A Response to Dr. Maria Dixon Hall’s article charging the Western Jurisdiction as recanting the Connection and their Ordination Vows.
Song for the Situation
In college, my best friend and I had a falling out. I had made some decisions he didn’t approve of, and I didn’t appreciate or listen to his disapproval. The mutual silent treatment between us went on for months. One day, he sat me down and said “listen to this new song,” hit play on my CD deck, and left the room.
It was a song by the metal alternative band Tool. The opening lyrics reflected a relationship gone sour (in our case, substitute “brothers” for “lovers”):
I know the pieces fit ’cause I watched them fall away.
Mildewed and smoldering. Fundamental differing.
Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers’ souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication
I remember sitting for a long while after hearing the song. Conversation reopened, we reconciled, and remain friends to this day.
The title of the song?
Schism.
Battle of the Bands
“The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so we cannot seem to reach an end”
After the election of Bishop Karen Oliveto in The United Methodist Church, Dr. Maria Dixon Hall of Southern Methodist University in Texas penned a response criticizing this action by the Western Jurisdiction:
I have fought for full inclusion. I believed with all my heart that we could and would have changed the Discipline at a General Conference because there were those of us who decided to work one delegate and delegation at a time…But rather than embrace the opportunity for working on our relationship, it has become painfully clear that our Western Jurisdiction clergy colleagues no longer want to be in a relationship with us. Sadly, I realized this morning that no compromise, no polity, no General Conference can keep a connection or a relationship together when people don’t want to be in a relationship anymore. So rather than show up at the counselor’s office, they (and several other congregations and conferences) have chosen to go directly to the lawyer’s office.
Dr. Dixon Hall ends with words of warning for the West…via lyrics by Taylor Swift:
“I am someone who knows that damn it Taylor Swift IS a prophet because we are never ever getting back together. We can still be friends….right?”
In response, I have to immediately name our biggest difference: Taylor Swift. 🙂 My preferred music genre is 1990s/2000s grunge and alternative rock. Rather than Dr. Dixon Hall’s Taylor Swift references, in this blog post I’ll use the lyrics of Tool’s song Schism (listen here, lyrics here), the same song that impacted me long ago.
Pointing Two Fingers
“Point the finger, blame the other. Watch the temple topple over to bring the pieces back together.”
Dr. Dixon Hall makes two allegations in her blog post about Bishop Oliveto’s election:
- That the Western Jurisdiction no longer wants “to be in a relationship with the rest of the connection”
- That if WJ clergy “meant it” when affirming the historical questions, we couldn’t/shouldn’t have elected Bishop Oliveto with integrity.
I won’t make the same mistake of assuming intentions of Dr. Dixon Hall–after all, she tells me “don’t go there.”
I will only point out that these are two places where I believe her allegations fall short of the understanding I have of the moment of Bishop Oliveto’s election in particular, and the movement for LGBTQ inclusion in The United Methodist Church in general.
1. Upholding the Connection
“The poetry that comes from the squaring off between, and the circling is worth it.”
Electing a gay bishop is not the same as breaking up with the denomination. Rather, it shows our commitment to change the denomination from within by participating in the Executive Branch of The United Methodist Church in a way not thought possible.
Furthermore, beyond the movement was the moment of Oliveto’s election. I was a delegate at Western Jurisdictional Conference 2016. Out of an amazing pool of candidates, we elected the most qualified person, which is, and this is key, just as we believe was the case in the election of all the other bishops that week. Right? Do we believe that?
I wish Dr. Dixon Hall could have been in the room where it happened. She might see things a bit differently.
2. Obedience to our Vows
“Finding beauty in the dissonance.”
Did we mean it when we committed to our ordination vows? A friend on Facebook had the following comment posted about Dr. Dixon Hall’s article, which I reproduce in full as bullet points:
- As a Christian I accept Jesus’s declaration that the most important commandments are to love the Lord our God, and our neighbor as ourselves. I seek to answer His prayer that we may all be one. I seek to fulfill his final commandment, that I love others as He has loved me.
- As a United Methodist I affirm with our Constitution, that all persons are of sacred worth, created in the image of God, in need of the ministry of the Church, and eligible to attend our worship, receive our services and upon baptism and declaration of the Christian faith, to become members of our congregation.
