Reflections from Tanzania

 Ten days ago I had the privilege of attending a two-day conference in Dar es Salaam led by The  Africa Forum. The conference has not had enough coverage. It was, I believe, very significant for multiple reasons.

1. The conference was the first truly trans-continental conference entirely organized and led by Africans. Traditionalist media has implied that it was led by people from the U.S. That's not true. There were maybe two dozen attendees from outside the continent. Most of said, at most, a 90 second greeting to the group. Nearly every major presentation was led by Africans and 100% of the guests were invited to attend by Africans. Attendees spanned the continent and came from nearly every annual conference in Africa. Compared this to African Voices for Unity which is primarily Nigerian and the Africa Initiative which is primarily West African and largely U.S. led.

2. The conference's outcome was not predetermined. Resolutions that were adopted were written during the conference by a committee, discussed by the whole body (note that when I say the whole body I am referring only to those from Africa. Observers sat at the side throughout the conference and did not participate.), amended, and approved. 

3. The results are clearly African. Personally, I was pleased with most of the resolutions that were adopted. The key one I didn't like was amending the resolution supporting the Global Social Principles by adding the language of "a man and a woman" to marriage. I promise you if the U.S. observers were influencing the outcome this would not have been included. But it is representative of what the large majority of Africans believe. On the other hand, the group very much wants to stay United Methodist and agreed that regionalization is a way to do that. This also fits with what many of us would expect. The catch remains what has always been the case - can we remain a United church and a regional church? I think the answer is yes. The group in Tanzania thinks the answer is yes. Time will tell.

4. Leadership was broad-based. Regardless of where they are on the theological divide, I'm tired of hearing from all the same people. In the U.S. we see the same two or three people writing or speaking "for Africans" over and over again. The African Forum's leadership team functioned like a team. Multiple voices were heard and respected including people whose names you likely are familiar with and people who you are not familiar with.

5. No to Disaffiliation. This really surprised me. The line U.S. traditionalists had fed me was Africans would be willing to vote for regionalization if the 2024 General Conference passed some version of paragraph 2553 for them. I believed them. Based on the Tanzania conference, that sentiment could not be more wrong. I'm convinced that regionalization would be LESS likely to pass if it included a disaffiliation option. Opposition to disaffiliation was overwhelming. 

5. Implications for General Conference and beyond. I haven't counted the votes. I don't have any predictions about what will happen at General Conference. What I do know is that those who have said GC24 will pit the U.S. against the world are wrong. In Tanzania, the U.S. was quiet while Africans talked with each other. We answered questions from our perspective when asked. Every person there was treated with respect and appreciation. I believe the traditionalist leadership in the U.S. wants GC24 to be a trainwreck. Nobody else wants that. They want us to fail. Nobody else wants that. Those who have wanted to leave has largely gone. If they leave us alone (they won't) then all will be well. If they continue to meddle in a church they have abandoned (they will) then I think all will still be well. Our relationships and mutual understanding will continue to grow and Christ will be worshipped and witnessed to through the UMC across the globe. 

Fair for Some, Fair for All - Not Just for the WCA

 You may have seen the Wesleyan Covenant Association's new campaign for extending a version of paragraph 2553 to Central Conferences. They have titled the campaign, "Fair for Some Fair for All." 

I don't say it often, but I will here. The WCA is right. What is fair for some is fair for all.

Opportunity to Disaffiliate

It is true that 2553 did not apply to Central Conferences. My perception is that this has to do with a technicality and, unlike the rest of the paragraph, was not the intention of the traditionalists who passed the disaffiliation plan. I haven't seen the legislation that the WCA has proposed. This is important because traditionalist leaders are politically savy and, just like politicians in D.C., they can craft legislation to do more than the stated purpose. For example, they are not calling in this plan to reopen 2553 to the U.S. That would a disaster. Additionally, I've been told the legislation would also let whole annual conferences leave, which was not allowed in the U.S. So I can't promise to support their legislation. 

