Processing in the Aftermath

This I still believe, even in the midst of the challenges we face.

If you're reading this, you probably have heard something about what the Methodists have been dealing with over the course of the last week.

I've been fairly silent as we've gone through the last number of days.  I've done that intentionally.  It was probably selfish of me, but I wasn't in St. Louis for the full General Conference, and I didn't want to be in the middle of all of this.  I wanted to wait until we knew something.

Two weeks ago, I preached a sermon that covered what was going on.  You can find it here to get an idea of what was being discussed.

I was down in St. Louis on Saturday and took part in some of the prayers that were taking place before everything truly got started.  If you've never been to the Dome in St. Louis, it's a big place, and is even bigger when you've got tables on the floor and you know what is coming.

Floor of the General Conference. The observers were up in the seats

I was glad I was there that day.   There wasn't a lot going on, but I felt like there was a Spirit there to do something, I actually felt myself relax a bit.

My Assumptions

The purpose, as I understood it, of why we were gathering in a special session of the General Conference (the first time that'd happened in our UMC history) was to agree to disagree.  We were gathering because we were at an impasse on issues related to human sexuality.  We knew that we were't going to convince anyone of a single "right" way of doing things.  But we're Methodists.  

We get a lot of flack because we're so seemingly permissive (all things in moderation). That's a difficult place to be in.  We're a "big tent" church.  We have folks from not just all sides, but all over the world.  Maintaining that kind of unity is a difficult balance, but we were working on it, and we had a plan.

My hope was that we could demonstrate how people of faith can be different from what we face in the world.  We can work through difficult conflict, and hopefully find a resolution through our faith.

Over the course of the last several weeks I've literally been preaching a series on this point based on Matthew 18.  God knows that in the world we are a part of today, we needed this kind of message from one of our mainline Christian denominations.

The Challenge

The United Methodist Church is a world wide denomination.  We have many languages, countries, and continents that are a part of it.  This already creates a challenge for us.  We also live in one of the most polarized times in recent history, which makes finding any sort of resolution harder.  As a part of that, we're also dealing with a lot of folks who think that compromise means that you do things my way.  Compromise isn't a dirty word, but for some it's not one they're familiar with.

We struggle with figuring out what to do in this kind of context.  There are many challenges that we faced in coming into such a difficult meeting.  How do we find a resolution in the midst of these challenges?

Methodist Polity

There are some who would shift the blame to our siblings in Africa.  They shouldn't be scapegoated in this.  The context that they minister in is far removed from the American context.  The laws they face, the situation on the ground, and restrictions placed on them by their governments and culture are very different from ours. There are many who blame them for the direction the vote ended up going, when we should be looking at the system that got us to this point.

The continent of Africa, and other parts of the world, are organized into Central Conferences inside the UMC.  Inside those central conferences they are able to adapt the Book of Discipline (our set of rules, laws, and constitution) to their context so long as they don't change the Articles of Faith, John Wesley's sermons, and a few other central documents.  Basically, so long as they hold the essentials, they can do whatever else they need to.

The United States is organized into multiple Annual Conferences, not a Central Conference.  We're the center of the denomination and there is a long history why we don't have any central conferences in the US.  However, our position is one that demonstrates control over the rest of the denomination and allows us to direct how things go.  It was assumed that ours was the most important voice, and we would control the direction of the church. They could adapt as necessary in their context, but wouldn't be in charge overall.  

However, this system of inequality that gave birth to the central conferences has come back to haunt the dominate power. General Conference delegates vote for what makes the most sense in their context.  Because of the way we are set up, that has more of a direct impact on the United States than other places because we can't adapt the Book of Discipline for our context, but our siblings who can also have a say in what we do. 

We had opportunities to change this. We could have done it at General Conferences in 2008 and 2012, but we couldn't get it done. This all came to a head in 2016 with the issue of human sexuality, but still within the context of the same underlying problem.  At this point I should say that what we are facing is larger than a conflict over human sexuality.  This is the biggest piece that we've been trying to work through, but it isn't the only part of the conflict that has been taking place as we've been trying to figure out how to be a global church in a broken world.

