Pax Methodos. It means something like "Methodical Peace" but
it's the closest I could come to a Latin phrase for "Methodist
Peace." It's supposed to remind you of Pax Romana, the roughly 200 year
period of relative peace in the Roman Empire from roughly 27 BC to 180 AD. The
peace came with a catch. The Roman Peace only existed because in the rare case
when there was an uprising, all offending parties were wiped out. Like Jesus,
for example.
This is the kind of peace in the United Methodist Church that Good
News and their allies are advocating for. In the latest issue of the magazine
Thomas Lambrecht writes, "Our only hope to stay united as a church is to
restore the integrity and accountability of our covenant. That is why our
coalition will be advocating for proposals like the following:..." Nine
proposals follow that make Good News' plan very clear. There will be peace.
There will be unity. Because if you won't fall in line you will be removed.
Good News is advocating for such a centralization of power that
for the first time ever, and only in the case of performing same sex weddings,
there would be a Church-wide mandatory sentencing policy including defrocking
after a second offense. We don't even have language like that for child abuse.
Good News is advocating for a litmus test for any counsel for the
church in a trial.
They are advocating for even stricter language on what it means to
be a "self-avowed practicing homosexual" (because 40 years of
tightening their grip isn't enough?)
They are encouraging pastors who disagree to leave the church by
proposing language that simply reiterates what is already true - that a pastor
can leave the denomination with their pension intact.
Just listen to the litany of the first word used to describe each
of the nine proposals
"Requiring...Requiring...Revise...Impose...Requiring...Allowing...Broadening...Adding...Requiring..."
Don't we have enough requirements and impositions in our Book of Discipline
already?
A Movement, as Good News often reminds us that our church is
supposed to be, does not require enforcement of precise rules from a
centralized authority who know better than us. Isn't that the same thing that
in the secular world we have discovered about Washington D.C.? Good News is
attempting to replace the institutionalism of our General Boards and Agencies
with a theological institutionalism that dictates to Annual Conferences and
pastors rights that have always belonged to them.
As General Conference approaches I encourage my fellow delegates
to reject this new institutionalism. Reject the idea that a 60-40 vote of 846 people
can speak God's definitive word for the entire connection. Instead, accept the
long-standing principle that the annual conference is the best place to make
decisions on matters of ordination and property and that pastors have the
authority to choose who to marry and not marry.
The first Christians rejected Pax Romana because the cost of that
kind of peace was too high. So it is today for Pax Methodo. There cannot be
true peace or true unity when it is forced from one group onto another.
