On January 8th, our church will be holding an informational meeting discussing topics related to the future of the United Methodist Church. This meeting is in advance of a re-vote later in January to determine whether to enter into the process of “discernment” – a four to six-month process of information sessions and discussions about Riverchase UMC remaining a United Methodist Church.
If you’re planning on attending this meeting – which is planned to be a time to allow for asking of questions and discussion – I encourage you to attend with as much knowledge as possible so that you understand the various perspectives.
So why do some in our church wish to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church?
Your fellow church members would likely give you one or more reasons that we should do so.
The answer you’re likely to hear most is related to the possibility of the United Methodist Church’s full inclusion of God’s LGBTQ+ children in ministry and same-sex unions. But two other topics are occasionally mentioned when the subject of disaffiliation comes up.
I hope to provide you with a starting point for your own further Googling and research. Sometimes you’ll hear these other reasons as the “…and also” comments when disaffiliation supporters don’t want to solely focus on same-sex unions and clergy as their primary reason. They’re important to understand, both in what they are and why they’re being used as reasons.
Reason-You’ll-Hear #1: The Possibility of Same-Sex Unions and LGBTQ+ Clergy
The number one, daddy-of-them-all reason that you’re likely to hear most goes something like this:
“In 2024, when the General Conference of the United Methodist Church meets again, they (i.e. the delegates from all across the globe) will likely remove the Book of Discipline language that a) prohibits same-sex unions from being performed, b) allows LGBTQ+ clergy to be ordained, and c) states that the “practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching”
I have not encountered anyone in casual conversation that has started their disaffiliation reasons with something besides this one. Interestingly, when Reason-You’ll-Hear #2 comes up about the Book of Discipline not being followed, it’s actually its rules about this subject that are the focus.
Even the note sent out to the congregation on December 21st identified only this singular issue of the Book of Discipline’s potential language change as the heart of the discernment topic:
I’ll cover my thoughts on our treatment of LGBTQ+ children of God in a post all by itself because it deserves its own space.
There’s also a false assumption that if same-sex unions are allowed, then clergy will be forced to perform marriages with which they may not agree. This is not the case. It simply allows them to take place. It’s important to note that UMC pastors have always been allowed to choose which weddings they wished to perform within the rules that exist in the Book of Discipline (¶ 340.2(a)(3)(a)).
As we think about what these potential Book of Discipline changes might look like, it’s helpful to make sure that the distinction is made between a few terms: “allow”, “prevent” and “require”.
I’m going to put these terms in the context of…candy corn (bear with me, here).
Pretty much every year at Halloween, I try candy corn again thinking that maybe this will be the year that it will be appealing to me. I walk into drug and grocery stores in the fall and there are huge bags of candy corn waiting for the candy corn lovers to take home. I just can’t relate to liking it. I am a “Candy Corn Hater”.
However, some people really like it.
Just because I don’t care for it though, I’m not about to walk into the grocery store and ask them to remove it from the shelves. This would prevent others from buying it. “Candy Corn Lovers” would complain that it wasn’t fair that just because some people didn’t like it that no one could have access to it. I don’t buy it so it’s not impacting me if others do.
But I also don’t want them to require me to buy it when I come into the grocery store either. We Candy Corn Haters would feel oppressed and end up with bags of waxy, sugary, striped awfulness that we didn’t want. I’ll be frustrated that the store isn’t giving me a choice.
As a compromise, what if the stores put the candy corn on the shelves and simply allow me to experience it if I choose? Put it on the shelves. No one is forced to buy it. No one needs to prevent it from being bought. If you want to partake, you do. If you don’t, you walk on by and your life isn’t impacted by it for the worse. Each year I can keep trying it. Maybe I’ll finally appreciate it one day.
I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m reducing the inequality of treatment shown to our LGBTQ+ members to a trivial thing like candy corn appeal; sometimes we just need a bit of reframing as we deal with these kinds of issues.
To my knowledge, the United Methodist Church has never said that same-sex unions or LGBTQ+ clergy were going to be forced on congregations. The UMC recognizes the value of diversity in thought and that the Holy Spirit works in its own time. People from every end of the ideological spectrum should be able to worship together to continue to further God’s work. Our differences can make us stronger if we show one another the grace that God has shown us.
For now, know that there are church members that struggle with this one and cannot see a world in which LGBTQ+ persons are allowed to commit themselves to one another in a faithful Christian relationship or to answer a calling to be in the lifelong service to God in the ministry.
Reason-You’ll-Hear #2: UMC rulebreaking and rule enforcement
As I noted, most of the time you hear this reason brought up is related to bishops in various UMC conferences and jurisdictions across the country not following the language in the Book of Discipline related to the ordination of same-sex clergy and performing same-sex marriages.
This one is interesting to me because it’s as though this is the only Book of Discipline language that isn’t being adhered to.
And that’s not the case.
The Book of Discipline is filled with processes and procedures that might not always be followed because – in the grand scheme of disciple-making – maybe they don’t have as much importance as others. Some might be intentionally disregarded. Some might just be an oversight.
Here’s a good example. The Book of Discipline requires that the following process should take place each year as part of a church’s annual Charge Conference:
¶ 231. Annual Membership Report and Audit—The pastor shall report to the charge conference annually the names of persons received into the membership of the church or churches of the pastoral charge and the names of persons removed since the last charge conference, indicating how each was received or removed. The church council shall appoint a committee to audit the membership record, submitting the report annually to the charge conference.
In 2015, the website “Hacking Christianity” found that only about 10% of United Methodist Churches are performing these required membership audits.