In fact, I likely won't. You might say, "Isn't that talking out of both sides of your mouth?" The answer is no. Churches in Central Conferences should be able to leave the denomination - and they already can. As I showed here, the Global Methodist Church and WCA have celebrated the fact that churches in Europe and Africa have left. Talking out of both sides of your mouth is saying something cannot happen while simultaneously celebrating that it has happened. 

Opportunity to Govern

One reason churches outside of the U.S. have disaffiliated without the benefit of 2553 is that our denomination is structured in a way that allows for different governance outside of the U.S. Paragraph 101 allows central conferences, which by definition are outside of the U.S., to "make changes and adaptations to the General Book of Discipline to more fruitfully accomplish our mission in various contexts." Effectively, the denomination has said that the way we do things in the U.S. is "normal" and if you are in an "abnormal" context you can make adjustments. A more charitable reading of our history would be that U.S. delegates, which represented a large majority of General Conference votes, recognized that they shouldn't dictate governance to smaller groups in different cultures.

Supporters of regionalization, like me, recognize that in a global denomination there is no such thing as "normal." Most likely, there will be no "majority" continent or country at the first regular General Conference after 2024. There is a good possibility that the General Conference after that will have an African majority. This means that without some form of regionalization United Methodists from outside the U.S. will be able to set rules that the U.S. has to follow but that the people making the rules can adapt. There is no universe in which this is fair. 

What is fair for some is fair for all. It should be possible for churches outside the U.S. to leave, and it is. It should be possible for every region of the globe to adapt to their region, and it is not. 

Fundraising off of Destruction

If you read my blog much, you've likely heard about the 2004 internal Good News strategy document "Options for the Future." The link is to a permanent mirror as the original was taken down after others and I published it.

Since then, I've received pushback from Good News leaders like Rob Renfroe denying that the document was ever discussed and downplaying the truth that the document names the continuing existence of the UMC as a disadvantage to traditionalists leaving the denomination. Good News and their allies are very smart and strategic. Documents like this don't exist by mistake. But if you still doubt their motives, I'm going to go point by point through a recent fundraising email from close Good News, WCA, and GMC ally, The IRD. It's not paranoia if they are really out to get you. Read along:

Dear Methodist friends:

We’re thrilled that the number of exiting churches from United Methodism will top 7650 this month before the deadline, far exceeding expectations.  

   Tooley is not thrilled with the number of people being baptized, the number preaching the Good News, or the number of churches joining the new denomination. He is thrilled with the number that are leaving. He is explicitly thrilled with tearing down a denomination.

Liberal pastor Adam Hamilton predicted there would only be 3000-4500 church exits. We had expected maybe 5000-6000. But 25% of all United Methodist churches have now left the denomination despite all the high hurdles!

It's true that Adam was wrong. I was, too. I expected about 20% would disaffiliate. But there are multiple issues with Tooley's statmeent:

1. While those of us remaining United Mehtodist have been accused of colonialism, Tooley forgets there is such a thing as churches outside of the U.S. The 25% number is NOT all UM's, it is 25% of U.S. churches. The international church exists! 

2. The "high hurdles" that Tooley mentions were allowed for in the legislation that traditionalists passed in 2019, saying it was "the way [we] would want to be treated if [we were] leaving."

3. The full truth is traditionalist leaders have pulled out all the stops to get churches to disaffiliate. They have held membership drives to artificially distort votes, they have allowed misinformation to spread without refutation, and they have advocated for disaffiliation for reasons other than the one reason the 2019 legislation provided for. They have done everything possible to maximize disaffiliations, far beyond what I believed their sense of Christian ethics would allow for, and still 75% of U.S. churches are staying United Methodist.

Praise the Lord for performing this great work!

Some people believe we should negotiate. Some people think we should extend the disaffiliation paragraph like Tooley, Renfroe and others want. Some people still believe progressives and centrists were the ones acting in bad faith when the Protocol failed. Please tell me how we can negotiate when traditionalist leadership praises God for people leaving us. 

