Seeking Compromise Is Not Divisive

The Bishop of the Mississippi Conference has announced that two large United Methodist congregations are making plans to leave the denomination. There are likely others with similar plans in other places, but these two have been made public this week.

They are planning to leave because “there is a deep concern that any legislative or judicial solution to the denomination's current impasse on human sexuality will sow seeds of deeper division within our Church. They see this division as something that continues and will continue to damage the witness of The United Methodist Church of which they are currently connected,” according to Bishop James Swanson’s statement.

In my opinion, large churches planning to leave the denomination are actually sowing more seeds of division than potential compromise policies on marriage and ordination. That’s kind of the definition of division, isn’t it? Whereas seeking compromise is actually about NOT dividing?

Unless I’m completely wrong, the two congregations who are publicly planning to leave the United Methodist Church have gotten things exactly backwards here. Trying to find a compromise is not divisive, by definition. Saying that you want to leave the denomination is divisive, by definition.

I wish they would just come right out and say why they want to leave. If they don’t want gay people to be married, why not just come right out and say that? If they don’t want gay people to be ordained, why not make that statement out loud? (Though pastor friends in Mississippi tell me that these may not be the only issues at hand here. The situation is probably more complex than just that.)

But why all the hemming and hawing around what is really making them so upset? The time for hemming and hawing has gone. We need to be able to say exactly what needs to be said, with as little ambiguity as possible.

Furthermore, and in disagreement with the statement above, I believe that seeking compromise on marriage and ordination is actually a pretty GOOD witness for the United Methodist Church to be making right now. Having difficult, tense, holy, grace-filled conversations is exactly THE witness that the world needs in our present polarized climate. (As with our nation as a whole, I believe the Methodist church is polarized, not divided.)

In their official statement, one of the churches wrote, "The Orchard has no desire to be a part of these debates. We simply want to help people grow deep in the love of Jesus and branch out to others with that love." I do not see these two ideas as mutually exclusive. One can both love Jesus and have a debate. Being a part of a difficult conversation, and doing so with grace and love and respect, is a PERFECT way to "help people grow deep in the love of Jesus," it seems to me.

I lament that the conversation would be relatively less vibrant minus the voices who are threatening to leave.

As I have said before, my guess is that the Bishops’ “Commission on a Way Forward” will recommend a compromise position that allows individual pastors and congregations to decide questions of marriage and individual conferences to decide questions of ordination. Some people fear this outcome, because of the difficult conversations that will inevitably result.

And some people are so afraid of it, apparently, that they would rather just leave the denomination altogether.

"It is only when our love grows cold, that we can think of separating from our brethren. And this is certainly the case with any who willingly separate from their Christian brethren. The pretenses for separation may be innumerable, but want of love is always the real cause; otherwise they would still hold the unity of the Spirit in the bound of peace." – John Wesley, Sermon 75, On Schism