Watch Out for the WCA Pt.3

As I start this final post on the Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA), I want to remind the reader that there should be no animosity towards a group like this simply because they are preparing for the possibility of schism in the United Methodist Church. That is a smart and reasonable thing to do. The problem with the WCA is the apparent theology including, as we've seen so far, a disregard for LGBT individuals and a poor treatment of the Bible. Today we're going to do a little conjecture about what a WCA church may look like. As a way of introducing that topic...

Where Are the Women!?!?

If you've seen the recent articles and videos advertising the WCA's upcoming gathering in Chicago you may have noticed the prominence of women  in the movement. Don't believe it. Instead, go back to the founding document. The original June 30 "Open Letter to the People of The United Methodist Church" has 55 signatories. Of those, only seven are women. Two of those women are married to men who also signed the document. You should know I have a bias in this area. I don't like quotas. Quotas too often result in somebody being labeled the "token ________" instead of being acknowledged as the right person for the right job. So even though the majority of United Methodists are women I could tolerate having fewer than 27 of the signers as women. As the signers are probably leaders in the denomination, a better reflection could be the demographics of General Conference (36% female). So it would be OK if only one third, 19 of the signers were women. Since most of the signers are clergy and only 27% of our clergy are women, maybe it would even be OK if 15 signers were women. But it wasn't 27, or 19, or even 15. It was 7. Less than 13%. This will become even more significant in a moment.

The Sky Is Falling!

One of the most prominent predictions that I hear for our church is that we will become like the Episcopal Church. The story goes like this: The Episcopal Church's acceptance of homosexuality progressed until finally the conservatives couldn't take it any more. The election of Gene Robinson as bishop (see Karen Oliveto) was the final straw. The Church could not take the strain any longer and broke apart. Since then, the liberal Episcopal Church has continued to slide into irrelevancy and reduced participation while the breakaway conservative churches have begun to prosper. If the UMC accepts homosexuality we will follow the same pattern, with a conservative group breaking away and prospering while the denomination itself declines into nothingness.

For the sake of argument, let's say the comparison holds. Let's say that the Episocopal and United Methodist churches are similar enough that this comparison is accurate. Let's say that the Bishops' Commission reports back to a special General Conference in 2018 with a plan that would largely hold the denomination together through a plan that a large majority can agree to but that a remnant on the right cannot agree to. The group on the right splits off and forms a new church. We already know who that group would be in the UMC - it's the group we're talking about in these posts. Who is that group in the Episcopal Church?

I'm glad you asked! In 2009, after several Episcopal churches had already left the denomination, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) formed. It now consists of nearly 1,000 churches. At least a handful of disgruntled United Methodists have already found their way to the ACNA. To their credit, the WCA has jumped ahead of the ACNA in their planning. Why wait for churches to leave the denomination in mass before forming a group that they can join instead? If the Episcopal Church and the UMC are similar enough that the comparison used by the conservatives holds then the WCA must be the UMC equivalence of the ACNA. So let's look briefly at some of that denomination's beliefs.

Who Is the ACNA?*

1. Some of us have asked why conservatives are not consistent with banning divorced pastors as well as LGBT pastors since the Bible seems clear about that. The ACNA would agree. A pastor who divorces and then wants to remarry must receive approval from the archbishop. For comparison, if we had a president of the Council of Bishops in the UMC, that would be similar to the ACNA's archbishop. Please note that the Liberia Annual Conference of the UMC has decided that a divorced pastor is not eligible to be elected bishop. The social norms and standards are different in the US and much of Africa. It may also be significant to note that the WCA's statements of belief are silent on divorce.

2. It's not just about pastors, though. If an ACNA member who is divorced wants to remarry, the pastor must get permission from the bishop (not archbishop) to perform that wedding. Some of us would like the discretion to marry a same sex couple. in the ACNA a pastor doesn't even have sole discretion to marry a divorced couple.

3. Now back to the women. The ACNA has the same issue with women as pastors that I WISH we had with people who are LGBT. Namely, every diocese (read Annual Conference) can choose whether or not to ordain women. Some will say that the WCA/ACNA comparison breaks down right here. After all, the WCA has a statement on equality that includes women. I would say actions speak louder. Having only seven women sign the original document speaks loudly. The failure of the South Central Jurisdiciton to elect a woman not only in 2016 but in three of the last four quadrenia (yes, that's one female bishop elected in the 21st century) speaks loudly. In the Central Conferences, only 15% of clergy elected to the 2016 General Conference were women and only 10% of active bishops are women (one in African and one in Europe.) Representation speaks loudly. Finally, there's a conversation I had with a prominent lay person in one of our South Central Jurisdiction Conferences at General Conference. Almost in passing, this lay person told me "90% of our church won't take a woman as a pastor." Are you serious? I assume that this was an exaggeration, but even if it was the fact that a statement like this could be made at all in 2016 is absolutely absurd. One does not need to be much of a skeptic to doubt the words of an equality statement when the evidence is so clear that there will not be equal treatment.

4. Finally, and perhaps most disturbing, in the ACNA the bishop has the authority to determine which versions of the Bible can be used in a local church. I usually read from the CEB in worship. Over the course of any given year one will probably also hear the NRSV, NIV, and Message used. In the ACNA you may have a bishop who just doesn't like one or more of those versions and won't let you use it. It seems unlikely that even the WCA would go this far, but I will note that their original statement on the Bible (which you can find in my second post) is more conservative than the ACNA's statement. I will also remind you that the real argument about Scripture that we are having in the UMC is not whether Scripture is authoritative but how Scripture is authoritative. There is no better way to win that debate than to control which Bible is used on Sunday mornings.

*all statements about ANCA practice and belief come from their website, mostly from documents in their governance section

Putting It All Together

I believe that as United Methodists we are better together. I believe we serve God more faithfully be staying together. I will be one of those who works towards a solution that holds us together. But if we cannot stay together, I will not be with the WCA. And it really has very little to do with whether or not my LGBT colleagues can be pastors or my LGBT parishioners can be married. Yes, those are concerns. But there are deeper issues. The original statement from the WCA on the Bible undoubtedly points closer to their beliefs than the almost meaningless statement that has been written since then. The refusal to note the equality even of celibate LGBT members, reflected both in the WCA statement and in my experience at General Conference, is repugnant. Finally, using the same analogy that so often is used to cast doubt on the "liberal" side of the UMC, the "conservative" WCA becomes a potentially dangerous group that could directly hinder any pastor who is divorced or who is female.

This is not the United Methodist Church, and it must be rejected.