"A house divided against itself cannot stand"
Abraham Lincoln
In his famous speech while accepting the Republican Senate Nomination, future President Lincoln uttered these words. For those familiar with Scripture, you will probably realize Lincoln is repeating the words found in the 12th chapter of Matthew "And every city or household divided against itself will not last" (Matt. 12:25). This my friends is how the United Methodist Church currently finds itself. At the crossroads of an almost Civil War within the church that will no doubt end with the same pain and hurt the last time the church came to this point (Methodist Episcopal Church Split Over Slavery). Now before everyone goes huffing and puffing about the title let me say this. Homosexuality and how the United Methodist Church deals with it, is a very important issue. That being said it is not the only important issue and in some people's opinion not the most important issue. I think it is a divisive enough issue to lead to the death of the UMC and here's the main reason. It does not significantly affect the path the church is on now. That is to say it doesn't stop the bleeding. Churches like St. Mark in Atlanta (across the street from Charles Stanley's Church) have seen drastic growth when becoming more open and friendly to people who identify as homosexual. That's excellent and great, but to simply suggest that changing the churches stance on homosexuality would fix the ills of the church is misguided. If we convinced every LGBT person to attend and support a UMC, it still would do little to stop the drastic rate in which we are shutting church doors. It is a start, but the root of why we are losing people is way deeper. Say you have a youth group. In that youth group are 10 young men. Statistics tell us that 6 out of those 10 men will walk away from their faith during their college years. Similar statistics tell us that the likelihood of a family becoming actively involved and remaining actively involved in a church drops drastically when the mother or the child is the primary member responsible for drawing the family to church. We have to rediscover what it means to be Wesleyan. We have to get people not only into the doors but to where they become passionate disciples of Jesus Christ.Fighting for gay rights is great, but not when you focus so much on social gospel you forget personal gospel. Wesley realized both were hand in hand. Focusing only on social gospel and not holiness does nothing to create disciples. It takes both parts of the equation. Are there people who are passionate about social justice who balance it with personal gospel? Sure. The inverse is also true, but elevating social justice above personal gospel like we have been known to do completely flies in the face of what it means to be Wesleyan. When you realize how fluid some people believe doctrine within the UMC to be, you begin to realize why Jon Stewart called the UMC the "University of Phoenix of Christianity. Give your money and believe what you want" Don't believe me? Google United Methodist Church believers baptism. You'll find tons of UMC churches that while acknowledging infant baptism openly state they prefer "believer's baptism" while only offering infant baptism a few times a year. If you need something more recent, you can also find pastors that despite the UMC saying people coming to the United Methodist Church from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) should be rebaptized due to drastically different understandings of Jesus Christ, feel it is their place to decide whether they need to be baptized or not. Every pastor upon being ordained takes an oath to uphold the Discipline of the United Methodist Churches. Every single day pastors readily ignore their oath. Jon Stewart was accurate. You really can disagree with things even Wesley himself taught and still be Methodist. That has to change if we are to grow. We have to be willing to say "This is what we believe" and stick to it. Having a Pastor saying "I don't think Hell exists" when we recite a creed affirming our belief that Christ descended into hell is why Jon Stewart is right. We have to begin by holding ourselves accountable.
Secondly, the battle over homosexuality within the UMC has become all consuming. I served for 2 years on the United Methodist Student Movement Steering Committee and attended Student Forum 2 years before that. I distinctly remember one year when there were approximately 20 petitions to the student forum. 12 of the 20 dealt with the issue of homosexuality and were almost identical in wording. This was 2006. How many more things were going on in the world that students needed to be aware of and vocal about? How many injustices and atrocities were being committed all over the world? In my opinion, the UMC has become so focused on the issue of homosexuality that we overlook the rest of the world. If we are a global church, we must insist that issues facing our brothers and sisters around the world are just as important as the issues facing Americans. For me this was no better displayed than in the post General Conference responses from Bishop Minerva who told our brothers and sisters from Africa to "grow up" because they felt differently about homosexuality. The struggle over homosexuality led to protests and demonstrations at General Conference in Tampa this as it has for the last few general conferences. The difference being this year General Conference was a complete and utter waste of time. No beneficial changes came out of General Conference. The one's that did were quickly done away with by judicial council rulings. Rather than discuss any of those issues and how we address them, the responses and reflections kept pouring in from Bishops and Pastors on General Conference and focused on a singular issue. The fact that changes to the Discipline and Ordination rulings concerning homosexuality had not changed. Even after we heard passionate debate from the floor about divestment, little to nothing was said about it in the wake of General Conference.
So where do we go from here? Do we continue to be a church divided against itself who is more interested in our side "winning" than holy conferencing? Do we continue to focus solely on homosexuality to the point that we ignore those hurting within the global church? If we do start to take a more holistic approach rather than basing success or failure on a single issue, how do we insure that the issue does not fade from conversation? These are questions the United Methodist Church must answer in the future.I believe homosexuality is a massive issue for the UMC and churches around the world, but we must quit acting as if it is the only issue. The hatred, time, effort, and energy spent ensuring "victory" for one side or the other has only served to strengthen the split within the UMC. Liberals and Conservatives, it's time to come forward and work together for the good of the global church. Liberals admit there are issues in the world just as important as whether a homosexual person can be ordained. Conservatives admit that homosexuality is a major issue and can no longer be simply swept aside. The church must deal with it and deal with it appropriately. We can either go forward focusing on both homosexuality and other issues or simply continue to look more and more like congress in Washington each day where we choose not to give a single inch until the divide is as deep as it can possibly be. When we reach a place where we began voting or expressing opinions simply because our idea was "voted down" or not spoken about favorable like happened at General Conference this year, we begin the end. We step foot down a road that will lead to ruin. A house divided against itself can not stand. We can no longer let a single primary issue drive the divide so deep in the church. Remember how that ended last time.
I largely agree, though I may take a more hopeful view.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, there is much more orthodox theology and consistency in the United Methodist Church than there was a couple generations ago. Our seminaries used to ignore Wesley altogether and now most think Wesley studies are important.
Clearly we are better off when we balance personal piety and public action and we would definitely be more effective if we were more unified in spirit and message. I hope we will continue to move in that direction.
I believe Asbury, Duke, SMU, United and others are actually heading in that direction!
(Side note: I've been surprised how diverse the issues are that Good News pays attention to. I'd assumed they'd be the opposite of liberal groups, but they seem to pay attention to far more including the global church, evangelism, highlighting local churches, etc.)