Recently, the United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the United States, concluded its quadrennial legislative general conference in Tampa, Fla. Since the early 1980s, the general conference has repeatedly passed legislation that has chipped away at the foundations of what was once one of the most progressive denominations in North America. In Tampa, this process was reflected in an unprecedented restructuring effort that would dismantle several denominational boards and agencies that have historically safeguarded and promoted racial-gender inclusivity in the church. However, the most publicized manifestation of the dismantling of United Methodist progressivism continues to be the denomination's reaffirmation of its longstanding prohibition that "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."
Like all American mainline churches, the United Methodist Church has suffered through a long and steady membership decline. From a membership high of more than 11 million in the mid-1960s to its current membership of approximately 8 million, Methodism has become one of the most documented cases of mainline Protestantism's changing fortunes in the latter half of the 20th century. Many commentators on American religion have responded thoughtfully and insightfully to the religious demographics of the late 20th century that have impacted the missions of mainline churches. For many conservative United Methodists, however, careful analysis has been replaced by a tendency to believe that fundamental to the church's problem is a lack of faith, caused by an erosion of authentic "Wesleyan" teaching.
For many United Methodist conservatives, membership decline has led to a tendency to rely on scapegoats for explaining the church's problems. Over the last three decades, conservatives have blamed the denomination's bureaucracy, various church leaders, the general malaise of liberal theology, and a leftist political agenda, as explanations for the church's problem. However, the primary scapegoats who have borne the brunt of conservative scorn are gay and lesbian United Methodists.
Since 1984, the UMC has repeatedly condemned homosexuality as incompatible with Christianity (most notably barring gays and lesbians from the ordained ministry). However, debates concerning the United Methodist Church's stance on homosexuality have had little to do with critical engagement with scriptural or theological interpretations on human sexuality.
The crux of resistance to gays and lesbians in the United Methodist ministry often comes down to the argument, "God loves homosexuals, but hates the sin of homosexuality." (In a sort of dystopian take on George Orwell's "Animal Farm," one could read this argument as the church saying, "All people are sinners, except some are more sinful than others.") Yet in reviewing what happened at General Conference, resistance to gay/lesbian inclusion has never been primarily about loving the sinner. It has to do with the conservative reliance on the belief that to allow gays/lesbians equal access to the church is tantamount to cultural and theological relativism. At one point during the General Conference debate on sexual orientation, a resolution was introduced that would have said, in effect, United Methodists agree to disagree on homosexuality. For conservatives, this stance was untenable. As one noted conservative, Maxie Dunnam, explained, this compromise would "leave out good teaching. ... there is no reason at all to state that we disagree, because we disagree about almost everything."
Dunnam's assertion about "good teaching" supports the assumption held by some mainline Protestants that the best way to reach people's hearts, to cultivate one's faith and to grow churches is to act like more historically conservative churches (and this argument has been championed by some mainline church leaders since the 1960s and 1970s). Many who have argued for the removal of the church's prohibitions against gays and lesbians take the position that the church's continued harangues on this issue were making it difficult for it to reach out to young people (a point made recently in Robert Putnam and David Campbell in their book, "American Grace").
Yet these pragmatic arguments have been, and will likely continue to be, nonstarters for many conservatives in the United Methodist Church. It seemed to be very clear for the majority of United Methodists at General Conference that one's sexual orientation has nothing to do with science, or sociology, or, daresay, as a faithful choice that one makes as a Christian disciple. Rather, it is dismissed as amoral, sinful and a reflection of an evil secular culture that has grown soft on matters of faith. For gays and lesbian at the end of the General Conference, the message is clear: You're welcome in the United Methodist Church so long as you set aside everything about you that is unique.
United Methodists love to assert that they are a global church, and many cite the growth of United Methodist churches in Africa as consolation for the denomination's membership decline in the U.S. Yet, the "globalized" nature of United Methodism has well served the anti-gay cause. One of the most visible political realities about the United Methodist Church's prohibitions against homosexuality is the way it has been reinforced by an unlikely alliance between U.S. conservatives and a growing number of United Methodist churches in Africa. Due to complicated historical and cultural factors, African churches have always taken an especially hard line against homosexuality, and the combined delegates from the African nations and conservative Americans have created a base that will likely control the United Methodist Church for several years.