This is also a tribute to your work over many years.

This is an important sentence. The work of tearing us down did not begin with the current round of disaffiliations. It did not begin with the 2019 General Conference or the creation of the Traditionalist Plan. It began "many years" ago. They finally said it out loud.

The remainder of Tooley's email is promoting IRD events. Except for one key question he poses. Tooley asks, "How many of us can answer the question:  Why are we Methodists and not Baptists?

I have an answer. Of those staying United Methodist, nearly all of us know we aren't Baptists. But, Mark, when you promote Baptist theology (like churches openly re-baptizing and only doing "believes baptism) and Baptist polity (downplaying the Connection and advocating more of a call system than itinerate system of appointment), this is what you get. 

Scott Jones' Support for Regionalization

The Dilemma

A book has been staring at me from the bookshelf in my office. I read it shortly after it was published, 15 years ago. Staying at the Table by then United Methodist Bishop (and my bishop) Scott Jones gave a strong defense of unity for the denomination even with our many disagreements. Much water has passed under the bridge since Jones wrote, but I recently read through it again and was reminded of why even today I yearn more for unity than separation, even as I acknowledge that separation is now unavoidable. 

One piece that Jones advocated for still has legs - what we now call regionalization.

Listen to Jones' case for regionalization from the portion of his book titled "Global Nature." At a time when the number of delegates to General Conference from outside the U.S. was half of what it is now, he said, "Delegates from outside the United States complain that too much time is spent on U.S. issues, and U.S. delegates complain that there is no forum where U.S. issues can be dealt with by U.S. representatives." The 2024 General Conference will be the last one where any country has a majority of the delegates, but we are still structured as a U.S.-centric church. This is a problem.

Jones gave us a solution: "I believe great progress can be made if the General Conference will create a Central Conference for the United Sates, and then determine the answers to two questions:
1. What paragraphs of our Book of Discipline...are global?
2. What paragraphs of our Book of Discipline ought to be...settled by Central Conferences?"

He goes on to note that many aspects of our polity would remain the same, including the powers of jurisdictions in the U.S., the function of our general agencies, our doctrine, and our Social Principles.

His solution is the right one. And in 2024 General Conference can make it happen. The regionalization legislation will replace the language of "Central Conference" with "Regional Conference," but otherwise what I have read is exactly what Jones suggested.

What Paragraphs are Global and Which Are Regional?

The draft legislation I've seen delineates this clearly. It retains the language of "The General Conference shall have full legislative power over all matters distinctively connectional," but adds language that allows General Conference to "legislate what is non-adaptable for regional conferences" with a supermajority vote. Legislation passed after Jones' book was published specifies paragraphs 1-166 as "not subject to change or adaptation except by action of the General Conference." These paragraphs contain all the core doctrine* of the church, the Constitution, and the Social Principles. Everything not in those paragraphs is adaptable, subject to the limitation noted above.

What is most important to see is that our doctrine really does become what holds us together. And despite the misinformation you may have heard, our doctrine really is staying the same. Instead of an 800+ page book that is fully binding to some people and minimally binding to others, we will all be bound by the principles in the first 120 pages (and less than that if the new Global Social Principles are adopted). Politically, this is a conservative proposal. It lets more governance happen closer to the people who are governed and less reliance on the larger bureaucracy. 

This is a good idea, regardless of the question of whether or how we become a more inclusive denomination. Frankly, I supported the last attempt at regionalization, which Jones himself led, even though that legislation would not have impacted our teaching on human sexuality. I agreed with Jones' statement in 2008: "I do not regard our teaching on homosexuality as an essential doctrine." I also agreed with his follow up statement, "We have seen how important diversity is to the body of Christ. Diversity includes spiritual gifts, ethnicities, cultures, languages, and theological persuasions within the bounds of our doctrine, discipline, and mission." Jones seems to have had a change of mind, as he left and led others out of the denomination. I have not. We are better with a global church, unified by core doctrine while allowing diversity in that which is not core.

