Where Was God?

The following sermon was preached at Covenant and Trinity United Methodist Churches in Gastonia, NC on the Sunday following the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. One year later, we are still being called to overcome evil with good.

Christmas is about children. 

Not just God’s gift born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, but the look of joy on children’s faces as they carefully hold a candle on Christmas Eve, set out cookies for Santa, and rip open a present on Christmas morning.  And yet, this Christmas, all of us can’t help but think about 20 little children who won’t be celebrating with their families this year.  We can see their faces, can’t we?  Emilie’s smile that could light up a room.  Ana who loved to listen to her daddy play jazz.  Dylan’s blue eyes and dimples.  Jack, whose first love was football and the New York Giants.  Jessica, who adored anything to do with horses.  Noah’s long eyelashes.  Allison, who liked to color.  Too many names.  Too many sweet and innocent faces.  Charlotte.  Daniel.  Olivia.  Josephine.  Madeleine.  Catherine.  Chase.  Jesse.  Grace.  Caroline.  Avielle.  James.  Benjamin.

Unlike any time I can remember since 9/11, a shadow has fallen over our country.  In between the laughter of parties and music of carols, there are tears as we try to watch or listen to the news.  What is it about Newtown that has affected us so deeply?  In the past year, there have been shootings at a mall, a temple, and a movie theater, not to mention all of the people who are killed every day in violent acts around the world.  I think it’s because in these little children’s faces, we see our own children.  We think about the kids we know in elementary school.  We think about the teachers we know who would do anything to protect the kids in their classes.  And deep down, we are left with an aching sense of injustice; that things should not be this way.  That Christmas should be filled with images of happy children, not tiny coffins.

Between the tears, that aching feeling leads to questions.  For anyone who’s suffered loss, you know what that feels like.  After you cry, you ask, “Why?”  You ask, “Where was God?”

The Sunday after the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary, residents of Newtown flocked to the churches and synagogues, just like people did after 9/11, asking those questions, trying to make sense of things, trying to hold on to something in the face of such unimaginable evil.  How can a God who is good and all-powerful allow evil to exist?  Theologians call that the question of “theodicy” – and for centuries, it has been the one question that has presented the most profound challenge not only to Christianity in particular, but to faith in God in general.  Where was God?  Why didn’t God do something to save those kids?

How do we answer that question?  On today of all days, how can we talk and sing about “peace on earth” when the world is anything but peaceful?  Can we say anything at all? 

When something terrible like this happens, you realize that – we are all theologians, not just pastors or seminary professors.  Do you have certain beliefs about God or ways of talking about God to others?  Well, then guess what?  You’re a theologian!  Now, unless you’re into starting your own religion, most of us don’t start from scratch with our understanding of God, do we?  No, much of what we believe has been handed down to us from our parents and our religious community.  For us Christians, what we believe about God comes from the experiences of people over hundreds of years written down in a book we call the Bible.  Still, the Bible can be dangerous in the hands of an individual, can’t it?  If you try hard enough, you can pretty much find a verse in the Bible that you can twist and use to say whatever it is you’re wanting to say.  That’s why we interpret the Bible using our own brain and life experience, but we also stand on the shoulders of wise women and men who have gone before us. 

It’s important that we do this: that we know what the Bible says and we know our own history and language about God, otherwise, in times of tragedy or disaster, we’ll end up borrowing somebody else’s theology.  And the truth is, there are some Christians out there who’ll get in front of a camera or start typing at their computer and say some very wrong, very unbiblical things about God.  We’ve got to be able to recognize those statements for what they are: bad theology.  Lies about God.  We’ve got to call it out when we hear it, in love of course, but otherwise, people might believe the terrible things people are saying about the God we know and love! 

Where was God?

The first lie is this: God wasn’t there at all.

Have you heard this lie?  Maybe you saw a popular post that got passed around on Facebook or saw a video of a politician turned TV commentator saying, basically, “God didn’t show up at Sandy Hook because ‘we kicked God out of public schools’.”  Brothers and sisters, that might make for a catchy one-liner, and I’m all for the religious freedom of all students being protected in our schools, but let’s think about what’s being said there!  Do we think that God’s presence is somehow dictated by something as trivial as whether or not teachers are allowed to start class with a prayer?  As the joke goes, as long as there are pop quizzes and tests and EOGs, there will always be prayers in schools!  Do we honestly think that we can kick out God?  Isn’t the whole message of Christmas that God shows up in the places we least expect – in the womb of a virgin girl, in a cattle trough?  This is the truth that the Bible teaches: God can be wherever God wants to be.  God doesn’t need our invitation or our permission to be anywhere.  What did the prophet Isaiah say the Christ child would be called?  “Emmanuel.”  God with us.  God with us sitting here this morning.  And God with every teacher and every child in Sandy Hook Elementary that day.  God is with us, whether we want him to be or not.

