll see themselves in the mirror, dimly.
Better Together
The United Methodist Church would be best to let these acts of non-conformity stand and allow these annual conferences to live out the Gospel in their context.
The stage is set for the United Methodist Church to do what its parent Church of England could not do: absorb the gains of the movement. Author Brian McLaren says the best institutions absorb the progress and advancements of the movements within it:
Effective institutions consolidate the gains of a movement.
Brilliant ones keep the movement alive.
Anyone remember President LBJ calling MLK Jr to “turn up the heat” so that he could pass civil rights legislation?
Creative Minorities have the potential to keep the movement alive and ultimately make United Methodism a far stronger force in the world than it was at the beginning of the 21st century. A Church with a Wesleyan DNA, progressive social policies, and an evangelical spirit can overcome the winnowing ahead–and be more just in doing it.
Thoughts?
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Great article, as always! Let me add that the ordination and continuance of candidacy of out LGBTQ persons in multiple conferences is a very powerful act of non-conformity as well. It is sad to note that a trial might be awaiting the Rev Cynthia Meyer of the Great Plains, and charges have been brought against the Rev Anna Blaedel of Iowa for coming out at her conference session.
Thank you. My intuition and heart believes you are right, and I appreciate the homework and references. Thanks for your insightful journalism!
I am with you. And very proud& supportive. A UMW member
I loved your insightful exposure of the traditionalists complaints against non-conformity while promoting all the elements of the parallel structures created by the Good News folks. Let’s all keep the pressure on for an inclusive Methodist church!
If I had to sum up this article in a sentence it would sound something like, “Traditionalists have done things like this in the past, so that makes it okay for us, too!” Except when traditionalists were doing these things, the progressives had huge distaste for it. It’s an example of folks loving these tactics when their own side practices them, while demonizing the other side when they do the same thing. Also, two wrongs do not make a right. Also, while it certainly is a breach of connection and discipline for a church to refuse to give apportionments, there is nothing in the Discipline precluding us from giving to bodies outside of the UMC structure. The example of RENEW et al doesn’t make a good corollary for current progressive schismatic activity.
It’s also unfortunate that we can name three huge areas that progressives are behaving this way in the span of a few months, while you can only summon two similar examples from the other side over the course of almost five decades.
You should cite examples of the IRD’s behaviors that you name. But once again, two wrongs don’t make a right.
I think this article also bears the burden of showing how it is that contradicting the General Conference is not a schismatic action. There hasn’t ever been, to my knowledge, a conservative Annual Conference that has blatantly said that they will not do what the General Conference has set forth.
Toynbee’s ideas, while interesting (only sorta), aren’t really proven out. Especially in the case of the RC Church. It’s easy to come up with theories. We are at a point in time where folks on the left are really acting out, and it feels dishonest at this point to say that this is not a threat to our overall unity. If you’re going to make that case, I think you need to do better than this.
The powerful always blame the victims for their victimization. The above post is a classic example of the arrogance of power, sneering at those it considers beneath itself.
Read Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation. Historically, the creative minorities have stayed alive in order to move society forward, and not just in Christianity.
As a person in the creative minority I know one thing this first morning after our PNW Annual Conference that I didn’t know before: when your soul reaches the point where it will not be sullied through hatred any longer; and you find a group of people who believe likewise – you link arms and go forward disregarding what might become of you.
Our work is not finished with non-conformity; it’s just begun.
Sullied through hatred any longer? Do you understand the difference between Harm and Hurt? Do no harm is appropriate counsel but do no hurt is a recipe for illness and a wasting away. There is such a thing as therapeutic hurt, loving actions that promote healing but hurt like the dickens. The setting of a broken bone or the stitching of a wound come to mind.
Speaking the truth in love often hurts like hell but the alternative is to actually create great harm through inaction.
My speaking truthfully to you as hurtful as you may perceive it is NOT an act of hatred. If it helps you consider it a courageous act of speaking the truth to power (the individual’s power over their own personal life)
There is such a thing as therapeutic hurt, but, as in the examples you give, you have to get the consent of the person you are inflicting it on before inflicting it. Not just any random slob is allowed to set a broken bone or stitch a wound, and even a licensed medical person is not allowed to do so if the intended patient does not consent to the treatment. Furthermore, anesthesia, whether general or local, would be used to prevent pain in the examples you gave, because it isn’t the pain itself that is therapeutic, and the pain can actually cause further harm, for instance by increasing blood pressure or inducing shock.
