Can We Agree to Agree?

Just in case you didn't hear yet, the Great Plains Conference of the United Methodist Church took a significant step on Saturday towards becoming more of the church that I believe God wants us to be. Obviously a lot of people disagree with me. That was to be expected. But something interesting happened to me as I listened to the speeches against the petition - I agreed with most of what they said. It made me wonder if it would be helpful for us to take a look at what the large (almost unanimous?) majority of United Methodists, indeed the majority of all Christians, agree about.

"I believe in the transformative power of the Holy Spirit"

The first speaker was the one who, regrettably, chose to leave the denomination said this. I agree. Completely. Isn't that why we are in the Church? The church I serve is filled with stories of transformation. We have new people coming to faith. In a denomination where less than half of congregations have professions of faith other than confirmation, St. Paul's has had at least two every year for the last 17 years. This coming Sunday alone three adults will be baptized. I don't just believe in transformation, I've been transformed! By the grace of God I am not who I once was and I will not always be who I am now.

"Christians should not be conformed to the world."

Absolutely! I've argued elsewhere that even on same-sex marriage conservative and progressive alike tend to follow the local community norms, but the community's norms are not necessarily God's will. We would all (I hope) agree that when our communities advocated segregation they were wrong. We would all agree that Christian ethics are not identical with the laws of the land. Christians have a higher calling. We are supposed to act different. I will continue to maintain that when we allow ourselves to be polarized we have become conformed to the world.

"We shouldn't give in to sin"

Of course we shouldn't! Sin and evil are real and opposed to God's will. We all agree with this. We differ on what we consider to be sin.

"Scripture is Authoritative"

Not only do I agree that Scripture is authoritative, I agree that Scripture is the primary authority for Christians. Every pastor I know bases their sermons on Scripture. Almost every person I know who argues for the acceptance of homosexuality will contend that it is compatible with Scripture, not that we should ignore Scripture. We do not disagree about whether Scripture is authoritative; we disagree about how it is authoritative.

"The Church can change"

OK, nobody actually said this one, but they could have. We are the product of a changed church. If that were not the case we would all be Catholic. The Church changed even in Scripture. Pentecost represented a huge change at the very beginning. The Jerusalem Council was another huge change. The early ecumenical councils all represented change by solidifying the boundaries of faith. John Wesley believed the Church of England needed to change. Not all change is positive (which is one reason I hesitate to embrace the label "progressive"), but some change most certainly is positive.

Why this discussion matters

We know we disagree. We will always disagree on some topics. But if the United Methodist Church is going to survive this moment in time we need to at least be able to talk with each other about where the disagreements really are. I'm convinced that much of our conversation is one person talking past the other and the other returning the favor. It's a tennis game where both people are serving and no one is returning the volley. It's not a dialogue, just a series of disconnected monologues. We need to do better than that. In doing so, we may model the church Paul hopes for in Ephesians 4:1-6.