If Progressive Methodists cannot imagine life outside the Wesleyan perspective, then there is nowhere else for them to go except to continue to reform the United Methodist Church.
The Worst Case Scenario
While Schism is a trendy topic these days in United Methodism, the potential for expulsion may be even greater. An earlier post gave rise to this question in social media interactions:
If the United Methodist Church’s current conservative majority legislates out progressive voices, like the Southern Baptist Church did to its moderates in the 1980s, where do the minority group of progressives go?
The question comes not only from progressives, but also the three most common courses of action “helpfully” suggested by Traditionalists to get rid of Progressives from The UMC.
Let’s walk through the three options most commonly offered.
1. Go Join Another Wesleyan Church!
Q: Why don’t you join another Wesleyan denomination instead of United Methodism?
A: In the Wesleyan section of the Christian family tree, there are many branches. Wesleyanism encompasses Methodism, Nazarene, Pentecostalism, Free Methodism, the Salvation Army, and many other smaller denominations. In fact, the World Methodist Council encompasses 80 denominations with 8 in the continental US alone. There has historically been some movement (schisms, mergers, and transfers) of individuals and churches between these denominations.
So if the conservative majority continues to legislate against the progressive minority, why don’t progressives leave and join another Wesleyan denomination?
The answer may not be easy to hear: no American Wesleyan denomination allows for LGBTQ inclusion. The closest is our neighbors to the North as United Church of Canada churches can officiate same-gender unions on a church-by-church basis through the Affirming Church program. (edit per comments: Any United Church congregation can choose to officiate the wedding of same sex couples). But the large American swath of Free Methodists, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, etc do not allow for it. Even expanding the fuller Wesleyan circle to the conversations between Wesleyan Holiness churches over the past few years yielded zero churches for full inclusion.
Seeing where United Methodism lies on the spectrum of Wesleyanism gives a clearer response to the question: The United Methodist Church is the closest to the progressive edge of Wesleyanism (and by extension, all of Evangelicalism), and it is in many social and theological areas. It is primarily in the area of LGBTQ inclusion where it is far behind, only incrementally ahead of other branches of Wesleyanism.
2. Go Join another Like-Minded Denomination!
Q: Why don’t you leave and join with other like-minded progressives in other denominations?
A: The historical form of this is “if you affirm the gays, get out and join the UCC” which has admittedly been a standard practice for decades. Many of my LGBTQ clergy friends have found open ministry in the UCC and Episcopal denominations (and now Presbyterian/Lutherans too), and I’m glad for them.
However, such a course of action would mean ceding the entirety of Wesleyan thought away from progressive values. While other denominations will facilitate the Wesleyan perspective, it is not systematically taught and lived out across any progressive denomination. Yes, I affirm other denominations’ own integrity, and their own understanding of Truth. But they do not have what I claim as my lens and do not cherish my Wesleyan lens the same way that the United Methodist Church does.
I refuse to give up Wesleyanism and to cede the entirety of Wesleyan thought away from Progressive values. I believe Wesleyanism has more potential than being wedded to social policies that will not stand the test of time.
3. Go Start Your Own Denomination!
Q: Why don’t Progressives leave and start their own Wesleyan denomination?
A: Here’s the most common refrain these days: progressives should leave and form their own version of the Methodist church. This will likely become the chorus line for the Wesleyan Covenant Association: either the non-conforming progressives leave or we will.
While we cannot control what non-compatible traditionalists might do to make it a forced choice, we can reflect on what we do as progressives.
I feel it would be unjust and unhelpful to ghettoize Methodism further and remove progressive voices from international and local discussions in the successor to United Methodism. As articulated over and over on this blog, schism does not solve the problem within Wesleyanism and removing a progressive voice would lead to more harm–not less–for the average Methodist.
Indeed, one has only to look how other minorities have faired in the Episcopal Church turmoil: the breakaway Texas faction of the TEC stopped ordaining women altogether and set back decades of equality. If progressives leave to form their own Wesleyan denomination, it is not inconceivable that clergy women would become endangered, as it just happened in 2013.
