How we got here
At General Conference 2016, the floor of General Conference passed a resolution asking the Bishops to create a plan to address (“once and for all” I heard it said) the debate over LGBTQ inclusion in The United Methodist Church. Some perhaps hoped it would be a plan of schism, probably one of the two written by Rev. Keith Boyette (1,2), now head of the Wesleyan Covenant Association.
But then the Bishops proposed the “A Way Forward” process that we know today. A group of laity and clergy, handpicked by the regional colleges of Bishops, would study the topic for two years, then provide recommendations to the full Council of Bishops. The Bishops would then be authorized to present legislation to a special session of General Conference solely dedicated to the Bishop’s legislation, coming at the end of February 2019.
The Committee on A Way Forward presented its work to the bishops this week in private, executive session. That means it is almost to the point when the future of United Methodism lies in the bishop’s hands.
When that happens, there are two critical factors that the average Methodist needs to know about—and of which the bishops need to take heed.
Conservatives are Trained to Distrust Bishops
The deck is stacked against the bishops by the conservative evangelical wing of the UMC.
Years of manufacturing distrust and trafficking in outrage have planted seeds of distrust in the Episcopacy. By their action and admittance, conservative evangelicals have stacked the deck against a proposal by the Bishops getting a fair hearing.
The Vice President of Good News Movement, and a member of the Commission on a Way Forward, reflected in a comment on this blog after General Conference 2016 that the last region of United Methodism that conservatives do not control is the Bishops:
Tom Lambrecht (2016): Conservatives have controlled the legislative branch of General Conference. At times, we have also had a majority of the Judicial Council. But at least since 1996, the progressives have controlled the Council of Bishops. Today, I can say with confidence that there are only about 8-10 annual conferences that are presided over by a conservative bishop. Whole swaths of the church in the Northeast, North Central, and West have not seen a conservative bishop in 30 years or more. In the annual conferences is where the rubber meets the road, and there in many places progressives or left-leaning centrists have been in control for many years…The short summary is that conservatives have never been in a position to govern the church since 1968.
Conservatives have cemented into their consciousness the belief that the bishops are not to be trusted. Conservative leaders have in the past utilized fringe groups to do the dirty work of this undermining of authority. For years, sites like UMBishopWatch and UCM Page collected extreme rhetoric against the episcopacy. Their writings and audiences found natural affiliation with the conservative evangelicals who parroted “polite” versions of the distrust on Renewal Group blogs and periodicals.
In short, Conservative Evangelicals, despite prevailing on the hard line of clergy trials for decades, believe the bishops do not have their best interests at heart, and the seeds of distrust are ready to bloom this year.
Progressives Have Experienced Harm at the Hands of Bishops
For all the conservative groups’ manufactured ire, they have not been on the receiving end of the Episcopacy nearly as much as progressives have.
Reconciling Ministries Network has a partial list of clergy trials on their website, dating back to Gene Leggett in 1971 before there was even officially language against LGBTQ persons on the books. In every quadrennium since 1996, progressive clergy have been on trial for officiating marriages of their congregants equally, and LGBTQ clergy have been on trial for refusing to divorce their same-gender spouses to keep their jobs. These are a fraction of the actual complaints and (un)just resolutions, many of which conclude without public discussion.
It’s not just the Bishops, but also their handpicked members of Annual Conference Boards of Ordained Ministry. It doesn’t take much: A Bishop placing just one Defender of the Faith on an interviewing committee can sink a progressive clergy candidate. I had two (!!) myself when I was interviewing for Provisional Membership and only overcame their incredible efforts due to privilege and what I can only call the influence of the Holy Spirit.
While conservatives have had disagreements with their Bishops and have chafed at a lack of opportunity or regard when in the minority (just like progressives when they are in the minority), the case history is clear that clergy trials and complaints, whose processes were blessed by the presiding bishops, have resulted in more harm done to progressives and LGBTQ clergy than conservatives.
So who is left for the Bishops?
The truth is the Bishops’ Commission was not a conservative idea or a progressive idea. It was a centrist idea. Conservatives spoke out against delaying votes on human sexuality, some expressing a desire to drive progressives out or for conservative evangelicals to leave themselves. Little wonder Centrists and Middle Methodists are being marketed to in every direction.
As articulated before, the only way the AWF can pass is a single strongly supported proposal that can withstand a conservative nullification effort before the floor can even vote on it. That means narrowing down to one proposal.
