Faith Works 3-2-19

Faith Works 3-2-19

Jeff Gill

 

A way forward, or side-stepping the issue?

___

 

As for the United Methodist Church and its recent General Conference, there's a case to be made that my perspective on their decisions isn't worth a hill of beans in this crazy world.

 

I'm a straight white male, plus I'm not even a Methodist. But I can say utterly unironically that some of my best friends are, and I'm interested in their faith and work for a wide variety of reasons, personal and professional.

 

Plus, as a seminary teacher on occasion (and this semester is one such occasion) of history and polity, this is right in my wheelhouse for at least an historical viewpoint. I'm the kind of church politics geek who's had both last week's Catholic bishops' conference in Rome on his calendar for months, let alone GC2019 in St. Louis for the Methodists.

 

But to even hint in one column on my take on all this, I'm going to have to irritate people all across the spectrum of church and society. So buckle up.

 

It occurs to me that we have a president in this country (hang on, I'm not changing the subject, really) that would be perfectly content with having a harem. Like many wealthy and powerful men, he has shown a tendency to trade in wives for younger models (literally) who become sacrifices to his own mortality and aging process, soothing those transitions by keeping a more youthful partner in his bed and across the breakfast table. Would he like to be able to simply add new, younger ones rather than expensively having to transition from a former spouse to a later edition through divorce and property settlements? I can't imagine he wouldn't.

 

In this country, though, we have guardrails up. Our culture has settled on some guardrails around marriage and relationships – and you (or I) might think the lanes are too wide, the stripes need repainting, and the potholes are terrible, but there are guardrails, outside of which you just can't easily drive in the middle of traffic.

 

The big controversy in many quarters about how the United Methodist Church decided to retain its standards of "fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness" for clergy and non-acceptance of same-sex marriage as a church act has to do with the role of the non-American membership of the UMC. African Methodists constitute around 40% of the total 12 plus million members, and they're growing at a rate that implies they'll be a majority relatively soon. The pressures on the processes wanting to liberalize standards have that as their backdrop. This Special General Conference was called, in part, because by the next regular General Conference in 2020 that majority will probably be a reality.

 

And the Africans are not interested in relaxing standards on sexual activity from where they've been. For this, they've been demonized in social media and by advocates of the changes proposed; perhaps worse, it's been repeatedly implied they've just been manipulated by cash and propaganda from American conservatives. When I read this stuff, I ask myself "have they actually ever met and talked to any African bishops?"

 

I have. I had a series of life-changing conversations with one, in this country, in 2005 and have kept up with him, and alongside him some mission and ministry partners in North Katanga on the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What they have said repeatedly is this: our society does not have any guardrails. Next to none. Polygamy is common, exploitation rife in our cities and villages.

 

Christian preaching is often the first message many men have heard about the need to treat women with respect, and to live their family lives as something other than a series of conquests. This is, they tell me, still an ongoing struggle. The boundaries of their church are pretty much all the guardrails they have for defining family and relationships in any form other than through power and force as their defining qualities.

 

So they are not interested in relaxing any standards right now. And I hear them. I also see the conflict in this country perhaps more clearly than they do in Africa, and I acknowledge the pain felt by those who see our society making lane changes and resetting some road markers, opening up acceptance and support of same-sex relationships, but then seeing some churches, perhaps their own faith tradition say "we are not making those shifts." Not now, maybe not ever.

 

It is not a small thing being asked of either side, and the negotiations are perhaps not best worked out through voting and parliamentary procedure. The dialogue is not over. But for now, the UMC is staying in its same lane. And there's heavy traffic ahead.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not a Methodist, but he knows plenty of John Wesley quotes. Tell him where you see the traffic heading in this and other areas of church life at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.