Many have been posting about the actions of the clergy session of the Florida Annual Conference of the UMC. As an active participant, I want to offer my perspective on what I witnessed.
David deSilva
I found out in the half hour before the session that the Board of Ordained Ministry had approved and was bringing forward two self-avowed, practicing homosexual candidates for commissioning. They were doing this knowingly, putting the annual conference in a position to act in defiance of the covenant that we have sworn to uphold as clergy, which includes abiding by the decisions of General Conferences as detailed in the Book of Discipline. At the outset, Rev. David Dodge presented a motion that the candidates all be considered as a block and not individually. After much spirited discussion and the defeat of a counter-motion, David Dodge's motion passed. (I will say here that I found it pernicious that one of the speakers in favor of the motion, Rev. Debbie MacLeod told us that we should simply trust the Board of Ordained Ministry to have done their job and merely act to ratify the decision of our representatives there rather than engage in any scrutiny ourselves. I call this "pernicious," because the Board had flagrantly violated our trust in bringing these two candidates forward and putting us in this position.)
When the time came for the vote on the group of sixteen being commissioned, the group failed to attain the 75% majority that was necessary to approve them, and so the whole block was not approved to move forward in the process. Shortly after the vote's results were announced, there were calls for a motion to reconsider. I sought to put forward a motion to allow for a new vote to be taken, considering each candidate individually so that those fourteen against whose ordination there was no disciplinary objection (really, prohibition) could move forward. The bishop would not entertain that motion as "contrary to the spirit of the session." A motion to reconsider a block vote was passed and the results were, not surprisingly, the same.
This is being spun throughout United Methodism and beyond as another instance of how "hateful" traditionalists are, with no fault at all being found with a Board that acted contrary to the Discipline or with a clergy session that insisted on assigning one, common fate to all sixteen. It is convenient to spin it thus, but it is not honest. Harm was being done to the consciences of every traditionalist in the room. Harm was being done to whatever thin thread remain of the trust we have with one another within the conference. Harm was of course done to the two gay/lesbian candidates (but not just by the clergy who votes against their ordination -- harm was done by the Board that put them, and us, in this position). Harm was done to the fourteen candidates whose fate was decreed to be inseparable from the rest.
A large part of the blame must lie with a Commission on General Conference that did not move heaven and earth to make GC 2022 possible, and there is very good reason to believe that they could have done so. A GC could have ratified the "Protocol of Grace and Reconciliation Through Separation," made it possible for traditionalist clergy and congregations to get out of the way of the progressive juggernaut without the onerous burdens being placed on many (and the outright refusal with which some congregations are meeting in other conferences) while also amending the Book of Discipline to allow those who remain, and who are certain of the rightness of their own cause, to move forward freely. The Florida Conference missed a genuine opportunity in its failure to move forward together in the spirit, and even under the terms, of that Protocol, even without GC ratification. We could have been under the spotlight for our gracious separation and blessing of one another on our diverging trajectories of ministry. I'll never know why our leadership did not seize these opportunities (I did plead along these lines on several occasions), but we are here in this place as a result of these many factors.
I return to add this important note: what happened Thursday morning was not a "win" for anybody at all. It was a grievous, lamentable situation. I left with a heart as heavy if not heavier than I carried home from AC 2019. All this to say -- no replies here of celebration or triumph, please. The morning was a complete defeat for all.
The Rev. Dr. David deSilva serves as director of music for Port Charlotte United Methodist Church in Port Charlotte, Florida. He blogs at Apocrychal Writings. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author via Facebook or his blog.