*  I remember Jones making an argument on Facebook once that because doctrine is the official teaching of the Church our doctrine goes far beyond what is labeled doctrine in the Book of Discipline in paragraph 102, 103, and 104. That's OK. I've said silly things on Facebook, too. It's not that he's wrong. Technically, he's right. But that means the entire Book of Discipline is doctrine and I don't think anybody wants to make the case that having the correct number of people on a given church committee or holding all six Special Sunday offerings is equivalent teaching to our understanding of Baptism or the nature of Christ.

The Dunning-Kruger Hermeneutic

 I admit I was angry.

The post on Facebook said people who believe what I believe need to read the Bible. 

I do read the Bible. I may not read it the same way as others, I may be mistaken in my interpretation, but virtually every day for as long as I can remember I have read the Bible. I don't doubt that my debate opponent that day has also read the Bible. I do doubt that she knows it as well as she thinks she does.

Dunning-Kruger

The Dunning-Kruger Effect was coined by researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999. It is sometimes accidentally referred to as the Dunder Mifflin Effect. This is because for fans of The Office, the best way of describing the Dunning-Kruger effect is to just point to the character of Michael Scott at the Dunder Mifflin paper company on the show.

In short, the Dunning-Kruger effect is the observation that the less a person knows about a given subject, the more they think they know. In the same way, the less competent a person is at a task, the more competent they think they are. Conversely, the more a person knows, the more they recognize how much they don't know.

About 15 years ago, I developed a genius method to see if the people at the church I served were growing in their discipleship. I developed a "Spiritual Health Inventory" of 60 statements. One Sunday each month we took just two minutes in worship for people to answer 5 questions, rating themselves on each measure from 1-5. One year later, the same 5 questions would be asked again. If the scores were higher then, we would have an objective measure of growth. The problem, I discovered, was the Dunning Kruger effect. Often, as we grow in our discipleship, we have a better understanding of just how far from Jesus we actually are. So if the question is, "I seek to live according to God's will every day," a relatively immature Christian might rate themselves a 4 ("Sure, I try to do what God wants me to do.") while a more mature Christian might rate themselves a 3 ("I try, and I fail more than I'd like to admit. Thank God for the grace that lets me try again."). For me, that means every day I am a prodigal seeking to come home. Fifteen years ago I don't think I would have said that. For my inventory, that means a higher score didn't necessarily correlate with spiritual growth and a lower score didn't necessarily correlate with spiritual decline. The Dunning-Kruger effect and its corollary would affect the way people answered the questions.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is a fancy word for how you read the Bible. For example, if you read every part of the Bible as literal historical fact (e.g., six days after creating the universe, God created a literal first man and God literally removed a rib from that man to form the first woman) then you are using a literalist hermeneutic. If you read the Bible as a compilation of not just 66 different books, but a compilation of 66 books that in many instances were themselves compiled by multiple authors over, sometimes, hundreds of years (e.g. Genesis contains two different creation stories from two different traditions that both have something of value to teach us), then you are using a hermeneutic called "source criticism." 

Whether we realize it or not, most of use multiple hermeneutics depending on which part of the Bible we are reading and even what our mood is on that given day. Most of us also have one or two approaches that we most favor. I invite you to consider whether you might use a hermeneutic, an approach to reading the Bible, that I call the Dunning-Kruger Hermeneutic.

The Dunning-Kruger Hermeneutic

In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly corrects and chastises religious leaders with not knowing their own scriptures. A classic example is the story of Nicodemus in John 3. "'You are Israel's teacher,' said Jesus, 'and do you not understand these things?'" 

