The United Methodist Church I Hope to Serve
My hope is that the next United Methodism removes the language and policies that exclude, harm, or alienate LGBTQ persons.
What's Next for the United Methodist Church?
In the seven weeks since General Conference nearly every committed United Methodist has been asking, What’s next for the UMC?
A New United Methodism?
One conclusion that has consensus among compatibilists and, I think, most incompatibilists: our Church is broken, and we cannot continue as we are.
A Way Backwards: Winning the Battle, Losing the Church
I believe the coalition that leaders of the WCA put together has won a battle at General Conference and may well have lost the church.
A Speech Against …
These last few days the United Methodist Church’s General Conference met in St. Louis, Missouri. Our church is, like the US, made up of conservatives, centrists, and progressives. Part of our strength is that we live in this tension with passionate Christians in these various groups. The Bishops were charged with bringing forward a plan that would hold us together—conservatives, centrists, and progressives—on the issue of same-sex marriage. They appointed a commission who spent two years studying and bringing back a plan called the One Church Plan. It was approved by more than two-thirds of the bishops and recommended to General Conference. One of the conservative caucuses of the United Methodist Church, the Wesley Covenant Association, effectively defeated the bishops' recommended plan as a way forward for the United Methodist Church. In its place, they proposed an even more regressive plan that includes relieving gay and lesbian clergy and bishops of their positions, imposing penalties on bishops who do not enforce the Discipline, and on clergy who officiate at same-sex weddings, adding teeth to the current policies. I prepared these words as a “speech against” the Modified Traditional Plan. Bishops and delegates of General Conference, I rise to speak against the Traditional Plan that is before us. For those who are discouraged today, I want to offer a reminder of a gospel truth: God has a way of taking our disappointment, our defeats, and God redeems them when we put them in God’s hands. Because of that I feel hope today for the United Methodist Church believing, in the words of Paul, that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead will give life to this Christian body, the United Methodist Church. Last night I looked around my hotel and saw centrists and progressives, some of whom seldom talk, dreaming together about the future of the United Methodist, and there was a surprising amount of hope and excitement about the future. At this point I’m a bit unclear, however, what the WCA wants. For the last five years, the leaders of this movement have asked for an “amicable separation.” I thought you wanted to leave, but now it appears you want the rest of us to leave. Centrists and progressives never wanted a divorce. We were never looking for a gracious exit. We were looking for a little space. You wanted to leave because you were tired of fighting about this. But with this you’ve alienated not only the progressives but also the centrists. Will these churches protest less or more for LGBTQ persons in the future? Those proposing the Traditional Church Plan, you have inspired a lot of people to action at this GC! I’ve heard many tell us that this debate is about the authority of the Bible. I’d suggest the debate is not about the authority of the Bible, but about biblical interpretation. Paul says more about the role of women—women keeping silent in the church, women praying with their heads covered, women not teaching men, women submitting to men, women not wearing jewelry—than he says about same-sex acts. The WCA has said that they support the ordination of women. I’m grateful. But in doing so, you have set aside the clear teaching of Paul: women keep silent in the church. Yes, Paul allowed women to lead, but despite that, he clearly said they must not teach a man and must remain silent in the church. How did you come to set aside the clear teaching of Scripture? You interpreted the Scriptures in the light of their cultural setting and by reasoning theologically in the light of more important themes in Scripture. On this last Sunday, we began our deliberations, voting on our top priority. Do you remember what we voted for? It was not the Traditional Plan; it was our pensions. That was interesting given that Jesus said, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” and “Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor.” I’d like to invite all of you who want to read the Bible as if "God said it, I believe it, that settles it” to forfeit your pensions to cover the unfunded liabilities of our denomination. We can interpret Jesus’ words about riches and Paul’s words