What Would It Look Like for Love to Win in The United Methodist Church?

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Love wins. Ever since Rob Bell wrote the book in 2011, it’s been the battle cry of progressive Christians everywhere. We make bumper stickers and memes and t-shirts. It’s such a beautiful ideological concept. It’s how we define ourselves against people on the other side. But one of the things I’ve been convicted by recently is whether I actually live and speak as though love really does win. Is love really my strategy, my agenda, and my goal? Or is it just a code word that I’m using for a particular ideological perspective?

One of the most recent manifestations of this idea that love wins was the proposed rule 44 at the United Methodist General Conference. Rule 44 called on General Conference delegates to break into small groups rather than legislative committees to have conversations about sensitive topics like sexuality framed by a more personal set of questions than the cold, purely rationalistic approach of Robert’s Rules. The idea behind rule 44 was that if people could be vulnerable and see each other’s hearts, then we might get past our entrenched ideological positions or at least not demonize the other side. Most of the people who argued against rule 44 said they liked the idea of it but didn’t think it was practical within the constraints of General Conference. I wanted them to be wrong, but the more I thought about it, I figured they were probably right about the logistical challenge it posed.

So I started thinking about trying to make rule 44 a way of life instead of just a decision-making process. What if it we made relationship-building across ideological silos a priority for its own sake rather than just a strategy for political change? What if over the next four years we make it a spiritual discipline especially among United Methodist elders to learn the stories of people on the other side of our ideological debates? Everything we say about being part of a “covenant” is a complete farce if we lack personal relationships with each other. It’s so easy to get siloed by the demands of our local ministry contexts and also by the political polarization we are socialized into by the culture around us.

As I write this, it feels very naive and polyanna. Maybe it is. But I can tell you how love wins in my own life. Love wins when people I argue with online send me a private message to say they were praying for my back to heal and wanting to know how I’m holding up on my book tour. Love wins when the humility and compassion of my ideological enemies makes it impossible for me to stamp them with all-encompassing explanations like white supremacist heteronormative capitalist patriarchy. Love wins when I see other human beings who love instead of my brilliant deconstructions that make me feel awesome.

Love doesn’t win when the only interactions we have with people who are different than us happen in an impersonal, hostile space. Love doesn’t win through “points of order” (which isn’t to say they aren’t necessary). Love doesn’t win when we’re able to crush our opponents and make them look stupid. Love doesn’t win through satire, even if satire is an important and valid part of telling the truth. Love doesn’t win if I’m the one doing the conquering. Love only wins if I am won over to love.

I’m not saying I’m going to throw away any of my convictions or sell out the people who have mentored me in my journey. But I do want to build some authentic relationships with people who think differently than me without trying to change them. My friend Tom Berlin described the United Methodist Church as being like trench warfare in World War I. I wonder if love looks like leaving the safety of your trench to walk into the no man’s land between the trenches. I recognize that this calling isn’t for everyone, particularly people whose identities are attacked in ways that mine has never been. But I’m going to try making friends with more people who completely disagree with me. Maybe it will make a small difference in the tenor of our conversation as a church.

My hope is that when we decide the best way to move forward, it will be a decision made in love. I’m not sure that I can remain in a denomination with people who can only be in the same denomination with me if they have complete control over how I do ministry with LGBT people. But maybe we can be in covenant in a different sense. Most of my closest pastor friends right now are not even Methodist at all, but we love each other and pray for the fruitfulness of our respective ministries. So my hope is to gain deeper covenant with Christians who can help me love better because they hear what I say a lot differently than I do. If we all pursue authentic covenant with one another in our respective contexts, then God will coax us into deeper love. And whatever the result of that deeper love is, it certainly won’t make things any worse.

The Rev. Morgan Guyton serves as director of the NOLA Wesley Foundation, which is the United Methodist campus ministry at Tulane and Loyola University in New Orleans, LA. He blogs at Mercy Not Sacrifice on Patheos.com, from which this post is republished with the author's permission.