Complaints about Bishops Are Going to Get Loud

 If all goes well, every bishop elected at our Jurisdictional Conferences the first week of November will be inclusive. You will undoubtedly hear rhetoric from traditionalist leadership that this is evidence traditionalists are not welcome in the United Methodist Church. This is not true.

One problem is how we have defined "traditionalist." If by traditionalist we mean someone who affirms the creeds and the core of United Methodist doctrine then, having looked through the papers and participated in interviews of the seven candidates in the South Central Jurisdiction, I can assure you we will be electing traditionalist bishops. But that's not what is meant by traditionalist anymore.

The common definition of traditionalist now is one who disagrees on whether LGBT+ persons should be ordained and whether we should be allowed to perform same sex weddings. Using this definition, we may or may not elect traditionalists. Honestly, that's not a question we have asked.

The way Good News and WCA will define traditionalist is as someone who will not ordain a person who has gone through the entire candidacy process and been approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry and Clergy Session of the conference and/or will follow through with the abeyance imagined in the Protocol. By that definition, there is a very good reason why no "traditionalist" bishop should be elected.

We are dreaming of a Church where there is freedom for interpretation. This is why, for example, progressives and centrists continue to want churches across the globe to remain United Methodist. We need bishops who share that dream. We are asking questions like, "Will you ordain an LGBT+ person who has been approved for ordination?" not, "What do you personally believe about ordination of LGBT+ persons?" That means:

- bishop candidates are NOT disqualified for having a conservative theology

- bishop candidates are NOT disqualified solely on their personal opinion concerning LGBT+ inclusion. 

- bishop candidates MUST be disqualified if they are not committed to a United Methodist Church that will truly be a big tent. Using the language many of us have become familiar with, that means any candidate who is a "traditional compatibilist" could serve well. Any candidate who is a "traditional incompatibalist" AND any candidate who is progressive but will follow the letter of the law instead of the spirit of where we are moving should not, and likely will not, be elected.

We have a number of outstanding candidates to consider with a wide variety of gifts and experiences. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Spirit moves in and continues to bless our denomination next week.

A Lesson from St. Andrews

In the fast-paced environment of United Methodist news, the decision of St. Andrew's UMC in Plano, Texas to leave the denomination and not join another denomination is now old news. It's also not remarkable for a church to take these actions. Two things about St. Andrew's departure are newsworthy. First, they are leaving by taking advantage of an apparent opening in Texas law that allows a church's leadership to simply remove the trust clause from their bylaws. Second, the leadership has made this decision without a vote of the church. To the best of my knowledge, both of these actions are unique in current times. 

St. Andrew's pastor and executive committee chair stated, "The UMC has offered many services during the decades of our affiliation. However, as one of the largest churches in the system, we realized how independent we are, already providing many of our own services. The fact is we can protect our finances, our property and our pastors by going in a new direction.” This is the single most disappointing statement I have read in relationship to the United Methodist Church this year. It represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of our connection, whether we are talking about the United Methodist Church or the newly forming Global Methodist Church. We are not independent churches. We never have been. The quote from St. Andrew's leadership could well be translated, "We have used the denomination when it was helpful to us. Now that it isn't helpful to us, we're leaving." It reminds me of a church in the former Kansas West conference that left our denomination abruptly when St. Andrew's senior pastor's father was the bishop. That church's leadership also believed their mission could best be served independent of the UMC structure. But Bishop Jones, and presumably his son, rightly understood that we are more than a collection of individual churches. That is still true today even though the shoe is now on the other foot.

So I'm disappointed, both at how the leadership handled this decision with the church and, more generally, that the disaffiliation happened at all. So it goes. Life has disappointments. More constructively, there is a lesson to be learned.

St. Andrew's leadership was clear that their departure from the denomination is in no way linked to any of the arguments we are having right now. They are not leaving because of (as traditionalists would describe it) doctrinal disputes or (as progressives would describe it) concerns over full inclusion. They are leaving because they think they are better off without the denomination.

Countless churches who are helped by St. Andrew's presence in North Texas will be directly harmed by their departure - another disappointment. More importantly, in our individualistic society, there will be many other St. Andrews in the years ahead unless we who are in denominations can be clear about the "why' for our existence. To put it bluntly, while Rob Renfroe lobs lies at the UMC and people like me reply with accusations like I just did, churches like St. Andrews will increasingly say they don't want to be like either of us. Maybe this is why it is true that while more churches are leaving the UMC than many of thought would leave, fewer are joining the GMC than traditionalist leaders thought would. 

As I've stated many times before, those who plan to leave the denomination need to do so now so that we can all get about the work of being the Church. Those of us who plan to remain in the UMC are not without responsibility either. We must do the hard work of understanding not only what we are against - namely, the GMC perspective - but also what we are for and how we will live into the future God wants for us.