The second lie is even more sinister, though we hear it so often that it sounds true: That God was there, but that this was all part of God’s plan.

The worst version of this lie is put forward by the folks from Westboro Baptist Church, these are the people who protest the funerals of fallen soldiers and threatened to picket the funerals of the children who were killed in Newtown, saying that God killed them to judge America for its sins.  I’m sure that repulses us.  And it should.  These are people who are speaking in the name of our God and we should call this lie out for what it is: blasphemy.  But there is less offensive version that a lot of people say with good intentions: “everything happens for a reason.”  This is often said to make people feel better, I hear people say it all the time, “we’re not supposed to ask questions, we just accept that this was God’s will and one day it will all be explained to us!”  Do we really think that murdering innocent women and children could ever be God’s will?!  That line of thinking leads you to determinism, where we are all just a bunch of puppets and God is the puppet-master, directing our every thought and action.  The problem with determinism is this: if God is responsible for everything that happens, then God is also responsible for evil and sin.  Well, the Bible is clear on that point.  God is holy, God is light, God is love, and in him there is no darkness at all.  God cannot be the source of evil.  God is not some puppet-master, determining our every move.  God did not kill those children as some sort of twisted way to punish the rest of us. 

But then, we’re still left with the question: Where was God?  If God didn’t abandon us, if God didn’t cause this, then why didn’t he stop it from happening?

Are you listening?  Because here’s the biblical answer: God is always with us.  God did not want this to happen.  We did this.  The reality of evil in this world can be traced to our freedom.

God’s greatest gamble was creating us in his image, making us free – which, as Rick Warren has said in the past week, is both a blessing and a curse.  Because in order for us to be able to truly love, we have to have a choice, we have to be able to choose good over evil, to choose love over hate, peace over violence.  Unfortunately, history tells a long story of our choice of the latter option.  Every single evil act in the world can be traced back to the selfish choices of free beings, whether it’s us or Satan and his angels.  I’m not denying that mental illness may have been a factor, only that it is bound up together in a thousand other choices that ended up adding one more chapter in the long, dark history of the human race.

Sometimes, you have to wonder if God ever regrets his decision.  If God ever wishes he had made a bunch of robots that he could force to be good all the time.  In Genesis, you get a picture of that, of God looking at the world Noah lives in and feeling sorry that he ever made us.  Is our freedom worth all of the suffering in this world?  Is it worth the murder of even one child?

You know, today’s story is about Mary.

About a mother.  About a girl who had the freedom to say no, but who said “yes” to God even when she was probably scared out of her mind.  No wonder Elizabeth said, “Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women.”  She represents the good in all of us.  Our ability to choose love.  But do you know what?  Mary knows what it feels like to lose that same child of promise.  To see him murdered.  And so does God.   

Sometimes we forget that, I think.  That God knows what it feels like to lose a child, to feel the sting of tears and the heart break of loss.  God knows the cost of freedom better than any of us.  But listen…and I’ll tell you something true about God.  Some good theology!  God loves us in spite of ourselves.  God loves us with a never-ending love.  In spite of all that we have done, all our brokenness and bad choices, God refuses to give up on us.  God refuses to let evil and violence and murder have the final word.

Where is God?

In the darkness, there shines a light.  In the silence, there is a baby’s cry.  God is in Jesus.  And God is in us.  God is whispering to all his children, even as gunshots ring out overhead, “I will never leave you or forsake you.  Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you.  I am with you always, even until the end of the world.” 

You see, God is still at work in the world. 

God was at Sandy Hook Elementary.  God was in the teachers who stretched out their arms to protect the little students they loved so much.  God was in principal and school psychiatrist who ran out into the hallway without a thought for themselves in order to confront the danger. 

God is in the thousands of people across the country who are coming together, in the thousands of people who are flooding Newtown with love, prayers, and support, and in every family this Christmas that remembers to treasure each moment together.

And God is in heaven, where 20 little children were scooped up into the arms of Jesus and welcomed into the everlasting Kingdom. 

Yes, there is evil in the world.  God has not run from it.  God does not cause it.  But God does promise us this: that he will never leave us and that evil will not have the last word.  Like Mary, we are called to cooperate with God; to submit our freedom to his will for us, to choose love, to overcome evil with good, to let peace begin with me.

