I can’t stop seeing the parallels: 52% of voters in Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, surfacing the deep unrest about politics and economics and threatening the fragile union that holds Europe together financially.
Trump/Sanders, one not a Republican but running on the Republican ticket, one not a Democrat, but refusing to cede that he is not the Democratic candidate for POTUS, have surfaced the political and economic discontent in the US, threatening the fragile union that is the US.
And now, at least one Annual Conference in the UMC has stated that they will no longer honor exclusionary parts of the Book of Discipline, with several more to follow. They surfaced with finality the deep unrest and impassible divide over sexuality and biblical interpretation which has long threatened the fragile union that is the UMC.
Chaos is going to be the inevitable result of all these actions. I don’t like chaos–I’m a “let’s keep our lives in order” person.
But from chaos emerges new ideas, new forms, new hopes . . . and also from chaos, many will be hurt, even totally devastated.
The US political establishment will never be the same after this–there is no way to try to do another “oh yes, we blew it in 2012 but we’re not really going to change anything” for the Republicans, or a “Let’s just keep the same old message and stick with the dynasty” that seems to rule the Democratic party.
God only knows what will happen in Great Britain, but financial chaos has already begun, and there will be floods of unintended consequences of this isolationist decision.
As for the UMC . . . I personally have known from the 2012 GC that we have no choice but to blow up the current structure and start over but had hoped that this could be done in a reasonable, thoughtful manner.
My two weeks covering the 2016 General Conference as part of the United Methodist Reporter team, disabused me of that notion. The polished politics behind the far right movement demonstrated decisively that they are essentially the puppet of the Institute of Religion and Democracy, run by ex-CIO operative Mark Tooley. They work from a “take no prisoners” philosophy. If not stopped, the mainstream US church, which funds 99% of the world-wide budget, will have no say how that budget will be used by the time it is set at the 2020 GC.
Those on the far left have, understandably, resorted to civil disobedience, much like the Democrats this week in the US House of Representatives over the US Congress refusal to pass even a minimal “let’s keep assault-style weapons out of the hands of suspected terrorists.”
We are irretrievably broken. My grief has been so overwhelming that I, personally, have been unable to write about it since I returned from Portland.
I love my adopted church, the UMC. I found its theology of grace so liberating–and so full of hope for both personal and societal holiness.
But it is time to say, “good-bye.” Let us see what arises from the ashes. The chaos will be painful–and may it also be creative.
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