Further, another Wesleyan Church broke off over slavery and left the Methodist table only a year before a radical transformation in the Church. It’s a historical note that is heart-wrenching in retrospect as that denomination never was able to infuse their values into the greater Wesleyan tradition. May we not be so hasty either.
Exerting Privilege amidst Antagonism
In conclusion, with the knowledge that The UMC is, oddly, the most progressive form of Wesleyanism, some answers to those typical questions become more clear: there is nowhere else that embraces Wesleyanism and progressive thought more than the United Methodist Church—even as it continues to deny LGBT inclusion. It’s our church too: why are we continually pushed to give it up?
So for the answer of what to do, I need to name my privilege. As a straight white full Elder serving in a progressive conference, I am called to use my privilege to advocate for a better church than the one I was baptized and ordained into. That’s my choice, and one I call other persons of similar privilege to exercise.
But I don’t blame LGBTQ persons who are unable to serve in this tradition. We have story after story of courageous LGBTQ persons and those who practice LGBTQ inclusion through Biblical Obedience…but I know there are an equal number of folks who need to leave for self-care. I wish them nothing but happiness and do not question their choice.
For those that have the privilege and ability to stay within the United Methodist Church, my hope is that they stay in the struggle for the future.
The Call to Knit Together
I believe the world will be bettered by a Wesleyan perspective that embraces the whole of humanity. And I believe the Church will be bettered by those ecclesial objectors and progressive insiders who stand firm and advocate from within the United Methodist Church, changing hearts and minds one person, church, conference, and continent at a time.
I know perseverance works because of our history. The Wesleyan world is bettered by those progressives who did not leave the UMC over women’s ordination and now we are the largest American denomination that ordains women. Across the world we ordain women. And the same arguments in our past against such actions are recurring again today against LGBTQ Inclusion.
So we stay. We advocate. We agitate. We pray. We talk. We coexist. We persevere because one day the Church and World will find the same value that I do in a Wesleyan theology that is fused with progressive understanding of the human condition and lived out in missional ways.
And when that happens, I want you in that Church. Standing next to me.
Your turn
Thoughts? Thanks for reading and your shares on social media.
Note: portions of this post came from this 2014 blog post.
What you call reform I call a civil war that has fractured The UMC, undermined trust in its leaders and lays like a soggy blanket over everything we do. We parse the words of our bishops looking for hidden agendas or code words that speak to a specific audience. One side is using covenant breaking as a means to achieve a goal, further undermining trust and inhibiting meaningful dialogue. How is any of this healthy for us? Together we are going nowhere and poisoning relations among the membership. Separately each faction has a chance to flourish.
Well, Kevin’s experience (per comment a above) is not the experience I have had in a Georgia UMC which is not ‘Reconciling’
I attended the church and sang in a choir of people I grew to care s great deal for. I did not arrive and wave a rainbow flag. I didn’t introduce my spouse proudly to all on day one or even in the first year.
I know there are conservative voices in our church, but I also know from the conversations, the hugs, the shared time in Sunday School… I want an outcast and my other half was welcomed as my spouse many times.
I wouldn’t leave that church at all, except for the reason that work has taken me away from the area – back for now to a British Methodist Church where it was all hugs yesterday!
Fractured? Civil war? I like being in church with those I am with. I do feel it is terribly sad we have issues of LGBTQ people in leadership roles, ordination issues etc. Yes, there is division then and at conference, that’s when I can see people experience exactly what Kevin speaks of.
That’s when our inability to accept what “is” does not match what we were taught it “is” and our biblical understanding is skewed by our beliefs, praying we can overcome this so we can stay together.