Amen.

Love Will Keep Us Together

Most of my family members identify as fundamentalist Christians and political conservatives. As my own religious and political views have evolved over the years, this has made for some lively conversations, especially around the holidays. Back in my college days, it seemed like these discussions regularly ended up in raised voices and ad hominem attacks. Maybe you can relate. Doesn’t everybody have that one annoying family member who always wants to argue? But as time has gone by, I think we’ve found that some of those old arguments have become a bit tired and worn out. After all, how many times can you argue about baptism or gun control? It’s almost as if, without us really knowing it was happening, our different opinions quietly faded into the background, leaving behind the thing that’s been there all along. It’s the thing that makes us a family in the first place. The thing that never goes away: love. And the truth is, when I look around at my family at Easter or Christmas dinner, I’m not thinking about the differences between our churches or the way we vote. I’m thinking: “This is my family. I love these people.”

As a United Methodist, I have a second family – my church. Methodism is my adopted home, a family of faith that took in an argumentative, restless kid with a bunch of questions. The thing that drew me to the Methodist Church, more than anything else, was its embodiment of the quote, “in big things, unity; in small things, diversity; in all things; charity [love]).” In a denomination that counts George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton as members, Methodists know how to agree to disagree. Your typical United Methodist congregation hosts a wide variety of spiritual refugees like myself – from Southern Baptists to religious skeptics, and everything in between. At our best, Methodists leave room for different opinions and focus on the big things we share: our faith in God (summed up in the Apostles’ Creed) and our mission to spread God’s love to the world.

But like all families, we’re not perfect; we still have our fights. And like a lot of other churches over the past few decades, our biggest fights are about human sexuality. Can LGBTQ folks be members of the church? What about in leadership positions? What about as pastors? Should people in loving, monogamous, same-sex relationships be able to get married in the church? Isn’t this about equality? What about what the Bible says? These are the kind of questions that get kicked around in local church Sunday school classes as well as at the United Methodist global conference that clarifies church doctrine and policy every 4 years. Too often, though, these conversations end up in raised voices and ad hominem attacks. Too often, we rally around artificial labels like “reconciling” and “confessing” and forget that we’re talking to and about people – other members of our family. After years of debate, culminating in the rise of the so-called "biblical obedience" movement and high-profile church trials, I have to wonder: aren’t some of these old arguments becoming a bit tired and worn out? Traditional Christian: “The Bible says homosexuality is a sin!” Progressive Christian: “Jesus says to not judge and to love everybody!”

What if, instead of repeating one-liners and looking to score political victories, we actually listened to each other? What if most traditional Methodists really do love and care about their LGBTQ friends and neighbors? What if most progressive Methodists really do love and care about the Bible? Could it be that we’ve forgotten the big things that unite us? Could it be that our real differences come down, not to faithfulness and love, but to interpretation and opinion? Could it be that we’ve not only forgotten how to agree to disagree – but that we’ve also forgotten about the one thing that makes us a family in the first place?

Amid growing calls for divorce, I refuse to choose sides in a Divided Methodist Church. We are a family. Gay and straight. Traditional and progressive. Hillary and Dubya. God is our Parent and we are all sisters and brothers. We need each other. In spite of all of our arguments in the past, my prayer is that one day soon, we’ll discover that all of our differences have quietly faded into the background, leaving behind the thing that’s been there all along. Then we’ll all be able to take a look around the Table and think to ourselves, “This is my family. I love these people.”

“Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.” – 1 John 4:7

Why I Am A Mainline Christian (And Not Some Other Kind)

Over the past month or so, there has been a flurry of blog posts and articles in response to Ross Douthat’s piece in the New York Times about Episcopalians and other mainline Protestants, that asks, “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” 

Once comfortably at the top of American society (the image of President Eisenhower laying the cornerstone for the National Council of Churches’ headquarters comes to mind), the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists are now a fraction of their former selves.  And while it is true that nearly all churches are in decline these days – including Baptists and Catholics - questions about the future are most pressing for the liberal churches, some of which may literally be facing extinction within a generation.

All kinds of theories have been thrown around over the years to explain this decline, from low birth rates to liberal theology to a post denominational age.  But there is certainly something to Douthat’s suggestion that there are few differences between liberal Christianity and plain old secular liberalism these days - leading many to ask, “why bother going to church at all?”  After decades of pushing for social justice in society – many times being ahead of the curve on things like de-segregation and women’s rights – a lot of liberal Protestants stopped talking about God in any particularly Christian way altogether.  Some even openly advocated abandoning core Christian doctrines like the resurrection.  Now, with fewer distinguishing features and dwindling ranks in the pews, it is more likely that people will listen to liberal NGOs like Amnesty than to liberal churches like the Episcopalians when it comes to matters of social justice. 

