An Ocean of Drops at the 2024 General Conference

We can’t keep swimming if we get out of the water.

Drops

The 2012 science fiction film Cloud Atlas journeys through six different time periods and the struggles for justice or mere survival in each of them. One of the time periods is in 1849, years before the breakout of the American Civil War. The son-in-law of a wealthy businessman in America is sent overseas to conclude a business arrangement to transport slaves from Africa. 

The son-in-law is transformed when he witnesses brutality done to the slaves and his life is saved by a slave on the trip home. He returns to his partner and confronts his father-in-law, stating that he has renounced the slave trade and will join the abolitionists. They have the following exchange:

Father-in-Law: There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive, if you join them you and your entire family will be shunned. At best you will exist at pariah to be spat at and beaten, at worse to be lynched or crucified. And for what, for what? No matter what you do it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.

Son-in-Law: But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops?

Cloud Atlas, 2012

There is no movement for creating a more just society that is not the result of one drop drawing in another and another until the weight of the drops seeps into and overwhelms even the most powerful and insidious institutions on earth.

And that’s true in the church as well.

Polity

The United Methodist Church has a book of polity called The Book of Discipline. The book is very much like a multitude of drops in that it contains the efforts, insights, and wisdom of generations of Methodists–and theological foundations from centuries before that.

Together, they form the bulwark against secularism outside the church, limit fundamentalism inside the church, guide our leaders in the pulpits, and protect the vulnerable in our pews. Amongst others, they celebrate our ministries with women and girls, our missions with ministry partners across the globe, our preservation of historical landmarks and heritage, our advocacy for reproductive justice and refugees, as well as simple guidance for local churches to operate and serve their mission fields.

All polity drops are not equal (our doctrine about Jesus Christ is waaaay more important than how the trustees vote on a new boiler), but the accumulation of all of them hopefully becomes a multitude of drops deep and wide enough to hold all of us and lift all of us up as a rising tide lifts all boats.

Big Drops

On Day 4 of the 2024 General Conference, there are many big drops that will make a big impact on The United Methodist Church:

• Regionalizing the Worldwide church:
  • Five of the Eight primary enabling petitions for Worldwide Regionalization passed, including one critical Constitutional Amendment that passed with an overwhelming majority. Read a statement here and more about regionalization in MFSA’s brief here. There are still three to go, including two more constitutional amendments, so stay tuned.
  • One quick note is that the USA traditionalists (who are now a minority) have called this gathering illegitimate because not all the delegates are present because of COVID delays and visa problems for international delegates to the gathering in the USA. However, even if all delegates were present and every person missing voted against regionalization, each of them would have passed with the needed 66.7% supermajority
• Removing Harmful Language against LGBTQ+ persons:
  • A petition calling for the regionalization of the definition of marriage passed. While it is not marriage equality or recognition of LGBTQ+ right to marry, it does lay the groundwork for that conversation to be had in a new way. There are positive reports from committees and sub-committee work, but they have not reached the floor and thus caution in reporting is being practiced. There is a ton more coming, but they are scheduled towards the latter days of the Conference. You can read MFSA’s brief here.
• Revising our common Social Principles:
  • UPDATE 4/27: one-third of the Social Principles passed on consent calendar. The petitions that related to topics on LGBTQ+ inclusion and reproductive choice passed the committee but not the consent calendar, so it will be debated on the floor. You can read MFSA’s brief here.

The “Three R’s” are big topics that will dramatically shape the way the church is structured, the way how we relate to each other, and the way how we advocate for what we believe.

Little Drops too!

I admit to being a polity wonk so I get into the details, but the reality is that even the smallest of changes to our Book of Discipline can offer accountability, clarity, or direction to the church.

There were over 1000 petitions for the delegates to wade through and consider, and as someone who is working with a legislative committee, these things matter too. There’s not too much to report yet as the committees are still working, but you can bet Hacking Christianity will lift up the details in later reports.

Before the General Conference, even progressive strategists seemed to advise disregarding or de-emphasizing work on the petitions that didn’t have to do with regionalization, removing harmful language, and revising the social principles. I’m glad to report that delegates have not taken that advice and have put significant work into the little topics just as much as the big topics. At the end of Conference, we will be thankful–or ready to live with–the changes large and small.

Just Keep Swimming

At the 2024 General Conference, California-Nevada lay delegate Micheal Pope reminded us of the movie “Finding Nemo” when the small and perhaps insignificant Nemo and scatterbrained Dory were in the net of caught fish being pulled up out of the water. To escape, they convinced the floundering and scared multitude to swim in the same direction, and the combined weight and energy broke even a metal crane, and the caught fish escaped to a new lease on life.

But swimming together only worked because they stayed in the water. If they hadn’t banded together before the surface broke, they would have been caught, and all would have been lost. We can’t swim if we get out of the water.

My hope is that this remaining week of the General Conference is a time when the worldwide church bands together and swims together–because we live together and die alone. Let’s keep in the water, keep working on the drops large and small, to help us end our fortnight together with love and affection for our worldwide church.

Your Turn

Thoughts?

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