By the reports from that conference, Option 1 (tightening the thumbscrews on progressives and forcing LGBTQ laity to divorce their spouses before seeking ordination) is no longer considered. Option 4 (full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the life of the church) was apparently never considered. That leaves us with Option 2 and 3 as the potential candidates for something new. This is supported by a recent survey and town hall conversation by the Arkansas Annual Conference, which indicated 52% of respondents want something new (Option 2 or 3) with only a plurality wanting Option 1.
Rev. Lambrecht’s words above imply to me that the Bishops are the only group left who can lead us to unity with diversity to achieve the mission of the Church–or lead us instead to dissolution, litigation, and death of camaraderie over the sound of champagne being poured at the Institute of Religion and Democracy.
The Only Move Left
The only way the bishops overcome decades of distrust is to propose a way forward with incredible novelty that creates conditions for the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons and keeps Moderates from being seduced to the Wesleyan Covenant Association. If done right, even Conservatives will thank them later, as they now appreciate the full inclusion of women and African American clergy that they previously opposed.
I don’t know what it ultimately looks like—the Bishops and AWF have knowledge and perspectives of which I’m not privy. But I do know the work is hard with the deck stacked against them, both by their actions against progressives, and the conservative industrial complex whose currency is martyrdom and prosecution against all those who oppose them.
The future of Methodism hangs on these shepherds of the Church. We will be in prayer for you throughout the revealing of what is before us.
Your Move, Bishops.
The Bishops’ office is an anachronism that requires they seek to be forgotten by history even as their good work continues forward.
No one remembers the bishops who presided over North/South Reunification, or even more recently the uniting with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form The United Methodist Church. I don’t anyway.
But everyone remembers Bishop James O. Andrew, whose actions (influenced by his annual conference’s preferences) led to the North/South schism of which we are still recovering.
Everyone remembers Bishop Richard Allen, who faced unjust discrimination and property grabs by the majority class (hmm), and (rightly) created the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
History will remember the Bishops who were presiding over the unjust discrimination or the schisms of our history. We will remember your names if you are unable to do what was necessary to achieve God’s purposes for The United Methodist Church to welcome each one to the Table and be turned into agents of transformation for a polarized Church and World.
May we forget your name and remember only what you created for the Church…and the One to whom we all serve. With our thanks.
Your turn
I commit to being in prayer and conversation with our bishops during this time. I hope you join me.
Thoughts on the above?
Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing on social media.
Thanks Jeremy.. thoughtful and provocative as always.
I disagree with your thoughts. The CoB is the progressive’s best friend. What other organization that you know of not only allow people in direct disobedience to its bylaws to become a leader?
The progressives have destroyed this church and now there is no one left with a backbone to hold anyone accountable. This has little to do with LBQTI and everything to do with lack of theological conviction. There is no such thing as “unity in diversity” when Progressives offer alternate communion stations. There is no unity in diversity when it is called mutually exclusive by any other name.
You may think that it is a great thing to rip a church apart for your own conviction’s sake. You may even think that darkness and light should live together in one church because of camraderie. Ok. I don’t and mourn our current state, and lackluster future.
To your first point, the case history proves otherwise. Don’t mistake organizational structure for individual or collective preference.
To your other points…well, the opposite is also true: don’t mistake individual actions for organizational structure.
You say our future is lackluster; I say our future has never been brighter, because each day we get closer to removing the grime of LGBTQ exclusion from our eyes and will be more able to see clearly.
I hear this frequently, that the real issue here is not LGBTQ+ inclusion but lack of theological conviction. The assumption, I infer, is that progressives have abandoned ALL traditional, creedal Christianity having left the trinitarian “corral” to run wild and amok through the heretical wilderness. I am an advocate for full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons in the church PRECISELY because of my trinitarian faith commitments, the church’s orthodox teaching on the bodily incarnation of Christ, his bodily resurrection, his full humanity and full divinity. My problem with the fundamentalism represented in the right wing of the UMC is that it rarely seeks to think through the implications of its own orthodoxy! Bodies matter to God, deeply.
And, good heavens, please do not ever lecture UMC progressives about ripping apart the church! We have simply stood firm. Those on the right have done most of the pulling, darling!
I agree that the Bishop’s path is centrist. I am more and more convinced every day that Jesus was never a centrist.
He wasn’t. But Paul was. Peter was. The Apostles navigated difference for a time. So while it’s nice for us to live up to Jesus, it’s more faithful to live up to the Apostles from whom we received the Spirit.
Beloved brother Jeremy, I deeply appreciate your prophetic advocacy, eloquent words and generous ways of turning UM complexities into comprehensible thoughts.
With that said, I respectfully disagree that “it is more faithful to live up to the Apostles from whom we received the Spirit.”
Wasn’t Jesus that left us with the Spirit?