- As a United Methodist I affirm with our Social Principles that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons, that basic human rights and civil liberties are due all persons and that we are committed to supporting these rights and liberties for all, regardless of sexual orientation. We support efforts to stop forms of coercion against all persons regardless of sexual orientation.
- I find these central demands of my Savior and of our denomination’s Constitution and Social Principles to be at irreparable odds with the subordinate disciplinary statutes that prohibit ordination of sexual minority persons or celebration of same sex marriages.
- Furthermore, in our United Methodist Baptismal Covenant we promise to “accept the freedom and power God gives (us) to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves”.
- If our first and most basic covenant with the Church involves accepting the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves”, then I, as a baptized United Methodist, am empowered/required, by our baptismal covenant with the Church, to disobey the Book of Discipline when that book is a presenting form of evil, injustice and oppression.
- Therefore, this is an act of Biblical, Constitutional, and Social Principal obedience, not an act of insurrection or abrogation of my vows.
This is an act in line with upholding the best of United Methodism, not smothering the best we are together with the worst six lines in our polity.
3. Fixing, not Severing, our Relationship
“Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our communication.”
Finally, if we use Dr. Dixon Hall’s analogy of a quarreling couple, we need to be accurate: the conflict in The United Methodist Church is not between two equal partners who are in marital therapy. It’s more akin to an abused partner saying they won’t put up with being attacked anymore.
Continuing the analogy, I guess it was in their wedding vows that they will subject themselves to their partner, no matter what the partner does to them. Does that excuse decades of tangible hurt? In a real-life situation, we wouldn’t blame the abused partner. But we seem so reasonable doing precisely that when it comes to LGBTQ persons in The United Methodist Church.
Besides, if we are accusing one partner of going to a lawyer, let’s look at the calendar and note Bishop Oliveto’s election was a few weeks after the other partner had begun an affair with a new covenant association.
In the end, Dr. Dixon Hall and I have both undoubtedly seen abusive relationships reconcile. I could not believe that they could, and I don’t really advocate that they should, but despite my beliefs, I’ve seen it happen. It’s not pretty, and it takes honesty and unfathomable forgiveness, but when it works, it’s just beyond my understanding. And I hope this reconciliation within our Church goes the same way as we put the pieces back together in ways not thought possible.
Your Turn
“Bring the pieces back together and rediscover communication.”
The West hasn’t sacrificed our belief in a reconciled Church or our spot at the Bishop’s Commission table, even if our straight allies try to take the seat from us.
I love the image from the top of this post. It looks like broken glass, irreparable, but it’s actually just chalk on a chalkboard, meaning that those divisions can be wiped away and the whole board can be one again.
Yes, it will take a lot. But our Church, we’ve been through a lot already.
We’ve been here before. Methodists came together over laity voting at General Conference, over women’s ordination, over African-Americans serving white churches, and even crafting a reasonable statement on abortion. While doing so, we became the largest connectional Protestant Church in America, the church home of Presidents and world leaders, and a huge transformative force for Christ in the Global South.
We know the pieces fit.
Will we watch them fall away?
Thoughts? Thanks for your comments and your shares on social media.
Jeremy, I have linked to this post from United Methodist Insight in order to pair it properly with Maria Dixon Hall’s original post.
Thanks Cynthia!
We experienced the spirit in “the room where it happen.”
“Broken pieces can be mortared into walls or mended into mosaics” What an awesome church we would have if we could all accept each other and love each other as Christ loves us – no gender, no skin color, no worries regarding sexual orientation, just loving everyone as God created them to be…..so simple….
This was my response to Dr. Dixon Hall’s article:
To carry your analogy further, what I am hearing sounds a lot like an abusive spouse who, having made many empty promises to change and get help, yet has continued his drinking and beating ways, is shocked to find that his wife has fled in the night to her mother’s. He (I’m sure nobody will object to me making this villian male) sits at his friend’s kitchen table, twirling a bottle of Coors Light, muttering over and over again to himself, “I never thought she’d actually do it…”
So forgive me if I’m less than sympathetic to your point of view that we need to stay together for the kids. The global UMC, wagged by the tail of SEJ and some central jurisdictions, spat in the face of justice and those it had been harming for more than 40 years. We didn’t even get the courtesy of a lie in the form of some promise to change – only to talk more.