about women, but when Paul says that gay and lesbian people are unnatural and shameful, we must take these literally without understanding the cultural context. Who’s "picking and choosing" now? And actually, I don’t believe that you are picking and choosing; I believe you are interpreting the text, just as those who question Paul’s words about people involved in some form of same-sex acts. But back to the Traditional Plan: I’d like to ask those delegates who supported the One Church or Simple Plans, around the room, please stand. These brothers and sisters supported plans that said to conservatives, Africans, and Russians, “We love you and want you in our church and we’re willing to guarantee your rights to hold a more conservative interpretation of Scripture on marriage provided you give us a little latitude.” But in the Traditional Plan you’ve said to us and to our congregations, “Accept our interpretation, or leave.” Look around. Again, to those who are standing, it feels as if the Traditional Plan is saying, “Agree with us or leave.” But it is not only these delegates and their churches that feel alienated by this plan; there are thousands of our US churches who feel as they do. This includes many of our largest and most dynamic churches. In addition to the thousands of churches who feel they are being pushed out by a plan like this, there are an overwhelming number of young clergy and seminary students who favor fully including LGBTQ persons. Do you really want to tell them we don’t want them? Do you really want all of us to go? [You can be seated.] But it is not just many of the brightest and best young pastors we’re pushing away, it is your own children and grandchildren, yours and mine. Three out of four of millennials who live in the US support same-sex marriage and do not want to be a part of a church that makes their friends feel like second-class Christians. Many of you have children and grandchildren who cannot imagine that we’re voting this way today. They wonder, have these people lost their minds? For all of these reasons, I’m urging all of our delegates to say "no" to the Modified Traditional Plan. Please do not push our congregations, our young clergy, and our children and grandchildren out of the church we love. It is a plan that will hurt the people and sends the wrong message to our people. Please vote "no" on this plan. Thank you.
The Bible Says It … That Settles It
Beginning Saturday, February 23, the United Methodist Church is holding a special called session of its General Conference, the official decision-making body of the denomination. Eight hundred sixty-four delegates—half laity and half clergy—will join with the Council of Bishops to pray, discuss, and debate the question of how the United Methodist Church should move forward regarding its position on same-sex marriage in the hope of discerning God’s will for the denomination. Over the next few days I’ll be posting several short articles outlining my thoughts on the upcoming vote and why I support the One Church Plan recommended by a majority of our Council of Bishops. Here’s the order in which I anticipate publishing the posts this week: Living in the Tension: A Church of the Via Media – (click to read) The Bible Says It … That Settles It – today; see below “Do You See This Woman?” The Case for Allowing Same-Sex Marriage Where Do We Go From Here? Over the last six months I’ve received more than 400 e-mails from laity and clergy across Kansas and Nebraska. They wrote to share their views concerning same-sex marriage and urging the delegates to vote for one or the other plan being presented at General Conference this weekend. I read each one. An informal tally I did several weeks ago put the number of e-mail at 60 percent in favor of the One Church Plan and 40 percent in favor of the Traditional Plan. Most of the e-mails were gracious. A few were angry or uncharitable. Some were simply direct. I was grateful for each and the time each person put into sharing their views. Here’s an excerpt from one of the e-mails I received this last week, “What does the Bible say? (Old and New Testament) Remember your oath you took when ordained. You have to vote according to scripture … Please do not try to rewrite the Bible and say it is the best thing to do.” The writer of this e-mail, like many others supporting the Traditional Plan, was clear that if you value the Bible you will vote for the Traditional Plan. I’d like to preface the rest of my comments with a word about Scripture and its importance in my life. I believe that the Scriptures are our “primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine”; that “Scripture is primary,” that it “reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for our salvation,” and “containeth all things necessary to salvation.” And I affirm everything else the Book of Discipline