by RICK DANLEY // March 29, 2019
The United Methodist Church entered a new era in its long history when in late-February, after three days of fierce debate, the church voted to uphold its prohibition on both same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. The controversial measure, which passed by a narrow margin, also preserves the UMC policy stating that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” and adds additional teeth to the penalties facing clergy who attempt to violate these bans.
According to some within the church, the decision, which marked the culmination of the General Conference in St. Louis, risks deepening the schism between the church’s conservative and progressive factions and threatens to permanently break the perhaps already brittle unity in a church, which — like other mainline Protestant denominations before it — has grown increasingly divided over questions of LGBTQ rights.
“The wound may one day be healed by the grace of God,” said a top executive in the Church, Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, in the days following the General Conference, “but the scar left behind will be visible forever.”
THE DECISION facing the 800-plus delegates in St. Louis was, in short, a matter of two options: The One Church Plan, supported by the Council of Bishops, would allow individual churches or regions to decide for themselves whether to appoint gay clergy or perform same-sex weddings. It would also remove from official church policy the language declaring homosexuality incompatible with Christianity. And yet the One Church Plan made clear, too, that any church that chose not to appoint gay or lesbian pastors or officiate same-sex weddings would remain free of punishment.
But the votes weren’t there and victory went to the Traditional Plan, which not only maintains the Church’s policies on LGBTQ matters, but goes further yet by urging non-compliant churches to begin their full exit from the United Methodist Church entirely.
The current divide in the UMC is as much a matter of geography as it is theology. The Church, with its 12 million adherents worldwide, is an increasingly global organization, and — as membership in Africa and parts of Asia continues to grow (while U.S. membership shrinks) — the decision-making authority is rapidly migrating overseas.
The main proponents of the Traditional Plan remain church members from African nations and the Philippines — countries where the sociopolitical views on LGBTQ matters, generally, are more illiberal — while two-thirds of U.S. delegates voted to go with the One Church Plan.
The next move? The conference decision goes to the Judicial Council of the Methodist Church, a Supreme Court-like governing body with the power to affirm or reject Church policy. Whether the council decides to uphold or dismantle the latest ruling, many in the Church believe the result will signal the beginning of the end for the United Methodist Church as it is currently constituted.
And while it’s true that these judicial decisions have the power to reshape church doctrine and disrupt the global influence of the church polity for years to come, their keenest effect is on the hearts of those individuals who sought comfort in the embrace of the Methodist church but who now feel thrust out.
THE IMPLICATION of last month’s vote lands on the doorstep of every church that operates under the UMC name, including the number of Methodist churches in southeast Kansas.
On Sunday, Rev. Jocelyn Tupper addressed the controversy in a moving after-service sermon at Iola’s Wesley United Methodist Church. Nearly 40 interested congregants remained in the sunlit sanctuary to hear the details of the latest rupture impinging on their church.
But Tupper’s was not a message of despair. It’s OK to disagree, she told her church. In fact, it’s at the very heart of a maxim advanced by Methodism’s founder, John Wesley: “Think and let think.”
Tupper continued. “We manage Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday to sit in this place, beside people who differ with us on gun control and abortion and the President and all kinds of things…because we are not a single-issue church, we are a mission-driven church, and that mission is sharing God’s love and bringing hope to the world.”
But Tupper, who joins her Council of Bishops and the majority of U.S. delegates in favoring the One Church Plan, warned, too, against the dangers of weaponizing certain bits of scripture — the seven Biblical mentions of homosexuality, say — to satisfy an individual or group’s political prejudice.
The Church has a long history of reassessing scripture in light of historical context. Tupper pointed to the numerous mentions of slavery contained in the Bible — “two hundred references that tell you how to treat your slave” — or the prohibition against women speaking in church. “If we get pretty literal about some things, then we better get pretty literal about slaves. You see? That’s just not OK.
“We have to look at scripture,” she continued. “We can’t discount it or pick and choose, but what we have to do is look at scripture and ask how does it square with that part of [the Bible] that says, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Tupper stepped out from behind the podium. “Let me tell you, personally, that I think the One Church Plan was a good choice. I believe that. I have a brother who is homosexual. I love him very, very much. He’s a good guy. He’s a lead counselor in a large high school in Austin. He’s smart, he’s intelligent, he can balance his checkbook.
“I love him,” Tupper said with emotion, “and I will not let the church do anything to hurt him. And I’m not the only one in this place that has someone in their life who is gay or homosexual.” Heads nodded. “I am so grateful to God for [my brother’s] presence in my life. I love him, and I want you to be the church with me that ministers to him. He’s our mission. … He’s OK, you know. He’s OK. Don’t you tell me he can’t be here.”
The crowd that day was an elderly one. An old man with white hair sitting alone in a pew lifted his glasses and wiped his eyes as Tupper spoke. A woman in the back raised her hand. Tupper handed her the microphone.
“Our son was gay for years and it took him a long time before he could tell his dad,” said the woman. “He had jobs in the bank, where he was bank president. He was a good kid, a really good kid.”
“We fear things that we don’t understand,” said Tupper.
The group talked like this for some time. No one raised a harsh word. Tupper assured her congregants that, whatever the judicial council decides, she won’t do anything to violate UMC policy, she won’t do anything to hurt the Iola church.
About an hour into the conversation a small, elderly woman in a front pew raised her hand. “Jocelyn?” she said in a soft voice.
Rev. Tupper handed her the mike.
“Jocelyn, aren’t they still welcome in our church? I mean, if they’d like to come.”
“Oh, sure,” insisted Tupper. “Have you noticed what it says on the sign out front? You haven’t? Nobody reads that sign.”
Matt Stuckey, the church’s popular youth director, knew the answer and called out from a middle pew, “ALL ARE WELCOME HERE,” he said, “— STILL.”
Tupper nodded. “ALL ARE WELCOME HERE — STILL.”
The elderly woman nodded. “Still,” she said, taking it in. “Yes,” she said. “Still.”
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