UMCom Illustration
UMCom Poll Wordle
Unity efforts by United Methodist moderates rose up this week as the American branch of the global United Methodist Church swung into high season for annual conferences.
Across the U.S. connection, annual conferences, bishops and bloggers alike expressed commitment to unity as well as tough pushback against schismatic and extremist forces. It may be too early to tell whether the sentiments will sustain through the 2016 General Conference in Portland, Ore., but in the short term, United Methodists have issued a resounding "no" to the polarized politics of the past 40-odd years.
Nonetheless, unity efforts didn't entirely quell the ongoing debate over LGBT rights in the church. Nor did it stop criticisms that proposals to relieve the UMC's fierce debate over its anti-gay stances would work.
Here are excerpts from some of the more prominent statements.
Bishop Sally Dyck, who was the guest preacher for the June 1-3 North Texas Annual Conference, posted questions about potential schism on her blog.
So what would such a separation—amicable or not—look like exactly?
Would those calling for the separation be the Gay-free Methodist Church? If human sexuality is the defining reason for amicable separation, then call it what it is.
If so, would their vows be to give their prayers, presence, gifts, service, witness and commitment to be gay-free in all they do and say?
Would they write a doctrinal creed that every member has to sign that says each person will stay gay-free in all relationships? That the church will be gay-free in membership and outreach? That the church won’t take any money from gay people? If not, won’t it just find itself in the same place we’re at now, welcoming LGBTQ people but not entirely?
What will the central conferences do? I guess we can assume they’ll go gay-free. Are they willing to also go gay-free in terms of money from gay-friendly churches and annual conferences?
Seriously now, it feels to me like this is a final death rattle, not for the church, but for those in the church who see that now 44% of the US population lives in a state where it is legal for same-gender people to marry. Newsflash: they may be living in a state where legal marriage is coming to them…soon! It seems to me that every church is going to hold some gay-friendly families and friends, not to mention…could it be?…gay people. Then what?
United Methodist Communications published an article saying that a recent poll found United Methodists care more today about making disciples of Jesus Christ and about intentional faith development than about divisions over human sexuality. At least one annual conference, Pacific Northwest, reposted the UMCom article on its website.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A new poll of United Methodists in the United States shows that issues related to human sexuality rank significantly lower than other concerns, and members want the church to engage on this issue and bring a positive perspective to the discussion.
Creating disciples of Christ, spiritual growth and youth involvement are among the top priorities for U.S. church members, according to the survey, commissioned by United Methodist Communications. The research is based on a May 30-June 1 survey of United Methodist members in the United States. The research was conducted by Corporate Research of Greensboro, N.C., and Research Now of Dallas. It had a 4.4 percent margin of error.
... More than 90 percent of respondents said The United Methodist Church should not split over issues related to human sexuality. Sixty-three percent said the issue of sexual orientation and same-gender marriage is “diverting the church from more important things.” They ranked it 8th in importance among issues facing the church today.
In addition, Bishop Grant Hagiya, episcopal leader of the Pacific-Northwest Conference, wrote in his June 2 blog: http://greaternw.org/seeking-the-unity-of-the-whole-church/
I have always believed that the great strength of The United Methodist Church is our “Big Tent” reality. We are open to everyone, and we must find a way to live side by side even with our differing opinions. It is too easy to give up by going our separate ways. It is much harder to stay at the table when we vehemently disagree with each other, but that is exactly what Christ calls us to do. I am profoundly struck by the Dean of Candler School of Theology’s, Dr. Jan Love’s comment about the Corinthian community. To paraphrase Dr. Love: “their commitment to Jesus Christ was so strong that you couldn’t be kicked out of the community of Christ, nor could you voluntarily leave.”
Meanwhile, the Rev. Adam Hamilton of United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., and the Rev. Mike Slaughter of Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp City, Ohio, issued an online document called "A Way Forward for a United Methodist Church." Hamilton and Slaughter's proposal resembles an effort the two pastors made at the 2012 General Conference to temper the sharply anti-gay language in the Book of Discipline with a more moderate position acknowledging the church's essentially 60-40 split over the acceptability of homosexuality. They offer two suggestions:
… We propose that the United Methodist Church entrust to each local church the authority to determine how they will be in ministry with gay and lesbian people including whether they will, or will not, allow for homosexual marriages or unions.
… we suggest that annual conferences be permitted to determine whether they will or will not ordain self-avowed, practicing homosexuals while allowing local churches to determine if they would or would not be willing to receive gay and lesbian clergy.
At the same time, the Rev. Becca Girrell, one of the young clergy leaders of the #DreamUMC movement on Twitter, posted on her blog an option for an "in-home separation:"
Before we file the papers for the Great Divorce of The UMC, I’d call us to deeply consider how we might live together in one home, in the midst of our divisions. As Northern Illinois Bishop Sally Dyck writes, “Having watched countless couples work for an amicable separation, it doesn’t look like too many can pull it off when it just involves two people, much less 11 million.” Perhaps it’s worth it to try for something less than full separation, at least at this time. I think there are several ways to accomplish this (and that’s fodder for plenty more blog posts), but to me the most promising involve the creation of an United States (or Jurisdictional) Central Conference/s, and a two-volume Book of Discipline, with the option of emending the second volume in each Central Conference. Kind of a way, I hope, of holding together those things we do well– our ministry and mission, our Social Principles (SOME of them– I’ll get to that), our ways of funding and equipping local ministries across the globe– and allowing one another the grace and space to carry out our ministries in our contexts. As Wesley would say, in essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.
While these "local option" alternatives were hailed by many across the denomination, others such as the Rev. David F. Watson, academic dean of United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, still expressed reservations about the proposals' value.
... Some annual conferences and congregations will be unanimous or nearly unanimous in their positions, while others will not. Our annual conferences are already full of resolutions regarding the ordination and marriage of self-avowed, practicing homosexuals. Imagine what would happen if the annual conferences had real decision-making power to determine policy on this issue. Perhaps in the Western Jurisdiction there would be near-unanimity on these matters. In my own conference, West Ohio, it would be ugly. As for the local church… wow. Bringing this debate to the level of the local church will do to many congregations what has happened to the General Conference. These congregations will be torn apart.
Pushback against extreme and schismatic forces emerged in official actions of two annual conferences in historically conservative regions of the U.S. church.
The North Georgia Annual Conference adopted a resolution, “That They May Be One. A Covenant for Unity in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.”, officially committing its unit of the Southeastern Jurisdiction to pursue unity in the face of threats to split the church.
The North Texas Annual Conference in the South Central Jurisdiction adopted a resolution calling upon the ultra-right Institute on Religion and Democracy to cease using a 160,000-name mailing list it brought from the now-defunct UMR Communications Inc. to send propaganda promoting its cause and asking for donations.
Not all was a spirit of unity, however.
Located in a state where same-sex marriages are legal, the Minnesota Annual Conference adopted a resolution calling upon Bishop Bruce Ough and the cabinet to disregard all anti-gay legislation in the Book of Discipline.
At the same time, the Texas Annual Conference voted down four resolutions calling for the removal of the anti-gay language in the Book of Discipline and affirming same-sex marriage. All four resolutions were voted down by close to a 2-to-1 margin.
United Methodist Insight readers are invited to submit links to other annual conference and individual efforts either for unity or for schism in the comments section.