We're Short-Circuiting Our Future

I make this bold claim after hearing the noted religion historian and author present her latest findings during Ministers Week at United Methodist-related Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. Dr. Butler Bass' work will give delegates a better, broader understanding of why The United Methodist Church and all other Christian denominations are losing members (hint, it's not solely because we haven't invited anyone).

More importantly, the findings she presents in Christianity After Religion will make clear that the Call to Action, Vital Congregations, the Connectional Table proposals, the Ministry Study and everything else in this vein coming before General Conference are going about change in the wrong way.

In reality we're nowhere near solutions yet, folks, and especially not by using technical number-based proposals, as United Methodism's best minds have been telling us for a year now. Political considerations aside, we're in the midst of a global spiritual phenomenon that has not yet completed its journey from what's wrong with today's institutional religion to the creation of new systems. We're a long way from that point, and putting into play any kind of new order, particularly one that focuses on institutional quantitative metrics, is doomed to fail.

As Dr. Butler Bass stressed in her Perkins lectures, moving from the first stage of "something is wrong" directly to the last stage of "let's fix it" drastically short-circuits the process of change. In fact, at this point in human history with global awareness rising every day, the peril of moving straight to fixing what's wrong is as great as a short-circuit in an electrical transformer: the whole thing can blow up on us, leaving nothing but cinder and ash.

The position of the Council of Bishops, as expressed by Bishop Janice Riggle Huie during the Perkins event, is that the Call to Action and Vital Congregations will serve as the framework for the necessary discussions. With all due respect to Bishop Huie and her episcopal colleagues, Dr. Butler Bass' findings show how wrong-headed their approach really is. As previously expressed by many commentators, Call to Action and the Connectional Table structure proposals, including the establishment of the Interim Operations Team, share the same flaws:

• They offer top-down "visionary" edicts, not collective discernment.
• They require results-oriented institutional development, not discernment from shared spiritual experience.
• They centralize authority rather than putting work in the hands of the people.
• They remove the last vestiges of denominational trust by shredding existing clergy covenants.
• They provide no protections for emerging grassroots leaders, either clergy or laity.
• They impose systems from the center, rather than allowing change to arise from the margins.