A Cry for Leadership

“And [Philip] said, ‘Do you really understand the things you are reading?’ And [the Ethiopian Eunuch] said, ‘Unless someone will guide me, how indeed could I?’” — Acts 8:30–31a*

We had no guide, no interpreters from our leadership this General Conference. The Bishops had, as a body, largely endorsed the One Church Plan and yet if you didn’t know this going into the conference, you wouldn’t know this. There was no point during the weekend when the Bishops reminded everyone of their decision, their stance; rather the Council of Bishops sat by as the body continued in the trend we’ve been continuing in for years of tearing ourselves apart amidst the violence of babel.

In lieu of a stance what was offered instead was an entire day of prayer, something which should be commendable, prayer after all isn’t a bad thing, and yet the prayers and worship we engaged in felt directionless. Felt disordered. It was not well-directed.

The day was one of uninterpreted bible passages, such as when one of the bishops read from the gospel of Luke saying; “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, ESV) But what is the cross being referred to? For some in the room it was the denial of one’s sexual or gender identity, for others it was the pride of the room, for others still it was the desire of conflict. Which was it? The answer can, of course, be complex and multifold, but if left uninterpreted it only gives each perspective language about what the other perspective needs to give up.

The day of prayer was aimed towards some vague notion of unity as though it hoped that simply saying the word over and over again and praying for it over all else would get us to commit to it, we had one moment that felt akin to a reminder when Bishop Kenneth Carter offered his why for unity when he claimed, our “unity is for the sake of the mission.”

But what is the mission? To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world? Okay, but what does that mean? As we look at the church around us it doesn’t look all that different from the rest of the world. We can’t even decide what our mission statement means. What is a disciple? What does transformation mean? Who even is Jesus Christ and what was his purpose for coming? What is his character? What is his mission? We have principalities such as the General Board of Church and Society who seek to remind us that the gospel and our mission is social in nature, and then there are other principalities such as the Institute of Religion and Democracy led by the pitiably possessed Mark Tooley (who I would call I snake if I thought it fair to snakes) that claims that the “social gospel” and LGBTQ+ inclusion itself is too rooted in Marxism and should be eradicated from our churches with no room for compromise.

Which is correct? What is our mission?

If we ask our Council of Bishops it would seem there is no answer beyond “unity”.

We don’t know how to engage in Holy Conferencing. People would look at fellow blog contributor Ethan and myself strangely when, at conference, we admitted we wished we hadn’t spent an entire day in prayer but we are in agreement that the conferencing itself is or at least should be a form of prayer. Conflict can be good and holy, when the Holy Spirit is given room to live and move and speak, but from the moment the votes on the Traditionalist Plan initially first came in to when they were taken in the final vote there was next to no change. Despite the numerous speeches and appeals to conscience and justice, there was no change from one side of the position or the other. There was no room for the Spirit because everyone on the floor seemed to have made up their minds three years ago at the conference in Portland.

“And they would heal My people’s wound easily saying, ‘All is well, all is well,’ but it is not well.” — Jeremiah 8:14*

We are not well as a “United” Methodist Church because we are not united. Babel is too prevalent in the principality. The principality of the United Methodist Church seems too preoccupied in its own survival. My fear of our desire to preserve the institution and not the work of the Kingdom was realized, we approved pensions first. The thing that was evidently The Most Important Thing to vote on, according to priority reports, was pensions, and yet we had next-to-no discussions on this Most Important Thing.

Yet this was all we managed for two entire days. A day of aimless prayer and worship and a day of presenting reports that should have already been made known to all the delegates, and then the decision that the Most Important Thing was not worth discussing, it was merely worth preserving.

Clarity and Position

I did the, perhaps unwise thing, of sending a letter to my bishop the other day in response to the conference in St Louis and in hope that he might break the trend of silence we saw from the Council of Bishops. In it I lamented in a manner similar to this blog post (albeit less inflammatory) and I asked him for some stance as any stance, even one I might disagree with is better than saying nothing. The day of prayer, if the Council of Bishops had had their way, would have never once addressed the reason we were there, never would have acknowledged the LGBTQ+ United Methodists present in the arena despite the flags and clear presence among the observers and delegates; the only reason there was a moment of recognition was because a group of delegates took the floor and refused to move until a prayer was offered in recognition of their presence and the reason we’d convened in the first place.

We have factions and lesser principalities within the United Methodist Church who are diametrically opposed. Who can not and will not agree. When we have principalities like the Institute of Religion and Democracy, the Confessing Movement, or the Wesleyan Covenant Association who have settled on a stance of “no compromise” then we seem to have lost our chance at bridge building. We have lost our chance at unity for unity’s sake. And in a few months when the Judicial Council rules all but the pension vote unconstitutional, it would appear the principality at least is okay with it, the principality at least is protected.

We need to acknowledge our failings. We need to repent at an institutional level. Repent that we have allowed allegiances to lesser principalities outweigh our devotion to Christ and each other. We need to admit where we’ve gone wrong and why it is that we’re more interested in preserving our treasures on earth than our treasures in the Kingdom of God.

We need to remind the principality that it too is mortal.

Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will. We have broken your law. We have rebelled against your love. We have not loved our neighbors. And we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive us we pray. Free us for joyful obedience. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

*Unless otherwise noted all scripture is quoted from David Bentley Hart’s New Testament or Robert Atler’s Hebrew Bible.

• Atler, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, vs 1–3. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2018.
• Hart, David Bentley. The New Testament: A Translation. New York: Yale University Press, 2017.