Well, screw that. We will not proceed under those terms. Someone need to be the adult here, so we will make known our terms: Full inclusion. Period. Justice. Mercy. Walk humbly with God. If you’re down – really down – with that, great. If not, then maybe that Southern Baptist tramp down the street might be more to your liking…
Sorry if this is harsh, but this relationship needs some tough love right now.
This is excellent, Jeremy.
The spirit of God was with us the day, no the week, our new Bishop, Karen Oliveto, was elected. What an amazing process of joy, love, prayer, and discernment.
Thank you Jeremy for putting into words my prayers and thoughts.
I’m going to disagree with one little detail of your metaphor, but I think it’s important to understand in the context of this dynamic:
When a spouse has suffered years of abuse– and let’s be clear that it’s the sort of abuse that leaves your body whole, but strips away your personhood; it’s the degrading, name calling, dehumanizing abuse, that doesn’t make you mad so you can leave, but makes you question your worth and your reality; it’s the very abuse with which I am deeply personally familiar– when a spouse has experienced this abuse and finally decides that it’s real abuse and they don’t need to live in it, and they can take a stand for their own humanity…
You better believe “we” blame them.
Society blames and shames that survivor for not leaving sooner. Society blames and shames them for not working harder on the relationship, for not waiting longer for the abuser to change, even as the abuser uses “therapy” (General Conference?) as an opportunity not to listen and work it out, but to yell and name-call and reinscribe their own dominance, while calling the survivor overly emotional should they raise their voice. Society openly questions whether psychological and verbal abuse “count,” and says the survivor is just being too sensitive, or reactionary, or is the one who made the divorce happen. And thus society reveals that it values marriage (or unity) over humanity, dignity, self-differentiation, life-giving love of self and other.
“We” do blame the survivor. That’s exactly what is happening here.
Well, here we get to the root of the problem–which is not the sexuality question. It is what does it mean when clergy make specific promises at the time of their ordination. Some believe they are binding, some believe they are not–there are ways to wiggle around them. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus specifically addresses making oaths; he concludes with this statement in Matthew 5:37: Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, “No; anything more than this comes from the evil one. So what did your “Yes ” mean at your ordination? And if your conscience is clear when it comes to whatever answer you come up with–all well and good but…
Big Tent Methodism is not an asset; it is what is tearing us apart! The reality everybody is dodging is that The United Methodist Church is in existence because John Wesley had a specific message and method that made Methodists a unique set of people. We lost that back in the 1800′ which means we are a century into being a church that has no unique identity nor contribution to make to the Christian landscape. There will be no unity until we all collectively come to an understanding of who we are and what it is we need to be doing. And if you look back at Wesley, Christianity is not about us changing the world through social justice initiatives, it is God changing individuals within a context of social holiness. Wesley did not change the world, Wesley created an environment where God changed whole communities one person at a time!
Another hard reality we need to embrace, is that it did not take Wesley long to understand that Methodism could not function under a “Big Tent”; no organization can:
https://peopleneedjesus.net/2016/08/24/do-united-methodists-need-a-bigger-tent/
Well said.
I do find the hypocrisy in this debate so interesting. Using ordination vows as a weapon as if they can or ought to be used to manipulate faithful servants doing their very best if a remarkably arrogant tactic. The hypocrisy is that at one and the same time we are all challenged to keep our ordination vows while those espousing such purity of integrity cherry pick their favorite bits and pieces of the Discipline without any reprisal. I can name handfuls different clergy in my own conference (Oklahoma) who refuse to baptize infants. I know of a dozen or more colleagues who do not believe in or teach universal atonement. I could point out so many well meaning, good pastors who violate the Discipline by denying – yes denying – access to the altar for people on the basis of their age or disability. Yet of that large flock of self appointed Disciplinary purists that I know, few of them advocate for full inclusion of LGBTQ persons and decry the Western Jurisdiction as heretics, schismatics, and terrorists. All the while, a new denomination has already been Kickstarted from radical wings who say with their mouths “yes, yes” while taking their vows but thinking “no, no” with their fingers crossed hoping no one will notice their infractions or call then to account.
