Looking Forward, Looking Back

June is annual conference season, and many conference conversations this year, both formal and informal, address the work of the Commission on a Way Forward (COWF). After wrapping up its work this spring, the Commission submitted to the Council of Bishops three possible plans for addressing the place of gays and lesbians in the United Methodist Church (UMC).

The Bishops recommended what is called the One Church Model (a.k.a. the “local option.”) Under this plan all language relating to homosexuality would be removed from the UMC Book of Discipline, allowing conferences, pastors, and congregations to make decisions about the ordination or marriage of gays and lesbians that are consistent with their own context.

An alternate plan, the Multi-Branch One Church Model (a.k.a. the Connectional Conference Plan), would feature a unified core and three US jurisdictions with different theology and perspectives on ministry with LGBTQ persons – progressive, contextual, and traditional.

Finally, the Traditionalist Plan would retain all current prohibitions based on sexuality and strengthen accountability for those who defy church law on this issue.

I talked with a number of folks about the plans at the annual conferences I attended, including:

• A young couple who belong to the Wesleyan Covenant Association who insisted that neither of the One Church models would be acceptable because they would mean being in fellowship with those who are not obedient to scripture.
• A woman who wished there had been a clear progressive option that affirmed LGBTQ inclusion, since that omission has caused the One Church Model to be branded as such.
• A Circle of Grace conversation in which most members hope we can find a way to move past this conflict that consumes so much of the church’s time, energy, and resources.

As we consider the best way forward, it is instructive to look at our past. Interestingly, both of the One Church models, which seek to hold the UMC intact, mirror solutions to historic conflicts in American Methodism.

The One Church Model that would remove all restrictions is essentially how women gained full clergy rights in 1956, an issue that had dogged the church since 1888 when women first applied for ordination in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). The MEC granted them local ordination in 1924 so they could perform sacraments as missionaries and serve congregations during a shortage of male clergy following World War I. This arrangement resulted in a sliver of congregational polity within our connectional structure and left clergywoman with no guaranteed appointment and no representation at annual, jurisdictional, or general conferences.[1]

In the 1930s, the MEC was concerned with reunification with the MEC South, which was accomplished in a 1939 merger that also included the Methodist Protestant Church and formed the Methodist Church. Women continued to lobby for full clergy rights, and in 1956 the General Conference considered a petition to allow unmarried women and widows to apply for itinerancy, or the “traveling ministry.” Many resisted this move, fearing it would foist female clergy on unwilling congregations, an argument used today against ordaining gays and lesbians.

While debating the petition, one delegate proposed an amendment to strike the phrase “only unmarried women and widows may apply,” which was defeated. Later in the debate, an amendment to allow annual conferences to decide the matter was approved. The idea of local control was more persuasive than opening ministry to all women, although both amendments had the same effect.[2]

The Multi-Branch One Church Model would create three jurisdictions that cover the entire US, which is similar to the Methodist Church’s Central Jurisdiction that was formed in the 1939 merger. Whereas white Methodists were organized by region, the Central Jurisdiction included all black Methodists, regardless of geographic location. Many view this segregated structure as a shameful chapter in our history, but at the time, it was the only way the MEC South would agree to the merger. The concession they made was to allow African Americans to be part of the same church, rather than forcing them into a separate denomination.[3]

The Council of Bishops endorsed the One Church model, and many moderates and progressives favor it as well. Few like the idea of constituting yet another segregated structure, but that may be the best way to remain a single denomination.

I wish I could express more hope that one of these plans will succeed when General Conference meets in February 2019 to consider the issue of sexuality. Unfortunately, my conversations at annual conference and responses from conservatives lead me to believe that nothing will change, other than tightening the current language. This will most certainly lead to the exodus of progressives and possibly some moderates, a step that many had hoped the COWF could help to avert.

While US conservatives are increasingly out of step with the US mainstream and many evangelicals on this issue, the growing body of delegates from Africa allows them to defeat legislation that would loosen or remove restrictions, or even allow local decisions. Even if the Multi-Branch Model passes General Conference, two-thirds of annual conferences would need to approve the necessary constitutional amendments, and that is unlikely to happen.

Ironically, African conferences are free to set their own policy around cultural differences, yet it is their votes that are preventing the US from doing the same. My next post will look specifically at the complex relationship between African and US United Methodists and the implications for the future of the church.

[1] For a discussion of this action, see my book We Shall Not Be Moved: Methodists Debate Race, Gender, and Homosexuality (Wipf & Stock, 2014), pp. 66-77.

[2] Ibid., pp. 77-83.

[3] Ibid., pp. 39-45. See also Morris L. Davis’s “The Methodist Merger of 1939: ‘Successful’ Unification?” in Unity of the Church and Human Sexuality: Toward a Faithful United Methodist Witness (UMC General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, 2018), pp. 181-191.