Douthat puts the challenge facing mainline Protestants this way:

Today...the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world. Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.

The time has come for mainline or “liberal” Protestants to rediscover their Christian voice in American society.  David Hollinger, a history professor at Berkeley, calls for a resurrection of Harry Fosdick’s old challenge: “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”  Even Douthat admits that "the defining idea of liberal Christianity — that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion — has been an immensely positive force in our national life."

Mainline Protestants should be standing in the gap between religious fundamentalists on the one hand and atheism on the other, offering a third way to a disaffected generation of Americans who maintain Protestant values but have abandoned the institutional Church.

Why bother with the Church anymore?  As a young pastor in the mainline, I keep going to church for the same reason any Christian does: to hear and see once more the good news of God’s love and grace.  The good news that God has graciously refused to give up on us by sending us Jesus to show us the way toward peace and hope and eternal life, and by stirring within us as a community of ordinary folks trying to live out what the gracious love of God looks like in our world today.  I keep going to church because I find there the words and the way of life and hope in a world of death and despair.

As a mainline Christian, I am set apart from my atheist and secular friends by this faith in God – Father, Son, and Spirit.  But I am also set apart from fundamentalist Christians in some important ways I live out my faith. 

In other words, why do I bother going to a mainline Protestant church and not some other kind of Christian church?  What makes mainline Christianity worth saving?

Because we believe in God’s love and grace, ours is an ecumenical faith, where we are proud of our distinctive heritage as Protestant Christians, but believe that God’s love and grace are bigger than the things that divide us.  We are all God’s children and so we work to be reconciled to all our sisters and brothers in the same way Jesus has reconciled us to God.  As John Wesley once said, “if your heart beats as my heart, give me your hand.”  That’s why we welcome everyone who loves Christ to celebrate the holy meal of Communion with us.  That’s why we work with other Christians, people of other faiths, and people of no faith in order to bring the world closer to God’s Kingdom of love, justice, and mercy for all.

Because we believe in God’s love and grace, ours is a reforming faith, keeping in mind that it’s the religious people in the Bible who often miss out on what God is doing in the world.  We recognize that God is bigger than our own limited ideas, that human selfishness often clouds our understanding of God, and that God’s gracious actions were recorded in the Bible by ordinary, imperfect people bound by their particular cultural contexts.  That’s why we welcome questions and try to keep an open mind, always ready to reform our beliefs and practices as we grow together in faith guided by God’s Spirit and the tools of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. 

Because we believe in God’s love and grace, ours is an inclusive faith, where in Christ, our differences are no longer seen as reasons to exclude or divide, but as reasons to celebrate the variety of gifts being brought to the whole.  That’s why you’ll find women and people of color serving at every level of leadership in our churches.  It’s also why we work hard to make sure that a diverse variety of people are included in our decision-making processes – instead of allowing power to remain consolidated in the hands of a small group of male clergy.  A commitment to diversity and inclusiveness requires that we do a lot of listening and that we sometimes agree to disagree.

Because we believe in God’s love and grace, ours is a socially active faith, not confined to the intellectual or personal realm, but deeply involved in the difficult and holy task of making God’s love and grace a reality in the world.  We believe the best way to make new followers of Jesus is not to merely talk about God’s love, but to show people what God’s love looks like.  Over the course of our history, we have founded some of the best schools, universities, hospitals, children’s and retirement homes, and humanitarian relief agencies in the country and the world.  Today, we are committed to working for the rights and dignity of all God’s children, until the Kingdom of God has come upon the earth. 

While certain evangelicals or Catholics may share one or more of these commitments, no other Christian tradition in America is as fully ecumenical, reforming, inclusive, and socially active.  With other mainline Protestants, I refuse to give up either on my Christian faith or my commitment to justice and mercy for all people.  We offer a third way for people tired of extremism on both sides, asking a new generation that has wandered far from church, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”

Agreeing to Disagree

A UMNS photo by Kathleen Barry

 

I am a United Methodist.  Thanks to nineteenth century circuit riders, the Methodists remain the most widespread church in America.  Along any given Main Street, you are more than likely to find a United Methodist Church.  Methodists have the highest favorability of any major religious group, and are known for our many soup kitchens, preschools, and other community programs.  As the home of George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Beyonce, we are also known for our "open minds, open hearts, and open doors."  We are a big tent church.  We know how to agree to disagree and focus on the important things that we hold in common.

