Historian: Potential UMC Split Ignores Questions of Doctrine

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A United Methodist Insight Exclusive

The question in most United Methodists’ minds these days is “Will the denomination split over the acceptance of LGBTQ+ persons?” However, one longtime church leader and scholar sees the UMC’s turmoil rooted not in politics or mission or finances, but in the basic reasons for being a church: our statements of beliefs about God and how we live out that understanding together.

In other words, what does our official doctrine say about our faith? How do we embody that doctrine in the church and the world? And who tells us when we’re missing the mark?

The Rev. Dr. William B. Lawrence focused on these questions recently in a 59-page essay, “A Question of Doctrine: Whither the United Methodist Church?” in the academic journal, Methodist Review. His article reportedly is making the rounds, from “Methonerds” who like to dig deep into church workings, to a local-church Sunday school class, to annual conference delegations pondering whether they will vote to divide the 12-million-member worldwide denomination when the 2020 General Conference meets May 5-15 in Minneapolis, Minn.

In an exclusive telephone interview, Dr. Lawrence told United Methodist Insight that he hopes United Methodist decision-makers will give serious consideration to the questions he raises before voting on any separation proposals. That’s because he believes the global denomination has strayed far from what its founders determined it should be when it was formed in 1968, he said.

Former Judicial Council president

Dr. Lawrence has both the training and experience to put alternatives before the worldwide church. He’s a former president of the Judicial Council (the denomination’s “high court”), a former dean of UMC-related Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, a former pastor and district superintendent, and a church historian by academic training. He currently serves as a research fellow at UMC-related Duke University.

As Dr. Lawrence sees it, the greatest issue before United Methodism today isn’t whether to accept LGBTQ+ persons but how United Methodist doctrinal standards and doctrines view the authority of scripture. With a historian’s longer lens, he finds the United Methodist Church’s troubles are rooted in the reality that the 52-year-old denomination has “ignored, neglected or abandoned” its own doctrinal standards.

“The denomination, in addressing specifically the question of homosexuality, has abandoned the doctrine of grace embedded in our doctrinal standards,” Dr. Lawrence said. “The denomination has chosen to cede to its legislature [General Conference] a kind of ‘levitical theology’ when it comes to the question of homosexuality.”

The denomination’s official doctrinal standards are found in two documents probably unfamiliar to most church members: the Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church and the Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Included in the United Methodist Book of Discipline, these two documents state what church leaders agreed upon when the denomination was formed in 1968 by the merger of the two churches.

What makes these two foundational documents crucial to United Methodism is the fact that they’re protected by a section of the church’s Constitution known as the Restrictive Rules, Dr. Lawrence explained. Among other things, the First and Second Restrictive Rules specify that the doctrinal standards can be changed only by a complicated, difficult process of constitutional amendment.

“There’s a very high bar protecting what we say we believe,” Dr. Lawrence said. “To change our doctrinal standards, it takes a two-thirds approval of General Conference, and then three-fourths approval by the aggregate total of votes by all annual conferences around the world to amend the First and Second Restrictive Rules. Then we can change the Doctrinal Standards.”

Thus, the current statement declaring the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” and the chargeable offenses based on that phrase, are theological statements that change United Methodist doctrinal standards improperly, in Dr. Lawrence’s estimation.

No entity authorized to check on doctrine

Compounding the problem is that there is no single authority empowered by the denomination to decide what does and doesn’t meet its doctrinal standards, he added.

“I do clearly acknowledge in the essay that the General Conference has adopted a number of doctrinal statements such as 'By Water and Spirit' about baptism and 'This Holy Mystery' about communion,” Dr. Lawrence said. ”But when the church enacts laws that declare the practice of homosexuality to be incompatible with Christian teaching, there is no constitutional entity that can review and decide: do the laws or doctrinal statements fit with the Doctrinal Standards?”

Such a theological or doctrinal council would need to be written into the church’s Constitution to give it equal authority with other church-wide bodies.

“The General Conference legislates, and the Council of Bishops, along with annual conferences, implement church laws,” he explained. “The Judicial Council made it clear in Judicial Council Decisions 59 and 243 that it deals only with law and constitutionality, whether something is constitutional, and doesn’t decide questions of theology.”

This means that the frequently used practice of forwarding to the Judicial Council questions about theology around homosexuality marks a continued exercise in futility, Dr. Lawrence said.

Marriage doctrine violated?

“Regarding the prohibition on same-sex marriage, for example, I contend that we’ve violated our own Doctrinal Standard in Article XXI, regarding the marriage of ministers,” he said.

Article XXI is part of “The Articles of Religion for the Methodist Church” that were written by John Wesley for American Methodism. In Wesley’s 18th century language, the article states: “The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God’s law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness.”

Dr. Lawrence thinks that the explicit emphasis on individual “discretion” regarding “godliness” for “ministers…as for all other Christians,” set a doctrinal standard that allows for same-sex marriages to be performed in United Methodist churches by United Methodist pastors, provided the pastor deems the couple spiritually ready to enter into the marriage covenant. And they allow individual clergy and laity “discretion” in judging whom they will personally marry. Thus the prohibition in Discipline Paragraph 341.6 stating, “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches,” would appear to violate a United Methodist doctrinal standard, he said.

And there’s the rub. Nobody is paying attention formally to whether the laws that General Conference enacts violate United Methodist doctrinal standards, because there’s no official church body authorized to determine if they do.

Reading and using the Discipline carefully

“It’s not confusing if one reads the Constitution carefully, and that’s the problem,” Dr. Lawrence continued. “I’ve heard people say, ‘The Discipline says,’ and I find myself saying, ‘The Discipline says many things.’

“The book contains material such as Doctrinal Standards, our theological method, our Constitution, a history of the denomination, church laws, social policies to debate, and a list of names of bishops in any past denominations related to UMC.  So It’s very important that the speaker specifically refers to the portion of the volume to which he or she is directing the comment,” the historian stressed.

Lack of attention to these important details is what dismays Dr. Lawrence about the coming General Conference.

“We’re rushing into separation when we don’t know what the new doctrinal standards or constitutional structure will be,” he said. “We have a situation where somebody has kicked the snowball down the Alps and it’s gathering momentum until it gets to Minnesota. There’s a lot of momentum behind the rush; people are so sick and tired of fighting they want to be rid of each other.”

Like a difficult divorce

The church historian likened the current United Methodist turmoil to a difficult divorce.

“It’s like when two people don’t care about the terms, they just don’t want to be married anymore,” he said. “Yet after they divorce, they look at the terms and say, “Oh, no, what did we do?”

Dr. Lawrence said he thinks that someone needs to say, “wait a minute,” about doctrine in the various separation proposals as General Conference begins its legislative work.

“If you create two new institutions, and one of them is The United Methodist Church, it would retain the current Constitution with its Restrictive Rules, but a new denomination going forward wouldn’t need to do so,” he said. “The Restrictive Rules, such as the right of clergy and laypersons to church trial if brought up on charges, would only be in the new constitution if the founders put it there. Some naively think they can go to a new denomination and automatically take existing protections with them, but that’s not the case.”

Dr. Lawrence said he hopes his recent writings will awaken decision-makers to the need to attend to doctrine as well as structure in setting a future for United Methodism.

“It’s possible that one side is better organized, and another side is less organized,” he noted. “But to divide the denomination by someone’s control of the lion’s share of delegate votes because it’s convenient is making a huge mistake.

“This is not simply a matter of who ends up owning property. It’s a matter of, 'Why are we a church at all?' That’s the theological question that’s been ignored, neglected or abandoned.”

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.