I was on our Board of Stewards for a couple of years before becoming vice-chair and then chair for three years. I cannot recall this ever being done while I was on our board, and have looked back through old agendas and minutes for these Charge Conferences before my time and haven’t found where this was done then either.
Is it important to keep an accurate membership roll at a church? Yes, and it’s probably something we should be more proactive about.
But have you heard anyone asking Riverchase UMC to leave the United Methodist Church over this rule not being followed in the Book of Discipline?
The real concern about the future of the UMC is unlikely the rulebreaking aspect.
As Christians and as United Methodists, we have a history of breaking the rules when we’re furthering God’s kingdom.
Let’s consider how Jesus saw rulebreaking as sometimes necessary. Remember that time that Jesus healed on the Sabbath (okay, he did it several times actually) when that was forbidden by the Pharisees?
He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?” so that they might accuse him.
He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
– New Revised Standard Version, Matthew 12:9-14
Jesus even reminds us that it’s possible to do the things we’re supposed to do while still not ignoring the bigger picture issues:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
– New Revised Standard Version, Matthew 23:23
And what about Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, and his perspective on rulebreaking?
He had rocks thrown at him and even had his hat stepped on by local government officials because of his breaking of their rules. He preached outside when it was generally not accepted to do so and when he knew it was considered “indecent” not to preach in a church:
Thursday, 29.—I left London and in the evening expounded to a small company at Basingstoke, Saturday, 31. In the evening I reached Bristol and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; I had been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.
April 1.—In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I began expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field-preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also), to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Nicholas Street.
Monday, 2.—At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people.
– John Wesley, Journal, April 2, 1739
And U.S. history is laden with stories of rulebreaking to bring equality, something that former U.S. Representative John Lewis referred to as getting in “good trouble”.
In 1872, Susan B. Anthony went into a voting location in Rochester, New York, and cast a ballot for the presidential election. Women were not allowed to vote. She was arrested and fined $100 for voting illegally. Before her trial, she made many speeches about the rights women should be afforded to vote as their male counterparts. She had to break the law to bring the injustice to light and to make people think about the rights of women. Today, preventing women from voting because of their gender seems an antiquated thought.
In 1955, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat in the “whites only” section of a Montgomery bus. She rightly felt the rules in place were unjust and unfair to black people. She was arrested. Her arrest, and that of Rosa Parks a few months later, sparked a civil rights movement that resulted in the desegregation of public transportation in Alabama and throughout the country.
To be clear, I’m not implying that it’s okay to break any rule. We have many that keep our society in check, such as those that keep people from harming one another, stealing, or disrupting life.
But as we can see in history, the rules and laws that kept people from having equal rights simply because they were different than others in society make most of us cringe now when we think of the days that they were in effect.
So are we showing mercy and focusing on faith if we complain about the Book of Discipline rules not being followed and that prevents someone from fully answering God’s calling into the ministry?
Are we being merciful and just if we tell people that “we welcome all to worship” yet won’t allow them to also commit their lives to same-sex partners and Christ because it doesn’t fit the typical marriage profile?
Sometimes when the greater good for “justice and mercy and faith” is the focus, we should be okay with breaking rules that keep us from that.
Those are Jesus’ words, not mine.
Reason-You’ll-Hear #3: “The future UMC will deny the truth of Biblical authority or not preach scripture and will not recognize the one true God.”
There’s just no basis in fact for these assertions and they’re being pushed by individuals in outside groups who have an interest in seeing the UMC splinter.
There’s no plan to reduce the Bible to some kind of suggested text, rather than remaining the foundational truth that it is today.
And we’ve got to challenge the notion that we’re not “preaching scripture” in our church anymore. I’ve heard this one for a few years now.
Are we hearing fiery messages and sermons with a barrage of verbatim scripture-quoting that you might experience with other denominations? No, definitely not. That’s not the style of worship that is in our services.
If that’s the type of sermon that someone wants, there are plenty of other churches that would probably fit better. Let’s not compare what we’re not doing to something that isn’t “us” to begin with and then use that as a reason for us to not stay in our denomination.
Finally, the UMC isn’t moving away from the concept of the triune God or stating that there can be multiple Gods or that people in the future UMC are going to be able to have whatever beliefs they want. The United Methodist Church has plenty of foundational documents available on its website that are and will continue to be the core doctrines that we follow.
All of these inaccuracies are preying on the fear of change. If a picture gets painted of a wildly different UMC than what we’re used to now, then others wanting control and power have a chance of convincing people who fear change to pull away and follow a different flavor of Methodism.
There is so much disinformation being seeded in congregations that the North Georgia Conference just recently announced that it’s pausing all disaffiliation processes because the falsehoods are so pervasive and they’re concerned that laity, outside groups, and even pastors are pushing facts that are anything but.
Make sure to do your research and fact-check when you hear these kinds of things come up. Ask for sources. Follow the United Methodist Church’s news site and the North Alabama Conference news site.
The Takeaway
Pretty much any news article being written about the splintering of the United Methodist Church focuses on Reason-You’ll-Hear #1 – same-sex unions and LGBTQ+ clergy.
And Reason-You’ll-Hear #2 is entwined in Reason-You’ll-Hear #1 (unless you know someone who wants to disaffiliate from the UMC because of something like membership audits not being done).
Reason-You’ll-Hear #3 is just a set of falsehoods that need to go away, but we must question these when we hear them in the meantime.
As fellow church members, we have to continue to try to understand one another and the reasons that some want to take our church in a different direction and away from the United Methodist Church than we’re a part of today.
Jesus told us what we should focus on: justice, mercy, faith, loving God wholly, and loving one another as we would love ourselves.
Disaffiliation is a division that keeps us from our focus.
Go and be Riverchase United.