One day when I was in seminary studying to be a pastor, I told my Bible professor why his reading of a particular text was wrong. He replied, phrased infinitely kinder than my paraphrase here, "When you get a doctorate in Bible and Hebrew then you can teach. Until then, how about if I do the teaching and you do the learning." It sounds elitist, but he was right. Later in seminary, he also shared some of what he was still learning, even with those doctorates. His degrees didn't mean that he now knew it all. They meant he knew more and he knew there was far more to still learn. I thought I pretty much had it all down. 

The Dunning-Kruger Hermeneutic is when a person reads the Bible as though they already are Biblical experts - they already know what it says. As an illustration, let me take you back to that Facebook post. I never got that doctorate. I do have a masters degree. I have more than 25 years of experience as a pastor striving to preach Biblically informed sermons every Sunday. I have read at least a few verses of the Bible nearly every day, along with countless devotional and scholarly treatments of Scripture. None of that makes me an expert or a perfect interpreter. 

 "If you believe XYZ, you need to read the Bible," the 20-something who has taken a couple Bible classes and heard some fundamentalist sermons says to me. The truth is, Christians have argued about what we should believe based on our reading of the Bible for nearly 2,000 years. That's one reason we have hundreds of denominations. But the less a person knows about the Bible, the less a person knows about Christian history, the less a person knows about Biblical interpretation, the more certain that person is that they are right. To be clear, that means I could be wrong, too, and I need to be open to that possibility.

I don't remember exactly how I responded to that person's comment. I hope I said something like this: "I have, and still do, read the Bible. And I also believe XYZ. I understand that many people, including you, disagree with me. You could be right. I could be wrong. I hope as you read the Bible, you will also be open to the possibility that you could be right or wrong. I hope that as you read it you will ask questions, not so that your faith turns to doubt, but so that your faith continues to grow."

In short, don't read the Bible like Michael Scott. You may not understand as much as you think you do.

The Disaffiliation Story You May Not Have Heard

I've been on renewal leave during annual conference season this year so I've been following the goings on very loosely. Some headlines have still stuck out at me, particularly the ones excited about the number of disaffiliations (Jimmy Boone: “Updated June 9: We are now at 5,556. By July 1 projections show we will see a total over 6,000!”). I continue to shake my head at this excitement like this. Note it is not an excitement about building something up, but about tearing something down. It is, though, an important reminder about a disaffiliation reality you may not have thought about.

The most pessimistic (from my point of view) estimates suggest that when all is said and done, about 25% of U.S. UMC churches will disaffiliate. It will definitely be at least 20% I think most of us thought we'd end up between 15% and 20%, so no doubt this is a higher number than we had hoped for. But consider this:

• As noted above, there are people and groups (the anonymously run "Leave UMC" comes to mind) who are fully invested in tearing the UMC down.
• Organizations like The IRD and Good News have staff teams and hundreds of thousands of dollars fully devoted to promoting disaffiliation.
• Disaffiliation forces have resorted to secular political rhetoric, using words like "woke" and "leftest" to provoke emotional and fear-based responses instead of logical and faith-based responses.
• Pastors allegedly have had people as young as 8 vote on disaffiliation, had last-minute selective membership drives to influence the vote, and in one case had their mother-in-law join the church only to vote against disaffiliation so that they could use the parliamentary procedure of "reconsideration" if the vote failed.
• Organizations are allowing churches to borrow money to fund disaffiliation.
• "How to disaffiliate" webinars and rallies have happened all over the country.
• Lies, misinformation, and mischaracterizations have been propagated consistently. The most generous statement that could be made about traditionalist leadership in the WCA and GMC is that they have allowed lies to be told without correcting those who have told the lies.

In summary, what we have experienced over the last 18-24 months is a full-frontal assault on the denomination. The forces aligned against the United Methodist Church have pulled out all the stops in their fight. They have given it their absolute best shot, using a repugnant means-justify-the-ends ethic to destroy the denomination.

