As I grow older, Holy Week has become a time of more profound reflection and observance, possibly because I'm more aware of how fewer days I have left on earth to share the teachings of Jesus Christ through my actions and my words. My resolve to reflect Jesus in all that I say and do has been sorely tested amid the furor over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which critics contend gives business proprietors license to discriminate against LGBTQ people based on their religious beliefs.
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Widespread condemnation of the law – including a rare front-page editorial by the Indianapolis Star – has been gratifying for both LGBTQ people and their "straight" allies. Of greatest interest to Indiana's United Methodists, the legislation drew a vigorous denunciation from their resident bishop, Mike Coyner, who characterized the legislation as a triumph of fear over faith. (Unfortunately, he dilutes that critique by contending the reaction is also excessive fear).
Underneath the brouhaha, however, lurks an even deeper issue that ought to concern United Methodists as we prepare for our 2016 General Conference: the question of how we determine what religious beliefs will govern our community – especially when beliefs with moral weight among some people conflict drastically with other beliefs held morally valid by others.
I ran up against this conundrum this week while participating in an online discussion of Indiana's RFRA. A person, whose identity I shall protect, expressed adamant support for religious freedom laws. The participant based the argument on a New Mexico case in which a court ruled that a photography studio had violated the state's human rights law for refusing to photograph a gay wedding. The U.S. Supreme Court later refused to hear an appeal of the decision.
The discussion participant insisted that the photographer had been "hounded" for standing up for her beliefs, proving that religious freedom laws were necessary. I agreed that if such hounding took place, it was indeed as wrong as discrimination against gays. However, I then commented that in my view as a follower of Jesus Christ, no legislation will turn someone's heart from prejudice, and that Christians are called upon to love our adversaries as Jesus taught in hopes that love, not fear, will eventually prevail.
Highly offended, my discussion partner called my view "unbiblical" and asked where I got such a notion. I referred the participant to Jesus' Sermon on Mount, found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and especially Matthew 5:38-48, about giving cloaks and turning cheeks and going the extra mile. As you might imagine, at that juncture, the discussion evaporated.
We United Methodists are engaging in the same kind of fruitless exchanges as we gear up for the 2016 General Conference, where we will again take up our 43-year-old conflict regarding the acceptability of "homosexual practice." (I now place that phrase from the Book of Discipline in quotes because it's simply a euphemism for anal sex and doesn't accurately represent the life "practices" among LGBTQ people). There's no need to establish the battle lines any longer by proof-texting our respective stances with scripture. The question we must resolve if we are to stay together in a faith community is:
Can we hold in tension divergent moral interpretations on an issue without demonizing each other and without invalidating the other's theological method?
What distresses many of us, especially me, is the way we're approaching this dilemma. Once again we're doing what Methodists have done since John Wesley – attempt to decide our spiritual challenges by creating flawed human structures, i.e. reorganizing the church.
Before you pooh-pooh this notion, take a good look at our history. In the early 1800s, we ended up with three streams of Methodism – Methodists, United Brethren and Evangelical Association – because of prejudice between English-speaking and German-speaking Americans. That period also saw the creation of the historically black African Methodist Episcopal Church, because black people weren't permitted to share Holy Communion with white people. As we struggled over slavery, our mostly white people's church split into two branches, Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal, South. A third branch, the Methodist Protestant Church, emerged from a debate over the participation of laypeople in church governance. When the white folks finally came back together in 1939, the remaining black Methodists were still discriminated against by the creation of the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction. Thankfully that structure was dismantled with the 1968 merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church.
Currently some half-dozen proposals attempt to resolve our differences over sexual matters through structural legislation. And all because we refuse to follow the same principle that has people upset over Indiana's RFRA law, the principle written into our own Book of Discipline – that people of LGBTQ orientation are entitled to equal rights:
Equal Rights Regardless of Sexual Orientation
Certain basic human rights and civil liberties are due all persons. We are committed to supporting those rights and liberties for all persons, regardless of sexual orientation.
We see a clear issue of simple justice in protecting the rightful claims where people have shared material resources, pensions, guardian relationships, mutual powers of attorney, and other such lawful claims typically attendant to contractual relationships that involve shared contributions, responsibilities, and liabilities, and equal protection before the law.
Moreover, we support efforts to stop violence and other forms of coercion against all persons, regardless of sexual orientation. – "The Social Community," United Methodist Social Principles
We're a whole lot better at stating this ideal than we are at living it out within our faith community. Ironically, this, too, is in the covenant that one faction of the church wants us to uphold unequivocally while another faction wants to supersede just as vigorously. If this is what we truly believe, then why doesn't the rest of our covenant adhere to this principle?
Perhaps the best thing we United Methodists can do for ourselves is to heed the words of the Indianapolis Star's front-page editorial: Fix this now.
A veteran religion journalist, Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.