A Mainstream Denomination's Struggle For Inclusiveness

In many respects, the United Methodist Church’s internal debates about gays and lesbians reflects uncannily the shape and scope of American society’s own ambivalence about homosexuality and about homosexuals in general. For Methodism’s mission, this is not a good thing. It is difficult to be an effective witness to God in God’s world when one is too much a part of, rather than a solution to, the world’s problems. Even so, it is precisely because the United Methodist Church mirrors so clearly our society’s current struggles with so many important issues affecting the human future that its in-house rhetoric and actions are worth a second look outside as well as inside Methodism.

This summer, the Annual Conferences of the denomination will be voting on a constitutional amendment approved by its General Conference a year ago whose subject is, among other things, inclusiveness. One behind the scenes issue the amendment addresses is whether pastors can refuse to accept a person for membership in a congregation on the basis of that person’s being gay. It is a worthy attempt to fix a problem created earlier by the denomination’s Judicial Council, some of whose members had to have been somnambulant when they interpreted the church’s constitution as giving pastors this right.

Basically, the amendment takes away this so-called right. But its language goes far beyond merely prohibiting the exclusion of people on the basis of their sexual orientation. It purports more fundamentally, and eloquently, to acknowledge that “all persons are of sacred worth and that we are in ministry to all.” Then it goes on to say that all persons shall be eligible to attend worship services, participate in programs, receive the sacraments, and be admitted to membership. The amendment clearly envisions an open and welcoming church, in the light of a theology that emphasizes the wideness and grandeur of God’s mercy. And this is a good thing. There are too many forces at work in more than just Christianity today trying desperately to shrink God and God’s grace down to their own pitiful measure.

Unhappily, it is the behind the scenes issues that are making controversial a declaration that on its own merits should be evoking unanimous shouts of “Sophia” from everyone who will be voting on it. Besides those previously mentioned, another has to do with the exercise of “spiritual discretion” in determining peoples’ “readiness” for church membership. Taking this out of the hands of pastors, the argument goes, will lead to an anything-walks-through-this-joint pattern of congregational life at precisely the time when high expectation churches are supposedly growing and low expectation ones are not. But this amendment in no way implies an abrogation of pastors’ responsibility to help people discern their calling to Christian discipleship. It only insists that the judgment of a person’s “readiness” for church membership cannot be on the basis of race, economic status, gender, or sexual orientation. Unrepentant eco-terrorists, pedophiles, serial adulterers, drug-pushers, atheists, and blasphemers against the Holy Spirit can still be held for questioning, hopefully before and not after being received into membership.

A more serious issue, and one that I hope will be given even more attention on the far side of this amendment’s final ratification, has to do with the force that it will carry in relation to other parts of the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline. For instance, will it annul the current and near sacrosanct distinction between affirming homosexual persons as bearing the divine image and condemning their practices? I certainly hope so. There is no credible moral theology or philosophical theory of ethics that provides any warrant whatsoever for distinguishing personhood from acts in the way that this obfuscating distinction does. Condemning the latter amounts to condemning the former, and the proposed new statement on inclusiveness should bring about a timely end to both.

There are a lot of things that both homosexuals and heterosexuals do and can do that by any account renders them dubious representatives of the people of God about God’s mission in the world. But if I read the Decalogue and Jesus’ pithy summary of it correctly, having the former rather than the latter orientation is not one of them. If it is just the Decalogue that is taken into account, it would seem that we should be going after divorced persons long before we start messing with homosexual ones. But if we let Jesus into the picture, it would seem that we should be pulling in extra chairs around the Supper table so that members of both groups will be ensured a place. Come unto him, all ye that are heavy laden, and he will give all, and not just some, rest.