For a caucus that claims majority appeal, money, and momentum, why does the Wesleyan Covenant Association share falsehoods instead of naming and claiming what they are really about?
Culture of Deceit
The political climate of the past year has intensified since November 2016 with the focus on fake news, alternative facts, and government officials dancing around accountability in the White House newsroom. We venerate whatever is sensational and marketable at the expense of truth.
Sadly for a church that relies heavily on Truth, we are now witnessing the same secular rhetoric settle into the allegedly popular Wesleyan Covenant Association–and I wonder why they feel the need to resort to such questionable tactics.
A New Video
The Wesleyan Covenant Association recently updated their welcome section of their website with a video promoting the WCA in about 7 minutes. Here’s the video and page. It’s a well-produced video with a simple, strong appeal of three points, all of which seem perfectly reasonable and “why wouldn’t I be for these things?”
However, the substance falls apart very quickly, and the script has specific lines which are outright falsehoods–and one big gaping hole in their argument.
God? Bible? Who is against them?
The problem is that the WCA is resorting to either false witness or willfully ignorant statements about non-WCA members.
The script recited by Rev. Madeline Carrasco Henners of Texas states:
“God is Good, The Bible is True, and Promises should be kept…in today’s UMC, it’s not that simple; some people can’t agree with all or even part of these three simple statements.”
Clearly, that’s false witness. Find me United Methodists who disagree that God is good. Anecdotes are no substitute for actual facts, and the fact is that Methodists can agree that God is good! Unless the WCA is picking on people in grief over the loss of a child, wailing and wondering where God is, like in the Psalms. Charitably, I don’t think that’s their point.
Therefore, the purpose of such a statement is not to name the reality, but to promote the narrative that there’s “us” and “them”–and “them” don’t even believe that God is good! The statement is not based in reality, but in rhetoric.
Furthermore, saying “The Bible is true” is absolutely what progressive and moderate Christians say as well. From 1972 to 2008, General Conference floor speeches for and against LGBTQ inclusion quoted scripture at roughly the same rate (T. Steinwert, BUSTh dissertation ). Credible Evangelicals like Matthew Vines, Rachel Held Evans, and Tony Campolo support LGBTQ inclusion–and quote scripture to do it!
The conversation about what’s happening in The United Methodist Church is far more complex than simply framing those who believe “the Bible is true” or “God is good” against those who allegedly do not.
Promises are being Practiced
This false dichotomy of “only one side believes these things” has a third line: “Promises should be kept.” The script states:
At their ordination, clergy in The United Methodist Church promised to God and each other to be accountable to the UMC, its authority, its doctrinal standards, and our Book of Discipline…UM Clergy should keep their word even when it is hard to do so.
Again, it sounds so clearly defined that it becomes almost true.
However, when UM Clergy are ordained, they don’t make the promise outlined above. Here’s the language (page 20) :
Will you be loyal to The United Methodist Church, accepting and upholding its order, liturgy, doctrine, and discipline, defending it against all doctrines contrary to God’s Holy Word, and committing yourself to be accountable with those serving with you, and to the bishop and those who are appointed to supervise your ministry?
Compare the bolded lines, especially what is capitalized. The small “d” discipline actually refers to the ways we mutually submit to watch over one another in love. The Book of Discipline is part of that discipline, yes. But even those who take actions contrary to those in the BoD are still accepting and upholding the discipline of the church when they participate in whatever fair process may result (such as just resolutions, clergy trial, or even renunciation of orders). We keep our promises when we participate in the process of discipline, no matter what the WCA script says.
A Woman in the Pulpit?
Those are the main false witnesses leveled against fellow believers in God…but there are two lingering statements which are flabbergasting in their boldness. The script states:
If God says we should do something, then whatever it is, by definition, it is good. If God wants us to refrain from something, then likewise we should obey Him.
How does the WCA reads sections regarding women speaking in churches (1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14)? Since Rev. Henners is speaking in a church, to men and women, they must have a way of interpreting those sections so that those words are not true in their literal form. The Bible also asks slaves to obey their masters with fear and trembling. Again, they must have a way of understanding that passage!
The obvious answer is when it comes to these passages, The UMC and WCA alike have a hermeneutic of reading scripture that finds truth in the greater Biblical themes of freedom in Christ, being called by God by name, equality in the church and society, and others. These hermeneutics were hard won over past two centuries in America as slavery and women’s subjugation were overturned in the ever-revised plain reading of Scripture.
A clergy friend wrote to me on this topic
Rev. Henner’s very inclusion in the clergy order is a reflection of this dynamic and active Biblical hermeneutic at work in the world today. The very hermeneutic the WCA stands firmly against is the one that led to the eventual inclusion of women in ordained ministry of the Church! God is so good! Where there was alienation, persecution, hatred and fear against women, there is now the embrace of all who are called to the work of God in the world.Thanks be to God!
Why are we seeking to undermine and remove that very hermeneutic now?
The Final Turn
One last point. We see the same rhetorical strategy in the WCA video as in the Trump campaign of 2016: accuse your opponent of something you are vulnerable to and they can’t say it back to you.
“For forty years, a significant minority have been seeking to change the church’s historic practice to be more reflective–and they would say relevant–of American secular culture.”