says about Scripture in our Doctrinal Standards found in paragraph 104 and in the section on Scripture in paragraph 105. I’ve spent the last forty years studying the Scriptures. I begin every day reading the Bible. I spend time meditating upon its words. I work to memorize Scripture. I pray the Scriptures (I’m currently praying through the Psalms). I teach and preach the Scriptures, spend ten hours a week in in-depth study of Scripture, and, most importantly to me, I seek to live the Scriptures. I love the Bible. But because I love the Bible and have studied it daily most of my life, I also recognize how wonderfully complex the book is. While Paul teaches us that the Bible was inspired by God, the biblical authors were not mindless amanuenses, simply taking dictation. They were human beings, writing in particular times and places, and for particular purposes. We see their personalities in their writings. We recognize their differing writing styles and vocabularies. Their life experiences and their historical context shaped their faith, theology, and ethics. It is for these reasons that the biblical authors at times wrote things that today we rightly reject. We no longer believe it is permissible for one nation to kill every man, woman, and child of another nation; we call this genocide and consider it a war crime, though Israel was commanded to do this more than thirty times. We no longer beat our children with rods and if we observed this we would report the parent for child abuse, even though Proverbs repeatedly commends the practice. We no longer practice polygamy nor have concubines, though many of the Bible’s authors and heroes practiced polygamy and had concubines. We don’t believe that rebellious children should be put to death, nor that work on the Sabbath be a capital crime. We don’t believe women should keep silent in the church, nor do we require them to pray with their heads covered. And though the Bible introduced important regulations regarding slavery, it permitted slavery, including the beating of slaves, seeing the slave as the property of the master. And while the New Testament authors could have forbidden slave-holding among Christians, saving slaves centuries of human misery, they seem not to have imagined a world without slavery. The Bible does not work according to the, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it” formula. Instead, we must read its words in the light of their historical context, try to understand why the authors wrote what they wrote, and read its less humane verses (calls for vengeance, for example) in the light of its loftier verses (calls for love, mercy, and compassion). Most importantly as Christians, we are to read all of Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ, his life, teachings, ministry, death, and resurrection. He is the only unmitigated Word of God. I was teaching this at a conference several years ago and a clergy person raised his hand and said, “Well, it sounds like you’re just picking and choosing.” I asked him, “Do you have a pension fund?” He nodded yes. “A savings account?” Again, he nodded yes. I asked, “What part of Jesus words, ‘Don’t store up for yourself treasures on earth’ did you not understand?” Was he picking and choosing? Perhaps. Or perhaps he recognized that the world we live in today is different than the biblical world and that we need to take Jesus’ words seriously but not always literally. Which brings us to the question we’re debating this weekend at General Conference. As I see it, we’re ultimately asking if the five passages in the Bible that prohibit some form of same-sex acts express God’s heart and perspective on gay and lesbian people who desire to share their lives together in marriage, or rather, if they express the perspectives and reactions of ancient Israel and first century Paul? Are these passages among the less humane biblical passages, or the loftier? To put it as clearly as possible, drawing upon Romans and Leviticus, does God look at gay and lesbian people, and their desire for relationship, as degraded, unnatural, shameful, an abomination and, according to Leviticus 20:13, cause for them to be put to death? I love the Bible, and I read it, study it, pray it, and seek to live it. And just as I don’t believe that genocide, slavery, beating children with rods, and forcing women to remain silent in the church reflect God’s heart and character, neither do I believe that God sees the gay and lesbian people who attend the church I pastor, many of whom are married and raising children, who serve in ministry, seek to love God and to love their neighbor and reflect the fruit of the Spirit in their lives, as degraded, shameful, abominations, and certainly not worthy of death. The Bible says it, but I don’t believe that settles it. This is another reason why I support the One Church Plan.
