Finding Our Way in the Methodist Church

Last week I attended the annual conference of the United Methodist Church in North Carolina. I helped host the exhibit of the Reconciling United Methodists group, and we received a lot of interest, comments, and questions. Perhaps part of that was due to the fact that we were the first table as you entered the Greenville Convention Center from the parking lot, and secondly because we gave out free water and snacks. Even those who disagreed with us came by for water and goodies so at least we reached some level of their consciousness. I set a record of one 40-minute conversation with an earnest and questioning young man who raised the pointed question of whether homosexuality is a sin. He couldn’t get a straight (pardon the pun) answer from our bishop, and the same is true about a new book that was distributed at the Cokesbury store at the conference. Titled Finding Our Way: Love and Law in the United Methodist Church, the small paperback book includes an introduction and three sections: options, responses, and steps. It includes commentaries by eight UMC bishops on the issue of the controversy about homosexuality, including ordination, marriage, church trials, the Discipline (the official doctrine of the UMC), the role and the institution of General Conference (held every four years), and suggestions for bridging the breach that has developed over the past 42 years since it was first discussed at General Conference in 1972. But for all the posturing, logical debate, and search for unity, none of them directly addressed the issue of whether homosexuality is a sin. They frequently quoted the wording of the Discipline that it is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” which still dances around the question. Several recent books directly address the issue by citing the so-called “gotcha” Bible scriptures that are quoted as addressing the issue. Some challenge whether these scriptures are citing same sex practices or discussing temple prostitution, gang rape, cultural norms of the 1^st Century, or historical Christian traditions. After all, the traditional marriage in Bible times was polygamy. While I view it as counter productive to debate various interpretations of these scriptures because you are unlikely to change anyone’s interpretation of them and thus waste time that could be addressed to other issues, the debate over church dogma ultimately depends upon how the church’s doctrine posits its polity based on these scriptures. A recent book review in Christianity Today predictably challenged Mathew Vines interpretation in his book God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships (see my blog post of May 19^th.) Thus, the theologians will contain to debate the scriptures as they have done for centuries, and the conflict between orthodoxy and so-called heresy will continue as it has done for more than 2,000 years. Although the conflict started with the very beginning in the establishment of the Christian church after the death of Jesus Christ (he was a practicing Jew), it reached its nadir in the 16^th Century with the Inquisition. Fortunately, we’re not putting people on the rack in the current debate, but we’re still doing a lot of damage not only to individual lives but also to organized religion that is struggling to discover its relevance in today’s society. If we continue to be preoccupied with internal debates over dogma while the world dies of starvation not only for food but also for salvation, we are being sidetracked from our mission. So some people say just quit the debate or go away or form another denomination or just listen to the Holy Spirit to resolve the conflict. The Holy Spirit seems to have been silent in our discernments at conferencing in the United Methodist Church, and I’m not sure that bishops’ contributions have clarified or obscured the issue. It seemed to me there was a lot of pontificating, but then I guess that’s what Bishops do. I found it interesting that only one quoted the Wesleyan quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Are we here to maintain order and the status quo, or are we here to grow the church in every sense of the word?