They got 25%. That's it? All of the rhetoric, money, and energy and they could only get 25% to go along with them? I know this is no consolation for the churches and communities that have been torn apart by their efforts. The churches whose pastors have forced votes and the small towns who will now struggle to have any viable congregations because of the unnecessary destruction to relationships will not be relieved to know that there could have been even more suffering. They will still hurt and struggle to rebuild. The very groups saying they are committed to the Good News have done tremendous damage to the actual sharing of the Good News. I don't want to minimize that. At the same time, to only have one in four churches follow you when so much has been invested is, frankly, not very impressive. It is evidence for the point that so many of us made in 2019 and beyond that the Methodist movement is better defined by who we are for than who we are against. We actually are still a "big tent" denomination and we will not be bullied into giving up grace. 

In the years ahead, the UMC will continue to experience decline. You will be told that this is the inevitable result of our bankrupt theology and what we have experienced over the last few years. That's not true. It will be because of the demographic and sociological trends that have affected every denomination. But our end is not inevitable. It's not even likely. A house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:25). Those who have insisted on fighting are leaving. Those who are willing to live in peace are staying. Having withstood this onslaught, the UMC will now be positioned for a brighter future of sharing the Good News of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

Post-Separation Myths - Trapped Traditionalists

This occasional series examines popular statements that misrepresent what the United Methodist Church (UMC) will most likely be like following the 2024 General Conference.

Following the traditionalists' leadership withdrawal from the Protocol last May, it became clear that many churches would begin to disaffiliate from the UMC. I even encouraged it with language like, "those who need to leave, please do." I stand by that statement. If you absolutely know that you need to leave the UMC, then now is a good time to do that. But what if you aren't certain? What if there is, say, a 10% chance that your church could stay in the denomination? Traditionalist leadership is saying with one voice that if you are ever going to leave, it must be now because the provision allowing a church to leave that was approved in 2019 will sunset at the end of 2023. It is true that the provision (paragraph 2553) will sunset. That does not mean that you are trapped. Here's why:

1. As I've previously shared, the denomination moving in a more "progressive" direction does not necessarily mean what you have been told it means. 

2. While paragraph 2553 does sunset and there will be at least four months when it will not be possible to leave under its provisions, it is possible that the General Conference meeting April 23-May 3, 2024 will approve a similar avenue.

3. There will be other avenues for disaffiliation. For those wanting to leave the UMC, the most important aspect of paragraph 2553 is that it allows you to take your property and assets with you (i.e., the trust clause is suspended). When the paragraph sunsets, that guarantee is gone. However, in many cases your conference will be happy to work with you. The majority of churches disaffiliating right now are smaller, often more rural churches. In most cases, while your state and county will assign a value to your property, it effectively has little if any real value. The key question is, if you chose to close your doors and your conference sold the property, what kind of offer would be received? If you are in a rural setting, there' a reasonable chance the building would sit empty for years and be a liability to the conference. If you are in an area where the property is more valuable, you could still be waiting years for another church to buy it - and if there is not a church interested in your building there is a good chance it will need to be torn down for a new structure to be built. Our buildings are worth for more to us than they are on the open market, and your conference may not want an "asset" that could prove to be a "liability." In a situation like this, it would be in everyone's best interests to allow a church to leave with their property at minimal cost. Please note this is a very general statement and there are undoubtedly many exceptions.

4. The large majority of our conferences are truly working with those seeking to disaffiliate in good faith. There are exceptions, which is very unfortunate. There is a clause in 2553 that allows conferences to add on lots of costs. While I don't think it's in keeping with the spirit of General Conference, that clause makes it possible for a conference to make disaffiliation as expensive as they want it to be. This means that while there is no guarantee disaffiliation would be less expensive after GC2024, if you are in an uncooperative conference, it is equally unlikely that disaffiliation will become more expensive. Similarly, if you are in a cooperative conference, there is no reason to think that cooperation will stop January 1, 2024.

The sorting that we are doing right now will not end on January 1st, or at the end of the 2024 General Conference. If you are certain of the action you need to take, then act. There is truly no reason not to. But don't allow yourself to be pushed into a step that may not be right for you out of fear that you will be trapped.