Love and Splits and Methodists

Amidst all my current thinking about friends and enemies, agonism and antagonism, impeachment and fundamental splits, I'm trying to create an opening meditation for a meeting tomorrow. Some Louisiana Methodists who lean to the center and left are gathering tomorrow for a time of updates, learning, connection, and encouragement. We're between crises: the sorrow of the 2019 Conference, the uncertain future of the 2020 Conference.

I present this in a little over 12 hours. I have, right now, only a few inklings about what I'll do or talk about. I'm tired. It's been a long day of meetings, three classes in a row, more meetings. I need to work in a work out. Also I need to eat. It doesn't help that, when I think about the United Methodist Church, the energy and hope drains out of me.

Two plans for the denomination appear to be in competition for General Conference 2020, at least from USAmerican Methodist perspectives: the "Next Generation UMC" plan and the Indianapolis Plan.

The Indianapolis Plan is, essentially, a plan for separation, creating two (possibly more) different Methodist denominations: Traditionalist and Centrist. The Wesley Covenant Association stands poised to institute its vision of the Traditionalist Methodist Church. It has already drafted a "Doctrines and Disciplines" document, outlining a new "leaner" and more "nimble" expression of Methodism, essentially weakening connectional structures in favor of congregational ones. LGBTQ people are not mentioned at all; the document simply affirms that monogamous marriage between men and women is the only proper expression of human sexuality.

The Next Generation UMC Plan smooths pathways out of the denomination but defaults to staying a united church. It repeals the Traditional Plan passed at the 2019 Conference and removes all restrictive language regarding homosexuality from the Discipline.

I'm generally for staying together. But I suspect that, of the two plans, something like the Indianapolis Plan is more likely to get the votes necessary. I do wonder how delegates from the Central Conferences will perceive the two plans; their support is essential for anything to happen. The Next Generation Plan seems to contain more provisions for continued support of Central Conferences. The Indianapolis Plan, as I skim it, provides for General Conference funding of Central Conferences only through 2024.

I suspect, however, that the Traditionalist/Wesley Covenant Association's hard-line heterosexuality-only stance will move most Central Conferences to vote for Indianapolis, since that offers the more robust expression of straight/cis-only positions. Righteousness defined by sharp boundaries between Us and Them has historically proven more appealing to humans than messy coexistence amidst disagreement.

Then again, the Central Conferences may simply balk at any change, insisting on keeping the Traditional Plan version of the UMC. We'll get more messy (and legislatively murky) coexistence for a while--but not forever.

Nothing will prevent the exodus of churches wishing to join the new Wesley Covenant Association denomination, however that appears. They have made the decision to separate, arguing--not without basis--that the "quarrel" in the UMC year after year over homosexuality has made for a "caustic" atmosphere. They've been wanting to go. They just need the path to let them keep their properties and monies. "We will release one another to joyful obedience to Christ's call on our lives," reads the Indianapolis Plan.

In my tiredness, I must admit that there's part of me that wonders if separation isn't just better after all. Psychologist Harriet Learner quotes a sign a counselor friend of hers had prominently posted: "You've got to learn to leave the table when love is no longer being served." Or, more colloquially: if you love something, let it go.

I can't make you love me if you don't. 
I can't make your heart feel something it won't.  

I wish I could make hearts and minds more open, break what I see as bounds of fear that manifest as exclusion and discrimination.
I wish that openness for my own heart as well, for those times when it becomes hard for me to empathize with my sisters and brothers in Christ when I see their stances as harming the least, the lost, the left-behind.
I wish I could be patient enough for the turn of generations to do its slow work of adjusting us to new worlds.
I wish I could look at 2020 and see hope and noonday sun rather than trepidation and twilight.


Here in the dark,
In these final hours, 
I will lay down my heart, 
'Cause I feel the power. 

There is Power even in the dark, we're told. "If I ascend to Heaven, you are there," writes the Psalmist (Psalm 139), "if I go to sheol, you are there. . . . Even the darkness is not dark to You." 

The essence of the Wesleyan tradition is grace, especially Wesley's own innovation of prevenient grace, the "grace that goes before." Before we knew God, God knew us.

I find it helpful to imagine prevenient grace as something that persists beyond our conscious commitment. Even as we struggle with God's grace on the path to perfection, God's grace continues ahead of us, preceding us into the future, into the darkness.

May God precede me tomorrow morning, helping me to get out of the way of God's Spirit before a group of loving Methodists in crisis.