Whole Foods, Cracker Barrel, and The United Methodist Church
Back in 2011 Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report described the political divide in our country in terms of Whole Foods Market and Cracker Barrel. Whole Foods Markets are small grocery stores offering organic, natural and fresh foods and high-end groceries. Their stores tend to be located in larger cities. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is a restaurant chain serving up hearty portions of home cooked foods (dumplings, meatloaf, and fried chicken)—with gift shops selling “Americana,” including a brisk business in rocking chairs. Cracker Barrels are often located in less densely populated areas along interstate highways. The chain was ranked the number one family restaurant in America in 2016. In 2012, Wasserman noted, President Obama won the presidency by winning 77% of the counties in America where there is at least one Whole Foods Market. In 2016 President Trump was elected by winning 76% of counties with at least one Cracker Barrel. Many have picked up on Wasserman’s shorthand for describing the divide in America. There are many criticisms that could be leveled against this way of characterizing, sifting and dividing America, not the least of which could be—depending upon who is doing the analyzing—a kind of snobbery or value judgment implicit in its use. Further, one would have to survey Cracker Barrel and Whole Foods customers to see whom they voted for. The presence of a store in a county does not tell us how that store’s customers vote. Many Cracker Barrel customers are travelers. But more to the point, Americans can’t be so easily divided. My county has both Whole Foods and Cracker Barrel stores, and I enjoy them both. The United Methodist Church is a great example of this wide diversity. A microcosm of the United States, we’ve got Whole Foods Market shoppers and Cracker Barrel fans. If the consumers at these two chains tend towards particular demographics, The United Methodist Church has a significant number of each demographic and most of our churches have both Cracker Barrel Christians and Whole Foods Christians. United Methodists differ on how they think about some social issues, and about how they interpret Scripture regarding same-gender relationships, but they tend to share far more in common when it comes to their faith, than what divides them. They trust that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are passionate followers of Jesus Christ whom they claim as both Savior and Lord. They believe in, and seek to have, hearts that are strangely warmed by the Spirit’s fire. They love the Bible, but eschew a blind adherence to biblical literalism. They love to dig into the scriptures and to wrestle at times with the text seeking to hear God speak through it, while embracing the insights of scholars. Grace is a big deal to United Methodists. They know they are not saved by good works. Yet they also believe they are saved for good works. And while they understand that Calvin had some important insights, they are not fond of the idea that God predestines some to heaven and others to hell, nor the idea that the evil and suffering we see in the world is the will of God. Methodists believe that science and Christianity are compatible. They are evangelical, borne out of the 18th century evangelical revival that John Wesley led, and they long to share their faith with others, but they tend to be more comfortable showing their faith by their compassion and kindness rather than by passing out gospel tracts. They are people of a “both/and” rather than “either/or” faith. They’ve found ways to love one another and to accept that people of faith might read and interpret Scripture differently and still be in the same Sunday school class. They are people with a “catholic spirit,” people who, even if they’ve never heard the term, tend towards the via media—the middle way. Every United Methodist knows Christian friends who are more conservative than they are, and some who are more “liberal” than they are. They tend to be liberal conservatives or conservative liberals. Don’t confuse their ability to listen to, appreciate, and learn from those with whom they disagree as believing that “it doesn’t matter what you believe.” Methodists share a common set of convictions around the essentials of the faith—they sing of them in their hymns, recite them using the Creeds, and preach and teach them from the pulpit and in their small groups and Sunday school classes. We’ve got conservatives and liberals who share the convictions and practices I’ve just described. Like America itself, Methodism has a lot of folks who love Cracker Barrel, savoring its home cooking and slice of Americana. And at the same time, we have plenty of folks who love roaming the aisles of a Whole Foods market shopping for natural, organic, and fresh foods that are healthy and sourced in socially conscious ways. In other words, a large number of United Methodists love both country fried steak and kale, cherry cobbler and Camembert cheese. As our nation is increasingly polarized, it needs models of leadership and communities where Cracker-Barrel-ists and Whole Food Market-ites live together focusing more on what they share in common than what divides them. That’s what the average United Methodist Church demonstrates, and what we as a denomination might model for our nation and the world.
