Who Bears the Burden of Our Ecclesiology?

A Response to the Rev. Tim McClendon

Special to United Methodist Insight

To my brother in Christ, Tim McClendon,

I read with interest your “Commentary: One Church Plan destroys connectionalism.” While I appreciate your attempt to promote the connectional nature of Methodism, I found your argument not only unconvincing but also dangerous.

I am by no means offering a defense of the One Church Plan. However, I was disturbed by the means by which you critiqued this plan, the “tactics and words,” which you described as “just plain wrong.”

As one white, male, heterosexual, U.S. citizen to another–both of us United Methodists – I feel obligated to call out your use of the history of race in this country to legitimize another form of institutional discrimination–especially in the church to which we both belong. As you seek “a union that does the least amount of harm,” I urge you to consider carefully who is being harmed. Who bears the burden of our ecclesiology?

Invoking nationalistic imagery and history, you argued in favor of the Modified Traditional Plan and against the One Church Plan, claiming that “The United Methodist Church is better as a union, not a confederacy.” There are several problems with this parallel.

First, let us consider the transition of the U.S. government from the Articles of Confederation to a Constitution. Of foremost importance for us to remember is that this national unity was built on the backs of African Americans through the Three-Fifths Compromise–an agreement to determine a state’s population for purposes of representation and taxation by counting three out of every five slaves as a person. This was a white man’s government that failed to include all persons equally.

Even so, unlike the One Church Plan or the Modified Traditional Plan, this path toward unity required more than a mere majority vote of legislative delegates to a conference or convention. The new U.S. Constitution required ratification by nine of thirteen states to go into effect. In contrast, the unity being fought over at the upcoming General Conference would rest on a much less secure foundation of support.

Furthermore, the proposed U. S. Constitution was accompanied by a guarantee of basic protections. To leave out the Bill of Rights from this history is to gloss over the very issue at stake in the UMC today: what are the basic rights of LGBTQ persons within our church? What fraction of their person is counted as legitimate in our church?

Second, let us consider your observation that “it took the Civil War in 1861–1865 to return us to a strong central government and change our self-understanding as a country,” in light of your suspicion about any plan for the UMC that does not provide an “exit plan.” Would the Union have been less “sinister” if Lincoln had simply allowed the Confederacy its desired path of exit from the United States? The logic does not hold. Unity for the United States was not bought through a negotiated exit of those who disagreed, and I don’t think that suspending the trust clause in the UMC is true to the connectionalism we both value. We should all bear the burden of the cause of unity.

Third, let us consider the sin of racial segregation in U.S. history. You argue, citing “Brown v. Board of Education,” that “separate but equal” was “completely wrong and false” as a doctrine. We are in agreement on this point but differ in the parallels we see in it for the UMC.

It took a federal-level court decision to require the dismantling of segregated schools. The parallel to the church is not that the UMC should centrally mandate discrimination! The Supreme Court’s ruling against “separate but equal” was not an imposition of uniform prejudice. The clearer parallel is that the UMC should impose central protections against categorical discrimination of LGBTQ persons in a church where they are currently treated as second-class citizens unworthy of drinking from the same fountain as you or I. We should not expect LGBTQ persons to bear the burden of our ecclesiology.

Perhaps most importantly, your entire argument–which draws U.S. national symbols and commitments–ignores the international reality of the UMC. One aspect United Methodist ecclesiology, which differs markedly from our ecumenical partners in Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian traditions, is this church’s aspiring “worldwide nature.”

As of 2016, nearly half (45%) of the UMC’s membership resided outside of the United States. To argue for the future of this church on the basis of parallels with U.S. political history is to perpetuate a white, U.S. imperialistic mindset that has harmed many persons in the history of Methodism.

We can agree that ours is not the “United Baptist Church!” United Methodism is not and should not become a congregational polity. Yet, the nature of our connectionalism has never rested on unanimity of opinion from one congregation to the next–or even within any given congregation. John Wesley recognized this aspect of ecclesiology in his sermon “Catholic Spirit.” Opinions are neither what we worship nor what hold us together as a church–even opinions that have masqueraded as doctrines for thousands of years.

I do not believe that “conscience-driven” practices and decisions in local congregations are a threat to the church and its unity. To the contrary, to seek the chimera of social uniformity above the exercise of our God-given conscience is to undermine the church. It is an attempt to maintain the unity of an institution at the expense of another person’s humanity.

Brother Tim, when you say, “I sympathize with the pain that many feel . . ., but . . .”–it sounds as if you are willing to allow others to suffer for the sake of your version of the church. Furthermore, when a person in your position asserts, “. . . the best way forward to me is to keep what we have with greater accountability,” history has shown others that what is really meant is “the best way forward for me” as a white, male, heterosexual, U.S. citizen.

I have one pressing question for you: Who bears the burden of our ecclesiology?

The Rev. Darryl W. Stephens, an ordained deacon in the Texas Annual Conference, directs United Methodist studies at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.