So, yes, if someone seeks out a licensed therapist to deal with life issues, the therapist will at some point have to bring awareness that may hurt in the short run, but that doesn’t mean that you get to go around telling friends, acquaintances and even strangers what you think you know about their shortcomings. People like to tell ourselves that we are telling the truth in love when we are actually spreading our prejudices in hate, but telling ourselves so doesn’t make it true.
” People like to tell ourselves that we are telling the truth in love when we are actually spreading our prejudices in hate, but telling ourselves so doesn’t make it true.”
Having others declare our loving acts prejudicial and hateful doesn’t make them prejudicial and hateful. You honestly didn’t think of this corollary as you wrote your sentence above?
What happens to your position if my declaration that homosexuality is a sexual disorder and it’s practice sinful proceeds from an honest and loving assessment of the elementary biological facts and the Biblical witness?
How much of your position rests upon you seeing me as some kind of hateful, bigoted brute that you can dismiss rather than dialog with?
None of it, actually. My position rests upon research about how all people, myself included, which is why I used the word “we”, grant ourselves better motives than we do other people (it’s called “actor – observer bias”) and on enough knowledge about medical ethics to point out the flaws in your medical analogies and to try to explain how they would actually apply. So my point still stands : if you want to inflict “therapeutic hurt” to prevent long-term harm, you need both appropriate training and the consent of the person you are inflicting it on. If you don’t have these, then the people you are hurting have every right to question whether your actions proceed from love.
Didn’t Oregon-Idaho also pass a non-conformity statement? Haven’t heard if Rocky Mountain, Alaska, or Yellowstone did or not either. I was in California-Nevada last week and ours was called “Living into Grace,” but had to word it as an aspirational statement to keep it from being ruled out of order by our bishop. There was a little bit of pushback from the conservative branch, as we already have a truce with the conservative branch of our conference, yet it still passed overwhelmingly.
While it is not possible for non-conforming legislation to pass in many conferences, I would encourage progressive UMs to adopt an “if-you-can-you-should” principle for embracing non-conformity. Non-conforming conferences “can” take the actions they’ve taken because the structures around them make it possible. Since they “can,” I’m so grateful that they “have” created transformational space in which the rest of us can breathe. But isolated progressives in the south can also embrace non-conformity by adopting the “if-you-can-you-should” principle. If, for example, you are in an isolated Reconciling Congregation in the south, as I am, you can also create transformational breathing room for others around you by marching in your local Pride parade. Or, you can publicly applaud (through social media or the local newspaper) the Supreme Court decision that overturned Texas’ unconstitutional restrictions on clinics providing safe abortions and other important medical services. Sadly, people in some regions have never even considered that God may have inspired feminism and may just be incarnate in the glorious LGBTQIA community. But some people are wondering; and our non-conforming witness can make it possible for them to take a breath of that transforming possibility. If you “can” do something, whatever it may be, maybe you should? Let’s create all the breathing room that we “can.”
Your sentiments are excellent but it seems to me you are excusing inaction all to easily by people whose emotions tell them they “just caaaaaaaaan’t” do this or that. I would liken it to a person saying they “just caaaaaaan’t” put a Clinton bumpersticker on their car because they live in a county which voted 82% for Mitt Romney in 2012. My answer to those people is “Nothing is stopping you.” Perhaps it means you won’t be invited to Muffy’s shower, but, so what? If those people would do that to you over that, they weren’t such good friends in the first place. Actually, research has found that bumperstickers and signs in districts which are lopsided help significantly. You can increase your candidate’s share from 15% to 20% in such districts by such simple gestures, it’s well worth it.
The only logical result will be rejection of these non-conforming churches by the UMC as the laws require to be done. The three “indiscriminate” annual conferences are denying the Bible and are following the ways of the world.
Still; These indiscriminate sexual ideals are not the polygamy of another “Western Denomination”, but are ideals no true UMC can accept.