A Hopeful Path Forward? – Part Three
Today’s post is Part Three in a series. You can read Part One here and Part Two here. This was a remarkable week at the United Methodist Church’s General Conference. It was clear as the delegates gathered in Portland that the debate about human sexuality was likely to consume a tremendous amount of time and energy. There were at least 56 petitions and pieces of legislation submitted by conservatives, progressives and moderates addressing same-gender marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian people. Protests were planned by progressive groups. Some conservatives were preparing to call for the division of the denomination. On Tuesday of this week, the day before the human sexuality petitions were to be addressed before the delegates, a motion was made and approved by the delegates asking for the Council of Bishops to assert leadership on this issue. The motion passed with a strong majority. This was an historic event; it was the first time in the history of Methodism that a General Conference had made such a request of the Council of Bishops. The bishops accepted the challenge and mandate and had two special meetings. On Wednesday morning they brought forward to the body a response with specific recommendations. This document, which you can read here, was supported by the vast majority of bishops, including most of those in Africa. The recommendations included: The formation of a special Commission, named by the bishops, made up of representatives from across every region and the various perspectives in the sexuality debate. The possibility of a special called two- to three-day General Conference to meet prior to 2020 to address the issue. The deferral of all human sexuality legislation before the General Conference, referring it to the special Commission. The bishops would explore ways to “avoid further complaints” and trials while upholding the Discipline. After some intense debate, the delegates eventually passed a motion accepting these recommendations. With this vote, the General Conference deferred action on the most divisive issue at the conference and accepted the leadership of the bishops in finding a better way of working through the issue. Protests were called off. And delegates were free to focus on the mountain of other petitions that needed attention. So, did the bishops simply kick-the-can down the road as some suggested? Or did they assert real leadership, keep us from further harming each other, and offer us a mechanism that could help the United Methodist Church find a long-term solution to our differences over human sexuality, one that will allow us once again to focus on making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world? I believe they did the latter. I believe their proposal is the best hope we have of moving away from the endless infighting, to find a genuine compromise that the majority of United Methodists can live with, and which may fundamentally reorder our life together as a church. There’s still anxiety around this proposal, mostly around who will serve on the Commission. I believe the bishops will earnestly choose recognized leaders from the various factions in the church who can ensure the plan addresses their concerns. In order for this effort to have a chance at success, the bishops and this Commission must find a long-term solution upon which all sides can agree. That solution may include a fundamental re-ordering of our life together as a people called Methodists. All of the options brought to this General Conference should be considered, as well as things no one has yet considered. There is a tremendous opportunity the bishops have been provided to “rethink church,” and I pray the Commission and the bishops take advantage of this. The work of the Commission will be challenging, with so many different voices around the table. There will be a continuing need for leadership from our bishops and whatever proposals come before a future General Conference must be ones which the bishops have stacked hands on and own as their proposal for the future of the United Methodist Church. Is it possible for the United Methodist Church to stay together? Yes, but it is also possible that some on either end of the theological spectrum may leave, no matter what. Some came to General Conference making plans to leave. But the vast majority of churches and pastors I have spoken with long for the unity the bishops speak of in their proposal. I pray that the bishops and Commission seize the opportunity to create a path forward that the vast majority of our churches can unify around. We are a church of the via media – the middle way – a church that values and holds together in tension ideas and impulses that seem like opposites. The United Methodist Church has been described as a church of the radical or extreme center. That extreme center is a place of tension, but it is also one of great spiritual depth and power precisely because it draws upon seemingly opposite impulses and holds them together. We are stronger because we have both liberal and conserving impulses. We have a more holistic approach to ministry because we hold together the evangelical and social gospel. We are better for insisting that we are a church of both the head and the heart. I would suggest that we need both the left and the right, and it is my prayer that the church’s bishops will help us find a way to live together maintaining “the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.” Photo credit: Book of Discipline photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS
Five Things the General Conference Could Do Regarding Same Gender Marriage — Part Two
Today's post is Part Two in a series. You can read Part One here. As General Conference begins this week in Portland, so much of the focus will be on the debates regarding the church’s position on homosexuality. If I could wave a magic wand, I’d remove all references to homosexuality from The Book of Discipline (which was how The Discipline read prior to 1972). Imagine the United Methodist Church without the incessant fighting over homosexuality; we might actually focus our attention on “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” But given that this is an unlikely outcome at this General Conference, here are five things I hope the General Conference might do in the next eleven days: 1. At minimum we should insert in the Discipline, both at Paragraph 161F and at Paragraph 304.3 that “United Methodists are deeply divided on the issue of homosexuality, but at this time a simple majority of General Conference delegates hold that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. …” This insertion acknowledges where a significant minority of United Methodist stand. Additionally, a similar insertion should be made as a footnote at the bottom of page 110 in the Discipline at paragraph 161F where the sentence reads “… only within the covenant of monogamous heterosexual marriage.” I’ve heard from some conservatives who would support this, as would most moderates and progressives in our churches. 2. A second change would be to replace the “incompatible” language with something that is not so painful to gay and lesbian people and their family and friends. If the General Conference intends to maintain a conservative position on homosexuality, I would suggest we replace the incompatibility sentence at 161F and 304.3 with something like the following: “United Methodists are deeply divided on the issue of homosexuality, but at this time a simple majority of General Conference delegates hold that same gender sexual relations are not God’s intended will for human sexuality.” Again, many conservatives understand the need to find a better word to describe their position than “incompatible.” 3. A third step that the General Conference could take that would require minimal changes in the Discipline would be to eliminate from the list of “chargeable offenses” in paragraph 2702 the words, “conducting ceremonies which celebrate homosexual unions; or performing same-sex weddings.” This would not change the official position of the church, but it would encourage bishops and Boards of Ordained Ministry to find other ways of addressing violations of the Discipline regarding same-gender weddings. Church trials for officiating at same-gender weddings harm our witness to the broader community and are likely to become increasingly ineffective as a means of enforcing the Discipline. If we did these first three, it would be an important conciliatory step for healing the divide in the United Methodist Church. Yet these three are just a short-term fix. Here are two more changes that I believe should be made at this General Conference and which would have a very positive longer term impact upon the church: 4. Make the United Methodist Church in the United States a Central Conference, just as United Methodists outside the U.S. are organized into Central Conferences. With this change, the General Conference should grant all Central Conferences greater autonomy as they adapt Part VI of The Book of Discipline to best serve the needs of their mission and context. We already make allowance for some adaptation of this part of the Discipline in the Central Conferences. There are many important reasons to approve this aside from any connection to the debate about human sexuality, but I do hope that this structure would allow each Central Conference to have their own debate about human sexuality in their particular context. 5. Finally, I hope General Conference would stop trying to set wedding policy for local churches and clergy. Paragraph 340.3 is right to say that, “The decision to perform the [marriage] ceremony shall be the right and responsibility of the pastor.” Let local church pastors decide who they will and will not marry and protect that right going forward. This would guarantee that conservative pastors would never be required to officiate at same-gender weddings. But it would also allow those who hold different convictions to officiate at such weddings. To accomplish this, paragraph 341.6 would simply be removed. This is a part of the Connectional Table proposal. I’ve only addressed same-gender marriage in this post. I agree with the recommendation of the Connectional Table that the Annual Conference is responsible for ordination and that annual conferences, not the delegates of General Conference, should be determining who they will or will not ordain. In my next post, which I’ll post after the first five days of General Conference, I’ll offer a few words about what is likely to happen if nothing changes at this General Conference.