Over the past couple weeks, the UMC held its General Conference in Tampa, Florida.  For all you non-Methodists, General Conference meets every four years and is the only body that can speak for the whole denomination.  Close to 1,000 delegates are elected from around the world to represent their annual conference (the Methodist equivalent to a diocese or presbytery).  Complicating this democratic process is the UMC's increasingly global makeup.  Although still the largest mainline Protestant church in America, church membership has continued its steady decline in the US to around 8 million.  Overseas, the UMC is booming, especially in Africa and the Philippines, now numbering roughly 4.4 million.  Since delegates are proportional to membership, every four years at General Conference, there are fewer representatives from Los Angeles and more from Lagos.

United Methodists went into this year's General Conference with high hopes.  Bishops and leading pastors touted a "Call to Action" that would streamline a bloated 1960's era bureaucracy in order to bring a united focus on building stronger congregations and reversing membership decline in the US.  For progressives, shifting public opinion in the US and votes to ordain gay clergy in other mainline churches seemed to provide momentum for changing the church's positions on sexuality. Add to the mix calls for a "set aside bishop" to lead the global church and elimination of so-called "guaranteed appointments" for ordained clergy, and General Conference 2012 promised to be one of the most important since the 1968 merger.

Church Structure

As General Conference got underway, the bishops and pastors of some of the largest churches made a big push for the Call to Action plan (to turn formerly independent agencies into committees under a central board focused on local church vitality).  Maybe they pushed too hard.  Judging from the flurry of tweets and blog posts, there was a general feeling that a few (mostly older, white men) were forcing this plan on the whole church through a rhetoric of fear.  Lines emerged between the "leaders" on one side and young people and caucuses representing women and minorities on the other.  In committee, the plan was chopped up and amended beyond recognition.  When no plan for restructuring got out of committee, the Call to Action folks swooped back in with a new compromise ("Plan UMC") that kept some of the agencies, but still made them accountable to a central body that would focus on local church vitality.  In spite of heated protest, the plan passed. 

Meanwhile:

• The longstanding practice of guaranteed appointments for ordained pastors was eliminated without discussion in favor of a process (with some checks and balances) for transitioning "ineffective" pastors out of ministry 
• A set aside bishop was voted down (there was some troubling anti-Catholic rhetoric here about a "Methodist pope") but delegates also declined to set term limits for bishops in favor of retaining the current ecumenical model of "once a bishop, always a bishop"

Then, on the last day of Conference, a requested ruling was handed down by the church's highest court: Plan UMC was unconstitutional!  The central governing board it would create took on authority that the denomination's constitution assigned to the bishops and the General Conference.  The Plan would require a 2/3 vote to amend the constitution and then must also be approved by 2/3 of the annual conferences.  A dramatic, last minute attempt to salvage something - anything! - of the original plan turned almost comical as weary delegates who were ready to go home began to lose patience with one another.  Opponents felt vindicated, with some even citing the Holy Spirit in the court's ruling.  Supporters felt defeated, helpless to change the status quo.  Both sides were left with very little change, but more than a little distrust of folks on the "other side."    

Sexuality (and other social issues)

A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey

Let's be honest, this is all most "outsiders" care about (including the New York Times, USA Today, and the Huffington Post).  After passing a resolution calling for people to oppose Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, the Conference rejected a controversial move to divest its own pension funds from companies that benefit from the settlement construction.  Even for those who opposed divestment, there was a sense of just how silly it is for the UMC to make grand, sweeping statements about world political issues - and then refrain from "putting their money where their mouth is."

On the much watched issue of human sexuality, the conversation centered around a vote to change the church's law book that states: "the church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching."  Two amendments were put forward to "agree to disagree" on the issue.  The amendment introduced by Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter, pastors of two of the largest churches in the denomination would have read:

"Homosexuality continues to divide our society and the church. All in the United Methodist Church affirm that homosexual persons are people of sacred worth and are welcome in our churches, but we disagree as a people whether homosexual practice is contrary to the will of God.

The Bible is our primary text for discerning God's will. We read and interpret it by the light of the Spirit's witness, with the help of the thoughtful reflections of Christians throughout the centuries, and assisted by our understanding of history, culture, and science.

The majority view through the history of the church is that the scriptures teach that same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to the will of God. This view is rooted in several passages from both the Old and New Testaments.

