I am sitting here, pondering if I should even bother writing this. There really isn't much use in this space anymore. You who have decided to stick it out with me, I truly appreciate it. I write for myself most of the time. I recognize now that my opinion and voice really don't have any impact on my family, the churches I serve, the denomination, or the world. It sounds pompous to think that I feel like I could make an impact beyond the sphere of my little world that exists in my head. It is my ambition, though, to make a difference. I write this, knowing that it won't produce anything other than the combining of atoms in what we have come to know as cyberspace.
Next week, the Oklahoma Annual Conference will convene to prepare itself for the ministry of the coming year. For the first time in a while, I will not be going for the entirety of the event. I will only attend one day. There are a number of reasons why I won't attend. One of those is the degree of stress that United Methodists are currently under.
We are at the edge of a shattering point. There are too many forces being applied for the denomination to remain whole. There are too many voices calling for a division of the denomination. I just can't go and be in the midst of that stress. We are voting on delegates to attend General Conference next year where the debate will continue to be waged over how LGBTQIA+ persons should be included within the polity of our denomination. The effort to guard the tradition or guarantee the transformation of polity will be high pitched. I can't be in that kind of environment right now.
The thought that has been troubling me lately is something that I hear quite often in the context of discussing becoming a church of full inclusion. Opponents to that move claim that, in becoming a church of full inclusion, we are merely accepting the culture of the world into the church. By accepting LGBTQIA+ persons, we are losing our distinct nature as the Church. The significant problem with that idea is that we have already lost our distinct nature. We have welcomed culture into the church with open arms, danced the night away in a tight embrace, and have fallen into bed with the cultural lovers clutch.
For a number of years, I have diagnosed the United Methodist Churches political factionalism. I have identified at least 4 groups within the media who have been pulling the church in opposite directions. There is no real middle ground in the UMC anymore. Everyone is a member of a caucus. If you aren't an intentional member of a caucus, then you are assumed to be in one by the other caucuses that exist.
After General Conference in February, and the resulting Judicial Council ruling in April, I began to hear about the caucus groups gathering to prepare their election voting blocks. Everyone senses the tension of the church. In order to guard or guarantee a particular point of view, the political groups needed to hold strategy meetings. They wanted to pull as many of their like-minded individuals into conversations to ensure they could build a voting block substantial enough to elect representatives to their chosen point of view. Next week will be the climax of those conversations and strategic meetings.
That sounds exactly like the system of government party affiliations.
We are winding up for the great 2020 Presidential run. The Democrats have a full offensive and defensive and special team lined up to make a run for one office. The Democrats can't even all agree on the same platform. Some want to move toward a more progressive posture. Others feel that a moderate position can generate more support. The Republicans are backing an incumbent who they may also feel is incompetent. But safer with the idiot you know than the moron you don't.
In the United Methodist Church, we have the WCA (Wesleyan Covenant Association) trying to establish the bulwark of tradition against the rising sentiment that full inclusion is the way of the future. You have the Progressive elements trying to convince the rest of the denomination that the Traditionalist plan that passed General Conference was intentionally harmful in content and in process. You have the Centrist groups who want to reform the church into a new model where the best of all of us as the UMC can survive in some form.
Where am I in all of this? It doesn't matter. My voice has no volume. I have nothing to contribute but more noise to the din of others who have a platform. I am staying home. This isn't my fight. I have resigned myself to the future that others will shape. Sadly, it is a future that looks just like the secular world. The United Methodist Church should probably stop and look at itself. It has become the thing that most people already fear.
We are just as politically splintered as the governmental parties. We are just as uncivil in the conversations that are happening (even if we just happen to open and close with prayer or use less caustic words in conversations) in the social media sphere. We are just as opposed to finding the common grounds as the selfish organizations and corporations who feel the need to protect their existence into the future.