Interesting. One might also ask the question, “Where would evangelicals go if forced out of the UM Church? The options are very different. #1 and foremost, the number of persons who as individuals have left the UM Church, not because of progressive values if by that you mean racial justice and economic equality, but because the leadership of the church has abandoned the historic faith, numbers in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Many that I know of have gone to independent churches, or any church where the gospel is preached. Churches who leave would become independent. Some might want to link with other Wesleyan bodies but that number would be small. Evangelicals do not have the problem that progressives do because 80% of American’s churches are compatible with UM evangelicals. A major problem for evangelicals is not progressive values but institutionalism, especially an institutionalism that is so heavy-handed prejudiced against evangelicals. For that reason, evangelicals would probably not form another denomination. Create another institution?
Progressives would not, I suspect, form another Wesleyan “progressive” denomination because such a denomination, given the type of churches that are part of the Love Prevails network, is not viable. That is, it could not sustain itself. Let’s face it, progressives at the moment depend on the apportionment payments of large churches, most of which lean to traditional if not evangelical. Without that money there would not be enough support for 12 progressive seminaries, and almost all of the progressive boards and agencies of the church, as well as the salaries for all the progressive bishops.
The article is incorrect to believe that if the Love Prevails folks left, the UM church would not continue progressive values, if by that you mean concern for the poor and for economic justice, for racial justice, and for other forms of social witness. This summer the Indiana conference celebrated the 150th anniversary of the first woman ordained in the UM tradition. It is hardly recognized in the larger church because Helenor Davisson was Methodist Protestant and from the revivalist and holiness wing of the church. Evangelicals traditionally have been on the forefront of social reform, but social reform with a difference, that is, based on Biblical (and not secular) values.
I agree, progressive have a problem if it becomes uncomfortable in the UM Church. Their option at the moment seems to be to fight even if it brings down the church.
Hello Dr. Case, thanks for your comment.
It’s important to note that on most issues of racial and gender equality, progressives led the church and carried the water until the conservative evangelicals came around to it. Their “better known” names are highly important as the ones who finally “tipped” the scales…but it was not out of novel revelation, but the slow work of both God and the progressives who had already done it. With both progressives and evangelicals combined, that’s the source of United Methodist social witness. We see we are still in the interim time now as more and more evangelicals become LGBTQ-affirming, including Tony Campolo, but we haven’t seen that level of boldness in bigtime United Methodist conservative pastors (I would name Hamilton and Slaughter as moderate evangelicals, but I’m open to being wrong).
Secondly, your claims of progresssives not being able to sustain themselves have been refuted here (Three Ways How the UMC Gets Progressive Christianity Shockingly Wrong) and here (Debunked: The West Costs The UMC Too Much) and are tired arguments that have not kept up with the actual data.
Finally, your rhetorical strategy of painting all progressives with the Love Prevails brush must be named because the progressive movement is quite diverse and we are better named as progressives or a more general term than saying we all are represented by one smaller group. But nice try 😉
May a blazing phoenix spirit resurrect the Church again!
If by social reform you mean promoting “family values”, mission trips with the hidden agenda of evangelizing to those who have been rocked by natural disaster and poverty, sanctity of marriage and/or religious freedom, then I guess you are right. I don’t see a lot of effort around social justice, demanding equal rights or trying to reduce racism by evangelicals. Their work consists mainly of trying to extend their dominion to the entire world, or attempting to drive their way of thinking unilaterally.
Yes (to the post) and yes (to the reply to Riley Case.)
Kevin’s use of the language of civil war is very interesting. We should not lose sight of the reality that the issues we face are also very much issues of trust – or lack thereof – just like between R’s and D’s in America during this election season.