A significant minority of our church views the scriptures that speak to same-sex intimacy as reflecting the understanding, values, historical circumstances and sexual ethics of the period in which the scriptures were written, and therefore believe these passages do not reflect the timeless will of God. They read the scriptures related to same-sex intimacy in the same way that they read the Bible's passages on polygamy, concubinage, slavery and the role of women in the church.

United Methodists will continue to struggle with this issue in the years ahead as a growing number of young adults identify with what is today the minority view. The majority view of the General Conference, and thus the official position of the church, continues to hold that same-sex intimacy is not God's will. We recognize, however, that many faithful United Methodists disagree with this view.

It is likely that this issue will continue to be a source of conflict within the church. We have a choice: We can divide, or we can commit to disagree with compassion, grace, and love, while continuing to seek to understand the concerns of the other. Given these options, schism or respectful co-existence, we choose the latter.

We commit to disagree with respect and love, we commit to love all persons and, above all, we pledge to seek God's will. With regard to homosexuality, as with so many other issues, United Methodists adopt the attitude of John Wesley who one said, "Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may."

Both amendments were voted down by a loose coalition of conservatives in Africa and the US South in favor of retaining the church's present language.  In the process, one African delegate compared same sex intimacy to bestiality.  Following the vote, protesters with rainbow stoles marched to the front of the room singing songs and celebrating Communion until the Conference was unable to continue its afternoon session.  After meeting with the bishops, one report suggested that the protesters agreed to stand down if all other legislation related to homosexuality and abortion were moved to the end of the agenda.  Given the chaotic debate that ensued once Plan UMC was ruled unconstitutional, petitions related to changing the church's position against ordaining gay clergy, same-sex marriage, church membership, and removing the UMC from the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice - were never addressed.

In other news, delegates:

• Approved full communion with five historically black Methodist denominations in the USA
• Urged the US Congress to support the DREAM act, offering a path to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants who serve in the military or go to college
• Voted to remove funding from pro-choice advocacy groups that go against the church's position on abortion (this could include the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice, although the UMC would retain membership)
• In a service of repentance, acknowledged the participation of Methodists in sins against the indigenous people of North America
• Approved more money for training clergy outside the US and for recruiting more young clergy in the US
• Separated United Methodist Women from Global Ministries agency
• Lumped ecumenical agency into Council of Bishops
• Reduced agency boards by about half

My Thoughts

I love my church.  I love it so much that I sat there like a dork in front of a live feed on my laptop or on my cell phone and watched people talk about budgets and "amendments to the amendment."  I want to see us fulfill our mission to introduce more people to the life changing message of Jesus and transform the world together.  But for me, General Conference 2012 betrayed the best parts of who we are as United Methodists - that we are a big tent, we agree to disagree, we focus on the important things.  At this General Conference, our divisions were on display like never before.

Instead of acknowledging together that our structure is broken and outdated, we turned it into an argument about our differences: insider vs. outsider, old vs. young, white vs. people of color, men vs. women.  Even the conversations around bishops and guaranteed appointment revealed a deep lack of trust between bishops and pastors and congregations.  The sad thing is that most United Methodists don't care what happens at General Conference.  And that's kind of the point.  We had a chance to overcome that disconnect, to cast a vision that would inspire and unite us all, and we totally dropped the ball (even if Judicial Council hadn't ruled it unconstitutional!).

Instead of acknowledging the truth that we are a church divided on issues surrounding sexuality but united in our love for God and for each other, we dug in our heels in predictable ways.  Conservatives rejected an amendment that would have simply acknowledged with refreshing honesty and humility what is already going on in most local United Methodist churches (including mine).  Liberals retreated to arguments about "exclusion" - as if Christians who prayerfully uphold traditional interpretations of Scripture and sexual ethics don't ever love and welcome LGBTQ sisters and brothers who might disagree with them.  "Why can't we agree to disagree?" the protesters asked, even as they pressed to keep the Conference from voting on the UMC's membership in an organization that does not represent many of their fellow Methodists' views on abortion.

But in spite of our differences, I agree with my friend (and western NC young clergy delegate!) Jeremy Troxler, who wrote,

"I am more convinced than ever that positive renewal in our church will not come through formal bodies, although they may perhaps empower this work.  It will come wherever one, or two, or three people take ownership for the church, realize that THEY are the UMC, and serve God together with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength."