We are a big tent. Christianity was intended to be that from the very beginning. Attempts throughout Christian history to”purify” the Church generally caused more harm than good. Reform, by the way, is different from expunging from one’s presence anyone but they who echo back in affirmation the biases and bigotries one worships. The big tent forces us to think and speak outside of our echo chambers. Unity in diversity has always been a hallmark of Christianity as a whole and certainly of United Methodism. This does preclude adherence to sounds dogma (of which human sexuality is not, strictly speaking, a matter of unchangeable dogma but of evolving and amendable doctrine). Unity in diversity was seen in the lives of the Wesley brothers who united a theological school of thought that brought together German pietism, Anabaptist spirituality, Anglican liturgy, Catholic consiliarism, Calvinist assurance, early Church ecumenical dogma, high church sacramentalism, Baptist evangelicalism, and an Arminian Triumph of grace. This is a big tent; this is United Methodism. For me, divorce has never been an option because in so doing we sacrifice the heart and center of our identity as the Bride of Christ. We cannot be a holy bride (at least not fully) while willfully divided. We simply cannot.
It needs also to be said that the conversations around sexuality in the UMC have always been indirect, because those of us who are LGBTQ in the Church have been talked about but never talked with in a thorough and direct sense. We have always been fearful that, by speaking as the LGBTQ persons we are, we would put ourselves at risk of being brought up on charges and removed from the vocation to which we have been called. Yes, “everyone knows who is gay,” but until we can talk openly as gay persons whose Christian experience and understanding are the foundations and guiding lights in our lives no less than they are for those who disagree with us in the areas of sexuality and biblical interpretation, and until we can be engaged in the conversation knowing that our interlocutors know we are gay, and that we know they know, the Church will continue to remain in its malaise, like a sick person who will not take the cure. The “cure” in this case is speaking our truth to one another, and receiving the truth of the other as one who is listening to a beloved sibling in Christ rather than as one who places oneself in authority over the other, and cedes no authority to the other in the conversation, but only stands in judgment. The rejection of Rule 44 by a majority of the delegates to GC2016 is indicative of this unwillingness to speak with one another in love and of the desire to batter the minority into submission or to force us to leave in order to avoid further abuse and marginalization. If the UMC is dying, it is because of the hardness of heart of those who would rather “win” than “love, as Christ has loved us.”
I have long held that one of the main reasons conservatives in the UMC – or any church – are unwilling to converse in the way I am describing is because too many of them have painful stories around issues of sexuality that they cannot bring themselves to tell. They are wounded, and yet they keep their wounds in this regard hidden from others, and in doing so, they keep them unavailable to Christ’s healing power. They refuse to share those stories, because they believe (or “know”) that were they to do so, first, their hypocrisy will be made plain to others with whom they have voiced disagreement for so long, and they will thus lose power in the “battle for the UMC”; and second, they will have to acknowledge that their abusive behavior towards LGBTQ members of the denomination has been an outward expression of their internal self-abuse, or a substitute for it; and they do not wish to be put in the position of having to ask for forgiveness from those they have so long abused. They are under the impression that the LGBTQ members of the UMC would operate according to the principle, “Turnabout is fair play”; when, in fact, the vast majority of us would say, “Thank you for your honesty in sharing, and for letting us share our stories, too. Now, let us love one another as Christ has loved us and, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, let us press on together towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Were that to happen, the life of the UMC would be revived, as it would become – again – a place in which New Life in Christ would spring forth, as it has in the past. Without the humbling of the proud in the UMC, however, we will continue down this road to destruction and fail to persuade the world that Christ has anything to offer them that they can’t get somewhere else.
On a much lighter note the image at the top doesnt look like broken glass. It looks like the outline of a map of Europe.
That’s because it IS an outline of Europe! I’m confused as to Jeremy’s source, however, in that his file’s name contains “depositphotos” but a thorough search of the key words on that site doesn’t bring up that image. Instead, I found it at “dreamstime.com” mistakenly referenced as “broken glass pieces drawn on the blackboard” when it’s clearly just an abstract outline of Europe. 🙂