In “wicked problem” theory, there is good news and bad news for this discussion. The good news is that institutions ‘fail into collaboration’ to address the multiple issues that comprise the snake pit of a wicked problem. That is, stakeholders recognize every alternative to collaboration (competition, authoritarian approaches) are worse, thus making collaboration “the best bad idea we have.” The bad news is that most collaborative efforts fail and flop back into competition. Jeremy offers an approach of non-negotiable collaboration, i.e., a commitment to remain in the system with an ongoing effort to collaborate provided non-negotiables (such as affirming same gender marriage, etc) are exempt from accountability. Riley seems confident (but NOT cocky) that traditional-conservative folks comfortably could bolt such a dysfunctional system, taking the live coals of biblical faith and leaving the cold stove of denominational structure (and seminaries?) for progressive uses with their dwindling resources until depletion closes the shop. Collaboration has a chance if conservatives are willing to welcome and affirm more liberal folks in the freedom to lobby principled change in church teaching without denigration or penalty…and if liberals are willing to obey the collective will of the global church insofar as acts of disobedience to the teaching of the church are concerned. Jeremy’s post suggests insofar as liberals are concerned: we’re staying and not obeying. Riley seems to hint that if liberals neither will obey nor depart, conservatives will do so (rather than kindling a spiritual civil war to oust the defiant ones), rebirthing a new Wesleyan movement…which ain’t nearly as blissful as it sounds. To be continued…
Excellent comment, Bob. However, I think that you are addressing the ends of the spectrum, only. For Jeremy (and other progressives) to reasonably expect to stay is a gamble that the denomination is not so simply split into a majority conservative group and a minority progressive group. In order to stay and non-compliant with a few paragraphs, progressives will have to count on a population of traditionalists that can abide (or suffer?) the presence of protest – which in this case is manifest in the transgression of a few rules.
It’s the same gamble that I think the Bishops are making, believing there are more United Methodists that can stay in communion with people they disagree with than there are who cannot.
To quote one author: “The loss of both/and solutions in our body politic has produced tribalism and gridlock that eats at our country’s soul. On that issue, many on both sides, right and left, Christian and non-Christian, are guilty. Not only do we need less my tribe only in our public conversation, we need more morally rooted conversation about all of us with much less invective.” (Darrell L. Bock)
Extreme progressives and conservatives may get exactly what they wish – rid of the other.
Would it be too much to ask both progressive and orthodox United Methodists to hold to our covenant while they remain connected? If that becomes impossible, surely we can find gracious ways to help those desiring an exit to unite with another more compatible group, one which not only affirms progressive philosophies but also allows for disobedience to ecclesial teaching and law.
“…disobedience to ecclesial teaching and law”? Seriously? Being gay and wanting to be married to my partner of 22 years is not “disobedience.”
The only people being disobedient are the “Christians” who believe it is their right to disobey Jesus by not obeying his commandment to “love one another.” The United Methodist Book of Disciple is no more “law” than the junk mail I get in my mailbox.
Keith, you and those like you are the reason I’ve turned my back on the church. Not only on the church, but on the entire concept of a supreme being. All you people do is point out how others are wrong, and I’m done with it. I hope you are proud, Keith Mcilwain, for your accomplishments in that department. If there were such a thing as a God, you’d have FAR more to answer for than I do, you unrepentant hypocrite.
May the peace of Jesus be with you.
I knew a Christian woman who used to say to a Jewish colleague, “Jesus Loves You” whenever they were in conflict. I was embarassed by her words because they sounded so shallow. That is how your words sound to me.
Guess some could do like I have and become one of the “Dones”.
I spent the first 65+ years of my life in the UMC doing everything from one committee to another and more. My brain was picked dry; my mouth left parched.
Done with all of it.
I’ve already left, and all my charitable contributions now go to non-profit arts organizations. At least the arts will never turn their back on the LGBTQ community. A lifetime of emotional abuse at the hand of “Christians” has led me to embrace my inner atheist, so the UMC will certainly never see me again — nor will any other church.
I have left the UMC after 80 years because I can no longer be part of a church that condemns practicing homosexuals. In my mind that is as sinful as the times when blacks were excluded. Yet I continue to need a community in which to worship and serve together. May God bless you wherever you are on your journey to change the UMC. I am tired of the battle!
Where’s a gay, progressive, evangelical woman in the Wesleyan tradition to be ordained? I hear you on progressives staying within the UMC, but I since I’m not yet ordained, I don’t know that I can choose to be ordained by denomination that calls me disordered.