When it comes to engaging the challenges faced by mainline churches today, liberals, as well as conservatives, have been equally guilty of often resorting to myopic rhetoric. Yet, in the aftermath of the 2012 General Conference, it seems fair to ask United Methodist conservatives what they ultimately hope to achieve by refusing to open the church to the gifts of gay and lesbian persons. Much of the conservative base in the United Methodist Church comes from the South, one of the remaining parts of the United States still dominated by a "Christendom model" of the church, akin to a mid 20th-century time when American Protestants relished in their cultural dominance. While many southern conservatives attack liberals for their fidelity to church bureaucracies and big budgets that in their mind detract from a focus on evangelism, their vision of the church often sounds like a very old one. For many conservatives, calls for renewing the church have nothing to do with a desire to be global 21st -century church. Rather, they reflect a nostalgic yearning for a vision of Christianity that resembles more the cultural homogeneity of the 1950s than confronting the complex theological and cultural realities that face mainline churches today.
Historically, one of the great gifts to come out of theological liberalism was its emphasis on theological and cultural diversity. Denominations like the United Methodist Church were at one time central to an ecumenical social witness that spoke prophetically to challenge social injustices in the church and society. The door of that legacy may not be shut, but it is closing rapidly.
One way of viewing the outcome of the General Conference is that the conservatives won the day. However, the real victor in Tampa was a spirit of fear that made many United Methodists yearn for the perceived innocence of the past, as opposed to realizing that the Body of Christ needs the wisdom of all our gifts -- regardless of one's sexual orientation.
Unless this fear can be cast out, justice for gays and lesbians in the United Methodist Church may be a long time coming.
Jorge Lockward: Gay and Methodist: I Know that God Loves Me
This is probably the most reasoned Wesleyan analysis of the situation in the United Methodist Church and Church in general I have read or heard to date. In many ways we are witnessing a betrayal of the progressive, ecumenical, catholic, and prophetic spirit of an originally progressive Methodism and original Christianity. What the Methodist Church has done is undergo a conversion from a Christic progressivism to a Sadducean conservatism. It has staked a mythic Christian identity in the face of reason and accused reason of being its enemy, and in doing so placed itself in opposition to the emerging reign of God on earth. The Rev. Dr. Wilfredo J. Baez
The contorted statements found in the Book of Discipline and other modern writings, are merely attempts to avoid asking and answering that question.
After asking that awkward question, the path to the answer is short and easy.
Every right answer begins with "We should."
Clearly there's a schism in the UMC between left and right, the right is in the majority, and that's not going to change soon. Liberals don't like their "Methodist" name being associated with anti-gay bigotry and don't like their tithes supporting anti-gay policies. I completely understand that.
So why don't liberal Methodist congregations simply quit and form a new church whose tenets align with your faith?
I think this is tied to the other point the essay repeats, about the UMC's declining membership. The UMC wants to have a lot of members. Dividing is contrary to that goal.
But why does size matter? What is it about your personal relationship with God that makes it important to have millions of people in your worldwide church? Why is that so important that you'll accept compromises in your church's moral stance to keep its large membership intact?
As an atheist I have unflattering explanations for this. But I'd like to hear from Methodists.
One can glibly write this concern off as mere materialism, but I would note that this very week, I will be leading a mission team to Joplin, to help rebuild that community. Our church van will transport people and church funds will support the team's logistical needs. Another UM church will host us, and has played host to literally hundreds of people like ourselves. I am not willing to just walk away from all those resources. In my community there is an excellent retirement home and a school for deeply troubled children. Both are UM entities. A split would seriously damage them many of whom are non-UMs and non-Christians (even atheists).
I have brought aid to hurricane victims in MS, NC, and FL; flood victims in IL and MO; and victims of Chernobyl disaster in Belarus...thanks to the UMC. A split on this issue would literally cost lives.
Akso, no one likes to see the family split, if it can be prevented. That inevitably means some messy compromise, and requires all parties to practice patience and humility. But, I see those as virtues.
Um... aren't you kinda forgetting that the first theological liberals so favored their own culture over others that they became hyper-nationalistic and, in no small way, contributed greatly to the severity the first world war? I mean, it's hard to say that theological liberalism has an emphasis on cultural diversity when you can read their names on war declarations.
"We recognize that God made all creation and saw that it was good... Inclusiveness means openness, acceptance, and support that enables all persons to participate in the life of the Church, the community, and the world; therefore, inclusiveness denies every semblance of discrimination. The services of worship of every local church of The United Methodist Church shall be open to all persons (BOD, ¶139)."
"We affirm that all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God... We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. We commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons (BOD, ¶161.F)."