I am a United Methodist.  I love my church.  As mainline churches continue their drift to the left and evangelicals and the Catholic bishops double down on the right, United Methodism has the unique potential to stand in the middle and focus on the big things that bring us together in spite of our differences.  As Paul wrote to the Ephesians so long ago, "Christ is our peace.  He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group.  With his body, he broke down the barrier of hostility that divided us...He reconciled both sides as one body to God by the cross, which ended the hostility to God.  We both have access to the Father through Christ by the one Spirit" (Ephesians 2).  And so, until 2016, can those of us who are United Methodist continue to agree to disagree?

"We have a choice: We can divide, or we can commit to disagree with compassion, grace, and love, while continuing to seek to understand the concerns of the other. Given these options, schism or respectful co-existence, we choose the latter.  We commit to disagree with respect and love, we commit to love all persons and, above all, we pledge to seek God's will.  United Methodists adopt the attitude of John Wesley who one said, "Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?"

Without a doubt, we may.

The "Shambles" of the Mainline

In his now notoriously controversial speech at Ave Maria University in 2008, Rick Santorum warned that Satan had attacked the mainline Protestant churches in America, leaving them "in shambles" and "gone from the world of Christianity."  Pundits and commentators on the 24 hour news cycles pounced, mocking Mr. Santorum's fiery religious rhetoric and questioning his electability.  But putting his laughable qualifications for judging who the "real Christians" are to the side (including President Obama's [mainline Protestant] "phony theology"), no one is really arguing whether or not the mainline churches are in shambles.  The decline of the mainline is just one part of a larger demographic shift that is reshaping American religion in a breathtakingly short period of time.  White Catholics are leaving their church in droves.  Evangelical growth is stalling.  And in what TIME magazine dubs the "rise of the nones," the fastest growing "religion" in every single state of the union is - no religion at all. 

And yet, this fascinating shift in the public life of our country is undeniably having the most dramatic and immediate effect on the old, historic Protestant churches dubbed by sociologists as "the mainline" (a term derived from the WASP stronghold along the Main Line railroad in Pennsylvania): the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, northern Baptists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and Disciples of Christ.  In the world my parents were born into, these churches still served as the flagship institutions of the nation's conscience and provided society with a common religious language and moral framework.  Fifty years ago, their combined membership numbered 30 million; today, they total around 20 million, losing a third of their members even as the country grew by 125 million!

Of course, 20 million people is still a lot of folks.  Larger than the New York City metropolitan area, for example.  And in religious identification surveys, the number of people who claim some kind of connection to these churches is much higher than their actual membership.  But beneath the surface, things are actually about to get much worse.  Here's why:

From Mainline to Oldline

Most people have some vague sense that there are a lot of Catholics in the Northeast, the Southern Baptists abound in the South, and the Mormons hang out in the mountain West.  While not dominant in one particular region, drive along any Main Street across the USA and you'll find the mainline churches.  Step inside one of these beautiful buildings on a Sunday morning, though, and you're likely to notice a couple things - a lot of empty pews, and even in the churches where the pews are packed, a lot of gray hair.  The average age of your typical mainline Protestant is so high, that some are beginning to refer to the "oldline."  In the country's largest mainline denomination, the United Methodist Church, the average age has risen to 57.  For years, struggling mainline churches have stayed afloat as fewer members increased their giving.  But in about a 15 years, as aging baby boomers lift the US death rate to its highest point since the advent of antibiotics, many of these older congregations will be effectively wiped out.  The Rev. Lovett Weems, who studies these depressing numbers, has coined the phrase "death tsunami" that has been floating around in mainline circles.  Sounds rosy, doesn't it?

The End of the Big Tent

Even more sadly, the mainline may end up self-imploding before the so-called death tsunami gets here.  For decades, mainline leadership in seminaries and church bureaucracies have trended left (theologically and politically) of most laypeople, leading to squabbles at denominational assemblies on everything from the authority of the Bible to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  But it is over issues related to sexuality that conservatives in the mainline have chosen to draw a line in the sand.  The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Presbyterian Church (USA) have each voted to ordain clergy in monogamous, lifelong homosexual relationships.  And in each church, disgruntled conservatives have walked out - forming the Anglican Church in North America (2009), the North American Lutheran Church (2010), and most recently, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (2012).  These splits have only served to hasten the mainline's decline as smaller and more liberal denominations risk being marginalized within their own larger Protestant traditions.