I have learned only recently about the cleft through the UMC driven by groups I will collectively refer to as the evangelicals. I have encountered people within the UMC, in Sunday School calsses, Disciple groups, church committees, the pulpit and elsewhere, for a long time who held views similar to those that I perceive in the evangelicals. I usually opposed these views pointing out that they were either (1) contrary to the Book of Discipline’s social principles on such issues as abortion, caring for the poor, war, and many others, or (2) outside the boundaries of Methodism when related to reason, experience, tradition and scripture, or (3) so scripturally inadequate as to be ignorant (See reason in item 2), or (4) so at odds with my understanding of what Jesus said and did as to be unrecognizable. But I dismissed these observations as reflecting the biases of individuals and not something that threatened the very foundation on which I worshiped and walked.
But now I am told that very well organized and politically potent forces such as the Institute on Religion and Democracy have been behind much of this evangelicalization of the UMC, and the IRD has carried on this campaign very purposefully since its organization in the mid 80s trying to remove the UMC from the category of mainline church. Well I am not going anywhere. I will stand and fight on this ground as long as I live and struggle with all that I am to see that my church does not succumb to what I believe to be a huge leap backward into the 19th century.
Of course the contemporary battleground for this warfare is the UMC’s response to LGBTQ inclusion. The evangelicals wave the flag of righteous indignation that anyone who would support inclusion must be wicked and evil. They do not realize that in doing so, they have become the modern day Pharisees. As Jesus stood with the prostitutes and tax collectors, I stand with Gay Methodists everywhere and say, “Bring it on evangelicals! I’m not going anywhere, and I will call you out every chance I get. It’s my church too!”
Like I said, Civil War.
Jeremy, your statement …”the United Methodist Church—even as it continues to deny LGBT inclusion. It’s our church too: why are we continually pushed to give it up?” is a question I have been asking myself since May (GC). I’m not quite as “privileged” as you, but I’m with you 100%. Lloyd, your words are mine as well. Thank you for articulating so well.
Whatever Progressive Methodists may be, they are not Wesleyan. John Wesley held to the full inspiration and authority of Scripture. Wesley regarded homosexual practices as sin, which he called Sodomy.
Beyond that, Progressive Methodists and Traditional Orthodox Methodists have two very different world views, and each are sincere in their beliefs. But their values, beliefs, and world views are so different that the belong in different churches.
If these groups stay in the same denomination, of course Traditional Orthodox Methodists will continue to legislate against Progressive ideas that they consider unscriptural. The only practical solution is separation. It would best if the separation could be amicable, but if not it will happen regardless.
It is unlikely that Progressives will ever be “kicked out”. More likely, Traditional Orthodox will be forced to leave the UMC by their consciences. Indeed, all that many Traditonal Orthodox Methodists ask for is their local property and assets that they bought and built themselves. Many are willing to cede the millions of dollars of denominational property and assets that they mostly paid for. And the Progressives will still have their “United Methodist Church”, and it really might be “united” for a change.
As a lapsed Catholic, when I turned back to God my wife (ex-Baptist) and I found a home in a UMC church. What drew us there was a strong tradition of discipleship, biblically focused worship, and an open table for God’s people to commune, remember, and glorify Him. These were the tonics that God used to heal my brokenness.
To hear and read about the rancor now engulfing the UMC church saddens me. As with the state of US politics it seems that the Evil One’s seeds of divisiveness have firmly rooted themselves in the very people whose purpose is to be salt to the world. It seems that in every posted remark that God’s immense beyond understanding Love has been simplified into a zero sum game. For one to win, the other must lose.
I pray that all people on both sides of this debate find the humility and grace to see the others as fellow children of a most loving and forgiving God, and that they uplift each other in prayers for God’s mercy and wisdom.
No travail is beyond His cure, no peace too far from His touch. I know this, because as a fellow sinner I learned it in the welcoming pew of a UMC church.