]The United Methodist Church is guilty of the sin of commission and the sin of omission.
The sin of commission
While we profess to believe in the three simple rules of John Wesley, we have violated the first one:
“Do no harm.”
Repentance
Illustration Courtesy of Christy Thomas
We have done great harm to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters by treating them as less than full partners in our faith communities. We will never know how many suicides, cases of bullying, and feelings of depression we have caused by our pompous belief that their love for others is somehow threatening to our belief in Jesus, the one who asked us to love our neighbors.
Good News, the Confessing Movement, and the Wesleyan Covenant Association have all made public statements that any type of "local option" plan is unacceptable. Without a doubt, when “The One Church Plan” is introduced to delegates at the special session of General Conference, members of these conservative groups will make a substitute motion calling for “The Traditional Plan” (with teeth). I have every reason to believe the substitute motion will prevail and we will continue to commit a sin of commission by doing harm to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
The sin of omission
While United Methodists are spending dollars and years debating issues related to human sexuality, we are doing nothing to address practices and policies of the Trump Administration. These practices and policies affect all United Methodists internationally, not just those in the United States.
We are endangering the lives of our grandchildren by absenting ourselves from the Paris Climate Agreement. We seem to ignore the reversal of earlier efforts to move from fossil fuel energy to renewable sources.
We have done nothing to address the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration, and we have left it to others to call out our president for calling immigrants “animals.”
We tolerate routine lies and misogynistic attitudes in the White House. Considering the recent rejection of two constitutional amendments intended to promote and protect the rights of women and girls, perhaps we’re unable to see our own sin in this regard.
We have accepted the substitution of diplomacy with “America-first” rhetoric. Increases in military budgets and reductions in humanitarian funds have moved the hands of the “Doomsday Clock,” a measure of global catastrophe kept by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, to two minutes before midnight.
We ignore the introduction of policies that shred the safety net for the poor, the sick, and the elderly. We have failed to follow Jesus’ command to care for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46)
We are guilty of both sins of commission and sins of omission. How long before we repent?
Veteran United Methodist communicator the Rev. Rich Peck of Nashville, Tenn., is a retired clergy member of the New York Annual Conference.