The negotiating team for "A Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation" gathered for a video panel discussion organized Jan. 13, 2020, by United Methodist News Service. (UM Insight Screenshot)
A United Methodist Insight Interpretative Analysis
The following thoughts came to me Jan. 13 while watching United Methodist News Service’s livestream featuring the team that negotiated “Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation.” Watch the 68-minute video here.
Observation No 1: Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone has proven himself a leader for the entire worldwide denomination. He spoke honestly about what he rightly termed the “catastrophe” of the 2019 General Conference and courageously about receiving a discernment from God’s Holy Spirit to do something about it. His perception of “prayer moments” as opportunities for the team to face their/our human limitations brought a much-needed humility to the process. In the bishop’s words: “We couldn’t process all of this without the presence of God’s Holy Spirit among us. Sometimes in moments of tension we would pause for a moment and wait for God’s Holy Spirit. Anytime we prayed, obstacles disappeared.” I commend Bishop Yambasu’s encouragement for the entire denomination to set up teams to pray for God’s will to be done by the 2020 General Conference.
Observation No. 2: Why is it that Central Conference bishops speak enthusiastically and without embarrassment of spiritual matters while U.S. bishops often give answers that sound more like those of bureaucrats? U.S. leaders might do well to mark this difference if the proposal for regional conferences goes through.
Observation No. 3: The obvious sense of camaraderie among team members is encouraging. However, there was also camaraderie among those on the Commission on A Way Forward, and that goodwill didn’t transfer to General Conference delegates. We can hope that the large number of new GC2020 delegates will be less skeptical and entrenched.
Kenneth Feinberg
Famed mediator Kenneth Feinberg speaks during a forum at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, in May 2011. Feinberg helped a diverse group of United Methodist bishops and other leaders reach an agreement, released Jan. 3, on a "Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation." (Photo courtesy of the Miller Center, Creative Commons.)
Observation No. 4: Kenneth Feinberg probably should get some kind of award for being able to keep the “Protocol” team at the table with his two meta-goals: what will it take to get to “yes,” and if you don’t get to “yes,” what is the alternative? (Feinberg credits his colleagues Rick Godfrey and Wendy Bloom for their support services to the team), Once again, belief formed the discussion’s bedrock, as Bishop Gregory Palmer said, “What does it mean when people outside your village care about the future of your village? They [the mediators] believed in us more than we seemed to believe in ourselves.”
Observation No. 5: The Rev. Keith Boyette’s assertion that traditionalists were “peacemakers” in the mediation left me scratching my head. Did he really mean that traditionalists, who have tried to push out LGBTQ+ people and their allies for half a century, turned the tide in the conflict? Or did he intend to convey that since the Wesleyan Covenant Association has the bare bones of a new denomination established, they felt confident enough to leave the UMC behind? Politically, Good News president Rob Renfroe already has acknowledged how badly traditionalist forces miscalculated reaction to the Traditional Plan’s adoption. Despite “winning” GC2019, traditionalists had their butts handed to them in the backlash because U. S. United Methodists finally had enough of conservative warmongering. A clarification from Rev. Boyette might be helpful.
Observation No. 6: “Theological contextualization” will be a key phrase for “Protocol” legislation in GC2020, just as it was for the Way Forward report. This may be an unfortunate holdover, as the phrase has unsavory connotations to some. Might be time to try another wording.
Observation No. 7: Bishop Christian Alsted (Nordic-Baltic Area) deserves thanks for acknowledging honestly that the talks started with tension and hostility. He called the negotiations a “rollercoaster ride with lots of loops and twists. We all wanted to get off at some point, but we all stayed on the ride.” The “Protocol” team’s example is now before the rest of the church. Will we “bend toward one another while being faithful to our understandings of scripture” as Bishop Alsted put it? Already there are signs that such hope is slim – but not dead.
Observation No. 8: One hopes the Rev. David Meredith’s assessment proves accurate that “the Protocol changes the landscape for people who have been deeply harmed” by the UMC’s anti-LGBTQ+ stances. LGBTQ+ people and their allies are smelling a whole lot of “if” coming off the “Protocol,” especially since its legislation remains to be written. Nor is there any guarantee that, once separated from a traditionalist offshoot, the “faithful remnant” UMC actually will remove the “incompatible” language from the Book of Discipline.
Observation No. 9: The idea that a Traditionalist Methodist Church which refuses to include LGBTQ+ people can be a mission partner with a welcoming and affirming UMC strains credulity. That’s because one side will persist in seeing exclusion as biblical faithfulness while the other side will see inclusion as the fulfillment of Jesus’ message of God’s love. At some point that dichotomy will be, as it has been, insurmountable. For comparison, see the racist history of the mostly white Methodist Church, including establishment of historically Black Methodist churches.
Observation No. 10: The “Protocol “makes a good start, but there was still an imbalance in its development regarding racial/ethnic and gender participation. One viewpoint, that of “liberationist” United Methodists, was entirely absent from the progressive-centrist-traditionalist triad. Paying traditionalists $25 million to go away just because they’ve organized especially rankles those faithful Black United Methodists who’ve stayed with the denomination despite its inherent racism. GC2020 delegates will need to be convinced – and to convince the rest of the denomination – that the “Protocol” agreement takes a good first step.
Still, as Kenneth Feinberg put it, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We have in hand an agreement with great potential for good. The question now before us is whether that potential will be nurtured or quashed by GC2020 delegates.
More on the development of "Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation:
Protocol Process Painful but Fruitful by Kathy L. Gilbert, UM News
Feinberg Kept Negotiators at Table by Sam Hodges, UM News
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.