With less than a year to General Conference it appears none of the various plans proposed to break the deadlock over the decades long debate over homosexuality will garner the support necessary to definitively resolve the matter. Leaving another General Conference without resolving the question will deepen the distrust, discouragement, and disillusionment many United Methodists have for the church's leadership. And it will only compound the demographic crisis confronting a once strong and influential mainline Protestant church.
Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, many believed that the time, talent, and resources the church invested in revisiting its understanding of human sexuality and marriage were well worth the effort. People of good faith honestly disagreed over a matter the church needed to address. It was necessary for the church to give an authoritative teaching on a sensitive, but unavoidable question. The issue of the practice of homosexuality raised important questions about the church's understanding of human sexuality and its definition of marriage. Even more importantly, it touched upon the doctrines of Scripture and the transformational power of Christ's death and resurrection. After robust conversation, sincere dialogue, and fair debate, the church has repeatedly reaffirmed and refined its careful and thoughtful teaching on the matter that it hammered out over 40 years ago.
Now, the church has truly reached an impasse. People continue to call for dialogue and discernment, and people of good faith do continue to dialogue and discern, but in truth there is no notable progress towards a resolution that bridges the divide. If anything, after all the reading, research, and dialogue, people on both sides are more convinced in their interpretations, and therefore they are increasingly disinclined to believe there is a middle way.
True, there are proponents of plans like "A Third Way" or "A Way Forward," who think their proposals are ways to bridge the divide, but both have received strong and reasonable critiques from both the left and the right. Proponents of the plans find assurance in the critiques, mistakenly believing that if the left and the right are critical of their plans there must be serious merit to them. But this is to embrace the fallacy of the middle way, the belief that a proposal must be right if its two opposing extremes think it's wrong. As Asbury seminary professor Bill Arnold has persuasively argued, just because a plan is a middle way does not make it the right way; it's just another way.
So there is now a growing and sobering sense that after the debacle of GC2012, and all that has come after it, the church is reaching a breaking point. And yes, people have said that before other General Conferences, but the past four years have been unlike any other. The Western Jurisdiction declared its rejection of the church's teachings. Some clergy, across the connection in the U.S., openly broke their covenantal vows. Pro LGBTQI advocates have called on others to do the same. A retired bishop presided at a same-sex service over the objection of a colleague. In many instances, these acts of defiance have been met with little or no accountability. Or even worse, "just resolutions" have been reached that appear to intentionally mock the church's teachings. Finally, LGBTQI advocacy groups and their institutional allies have made it abundantly clear they will not relent in their divisive strategy of disregard for the church's teachings, the disruption of the business of its official bodies, and, if possible, the derailment of the work of General Conference.
Despite this very public strategy of disruption and division, most of our bishops have not found the fortitude to at least say the aforementioned strategy is disrespectful of our covenants, that it dishonors brothers and sisters across the connection who do abide by them, and finally, that it threatens the very unity of the church they claim to cherish and are charged to defend.
And oddly enough, despite all of this, some church leaders and proponents of "A Third Way" and "A Way Forward," claim conservatives and traditionalists are the ones threatening the unity of the church and even promoting separation or schism.
Given these circumstances, no one should be surprised if these same conservatives and traditionalists cease to support church elites who belittle their values. No one should be surprised if these same conservatives and traditionalists no longer support with their tithes and gifts a church bureaucracy that accuses them of fomenting division while winking at blantant violations. And no one should be surprised if these same conservatives and traditionalists begin to seriously explore other options. From their perspective, more of the same on the other side of GC2016 is a recipe for decline and dissolution. They long for a healthy and vibrant church fully focused on proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and serving the last, the least and the lost.
