Vanity, Discipline or Heresy?

February 26, 2014

11:02 AM

Photo Courtesy of W. Brent Sturm

Brent Sturm

The Rev. W. Brent Sturm, OSL, greets a parishioner.

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. -- Ecclesiastes 1:2, NRSV

Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.[1]

No pastor shall re-baptize. The practice of re-baptism does not conform with God’s action in baptism and is not consistent with Wesleyan tradition and the historic teaching of the church. Therefore, the pastor should counsel any person seeking rebaptism to participate in a rite of re-affirmation of baptismal vows.[2]

Dale Ochwat and Alyssa Sansone share not only a loving relationship, but also their baptisms. Their four-year relationship led them to the moment they both stepped into the pool and baptized each other with [Pastor Jared] Woodard’s help…. Sansone, 22, said she had been baptized as an infant in her childhood Catholic church but wanted to make a ceremonious decision of her own will to be baptized as an adult. Ochwat, 26, said that baptism was the only way to express this decision of faith, showing their church community, “out with the old, and in with the new.”[3]

-- Sarah Ferguson, Communications Coordinator, Mahoning Valley District, East Ohio Conference, The United Methodist Church

No one who has ever paid any attention at all to me will be surprised that I reject the teachings of The United Methodist Church on matters of sexual orientation. It’s OK, really. I’m not required to believe what the Church teaches. I’m only required not to teach things that are contrary to their “established standards of doctrine.” So, as long as I’m just stating my own beliefs and opinions and not teaching, I can think what I want – and even say it out loud!

No one who pays any attention at all to the media coverage that The United Methodist Church gets on a regular basis will be surprised that we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting faithful clergy “on trial” for answering God’s call to provide pastoral care and ministry to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons. We generally “defrock” them at the conclusion of the trial. We aren’t really sure what that means, since we don’t ever “frock” our clergy to begin with. And, given that we have essentially no theology of ordination at all, we keep getting confused about conference membership and ordination and what God and the Holy Spirit do and what we do when we vote and all that.

Well, there is a little more to what the Church requires of me as an ordained elder. If I want to stay “frocked,” I have to be careful about responding to God’s call. If God calls me to do certain things – just a very few things, really – and I follow God’s call, the Church will come after me. Well, the Discipline says they will, anyway. And, it’s not just about me; it’s about all of us “frocked” elders. But there are only seven things we just can’t do; the Discipline calls these seven things “unauthorized conduct.” Sounds scary, huh? Not really:

You can’t “engage” an evangelist who isn’t a United Methodist, unless the District Superintendent says it’s OK. (Personally, I think my spouse might have something to say about me “engaging” anyone – but that’s not in the Discipline.)
You can’t stop having church unless the District Superintendent and the Charge Conference say it’s OK (not just one of them, it takes both – if one doesn’t agree, you have to go on having church even if no one else is there!).
You can’t just arbitrarily start having church – no matter who says it’s OK (note that not even the Holy Spirit is allowed to say this is OK).
You can’t have church where another pastor is supposed to have church unless they say it’s OK, or the District Superintendent says it’s OK – even if the pastor who is supposed to be having church isn’t.
You have to keep secrets secret, unless children are in danger or the law says otherwise.
You can’t pray with gay or lesbian couples. (OK, the book says something about “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions” – but if that means something like a wedding, then all the clergy do at weddings is pray. The role of the “priest” is filled by the couple themselves in a Christian wedding – not by the clergy. So, no praying with the gay folk!)
You can’t baptize those who are already baptized.[4]

Seven things you can’t do; but not all of them count! Almost none of them count, really. Actually, in my experience, the church only gets concerned about praying with gay folk. I used to think that the thing about baptizing the baptized was important, but then I read the news from the East Ohio conference. Seems we not only don’t worry about the rule, we print up a big happy article talking about how great it is when somebody breaks it!

