Voices are clamoring for a split in the
United Methodist Church, with an increasing urgency given many recent events,
most notably an episcopal election in the West.
I was myself a candidate for bishop and was not elected – and I am
writing this blog to expand upon something I dreamed of working on if elected, and
hopefully to persuade some folks to join me in a crusade to stay together, and
not split. I can think of four compelling reasons why we cannot split, and I
have just enough naivete left in me to believe conservatives and progressives
might agree on all four. We can agree, I believe, and move forward on the basis
of the great commission, the importance of holiness in sexual relationships,
the centrality of Jesus, and the inspiration of Scripture. I suspect #2 is hardest for progressives, given practice and a host of other reasons, and #4 is hardest for conservatives, given the way debates have unfolded for many years. But I'm betting we can get there on all 4.
(1) At my jurisdictional conference, in my
brief speech explaining to delegates my sense of call to the episcopacy, I
suggested that “we can’t split now.” My
reason? Our country is dividing and
splitting all over the place. Black are
divided against whites. Police are
divided against some of our citizens.
Republicans are divided against Democrats. Republicans are divided against
themselves. If the Church splits now, we
are saying to an already cynical world, We are just like you. We have no alternative to offer you. There are other Great Commission
questions. Where I live, it is extremely
difficult to get any unchurched people to try out a church that isn’t welcoming
to LGBTQ people, or at least having a robust conversation about the issue. I’ve heard some say that where they live the
Church won’t grow if the church welcomes LGBTQ people. But I am absolutely sure that a church that
can’t stay together will not be able to make disciples in either kind of
community. Our most crucial witness in a
divided world is quite simply not to divide, to show the world (as Paul
introduced 1 Corinthians 13) “a better way.”
(2) Somehow lost in all our debates within
the church is any serious talk about holiness in sexuality. But in the Bible, there is such a thing as
holiness; your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is not the case that as long as it’s male
and female having sex, it’s great. And
it is not the case that if it’s male and male, or female and female, it’s
great. It is not the case that as long
as male and female are married, sex is just great, or if male and male could
marry, all would be well. Sexual
relations in marriage and in any straight or gay relationship can be abusive, manipulative,
and self-absorbed; such relations can idolize pleasure and have no hint of
consecration to God. Once upon a time,
people came to the church, in effect asking for permission to live together and
have intimate relations that might even be for God and pleasing to God. Holy marriage is a sacred mystery, mirroring
the wonder of Christ’s church to the world.
God clearly seeks a profound commitment, not just to your partner but to
God and the church. Until we can recover
robust ways to talk about and engage in a holy sexuality, which is more than
and different from which gender gets to have sex with which gender, we should
perhaps be quiet, and relearn how to be Christian on matters of sex.
(3) The main thing in Christianity, the
undeniable, extreme center of our faith, is Jesus Christ. It is not sexuality. Sex is the main thing in our culture. In our trivial, hedonistic society, sex is
absolutely central to everything, life, self-image, advertising, TV,
novels. Christians are those who declare
sex is not the center, it is not the main thing. Jesus is the main thing. I’ve been preaching on Colossians, where Paul
falls all over himself extolling the wonder of Jesus, who puts every other
thing in the shade, the wonderful shade of his glory and mercy. I’ll repeat what I’ve said often: if the
United Methodist Church declared Jesus was just a man, a wise teacher, or
anything short of him being God in the flesh, with his death and resurrection
achieving the redemption of all of creation, then I would walk out the door and
urge you to come with me. If you split
over something that isn’t in the center, perhaps we have lost sight of the
center.
(4) Scripture is up for grabs right
now. There are some
progressives who say
The Bible isn’t relevant. But if the Bible
isn’t relevant now, or on this or that issue, it is never relevant. At the same time, it is false to say that only
one side in the Methodist argument is devoted to the Bible or holds it up as
the only and highest authority. The
United Methodist Church has been and will always be a church that opens the
Bible and expects nothing but God’s Word to us.
I know conservatives and progressives with astonishingly high views of
Scripture; and yet their interpretation on this issue differs. Every faithful reader studies the Bible and
makes the best sense of it that they can.
There is no un-interpreted Scripture; it interprets itself! And every
preacher in history has read it and tried to solve what it is saying to
contemporary people. And there have
always been disagreements. But let’s put
aside the idea that some cling to the Scriptures while others dispense with them. The Bible is the inspired Word of God. We've not engaged in high level reading, together, of the Bible, and we've not listened attentively to why the others interpret the way they do - or at least in my circles this hasn't happened. One thing I’m sure the Bible doesn’t say,
either literally, or by any theological interpretation, is “Thou shalt split up
the Body of Christ.” The Bible says
plenty, and clearly, about unity in Christ.
Over time, I have blogged about many ideas
about what God is calling us to do. I
don’t believe we’ve ever really listened to one another or tried to get inside
the skin of those who disagree. We haven’t
thought through the invisible, unnoticed cultural assumptions that we all carry
deep inside that drive our theology more than the Holy Spirit does. But for today, I wonder if we can’t find a
way to look at the Great Commission, the very tough topic of holiness in
sexuality, Jesus himself, and the Scriptures, and ask if we don’t have
considerable common ground upon which to stand when asking where God is calling
us.