We get the Apostles’ interpretation of what is like to walk on a faithful Christian path, but the Spirit is able to transcend their biases, contextual constraints and human limitations, right?!?
While it may be more practical (or convenient in some cases) to live up to the Apostles’ standards, after all they were as imperfect as we are, aren’t we suppose to be working on perfection, therefore aspiring to a higher standard, the Jesus prophetic standard, the Jesus that did not settle for delayed grace, delayed justice, delayed dignity of all Creation?
How can we claim to be followers of Jesus while settling for serving two different masters? Slavery was believed to be a matter of traditionalism, economic necessity and some claimed that it was divinely condoned. Preventing women from answering God’s call into ordained ministry was believed to be a matter of traditionalism, biblical interpretation and a way to preserve the sanctity of the family structure. Some people still hold on to these oppressive, inhuman and theologically flawed arguments, but our denomination had to decide which master it served and call racism and sexism for what it was. However, for a time (1939-1968) it decided to straddle their differences by segregating our African American siblings into The Central Jurisdiction. This racial compromise managed to re-unite the denomination on the backs of our African American siblings; which you wisely remind us that we are still trying to recover from it. Slavery is not the same as preventing women from being ordained; which is slightly closer to the exclusion and persecution of LGBTQIA+ individuals. However, all of these harmful practices fall squarely in the nefarious camp of graceless dehumanization. Trying to re-categorize these harmful practices as simple differences of opinion by allocating them to a false centrist ground not only perpetuates harm, but lifts them up to acceptable behavior, as it was once acceptable to segregate our African-American siblings and women. Racism and sexism is still alive and well in our denomination, but we have at least proclaimed that these harmful practices are against our Christian values, even if Paul and Peter might have had a different opinion on it.
I appreciate you my brother.
I trust the faithful and pastoral intentions of your heart, and join you in calling for the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals even if the best case scenario is a revised version of The Central Jurisdiction.
Maybe I am being a pessimist. Or a closet optimist. But if the bishops fiddle with this long enough, clergy and laity alike will do what they want to do and the issues involved will become non-issues. More and more people are becoming accepting of differing sexual identities. The only issue that I see is the pain that the church will cause meanwhile.
Neither option being considered is acceptable to traditionalists. They leave no room for those of us who believe that the scriptures as written plainly are correct. Jeremy is right that the traditionalists in the church do not trust Bishops. This is not because we have been conditioned or taught not to trust them. It is because for years the BOD has been reaffirmed as to human sexuality and many of the bishops routinely ignore it. We thought this was settled years ago, but it never goes away and won’t as long as both groups are in the same denomination (central conferences are still under the same brand). The only decent solution is a peaceful and amicable split. The current plans will lead to much strife and chaos. In a year we will know what is going to happen. Either the delegates at GC will vote as they had intended to in 2016 and strengthen discipline in the church or the bishops will have their way. If they succeed you will see a mass exodus from the denomination, especially in the South. I wonder if the Africans will stay on board too. The UMC may well end us as another white, progressive, failing mainline denomination, just like all the other progressive denominations.
Lambrecht’s article stresses that it is the Delegates to General Conference that will make the ultimate decisions. Those delegates also participate in the election of Bishops. So the same group “wins” at one gathering and “loses” at another? Even in the South East and South Central?
After 18 years in UM ministry, I exited. Actually, I became endorsed as a hospital chaplain, which I was told in many ways was leaving ministry. Yet, in this capacity, Christ demonstrated to me that God loves all of God’s children no matter the race, beliefs, sex, or sexual identity. Christ has led me to be much less religious (tied into human dogma) and much more spiritual (accepting everyone as a child of a loving God). I have also matured and now see clearly that we all interpret Scripture and it remains a living document because it speaks the Truth to different generations. The Bible never indicates Jesus spoke one word in condemnation of anyone because of their sexuality but it says a lot about accepting those who are different from us and/or strangers in our land “church?” I am greatly saddened that the Pharisees still want to impose their limited understanding of God’s love on us in 2018. We are all brothers and sisters, loved and accepted by The God of love as revealed to us in the New Testament. I will continue to pray for those who worship the exclusionary god of the Pharisees which Jesus rejected. I pray too that the UMC may truly become inclusive of all of its members rather than labeling some as second class and unequal.
Sadly, as is too often the case, Rev. Smith shows his strength as a spin artist.
In the Arkansas Conference survey process, Model 1 (accountability) received 48% support. The “contextual” model only received 28%. Model 3 to separate while maintaining the basic parts of our institution only got 23%. It takes a lot of twisting to say that people willing to go into the unknown are also supporting the same local option proposal that has failed for three consecutive General Conferences. It is also likely that this understates the true extent of support for accountability since many traditionalists don’t see this as a productive discussion.