This blog has been at the forefront of naming the ways how the WCA has reflected the very American secular culture they claim to despise:
The strategy of accusing your opponent of exactly what you were vulnerable to has made its way into the Wesleyan Covenant Association–and I wonder why they are so desperate to use it.
Say What You Mean
The main problem with slick videos like this is that they avoid the truth by eliminating the subtext. Like in Rev. Jeff Greenway’s dismissal of clergywomen’s concerns with “there are conflicting opinions in The United Methodist Church” there’s serious problems when the WCA does not say what they mean. They create a false version of their opponent, and attempt to mask the church conflict with language so generic and watered-down that it does seem ridiculous that anyone would disagree. I wonder why they are so desperate to say they are not about the continued exclusion of LGBTQ people and stand firmly on that side of history and a renunciation of a biblical hermeneutic of inclusion.
While any calls from this blog will go unheard from the WCA leadership, I do hope they are more honest about themselves and “the other side.” This kind of rhetoric is deceitful, and bearing false witness shrouded in darkness. But everything covered up will be uncovered, everything done in darkness will be brought to light (Mark 4:22). Might as well be honest.
“If God tells us to refrain from something, it is good for us to obey him.” I seem to recall something in the Bible about a prohibition against bearing false witness against another. This video’s script seems to contain an awful lot of false witness against others, and we must do better.
Your Turn
Thoughts? Thanks for reading, commenting, and your shares on social media.
I hope and pray that we have some common ground with those who align themselves with WCA. I wonder what it could be? I believe God is good. It’s possibly my only absolute. And in saying this, I realize there are those who cannot name the holy, sacred nature of the universe as “God.” But I believe that those naturalists and universalists might have more in common with me/us than with those who are working so hard to divide, to build walls (yes, I said it) and to exclude. What is our common ground? Do we have any? Is the push now for schism? Is that the motivation? John Wesley said, if we cannot think alive, might we love alike? God, I hope so, but it’s difficult.
It has long been my assertion – based on longstanding observation – that the commandment conservatives – whether political or theological – violate with the most abandon is that of bearing false witness against the neighbor. (Look at what the conservatives of his day said about Jesus in order to justify having him crucified!) And in the end their desire is to gain and/or maintain control not only over themselves and those who agree with them but over others who disagree with them as well. Their claims that, were we to change the Book of Discipline, conservative UM pastors and churches would be “forced to perform same-sex marriages and to allow them in their churches” is simply false; yet they continue to harp on such claims; and their sympathizers believe these lies. Jonathan Haidt and others have noted that conservatives tend to value “obedience to authority” more highly than do liberals/progressives. I would claim, however, that they value “obedience to their own authority” more highly than do liberals/progressives. Case in point: I would be fine with my conservative colleagues and their churches refusing to do same-sex marriages or to allow them to be done in their churches, so long as I would be allowed to perform such marriages as I deem to be appropriate in a church that welcomes and affirms same-sex couples. One might say that I am “forcing conservatives to accept my authority” in such matters; but that is a false equivalency. They are construing something that is actually a concern for identity and purity as something that involves righteousness and sin; and that theological error must not be allowed to prevail.
Seriously. Just say you hate gay people. Or that you hate gay sex or whatever the hell they usually say.
Oh…is that not a marketable point?
The WCA was founded and exists solely to influence the Way Forward Commission and to prevent amending the Book of Discipline so as to allow gay marriage and ordination of gay clergy. That it does so in the name of evangelism and reform only adds to the onfuscation. The 200 young female clergy who called it out for this deceitful video were spot on. I have no use or patience for it or its creators, and I will do what I can to expose and refute its deceits.
This is the distortion that really grinds my gears:
“For forty years, a significant minority have been seeking to change the church’s historic practice to be more reflective–and they would say relevant–of American secular culture.”
For forty years a significant minority has been seeking to show us, among other things, that the addition of the exclusionary “incompatible ” language to the BOD was it self a knee-jerk response to “American secular culture.” After Stonewall and the emergence of a “gay rights” movement, we joined the rest of culture in throwing up walls. We were more afraid of lost membership and lost dollars in that moment. The “sacred worth” of our LGBT brothers and sisters it seems was and for the WCA remains a peripheral issue.
I am deeply disappointed with the full video. We are better than this.
I’m a retired American Baptist pastor, a recovering Southern Baptist, and now a member of a UMC church, neither lay nor clergy among UMs. I UMs on the right fringe as legalists regarding the BOD, but reading it like Fundamentalist Christians read the Bible. Very selectively. The BOD states that every local UM church shall have (not may have) a UMW. Some of the most vociferous pastors and churches regarding LGBTQ issues do not have a UMW organization. (In my opinion, the UMW is a bright spot in UMC).
Strong and solid critique. Thanks, Jeremy.
A retired pastor reminded me recently, that umc from the beginning reached out to the outcast of society. That is how we got started i.e. the Wesleys reaching out to coal miners. John Wesley coming to the new country and speaking out against slavery. That is or heratige. Jesus didn’t get to the cross by sitting on a hillside singing songs.
And the point everybody keeps missing is that you and the WCA have completely different understandings about God and the Bible. You and the WCA are talking apples and oranges to each other and I am probably being generous in asserting that both of you belong to the same “family”. Wake up and see that the real problem is not the sexuality question but different understandings about God and the Bible.
Thanks Jeremy. Well said.