The Methodists made some big changes this week, eliminating a whole host of anti-LGBTQ church policies. I went to a UMC seminary and know a bunch of Methodist clergy, so I have a working knowledge of how that denomination operates, and I know what an enormous deal this is. The changes remove harmful language, add protections for gender identity and sexual orientation, eliminate a ban on queer clergy, and remove mandatory penalties for clergy officiating at same-gender weddings. The General Conference also voted to regionalize the denomination, meaning that different areas of the world can institute polity and policy that align with their cultural realities instead of forcing everyone around the globe to abide by one set of rules. From what I can tell, every one of those changes passed easily and smoothly (after, that is, five+ years of chaos, decades of queer organizing, a quarter of American UMC congregations leaving and huge committees working diligently for years to craft each change). If you’re Methodist, it is indeed a Very Big Deal.
I went to a Methodist seminary and I know (and love!) a bunch of Methodist clergy. But I’m not Methodist. And while I’m celebrating with my friends and colleagues in the sense of “rejoicing with those who rejoice,” while I recognize the immense reach of the UMC and the huge relief and openness this will bring to so many corners of church life, I confess that I do not actually feel much personal celebration or hopefulness.
The Church of the Brethren, my own denomination that “suspended” my ordination last summer after I officiated a same-gender wedding, is a long way from the UMC, in both politics and polity.
The UMC has the Book of Discipline, an entire codex of church law that governs their denominational life together. Their polity is clear and rigorous and Methodist seminarians take courses on it before they’re awarded degrees. The Church of the Brethren has an amalgamation of polity documents that contradict and overlap, each one created by a different set of people, all of them subject to the interpretation of whoever is present in a room at any given moment.
The UMC has an entire system of “chargeable offenses” literally holding TRIALS for people who violate any of its the Book of Discipline’s tenets. The Church of the Brethren has zero clear or standard system of accountability for anyone, at any level of the church.
The UMC has massive cohorts of invested people organizing systematically toward change; the Church of the Brethren is so fractured and chaotic that it is nearly impossible to know where to aim such an effort.
All of that is to say: I have very little expectation that anything similar to what’s happened this week in the UMC will ever take place in my own denomination. We’re not organized in a way that legislative victories make much of a difference, anyway - there is no penalty for individuals, congregations or districts who violate CoB polity, unless, of course, you find yourself on the wrong side of the people who happen to be in power.
There are more optimistic ways of framing this: the CoB is built on relationships, not rules. Our institution has grown in ways that ostensibly value people over polity. A lot of the early choices of denominational builders were meant to be explicitly UNLIKE the rest of mainstream Christianity, and so the differences are intentional and meaningful.
And all of that would be just great if it weren’t for the annoying reality of power and the way that people tend to wield it to maintain status quo and ignore the rights and well-being of minority groups.
And, look: I’m not just a disaffected, defrocked former clergy person. I spent several years researching and celebrating ordination in the denomination. I WROTE the polity document that was used to “suspend” my own ordination (which is not, by the way, an action outlined as an option in that document for a case such as mine…).
Church of the Brethren polity is chaotic, confusing, self-contradictory, hard to follow and even harder to enforce. It is MADE UP, and applied at the whim of the people who happen to be in charge of any given room where it’s being applied. And do you know how I know that? BECAUSE I MADE SOME OF IT UP. And I’ve been in plenty of rooms where people chose whether or not they felt like following it.
I’m happy for my UMC friends and colleagues. I wish I could celebrate in the same way that they are, right now. I wish that there was a clear, goal-driven avenue for making real, lasting legislative change toward openness and inclusion in my own context. But I’m genuinely distressed to say that I don’t believe there is one, and I’m honestly pretty skeptical of legislative change on the whole.
So what’s left? Integrity, I suppose. Living in accord with the deepest convictions gifted to me by the very church that refuses to acknowledge them. And relationships. People. Working to continue loving and supporting all those precious, beloved people who will continue to be hurt, abused and ground down by the deeply dysfunctional systems we create and maintain.
The UMC needs to hold people over polity, too! Thank you always for the corrective reminder that church structure is Made Up. Doesn’t make it less helpful or harmful in any given moment…and my United Methodist heart (and legislating-for-10-hours-a-day-for-the-past-two-weeks body) thinks it’s got a value…but we’re Making It Up! Literally!
I saw that news as well. I have a friend who is a progressive United Methodist pastor and she has posted frustrations over the years. I am sure this move pleases her. I wish the COB could move forward like this. But I hear your discouraged view.