So, I have to wonder out loud (I’m allowed to do that – see the thing about “teaching,” above): what’s all this talk about “covenant?” When the Church is talking about frocking and de-frocking, we hear all about covenant. When the Church is talking about the rules, we hear all about “covenant.” When the Bishops all got together a few months back because one of them had followed God’s call and some others of them didn’t like it, we heard a lot about “covenant.” When leaders are sitting around claiming they can’t lead because their hands are tied, they all talk about “covenant.”

I guess we think that we think that covenant is important. But if the covenant is important, then isn’t all of it important? When we only look at one or two of the things we aren’t allowed to do, and we just generally ignore the rest, aren’t we really saying that the covenant isn’t important? Aren’t we really just shouting with the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities?” When it comes to the really important stuff, like the waters of God’s covenant with God’s people, I’m afraid we just don’t give a frock. And that’s just sad.

The Rev. W. Brent Sturm, O.S.L. is an ordained Elder and member in full connection with the West Virginia Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. He is appointed to extension ministry as the Executive Director of Jobs for West Virginia’s Graduates, Inc.; an affiliate of Jobs for America’s Graduates, the nation’s largest and most successful high school dropout prevention program

[1] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church (Nashville, Tennessee: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2012) paragraph 341.6.

[2] The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church (Nashville, Tennessee: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2012) paragraph 341.7.

[3] The entire article is at http://eocumcnews.com/2014/02/07/new-life-in-the-dead-of-winter/

[4] My own paraphrase of The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church (Nashville, Tennessee: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2012) paragraph 341.

Comments (4)

Comment Feed

Why list only 7?

I count 11 chargeable offenses in ¶2702, including "disobedience to the order and discipline...". The 7 listed here are from one small part of the "order and discipline". "Order" alone fills page 269 of the Discipline. My personal favorite is certify the accuracy of the local church reports used in calculating apportionments. ¶340.2c(2)(f). That alone should resolve the financial challenges of the UMC.

Jim Allen more than 10 years ago

Accuracy of Local Church Reports

Let me be blunt, Jim: as long as there are some Bishops who believe that a clergy's next appointment should be based on how many new members s/he has taken in, and how many people are attending worship, there will be prevarication in reports. The dead tip-offs: new members taken in, but few or none removed by charge conference action. Higher average attendance showing on the reports beginning with the first one submitted by a new pastor who has been there only 6 months. Large numbers of children of nursery ages, when few were reported in the years before.

In a total UM fluke, my first appointment out of seminary was to be Associate Minister at the church where I had grown up as a boy. My family had moved away from there 12 years earlier. I looked in the "official membership roll" books. I found where my parents had been listed as transferring their memberships to that church, and where they had transferred their membership to the church in the community to which we had moved. I found my name on the rolls where I had joined the church with my confirmation class. Except that I was still listed as a member, and had not worshipped there in a dozen years! I had the (in)dignity of removing my own name from the membership of that church!

Tom Griffith more than 10 years ago

same sex marraige

We are to love our enemies but not God's enemies. We forgive those who trespass against us personally but not those who trample over the Word of God. We do not love Satan or his followers. To love that which is evil means you do not have the Word meshed into your conscience. I remember in the 1970s in California when I saw two men holding hands and kissing, it might my stomach turn. I was supposed to have the reaction. It was my conscience telling me that it is wrong. They slowly crept homosexual unions into television shows and news stories forcing you to lose your God given conscience. You lose your soul when you lose your conscience. Re-strengthen it not by another physical baptism but by the baptism of the Holy Spirit inside your soul. It only comes with true repentance and prayer. It is the only way demons leave you. (Mark 9:24-29)

Sandra Bouchard more than 10 years ago

upbeat post about a serious issue

I appreciate your thoughts and the upbeat, engaging way in which you state them. Prejudices always seem to hide behind procedures. We defend our baseless ideas by appealing to a Discipline that we don't pay much attention to otherwise. Just like folks who wouldn't spend 5 minutes on Leviticus or Deuteronomy, know just where to find those anti gay lines.

jeff more than 10 years ago