The crux for the church comes from interpretations of Scripture as it applies to the ordination of clergy and performing marriage ceremonies. Leviticus 20:13 (OT) and Romans 1:26-27 (NT) speak against homosexuality and label it as an "error," "degrading passion," "unnatural," and "abomination" (NRSV translation). I can't imagine what reading these scriptures as a homosexual person must feel like. These verses are hurtful. But are they there for a reason... a reason we should take note of and abide by?
The understanding that human sexuality includes homosexuality-- something we've only taken seriously, scientifically, for the last few decades-- is absent from the Bible. In short, homosexuality is not to be found in the Bible. In fact, to place this issue into the Bible is to abuse the Bible. When those Bible verses are read in context, it becomes clear that in both instances, in the first instance, both the authors of Leviticus and the apostle Paul have non-Hebrew, non-Jewish practices or rituals or customs in mind. Both passages would have been understood to warn against idolatry, i.e., the worship of, or honouring of, that which was not part of Hebrew/Jewish religion. The framers of the anti-gay statements of the BOD did not understand this in the early 1970s. We must take what we understand now back to the BOD and remove the harmful statements there. In context, the Bible is not harmful to God's LGBT children. The UMC folk who authored the BOD statements have been the ones who have been harmful.
The UMC practices active discrimination toward God's LGBT children. Thankfully, many, many Methodists are not happy about this, see it as a social justice issue and seek the help of the Holy Spirit to stand against the open and active discrimination.
"Paul could have believed that tribades [the active female partners in a female homosexual bond], the ancient kinaidoi [the passive male partners in a male homosexual bond], and other sexually unorthodox persons were born that way and yet still condemn them as unnatural and shameful. . . . I see Paul as condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of people who had turned away from God."
Consiser further Louis Crompton, another gay academic.
"According to [one] interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at ‘bona fide’ homosexuals in committed relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned, seems strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations under any circumstance. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or early Christian."
Furthermore the passages you cite are part of what is referred to as the Purity Code in Leviticus, which also disallows the consumption of shellfish, wearing clothing made of mixed fibers, touching menstruating women, and other prohibitions generally ignored by most Christians. (It's reported that General Conference delegates especially enjoyed the shrimp available in Tampa restaurants.) We need to get over the idea that the difference in the UMC is about Scriptural interpretation. The question that has to be asked is why some people are willing to ignore part of the Purity Code and the New Testament prohibitions of divorce but insist on observing the supposed prohibition of same-sex loving relationships (which of course are NOT what the authors of Leviticus or of the Pauline literature had any conception of in the first place).
“I wrote the following "Pastoral Letter to the United Methodist Church" the week before our General Conference addressed the matters re: homosexuality. I offer it again as a mirror for us to continue to gaze upon. Peace.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2012/04/a-pastoral-letter-to-the-united-methodist-church/”
Rev. Deborah Gildart-Hanks
The conservative southern Methodists combining with the African congregations will continue to shift the entire denomination in a regressive direction. Short of a schism, I see no future for progressives in the Methodist church. Yes, there are affirming congregations; but these will feel mounting pressure from the conservatives within the denomination to conform or leave. It is very sad, but there does not appear to be anything that can be done about it.
As a gay man, I determined years ago that I could no longer be a Methodist - not because I didn't want to be, but because Methodism didn't want me to be.
I see this same attitude reflected in what General Conference did last week - 'we'll accept you as members, but not as leaders, and by the way you're still a sinner'.
It is long past time for Methodists to return to their progressive roots and realize that the church is wrong in it's teachings on homosexuality, as it has been wrong in the past on subjects like racial civil rights and the equality of women. Until that happens, the Methodist church has made clear that I'm not really welcome.
I don't blame you for leaving. Although I am Methodist, I am angry about this vote and the direction of Methodism as a rigid conservative institution. I have gay friends and acquaintances....(some in the ordination process who felt the need to leave as well.
I hate it, but I cannot ask them to stay with integrity.
http://thefiresidepost.com/2012/05/04/the-rule-of-law-and-the-united-methodist-mistake/
Jesus calls us to repent and believe. If the thing that makes you unique is a specific sexual sin, then you are welcome to join the fellowship of the church when you repent -- not only set it aside but turn from it. If the thing that makes you unique is foul language, then you are welcome to join the fellowship of the church when you repent.
Jesus loved everyone regardless of their sins and their past. But to be a disciple one was called to repent, believe, and take up their cross daily putting others above themselves and their desires.
The church has failed to love homosexuals. The church must repent of that. The church must also proclaim Jesus's call to repentance for all people as well.