I think the greatest thing that sticks out to me about the UMC looking like culture is that there an obvious lack of unity. The dominant theme of what the Church should be according to the New Testament is that we should be of one mind as in Christ. We should be reconciling and bringing one another to maturity together as a body. We should be united in the work of witness and changing lives. But that is hard to find in our denomination anymore.
Next week, the Oklahoma Annual Conference will convene to prepare itself for the ministry of the coming year. For the first time in a while, I will not be going for the entirety of the event. I will only attend one day. There are a number of reasons why I won't attend. One of those is the degree of stress that United Methodists are currently under.
We are at the edge of a shattering point. There are too many forces being applied for the denomination to remain whole. There are too many voices calling for a division of the denomination. I just can't go and be in the midst of that stress. We are voting on delegates to attend General Conference next year where the debate will continue to be waged over how LGBTQIA+ persons should be included within the polity of our denomination. The effort to guard the tradition or guarantee the transformation of polity will be high pitched. I can't be in that kind of environment right now.
The thought that has been troubling me lately is something that I hear quite often in the context of discussing becoming a church of full inclusion. Opponents to that move claim that, in becoming a church of full inclusion, we are merely accepting the culture of the world into the church. By accepting LGBTQIA+ persons, we are losing our distinct nature as the Church. The significant problem with that idea is that we have already lost our distinct nature. We have welcomed culture into the church with open arms, danced the night away in a tight embrace, and have fallen into bed with the cultural lovers clutch.
For a number of years, I have diagnosed the United Methodist Churches political factionalism. I have identified at least 4 groups within the media who have been pulling the church in opposite directions. There is no real middle ground in the UMC anymore. Everyone is a member of a caucus. If you aren't an intentional member of a caucus, then you are assumed to be in one by the other caucuses that exist.
After General Conference in February, and the resulting Judicial Council ruling in April, I began to hear about the caucus groups gathering to prepare their election voting blocks. Everyone senses the tension of the church. In order to guard or guarantee a particular point of view, the political groups needed to hold strategy meetings. They wanted to pull as many of their like-minded individuals into conversations to ensure they could build a voting block substantial enough to elect representatives to their chosen point of view. Next week will be the climax of those conversations and strategic meetings.
That sounds exactly like the system of government party affiliations.
We are winding up for the great 2020 Presidential run. The Democrats have a full offensive and defensive and special team lined up to make a run for one office. The Democrats can't even all agree on the same platform. Some want to move toward a more progressive posture. Others feel that a moderate position can generate more support. The Republicans are backing an incumbent who they may also feel is incompetent. But safer with the idiot you know than the moron you don't.
In the United Methodist Church, we have the WCA (Wesleyan Covenant Association) trying to establish the bulwark of tradition against the rising sentiment that full inclusion is the way of the future. You have the Progressive elements trying to convince the rest of the denomination that the Traditionalist plan that passed General Conference was intentionally harmful in content and in process. You have the Centrist groups who want to reform the church into a new model where the best of all of us as the UMC can survive in some form.
Where am I in all of this? It doesn't matter. My voice has no volume. I have nothing to contribute but more noise to the din of others who have a platform. I am staying home. This isn't my fight. I have resigned myself to the future that others will shape. Sadly, it is a future that looks just like the secular world. The United Methodist Church should probably stop and look at itself. It has become the thing that most people already fear.
We are just as politically splintered as the governmental parties. We are just as uncivil in the conversations that are happening (even if we just happen to open and close with prayer or use less caustic words in conversations) in the social media sphere. We are just as opposed to finding the common grounds as the selfish organizations and corporations who feel the need to protect their existence into the future.
I think the greatest thing that sticks out to me about the UMC looking like culture is that there an obvious lack of unity. The dominant theme of what the Church should be according to the New Testament is that we should be of one mind as in Christ. We should be reconciling and bringing one another to maturity together as a body. We should be united in the work of witness and changing lives. But that is hard to find in our denomination anymore.
Comments