It would appear that too many bishops are confusing their personal preferences and maintaining the institution with taking the best path forward for the denomination as a whole.
As is too often the case, Creed Pogue didn’t read carefully. As I wrote:
Option 1 received 48% of the votes, which means it got a plurality out of the three (a majority is 50% + 1). In contrast, 52% wanted something different, which is a majority. Since we weren’t given a 1:1 vote, we don’t know which would win in a majority vote.
Therefore, my comment is accurate. Thanks for playing.
I heard the same kind of reasoning during the Republican primary campaign when pundits looked at the numbers and said 65% do not support Donald Trump. Of course as the field narrowed we all know what happened. Three way voting can produce counter intuitive results.
Taking a look at the Arkansas survey on the three models you have to keep in mind that they did not specifically vote on one over the other. The percentages sum up to 98% BTW. The questions was “which model provides the best way forward” and model 1 got 48% of the vote. Model 2 (the local option) got 27% and model 3 (the jurisdiction reconfiguration) got 23%. Simply because 50% did not pick Model 1 as best does not mean they oppose model 1. It simply means it is not their first choice. When their first choice is off the table and the choices narrow they will go with their second best. It will only take a very small percentage to flip to model 1 (the current policy with stronger enforcement). What I found interesting was the response to the question “which model will do the most harm”. Model 2 came in at 38% and model 3 at 36%. 76% of the responders believe that doing anything other than enforcing current policy will create more harm to The UMC. Model 1 only got 24% of the votes for creating the most harm.
I encourage people to read the results for themselves. I do not know how Arkansas Methodists compare to the rest of the country so I would hesitate to do any extrapolating.
like Kevin said.
Jeremy would never have revealed the 48% support for Model 1 on his own.
Jeremy has an agenda and it is his weblog. I will say that he is pretty good about letting people who disagree with him freely express opinions.
Progressives have also utilized fringe groups to under mine the authority of the Church, i.e. Reconciling Ministries. The reason progressives are more on the receiving end of the Episcopacy than conservatives is because of their continuing transgressions of ordination oaths, authority of scripture, and disobedience to the Discipline. The verdicts of the church trials have been of no consequence, just a slap on the wrist. The distrust of bishops come from their actions, or lack of action in upholding scripture and the Discipline.
The schism is caused not by conservatives. It is caused by those who openly rebel against what God’s Word makes plain, by those who lied openly in their ordination vows, and those who openly disregard our church principles.
If we’re going to preach out of the Bible, there’s way too much of it condemning homosexuality. The snakes trying to talk us into eating fruit off of the forbidden tree.
With that line of reasoning, perhaps we should un-do the inclusion of African-Americans and women because the Bible has been used to condone slavery and women as preachers. I get that scripture is where we all start, but what about tradition, experience, and reason? The church has always adapted and emerged stronger. And, I’m sorry, but nobody is asking you to “sample” the fruit of homosexuality. We are asking you to love as Jesus loved.
I’ve been mulling how to say this for a while now. I think I have the words to speak.
What, exactly, do we expect GLBTQ Methodists to do if we reject them? Are they to lead lives of silent loneliness and suffering in our pews? Marry a heterosexual person and spend their whole lives breaking the ninth commandment about bearing false witness? Or simply seek the gospel elsewhere, since we won’t give it to them? I have never had someone who opposes their inclusion explain this to me in adequate terms.
Also, is anyone else troubled by the fact that the IRD has no mention of Jesus Christ or the Gospel in their mission statement, and that they are run by an ex-CIA agent? That sends up so many red flags to me. It seems to me that we are being manipulated by an organization whose goals are the consolidation of earthly power for a very specific group of people.
conservatives are not taught to distrust Bishops however we are taught and directly by the Holy Spirit to be obedient to God’s word! the record has been very clear that UMC Bishops have not stood solidly on the word of God and the expectations in His Word that are stated in the book of 1st Timothy chapters 3 and 4 not to mention scripture that tells us that those who mislead little ones or other young Christians,it would be better for those teachers to have a millstone around their neck and thrown into the sea! God’s word is spoken very clearly and very truthfully! it’s time the true Christians stand up and take back the church to Honor and Glorify JESUS &
the LORD OUR GOD !
Take back the church from whom? Last time I checked, non-Christians don’t usually attend churches.
What ever the outcome of the 2019 General Conference, in this decision ALL sides loose from the general and long debates. The fact remains and has always been the same; (I am astounded so many clergy do not see this fact READ YOUR BIBLE!) IN THE END GOD WINS!