Violating the Discipline to Show that Violating the Discipline is Wrong

by Jeremy Smith

February 21, 2014

2:53 PM

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Photo Courtesy of Jeremy Smith

Discipline Wesley

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Photo Courtesy of Jeremy Smith

Robbins and Talbert

The Rev. Bruce Robbins holds a microphone for Bishop Melvin G. Talbert to speak at the "Love Thy Neighbor" tent during the 2012 General Conference.

The Good News movement has a blog update about the Bishop Talbert complaint process. It has some facts and some musings about what “stage” the process is at because it is all private. However, look at the end:

Good News believes that, for the good of the church, this process must go forward with maximum transparency. At the very least, the fact that complaint(s) have been filed and any eventual resolution of such complaint(s) should be announced to the church.

Hahahaha. Hilarious. Wait, what’s so funny?

Good News is calling for a violation of the Discipline.

According to the complaint process (summarized version here), the process is confidential (like any HR complaint at any non-profit or business or even local church SPRC process) and accountable. It’s not a public process like Good News wants it to be:

¶413.3b: The supervisory response is pastoral and administrative and shall be directed towards a just resolution. It is not part of any judicial process. The supervisory response should be carried out in a confidential manner and should be completed within 120 days.

For those that need to know our terminology, “should” is one step down from “shall” and isn’t considered to be a recommendation. “Can” is the term for permissive choice. Furthermore, 413.3c continues to depict confidentiality as part of the process, as third-parties are invited in after agreeing to confidentiality, and at the resolution of complaints all parties agree as to “what information is sent to third-parties” and public sources.

Having an open process is not part of our polity. For people that so enjoy rigid interpretation of the Discipline (regardless of how many ways people don’t uphold the Discipline literally), this is an ironic (or even hypocritical) request.

But that’s not the hilarious part. In addition, Good News’ appeal is not to the letter of the polity but to the Bible. From the post:

The public nature of the offenses, announced in advance and well covered by the media, requires a similarly public response from the church (see I Timothy 5:19-20). Such transparency is needed to help church members have confidence that the bishops have kept their promise to uphold the Discipline and hold each other accountable.

The call is to be obedient to the bible. Huh. Where have I heard that before?

Biblical Obedience is Bishop Talbert’s rallying hermeneutic, which calls for us to be obedient to the Bible even when it is in conflict with our Book of Discipline. It calls for us to violate the Discipline when we know (and have accountability structures that support) that the Gospel calls us to do something more. The focus is on pastors offering weddings for same-gender couples even as our polity restricts such actions.

While Talbert’s concept is more fleshed-out than Good News’ calling for obedience to 1 Timothy rather than the Book of Discipline, it is refreshing to see that even the Good News movement supports biblical obedience when the polity of the church gets in the way.

Thoughts?

The Rev. Jeremy Smith is minister of discipleship at First United Methodist Church of Portland, Ore. He blogs at Hacking Christianity.

Comments (1)

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To What Do We Owe Obedience?

Jeremy's article lifts up an important question: do we owe obedience to our church law (Book of Discipline)? John Wesley thought so---check out the historical Wesley questions every new member in Full Connection is required to answer before becoming ordained as an Elder.
Or, do we owe our obedience to the Bible? After all, it is ostensibly the source of our faith, the first and primary side of the "Wesley Quadrilateral" which we use to describe our theology?
Or do we owe obedience to both? I suspect it is to both, unless we have a literalist understanding of the Scriptures.
The Progressive theological wing of the UMC sees the Bible as a source of Principles that help us understand, in general terms, what God is calling us to do and to be. The specifics in the Bible may be overlooked because (in the second side of the Wesley Quadrilateral!) we are also to pay attention to history, i.e., what has been learned since the Old and New Testaments were canonized in the early fourth century, C.E. Most of us regularly wear clothing made of mixed fibers, eat the occasional pork chop or shrimp cocktail, marry only one person, and sometimes wonder who this Caesar is to whom we are to render what is Caesar's, etc. The more traditional theological faction of the church, at least to my observation, all do the same thing but still lift up some of the specifics in the Bible as mandatory on all Christians. All factions will tell you that the Scriptures are important because they are inspired by God.
The Book of Discipline is an entirely different animal: it is a book of Church law. At the same time, at least from what I've seen at General Conference, it's inspiration by God is at least questionable. The old saw that "If you like to eat sausage, never watch it being made" is applicable here. While much in the Book of Discipline has a long heritage (I've found one paragraph in the Book of Discipline that has remained unchanged since the 1864 Book of Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church!), most of it periodically changes following the best wisdom of those who are elected to be voting members of the General Conference, primarily after reading the best of the wishes and desires of those who are on the Boards of the General Church Boards, Agencies and Commissions!
The neat trick is to find the appropriate balance between obedience to the Bible and obedience to the Book of Discipline.
I come from the more Progressive theological wing of the church. I like the idea of following Biblical principles, while remembering that the words in the Bible were discerned and then written down by people who were using the best knowledge, technology, and scientific explanations of their own time. I also like following the Book of Discipline so the institution can keep functioning at least semi-well.
I lift this as a suggestion for all UM's: use the Bible for its timeless principles, and let that guide your understanding of church law & functionality.

Tom Griffith more than 10 years ago