All eyes are now on the United Methodist Church, the last large mainline church that has managed to hold liberals and conservatives under one tent, claiming that all people have "sacred worth," but that "homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching."  With a growing proportion of its membership in Africa and Asia who hold to more traditional views on sexuality, this position seems unlikely to be repealed, putting progressives in the US in a unique position among their mainline peers.  Will they split the denomination by leaving as their conservative counterparts have done in the Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches?  For years, they have opted to stay, working together in a reconciling network of churches to change the official church policy from within.  But that may be about to change.  Hundreds of clergy have signed on to statements pledging to bless same sex unions in spite of the denomination's ban, effectively challenging the bishops to discipline them en masse.  In response, hundreds more clergy have called on the bishops to enforce the church's position, before the promised disobedience occurs.  All of this has the potential to come to a head at General Conference next month in Tampa, where lay and clergy delegates from around the world meet every four years to set church policy. 

A Vision for the Future

In spite of all the challenges and ridicule from presidential candidates, I am a proud mainline Protestant.  In a context where Christianity is too often defined in the public sphere by our noisy evangelical cousins, the moderate and sensible voice of the mainline is needed more now than ever.  As Frank Schaeffer points out in an excellent column, the mainline is missing a key opportunity to reach record numbers of disaffected young ex-Christians.  Given the present realities of demographics and broader cultural changes, it may also be our last opportunity.  I do not doubt that, even in the worst case scenario, individual former mainline congregations will survive in America.  But what would it take for the shambles of mainline Protestantism to not only survive, but to thrive?  As a young pastor in the mainline, I offer up two simple suggestions:

1. Remember Who You Are.  Too often, mainline Christians don't know what they believe.  They're nice people, but they are indistinguishable from the United Way or the Lion's Club.  We are well liked by the general population, but that doesn't mean they want to get up on a Sunday morning and spend an hour with us if what we believe makes little difference for their everyday life.  Furthermore, in mainline congregations that do have an identity, it either aligns more closely to the Democratic Party than to Christian tradition - or it is a lame attempt to copy the megachurch down the street.  Unlike many evangelical and nondenominational churches, who pay little attention to anything more than 10 years old, mainline Protestants have a deep well of tradition from which to draw.  As a former evangelical myself, I almost gave up on the church out of frustration.  It was only by the chance discovery of the writings of John Wesley in a dusty corner of my college library that I discovered the mainline Protestant tradition that manages to balance the head and the heart, scripture and sacrament, the personal and social dimensions of faith.  If a young recovering evangelical wanders into your church, will they find a thoughtful and engaged community of Christians or an apathetic chapter of the United Way?  Be proud of your liturgy!  Welcome a diversity of views!  Resurrect the ghosts of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and Wesley!  Don't just preach about social justice, show people what it looks like in your community!

2. Reject the Sin of Schism.  Much is being made in mainline churches over the practice of homosexuality.  Conservatives should recognize that the homosexuality described in the Bible bears little resemblance to the monogamous, faithful relationships advocated for in churches today.  Furthermore, the same kind of attention and lack of grace is rarely applied by conservatives toward heterosexual sins like sex before marriage, adultery, pornography, or serial divorce.  In fact, if God's best for human sexuality is indeed "one man and one woman within marriage for life," than a loving homosexual couple may approximate that standard much more closely than many of the aberrant heterosexual relationships in our churches.  Also, if the sole problem with homosexual relationships is that they lack the biological possibility to reproduce, then conservatives in the church must also be willing to reexamine the morality of heterosexual contraception with the specific intent of never having children.  On the liberal side, progressives should be willing to acknowledge that, as Christians and as Protestants, the Bible has primacy for our theology - and that (unlike debates over slavery or women in leadership) in every single biblical reference to homosexual practice, it is expressly forbidden.  Given the longstanding history of Christian interpretation on this subject, progressives should not be too quick to follow the shifting winds of culture and place more value on the latest episode of Glee than on the faithful interpretation of Scripture.  On both sides, there must be a commitment to stay in Christian community together, to do the difficult work of talking to each other, working together, and loving each other - even when we disagree - so that "the world might believe" in the One who calls us all children.  The sin of schism and the scandalous compromise of our witness to Christ's reconciling love is far more important than our disagreements over sexuality.  For United Methodists, Wesley has a good sermon on this.  But perhaps the infamous Saint Paul says it best,

"(Dear mainline Protestants,) I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God.  Conduct yourself with all humility, gentleness, and patience.  Accept each other with love, and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together.  You are one body and one spirit just as God also called you in one hope.  There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all who is over all, through all, and in all." (Ephesians 4.1-6)

If we will be faithful to that higher calling, to Jesus' prayer that we might be one, then we may indeed see the mainline rise from its shambles as a vibrant Christian movement in the United States once again.