Dear Bishops: Get Real!

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Increasingly, I'm feeling about United Methodist leadership the way that John Adams once told his wife Abigail he felt about the Continental Congress: I have such a desire to knock heads together!

My latest temptation to violence comes from the bishops of my own South Central Jurisdiction, who spent their recent Bishops' Week bemoaning the lack of under-age-35 clergy and the continued membership decline in our region, according to a post by United Methodist News Service. As a devoted United Methodist, I feel duty-bound to help the bishops in their distress by applying some cold, hard reality:

Young people want nothing to do with The United Methodist Church because they see us for what we truly are: An outmoded religious body whose primary concern – how to perpetuate our own institution – is completely irrelevant to what young people need and want for spiritual nurture that aims to relieve the world's suffering.

In other words, the lack of under-35 clergy and continuing membership declines are merely the symptoms, not the causes, of a far greater malady.

Take the issue of few ordained clergy under age 35. Why has no bishop talked about how excruciatingly expensive it is to obtain the master of divinity degree required for ordination? Most ministry candidates come out of seminary so burdened with debt that they have to lie outright when asked the historic Wesleyan ordination question about being "so in debt as to be an embarrassment." Who in his or her right mind would willingly impoverish a family in these uncertain economic times?

Then there's the issue of time, of life investment. It now takes 10 years to become an ordained elder in full connection, the pinnacle of United Methodist ordained ministry. And that's if a candidate manages to sail through his or her ordination process without obstacles that conference boards of ordained ministry might throw in candidates' way out of political motivations.

So when it comes to cultivating younger clergy, it's not a question of finding a different way to woo them, or of pruning the dead wood among existing clergy, or even of practicing age-ism as the Texas Conference now does in discouraging anyone over age 45 from pursuing ordained ministry. Ordination in The United Methodist Church is simply too expensive, too time-consuming, too fraught with political infighting, too stressful, and too lacking in vocational satisfaction. In short, the rewards of ordained ministry no longer justify the sacrifices. We will have fewer younger clergy until we take steps to change this reality.

What Young People Want

Meanwhile, about that membership loss: Praise bands don't cut it. It isn't about the "worship wars." It's about teaching and living the full gospel of Jesus Christ, which John Wesley correctly understood as a discipline involving both personal piety and social holiness. For episcopal edification, here's a list of topics, with resources, that concern young people today, based on discussions with young people of my acquaintance.

Caring for the Earth. Global climate change is real, and many young people fear that God's good creation will be lost to them before they're 30 (see "Arctic Methane Release Due to Climate Change Could Cost Global Economy $60 Trillion, Study Reports"). They want to know why the Church isn't on the front lines demanding public policies to rescue and protect the environment that they will inherit.

Economic injustice. Young people, even those with college degrees, can't find jobs that pay a living wage (see "Living Wage Index Ties into UMC's Mission Focus"). Many young adults are still living with their parents and despair of being able to marry and start families of their own because they can't afford it. They know that the wealth gap in America is rapidly widening (see "Is Income Inequality Morally Wrong?"). They want to know why the Church isn't pushing hard for economic justice.

Immigration reform. Thousands of second-generation undocumented immigrants live in fear that they and their parents will be deported. Most of them are in families that came from Mexico and Central American countries that they've never known. They were born in the United States or brought here as infants; they're Americans in every way except their papers. But only a few congregations and one bishop – Bishop Minerva Carcaño – are regularly seen in public support of comprehensive immigration reform that will provide a path to citizenship and keep families together. These young undocumented immigrants notice this.

Community erosion. Young people are lonely; they long to be part of a community that welcomes, supports and loves them as Jesus taught. With the exception of people of faith in North Carolina and their "Moral Mondays" witness (see "It Was Awesome Getting Arrested"), young people see very few Christians putting their bodies on the line for the marginalized as Jesus did. They know it's because most church people have bought into the "just me and Jesus" lie that personal salvation constitutes the gospel's only aim. Until and unless young people see Christians standing up for the welfare of all right now, they're not likely to enter our churches.

Finally, the first decade of the 21st century has brought to glaring light the Church's institutional failings (see Diana Butler Bass' 2011 book, "Christianity After Religion"). It doesn't matter whether it's Catholic hierarchy protecting pedophiles, or Southern Baptists making women into second-class citizens, or United Methodists fighting yet again over whether gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are truly of sacred worth. All religious institutions are now equally suspect, and the only way to get past that suspicion is to live up to our gospel imperatives.

Lest this article be dismissed as yet another harangue from a disaffected church member, consider these two parallel developments that occurred while this critique was written.

First, popular evangelical blogger Rachel Held Evans in her recent article for CNN's Belief Blog wrote: "… young adults perceive evangelical Christianity to be too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people … millennials long for faith communities in which they are safe asking tough questions and wrestling with doubt."

Second, while returning from the Roman Catholic World Youth Day in Brazil, Pope Francis spoke candidly with reporters about social issues. The pope's candor led Kevin Clarke, senior correspondent of the Jesuit magazine America, to write also on CNN: "This pope may be interested in moving at least rhetorically away from cultural stalemates and on to other issues that have also long been a preoccupation of the church: fighting poverty and human deprivation, creating political and economic opportunity, the just and sustainable stewardship of creation."

So if United Methodist bishops really want to address why there are so few clergy under age 35 and why membership continues to shrink, they should heed this advice: Get real!

The Church's future lies in authenticity – proclaiming and demonstrating that following Jesus Christ genuinely transforms life here and now. It's about building beloved community beyond church walls, so that the thirsty have drink, the hungry have bread, and the stranger is welcomed. It's about making sure that those sick or imprisoned, downtrodden or desperate, have someone embrace them and reassure them that nothing, nothing, makes them undeserving of God's love and of human respect and dignity.

Losing our lives for the sake of others is how Jesus said we should "get real." Start from that point, dear bishops, and we may find that all other dilemmas melt away.

A veteran religion journalist and certified spiritual director, Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.