The Bible, Homosexuality, and the UMC — Part One
Next month in Portland, Oregon, 800 United Methodists, delegates from around the world, will gather for the United Methodist Church’s General Conference. At this ten-day meeting, held once every four years, the United Methodist Church will set policy, priorities and denominational budgets for the ensuing four years. Delegates will consider reams of proposed changes to the church’s Book of Discipline. No issue will be more closely watched than the debate and decisions of the Conference regarding gay and lesbian people. Will the denomination continue to hold that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching”? Will it continue to prohibit pastors from officiating in same-gender weddings and United Methodist church property from being used for same-gender weddings? And will the United Methodist Church continue to require celibacy of gay and lesbian clergy? The deeper question, one which will largely be ignored, is what United Methodists believe about the Bible. Our beliefs, or more often our assumptions, about the Bible shape how we view the question of the Bible and same-gender relationships. Conservatives on this issue (by the way, one can be progressive on a host of issues, yet conservative on this issue, and likewise one can be conservative on a host of issues yet progressive on same-gender marriage) base their views of the incompatibility of same-gender relationships on a particular way of reading the Bible, which in turn is based upon a particular, but often inconsistently held, way of understanding what the Bible is and how God speaks through it. Progressives on this issue, likewise, base their willingness to embrace same-gender relationships as acceptable to God on a certain way of reading the Bible, one that is also based upon a particular, but not always clearly articulated, way of understanding what the Bible is and how God speaks through it. I’d like to use as an example a letter I recently received, signed by 12 members of a United Methodist Church in Nebraska. They wrote asking me as a delegate to General Conference to please vote against any changes to the Book of Discipline’s policies regarding gay and lesbian people. It began, Dear Delegate to General Conference: As members of the United Methodist Church, we are alarmed at the possibility of changes being made at General Conference in our church Discipline regarding same sex marriages. We believe that the Holy Bible is God’s Word, and that His Word is unchanging. … The letter goes on to cite the standard passages from the Bible that condemn some form of same-gender sexual acts. I have no doubt that the folks who sent this letter are good people who love Jesus, seek to serve their neighbor and care about the United Methodist Church. I visited their website to learn more about them. The headline of their website states, “Welcoming everyone with Open Hearts, Open Minds and Open Doors.” These fellow United Methodists seem to be stating that everything written in the Bible is God’s Word, and that it should be applied without question today because “His Word is unchanging.” But I don’t believe this is actually how they approach Scripture. Nor is it the way Christians have generally approached Scripture across the last two millennia. Had the early church held these assumptions consistently, they would never have reached the decisions that circumcision was no longer required of Christians, or that Christians were no longer bound by much that is found in the Law of Moses. We would still be worshipping on Saturdays, eating only what was kosher, offering animal sacrifices, and administering capital punishment for everything from working on the Sabbath to rebelliousness on the part of children (Jesus never explicitly taught that these portions of the Scripture were no longer binding upon his followers; this call was made by the apostles at the urging of Paul). Further if we consistently applied these same assumptions to what Paul teaches about women in the New Testament, the female members of the United Methodist Church would pray with their heads covered; they would remain silent in the church; and they would not be permitted to teach in any church gathering where men were present. This is, in fact, how many conservative Christian bodies still read the Scriptures, hence I recently received a note from a member of a fundamentalist Baptist church who stated unequivocally that United Methodists are "unscriptural Christians because you ordain women." There are more than 200 verses in the Bible that allow slavery as an acceptable practice, even permitting the beating of slaves with rods. The New Testament authors, as with their forebears, could not imagine a world without slavery. If Methodist Christians consistently held that everything in the Bible is God’s Word and that it is unchanging — and by this they meant that what the Bible allows we must allow, and that what the Bible forbids we must forbid — we’d still support the practice of slavery today. While the words of Scripture don’t change, how we interpret those words does change over time. Interpretation is important because when we read Scripture we recognize that, while God speaks to us through the Bible, the Bible’s human authors wrote in particular historical circumstances, addressing specific situations, and in the light of their own historical and scientific knowledge. What they wrote was shaped by their own cultural and theological convictions. On the issue of same gender acts, they wrote based upon their understanding of human sexuality, in the light of the prevailing same-gender practices of their time. And though we believe that they were inspired, the precise nature and extent of that inspiration remains a mystery. We do know that this inspiration was not some kind of divine dictation, but it was through the impulse of the Spirit at