What Does Church Unity Look Like?

I’m currently at the Virginia annual conference, the yearly gathering where United Methodist laity and clergy from Virginia come together to make decisions and renew our covenant with each other. Every year, the resolutions are probably my least favorite part of the time together. It might not seem like it because of how feisty I am when I’m typing words on a screen, but I actually hate conflict, at least in person. Sometimes I’ve actually had to leave the room during the resolutions. So today we took up a resolution on “church unity” and I thought oh boy, how is this going to go down?

In the Louisiana annual conference that I also attend, the way we often practice “church unity” is to immediately table any resolution that would make us discuss the things we disagree about. Someone tried to do that in Virginia today but the motion failed. The interesting thing about the resolution we voted on was that it seemed to be written in a way that sought to create the most consensus, i.e. it exhibited an actual desire for unity rather than using “unity” as a code-word for a particular political stance. Here’s the meat of it:

THEREFORE, be it resolved that the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church urges the 2019 General Conference to affirm unity in Christ in the
midst of our diversity, to challenge in love all that divides, and to offer to all people God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ that transforms the world. We urge and we pray that the 2019 General Conference will resist schism and express openness to diverse perspectives in matters of sexual identity and practice. We urge all faithful United Methodists to pray for a way forward that nurtures an inclusive, evangelical, and faithful
Church.

It doesn’t endorse any of the specific plans put forward for how the United Methodist Church should move forward. It just calls for openness to diverse perspectives and an inclusive, evangelical, and faithful church. To some people, this kind of approach is consensus-building; to others, it’s just toothless. I know there are many people on both sides of our civil war who think the words inclusive and evangelical are oxymoronic, but that basically describes the tension that I live in every day.

Interestingly, there was a motion to amend the resolution to give it language specifically endorsing the “One Church Model” as our way forward. This amendment did not pass. Two women spoke against it. One said that it would completely change the spirit of the resolution. Another said it would signify a lack of openness to the Holy Spirit to develop something completely new and different that we haven’t come up with yet. I voted against the amendment myself.

As I’ve shared on this blog before, I am not sentimental about the institution of the church. The anarchist in me likes the idea of blowing up the institution and starting over from scratch, even though I know that’s stupid and naive. But what I would say is that church unity insofar as it is a legitimate spiritual discipline does not have to do with institutional preservation. It has to do with charity, humility, and intentionality.

There are several reasons why it’s in my best interests for the United Methodist Church to stay together. A very basic one is that my campus ministry will experience a catastrophic loss of funding if it splits up. But in reality, we ought to be evolving into a locally-sourced, self-sustainable ministry anyway. I was very anxious about our funding for the first several years of my ministry but I’ve seen God come through for us so many times that I’ve been blessed with a strange, probably naive sense of peace about it.

If there’s one spiritually valid reason why I want United Methodism to stay together, it’s so that I’ll talk to and learn from conservatives rather than caricature them as the toxic Christianity that I’m not a part of. This doesn’t necessarily require a formal institution, but it does require some sort of covenantal intentionality. My spiritual life would be richer if I did a better job of building real, personal relationships with people who have different theological views than me. (Of course, it’s important to recognize that I have that luxury as a privileged cis-het white guy who doesn’t risk any personal safety to enter into these relationships.)

A second spiritually valid reason for United Methodism to stay together has to do with our public witness. If we split up, no matter how the conservatives spin it, what the world will say is that they couldn’t abide a church that accepts gay people. I’m not saying that we should make our decisions based upon what the world says about us, but there is a valid discernment to be made.

How many people will be lost to the gospel if conservative United Methodists decide they cannot be associated with a church where in some conferences and congregations, gay people can be married and ordained? How many people will be lost to the gospel if the threat of schism is leveraged to cajole General Conference delegates into adopting extra stringent disciplinary measures that will result in hundreds of public clergy trials that will accelerate the collapse of our institution as thousands of United Methodists on both sides decide they’re done with church? Why would there be an assumption that a zero tolerance policy will make progressive clergy afraid to risk jumping off the Titanic into the ocean as the Titanic takes in more and more water?

Is there a point at which it’s actually selfish to create stumbling blocks in the way of other peoples’ evangelism because of your personal sense of conscience and interpretation of scripture? I’m just saying that evangelism matters, and it’s a bullshit obfuscation to say homosexuality is “not the real issue” because our theology is “completely different.” I can’t speak for liberal mainliners, but I know a whole lot of post-evangelicals like me who became United Methodist clergy. I read and mostly agree with many of the same theologians as the conservative United Methodists who are moderate or even liberal in the spectrum of evangelicalism as a whole. If God hadn’t put lesbians in my life as spiritual mentors at a time when I was utterly broken, I would probably be on the other side of this issue because of the same sensibilities about worldly compromise, itching ears, etc, that were drilled into me by the same evangelical theology.

If maintaining uniformity on sexual ethics is important enough to risk the evangelism of millions of non-Christians in younger generations who have grown up thinking that the primary doctrine of Christianity is to be anti-gay, then taking a stance against the gays is on the same doctrinal level as justification by faith. All this is not to say that the way to evangelize the world is to adopt the world’s values. It’s simply to say that there is a valid evangelism question at play even for someone who is adamantly committed to a traditional sexuality.

In many ways, it would be a lot easier for me if I were only working with Christians who are queer-affirming. Part of me relishes the thought of a new Methodist denomination in which the South becomes one giant annual conference for all the scattered progressive islands in the sea of red states. Of course, if this happened, it would probably be a very crowded and impossibly competitive space in which to get appointments since I suspect that the percentage of clergy (60-40?) who lean progressive is the inverse of the percentage of our congregations (40-60?). All the covertly progressive young clergy currently “paying their dues” by serving rural parishes would be scrambling to jump on the new lifeboat.

Or maybe they wouldn’t. I’m not sure whether I would jump onto the progressive lifeboat if there was a split. Since I’m a college minister, I don’t anticipate people getting married in my congregation. I would certainly send my queer students who are called to ordination into a denomination where their identity wouldn’t interfere with God’s call. But I could continue to serve in a more stringently anti-gay Methodist denomination if it made practical missional sense for my context.

Bottom line is there are dumb, shallow reasons for church unity, but there are also spiritually valid and practical reasons. Ultimately, what should unify us is our lack of need to justify ourselves before God because of our trust in Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. So if doctrinal self-justification becomes the reason for our downfall, then we will deserve the damnation that follows. If we can somehow manage to stay in relationship and come up with a missionally practical and wise ecclesial solution, then that will be because our God is a God of miracles.

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