Guest Opinion: Two sides of UMC schism can still share common ground
Bradley Schutt is an ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church and has served four churches in 12 years of pastoral ministry.
Before I start, there are some obligatory disclaimers I have to state. I do not speak for the United Methodist Church. Only the General Conference, our global governing body, can do that. I do not speak for the annual conference that I serve in or the church I serve as pastor to either. Our conference has a bishop that guides its work, and the church is of the people, not me alone.
This is simply one pastor’s attempt to try and shed some light on what I’ve seen happen in my experience of the denomination. As a lifelong member of the United Methodist Church, there is plenty to be brokenhearted about, as it continues through what has become an agonizing process of fracturing apart.
The presenting issue is the turmoil around the denomination’s current prohibitions against open and practicing LGBT clergy and same-gender weddings. This present crisis is actually the result of decades of debates and decisions at the regional and global level that have ultimately reinforced more traditional beliefs, even as views have shifted among the membership of the church.
I believe the situation the United Methodist Church finds itself in is due to how our beliefs on some of the fundamentals of Christianity started diverging some time ago and were largely left unaddressed until recently. I believe we can point to three things in particular: how we view God, which influences how we view the Bible, and then how we express our faith to the rest of the world.
If you see God as an unchanging, perfect being of whom right and wrong is measured in the world, then you are going to be very concerned with those and make sure your life lines up accordingly. This comes from your understanding of the Bible, which could be based in a belief that every word of Scripture as we have it is perfect and directly from God. The stories you might gravitate to in the Bible involve God and God’s people winning battles and overcoming the world through God’s might and power. This all can shape a faith of clear distinctions with not much gray area and a calling to do what you can to make the world conform to what you feel the Bible says via public stands and action.
On the other side of the spectrum, you might see God as primarily a being of mercy and love, whose work in the world is focused on bringing healing and wholeness to the broken and hurting. A person like this might gravitate to passages in the Bible about God and God’s people doing or experiencing that healing. That Jesus spent most of his time on Earth with those deemed unclean and off-limits by the religious and social institutions of the day would carry special meaning, as well. A person like this might read the whole Bible through the lens of God’s love and want people to experience it as a priority. Their faith would likely be based on a high emphasis around Jesus’ commands to love, serve and care for all on his behalf.
This is painting with broad strokes and using generalizations that don’t do justice to the many schools of theology and biblical study that influence Christianity today. I only hope that is shows how there are spectrums of thought and belief at work here.
Although God’s grace and human faithfulness exist wherever you might find yourself on those spectrums, it can also lead to disagreements. The United Methodist Church formed from a merger of two denominations in 1968, and we have been grappling with how to be in ministry with folks of different sexual orientations and identities since our General Conference in 1972. After 50 years of disagreement, it’s sadly not surprising that the denomination is splitting into different denominations and local entities.
Across the world, churches have already left the denomination or are in the process of doing so at varying financial costs. In our state, it can cost a church anywhere from thousands up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on its situation. There are many churches that are also choosing to stay in the United Methodist Church for different reasons or are waiting to see what decisions come about later.
The process currently available to churches is part of a temporary legislation passed at a specially called General Conference in 2019. It lets local congregations leave with their property and assets, but it expires Dec. 31, 2023. After that, if a congregation wants to leave the denomination with their assets, they will have to wait until our next General Conference, which will hopefully happen in 2024, and whatever legislation might be passed there that could allow them to do so.
At this point, as far as I’m concerned, there are no winners in any of this.
There are people across the board that are hurt and broken in ways that only God can, and most definitely will, heal. As that healing happens, I pray that we can see the more traditional folks as the blessings they are for their faith-based convictions and devotion to God. For those on the other side, I pray we can see their tireless work for justice as a gift to the world from God. By acknowledging how deep our differences are, while still treasuring our common ground and beliefs, we can hopefully go not in separate ways but in parallel courses in faith and service.
