GC2019's Action Isn't the Final Word on LGBTQIA Stances

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

I don’t want to diminish the grief many of us are feeling regarding the actions of the recent Special Session of the United Methodist Church’s General Conference. That grief is real, it is visceral, and it is harmful to many in the church—particularly to those who are LGBTQ. However, after examining what actually happened at that General Conference session, I think much of our grief is both premature and aimed with anger rather than with hopefulness. Allow me to explain why.

Let me begin by acknowledging a debt my of gratitude to two groups of people: First, to our Forebears in The Methodist Episcopal Church; The Methodist Episcopal Church, South; The Methodist Protestant Church; The Methodist Church; and The Evangelical United Brethren Church; who understood that the only way a far-flung organization can function is by having a Constitution as its basic organizational document. Secondly, we should give thanks to General Henry Robert, and his succeeding generations of editors, for giving us Robert’s Rules of Order. These two documents will give us life when we fear we’re losing it.

We have used our Constitution, some of it going back to the early 19th century, to keep us operating within an “episcopal” style of polity, for not succumbing to the siren song of going to a “congregational” style of polity, and for keeping the authority of the church heavily decentralized, with checks and balances therein.

We also need to be grateful that almost uniformly, our denomination, at every level, has chosen Robert’s Rules of Order as our way of doing legislative business. Why? Because General Robert wrote those rules to preserve the right of a minority to be heard, and to have its ideas considered, in an organization that embraces “majority rule.”

Do understand: at this point, regardless of what the Special Session of the General Conference voted, nothing has yet happened. The Book of Discipline (¶508, bless you, Forebears) says that unless otherwise stated in the legislation, actions of the General Conference do not go into effect the following January 1. What we were doing before Feb. 23, is still the law of the church.

Further, previous Judicial Council decisions related to the proposals for the “Modified Traditional Plan” were only “advisory decisions,” requested by the Council of Bishops for assistance to the General Conference. Just as amendments to a motion on the floor of your Annual Conference are out of order until a motion is made, an advisory decision by the Judicial Council can take no effect until a decision is voted by the General Conference. Now that the General Conference has embraced the Modified Traditional Plan, the minority of the General Conference (thank you, General Robert) referred the entire action to the Judicial Council. The Council will now consider that action in the light of its previous decisions, which serve as precedent. Would you like to guess which “previous decisions” that serve as precedent, happen to be?!

The Judicial Council will meet to consider to consider the action of the General Conference, including lots of material that the Judicial Council had already advised would be considered to be unconstitutional, the week after Easter. Seven weeks from now, I fully expect the Judicial Council will rule the decision of the Special Session of the General Conference to be unconstitutional, null and void.

So I am both hopeful and expectant that the action of the General Conference is not the last word. That’s the good news.

In seven weeks, we will know whether the decisions of the Special Session of the General Conference will remain standing. In a few weeks after that, we will know whether the Wesleyan Covenant Association will carry out their threat to create themselves as a new denomination and to welcome United Methodist Churches that share that Association’s theological and/or political point of view. We’ve waited for forty-seven years to get to this point; surely we can wait another three months to see how things sort out, on their own.

Return to your United Methodist Church. Embrace your friends there as beloved sisters and brothers. At the church I attend, the first Sunday after the Special Session, I feared we’d have lower attendance as some would say, “we don’t like what is happening, so we won’t come anymore.” That didn’t happen. Instead, we had an attendance matching that of the Fourth Sunday in Advent, of people who are not willing to give up the congregation and theology that has helped our faith to grow. I hope that was your reality, too!

For now, this is the time to love our respective churches and their parishioners, and wait three months to see how matters resolve themselves. Hold your heads high, and continue to proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ. We will live through these days.

The Rev. Thomas H. Griffith is a retired clergy member of the California-Pacific Annual Conference.