Something New

So in case you've been diligently following this blog during General Conference, you've probably noticed that I haven't posted over the past couple days.  And I'll be honest, that was because I really had nothing to say.  And not in the "oh, nothing's happening so there's nothing to report".  On the contrary, much has happened over the past couple of days.  It's just that it has felt as if the General Conference process has pretty much sucked out my spirit and I am left speechless and voiceless.  As proof of how bad it's gotten, spontaneous singing—something that has accompanied or forecasted that a protest or demonstration is going to occur—makes me now feel extremely anxious and jumpy.  And if you know me at all, you know how much I love singing, so the fact that this is now my reality is just a little problematic.

But something beautiful also happened over the past couple of days.  Yesterday morning, after rumors of the Council of Bishops(COB)¹were meeting the previous evening to discuss how to move forward with a schism in the UMC were being spread via social media outlets, Bishop Bruce Ough—Minnesota-Dakotas Episcopal Area bishop and president of the COB—reported that the Council had in fact been meeting to discuss how to remain united rather than moving toward schism. In his statement, he confessed that the Council itself was not of one mind on the matter of human sexuality, but that they do desire to remain a united United Methodist Church.  The Council also said that since the role of bishops is merely to preside over the General Conference and not speak or vote on any matters, that  they trust and hope the General Conference to come up with a creative solution as to how to move forward.

Later that day, amidst members of the Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC), the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), and the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA)² singing "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds" around the bar³ of the conference, a delegate moved that the General  Conference request the Council to come up with a more concrete recommendation on a way forward. After debate, this motion passed, which essentially means that the General Conference asked the Council to actively lead rather than merely preside.  As far as anyone can tell, this is an unprecedented move in not only United Methodist history, but Methodist history overall.

So the bishops met yesterday afternoon to figure out a more concrete way forward, and Bishop Ough came back this morning with a new statement that laid forward a new plan.  The Council's statement can be read in full here, but here are the key points:

1. The Bishops reaffirmed their desire for the church to move towards unity rather than schism.
2. The Bishops recommended deferring all petitions relating to human sexuality, many of which were on the calendar for today, to a yet-to-be-formed human sexuality commission.

Then, the presiding bishop had the plenary engage in an intentional 30 minute prayer and dialogue amongst themselves around the table, in what many say would have been very similar to what Rule 44⁴ would have looked like in practice had we adopted it.  And I have to say, it was one of the first times I could actually feel the Holy Spirit moving during plenary while at General Conference.  After that period of time, the work began and boy let me tell you that it was a whirlwind of a day.  Someone moved that we adopt his interpretation of the recommendation, someone moved to amend the motion by substitution so that the General Conference would ultimately work on human sexuality petitions this time, there was much debate, the substitution motion failed, and we broke for lunch, and then we returned and had some more debate, a powerful statement of unity was read by the young delegates, another amendment was considered, the amendment failed, and then we voted on the motion and the motion failed, then a bishop was accused of improper presiding procedure and using fingers to tell delegates how to vote and was asked to leave the presiding chair (also an unprecedented move as far as I can tell), that bishop stayed in the chair, someone else moved that we simply affirm and act on the Council's recommendation, and THAT motion passed by a razor-thin margin of 428-405.  If you weren't paying close attention, it would have been easy to be lost and not know what was going on.  But what you need to know is that the Council of Bishops' statement has been affirmed and will be acted on.

So what does this all mean?  Again, I'm not a General Conference expert by any means, and if I've learned one thing it's that things at General Conference can change very quickly, but here's how I understand it.  First, we will not be discussing any human sexuality positions this General Conference, but instead will be referring them to this commission to work on them and come back with a recommendation either at a special called General Conference session or at the 2020 General Conference.  I've heard some say that this is just kicking the can down the road again and we're not actually getting anything done.  However, I have to disagree with that assessment.  For one, not acting on these human sexuality petitions means that additional harm will not be done to our LGBTQI brothers and sisters.  If General Conference was going to debate and vote on these petitions this year, it's likely that our stance would become more restrictive against the LGBTQI community.  Not only that, but debate on these petitions would have meant that the whole world would have to hear speeches in favor of keeping our current language in the Book of Discipline, and that would only cause more unnecessary harm to the LGBTQI community.

Furthermore, I don't think that this isn't just kicking the can down the road.  There's an intentionality behind this action that hasn't existed in the past.  As I understand it, we are committing to have this conversation in a way that is healthy and will hopefully allow the Spirit to work with us.  Moving forward, I am not afraid.  If Christ has conquered death, then Christ can work with the United Methodist Church.

Over the past couple of days, I've questioned some deeply held convictions, questioned what it is about the United Methodist Church that's worth saving, and questioned why I even want to continue my ministry with the United Methodist Church—often over the course of one hour!  There have been many times over the past couple of days when it seemed as if our mutually incompatible interpretations of a handful of verses of scripture would inevitably lead us to schism.  And I'm not going to lie, maybe that's what's going to happen.  But I'm thankful that we are going to exhaust all of our options before we consider separation.  The United Methodist Church needs marriage counseling before we can consider parting ways, and General Conference is not marriage counseling.  Perhaps this new thing is.

---

1 The United Methodist Council of Bishops is composed of all active and retired Bishops in the United Methodist Church.  In the UMC, bishops are elected to serve as spiritual and temporal leaders of the church and are assigned to serve an episcopal area, or Annual Conference, within the Jurisdiction they were elected in.  Bishops do not have voice or vote in the UMC on any legislative matters at any level of church governance.^↩
2 Three progressive United Methodist advocacy groups.^↩
3 That is, the boundary/barrier that marks off where the seated delegates sit and where observers sit.  Only voting delegates are allowed within the bar, and only those within the bar of the conference are allowed to speak and vote on any conference business^↩
4 A proposed rule for General Conference that would allow the General Conference to send a piece of legislation to be discussed amongst every delegate in small table conversations rather than sending it to a legislative committee.  Facilitators would be elected to lead this conversation and then create a report back to the General Conference based on what conversation occurred among the tables and recommend action on those petitions/resolutions.  After a lot of debate, the General Conference ultimately decided not to adopt that rule last week.  ^↩