What Happened

There were many people gathered at the Dome in good faith.  There were many people on all sides that were gathered in good faith.  In 2016 the Bishop's Council was asked to provide a way forward through our conflict. Their charge wasn't to try to change people's minds, but to find a uniquely Methodist position that keeps us united but still able to disagree with one another.  They put forward what was called the "One Church Plan."

This plan set the status quo as the default position.  The meant that if you didn't want to change, or your church didn't want to change, then you didn't have to.  No one was going to force anyone into a position that they didn't believe in.  This took the issue of human sexuality and said that it is a non-essential part of our faith tradition, meaning that we don't have to agree on it.

The One Church Plan didn't pass.  It didn't even make it out of committee except on a procedural maneuver. 

This is where I start by admitting some bias in my response to what happened at General Conference.  That will come out in what I say here.  I'm past the time of saying that people on both sides were equally accountable for what took place.  It's time to start calling out what others do that cause deliberate damage, hurt, and harm to others.

It became clear that there was one group (The Wesleyan Covenant Association) that was well organized and had one goal.  They wanted to make sure that we couldn't find any sort of unity.  The plan they put forward elevated and anticipated division over unity. Their Traditional Plan was ultimately passed by the General Conference.  However, we don't know that it will ever be implemented.  When the Judicial Council (our version of the Supreme Court) looked at it, they determined that it was unconstitutional....several times.  Its supporters knew this.  They've known this for a long time.  They chose not to do the necessary work to make sure it would pass our constitution.

Let that sink in for a second.  The traditionalist position, that holds itself as the law and order position, could follow neither our church law nor its order to make sure their solution would work.

This is what I say is not acting in good faith.  It wasn't that they didn't have enough time...they did.  It wasn't that they didn't know what to do...some of its supporters also worked on the One Church Plan and therefore had seen what needed to be done.  

They deliberately chose to focus all of their time and energy on making sure that what they were against could not pass.

Centrists and progressives were put in the position of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.  The Traditionalists pulled it away at the last second.  That doesn't happen by accident, only by deliberate planning. Members of one of the biggest groups supporting the Traditional Plan have said that even if they got their way they were going to leave anyway.  That is not good faith.  That is not trying.  That is deliberately seeking to tear down and destroy simply because you can.

While many, myself included, would not have been happy if the Traditional Plan had passed and been declared constitutional, at least we would have known.  We would have known what is going on.  At this point we don't know anything. This was the worst case scenario.  To have something other than the Bishop's recommendation passed, but also not be valid.  We're left in limbo, and there are some that are okay with this, because that is what they set us up for.

There were other pieces that passed.  In particular, we made sure that pensions were taken care of and that they wouldn't be used as leverage against pastors.  But that's it.

What Does this Mean?

If it's not been clear before now, I'm not happy with how things turned out.  I'm also tired and I'm trying to be patient while the next steps are figured out by our leaders.  

But Sunday is coming.

Last Sunday I preached on forgiveness, and I challenged my folks to find one thing to forgive this week.  I told them that I knew what I would do, but I struggle with it.  I have a hard time with people who deliberately set out to hurt others and cause harm simply because they can, or worse (my opinion) because they're petty and self-serving.  I really don't want to forgive them. 

But I have to.

It doesn't mean that I have to like them, but their actions can't control me.  I wish I could say I'm strong enough on my own to forgive, but I'm not.  Thankfully I don't have to do it on my own.  As I told my folks Sunday, remember when you struggle with forgiving, or even the times when it doesn't seem to stick, you don't do it on your own.  Jesus is there with us to give us the strength when we don't have it.  He's also there with us to remind us to forgive again when we forget.

One of the hard parts is that the fallout is ongoing.  We are going to have a lot of cleanup from this special session of General Conference to deal with.  But God still calls us.  What that looks like in the future...we'll get to that.  For now we continue to go forward, rely on our faith in God, and continue to seek to make new disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.