work in very human authors who were addressing the people and circumstances in which they lived. This inspiration did not prevent historical or scientific errors. It did not prohibit the recording of differing accounts of the same story in the Gospels. It did not keep the Bible's authors from allowing slavery and genocide; and it did not transform the biblical authors' patriarchal perspectives on women. Some time ago I was speaking on this question and a young pastor said to me, “It sounds like you are ‘picking and choosing.’” I asked the young man if he had an account in the United Methodist Pension Fund. He indicated that he did. I then asked, “What part of Jesus’ words, ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth’ did you not understand?” We often don't see that we all recognize Scripture is contextual. In the case of Jesus' words about wealth we're meant to take him seriously, but not literally. No pastor I know advocates eliminating savings accounts and planning for retirement. A.J. Jacob’s wrote a book called, A Year of Living Biblically, in which Jacobs, a nominally religious Jew, described his year-long attempt to fulfill every part of the Law. When he got to the end of the year, he concluded that it was impossible to fulfill the entire Law, and some of it made no sense today. Then he said something to the effect of “Everyone picks and chooses; the important thing is to choose the right things.” But in truth, I don’t believe that we are picking and choosing. I think we’re appropriately interpreting; we’re asking the question, “What was the historical and cultural setting of these words, and do they appropriately express the heart of God for us today?” And how do Christians make that determination? We consider the words and actions of Jesus, we think of what he described as the great commandments, and we consider the major themes of Scripture. Then we bring our intellect and experience of the Spirit to bear on our reading of Scripture. This is precisely how the apostles came to set aside the clear teaching of Scripture (their only Scripture was the Old Testament) regarding circumcision and portions of the Law. This is how, centuries later, Christians came to oppose slavery despite Scripture’s allowance and regulation of it. This is how twentieth century Christians came to set aside Paul’s teaching regarding women. Methodist seminaries train their pastors in critical methodologies for studying the Scripture. Those methodologies teach that the Bible’s inspiration is not undermined by acknowledging the biblical authors’ historical context, the ways in which the biblical text developed, and the process of its canonization. But it does teach us that the Bible is far more complex than the common dictum, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” allows. At the Church of the Resurrection, of our 20,000 members, there are hundreds that are gay and lesbian and hundreds more whose children are gay and lesbian. Many are married. Some of these have children. Some are among the most committed members of our congregation. They attend worship every weekend, serve in mission, are in small groups, and witness to their friends about Jesus. They seek to love him with all their heart and to love their neighbors as they love themselves. I love these people; they are part of my flock. Most knew from the time they were children that they were “different.” They were drawn to love the same gender in the same way I was drawn to my wife. Do Moses’ words commanding that men who lie with men should be put to death express the heart of God towards them? When Paul spoke of those who “gave themselves up to degrading passions” was he speaking of these couples in my church who love one another selflessly? Or was he speaking about temple prostitution, older men molesting younger boys, and sexual exploitation, as well as unrestrained sexual acts divorced from love and commitment, that were the common expressions of same-gender acts in his time and at times, in ours? This last Sunday I had lunch with a group of senior adults at one of the largest senior living complexes in Kansas City. We were talking about this very issue. They wanted to know if the United Methodist Church was going to split over this issue. I asked them their thoughts. These were lifelong United Methodists now in their seventies and eighties. They pointed to two same-gender couples living in their community and said, “God loves them, and so do we.” They had lived long enough to see how our understanding of Scripture changes over time. Their great, great grandparents lived when white Christians owned slaves and felt justified in doing so by the Bible. Their grandmothers couldn’t vote in America, a practice rooted in the patriarchy found in Scripture. Their mothers couldn’t have served as pastors in the Methodist Church because "the Word of God was clear and unchanging.” But thankfully things did change. They couldn’t imagine the church splitting over this issue. It is not only these senior adults who see things this way. A vast majority of young adults across all churches also see things this way. If the United Methodist Church can hold together for another ten years, this becomes a non-issue, as even most evangelical young adults in the United Methodist Church see this issue differently from their 40- and 50- and 60-year-old parents and grandparents. Thoughtful United Methodists understand that the nature of Scripture leaves room for us to ask the question, “Do these passages on same-sex acts in Paul and Moses actually reflect the heart of God for gay and lesbian people today?” We may disagree about the answer, but we can at least ask the question. And, I believe, United Methodists may disagree about the answer and remain one church; we’ve been doing so for decades. In my next post I’ll offer my hopes for what will happen at General Conference.