So here you have it ... United Methodists might split, but if that were to happen, it would be because of ... the recipes for macaroni and cheese. You gots to get your priorities right, Sparky.
Nah, here's the recipe for division: More than 90 percent of members say the church shouldn't split over human sexuality. That means 10 percent all engage in Facebook, because there sure are a bunch of folks on Facebook saying something different. In a poll taken from May 30-June 1 of members of the UMC in the United States overwhelmingly rejected the idea that disagreements over a person's position on homosexuality were not justification for splitting the church.
More than 90 percent, oh, let me repeat that, more than 90 percent said the UMC should remain the UMC if the rankling idea was homosexuality. And (oh, my good Lord) the issue of sexual orientation and same-gender marriage is, according to some amazingly clear-thinking Methodists, diverting the church from more important things. They ranked sexual orientation eighth in importance among issues facing the church.
At the risk of making less than 10 percent of the folks angry or worse, the obviously wrong results (or most important issues -- however you want to write or read that) included 39 percent ranking creating disciples of Christ, 27 percent; 24 percent members spiritual growth; decline in membership 19 percent; poverty 17 percent; children at risk 17 percent; and social injustice 16 percent. Sexual orientation and same-gender marriage drew 11 percent.
Now, I must tell you that these people obviously weren't tested for performance enhancing drugs, so these results are tainted at best. Still, the fact that John Wesley's idea that making disciples of Christ (for the transformation of the world, I might add) was important seems to have soaked in somehow. We simply can't have those types of things happening. The fact that abortion does not seem to have even drawn a vote or two again is bewildering. However, one seems to make the stand that abortion should fall under making disciples of Christ, spiritual growth, children at risk (DUH) and even social injustice, so maybe the votes fell under one and all. Just saying.
This comes as a "proposal" is drifting around the UMC ranks for the middle (a position I agree with), a position being called The Way Forward.
I believe that the way forward is something that we should all look at, especially since we can't agree with The Way Backward, a position that seems to say what we all agree is, well, backward. I also don't think we need to consider The Way To The Side (right side, left side or my favorite, The Blind Side). Since we can't agree on what side we are protecting in the first place, we move on. Better to move than to waste away sitting still. Being in the middle is not being useless, it's being, uh, in the middle. It's not compromising. It's not back-sliding. It's not being cowardly. It's not being anything but middle-oriented, and deep in the middle, with clowns to the left of us and jokers to the right, is not being stuck in the middle. It's wanting to talk openly about our differences, about scriptures that help cause those differences, about culture that caused those scriptures to be part of the uncommon ground we find ourselves trampling over again and again. In the current sort-of peaceful easy area, the church (our church, UMC's church not the church universal) sort of agrees to allow individual churches or ministers to decide whether to perform homosexual weddings. The church agrees to make determinations about whether to allow ordination of homosexuals on a Conference by Conference basis.
We also need to have meetings about whether to capitalize Church and/or Conference. But I digress. Questions pop up from adopting The Way Forward, of course, as questions always pop up.
But ...
by embracing a middle position on this issues does not mean we are tied to the middle position on ordination issues, or moral issues around war and peace and abortion, and whether or not this begins the slippery slopes toward very free will on everything else. In other words, we become progressives (or liberals) on everything the moment we take the progressive (or liberal) position on sexual orientation and the church.
In other words, we are willing to accept this if you give us that is not the way to approach the mountain top of idea. The Way Forward isn't the Way to the End.
Because I've got to go turn on jungle sounds for Round 4 of Vacation Bible School at the still United Methodist Church in Eunice, something I believe to be way, way more important than anything we've discussed this morning, let me explain.
Years ago we had a very large room at a very large church I was an associate at. We split that very large room up by putting in partitions. Made the very large room look like something out of, oh I don't know, maybe the newsroom from Lou Grant. I personally never worked at a newspaper that had a room divided like that with it working, but I understood the concept. Now, I believe that division worked or would have worked because ultimately we were all on one team, but we all had different callings as it were. I had a talent or two that our finance person didn't and on and on we went. The room was still the room, disturbed by partition but not broken.
I understand that separating might end the big fight going on in the church, and by separation I mean truly splitting down the middle. One could make those splitting down the middle questions permanent and permanently damaging. Logistics would be frightenly difficult in a Methodist Church that was no longer United. Who owns what and owes what and on and on would wind up in the land of the attorney and the field of the financial and the puddle of the frequently muddy. That's way above my pay grade, is now and forever will be.
A middle option would come with its own set of costs, but I believe it would be less damaging in the long run. More or less difficult? Less. Would the debate over homosexuality continue? Certainly. But I propose letting the 10 percent who give a rat's bottom about this one issue go over in the corner and duke it out while the 90 percent of the rest of us try to feed, and clothe, and love those who need to eat, be given a right-sized plan for learning to live and for learning how to be loved in a world that will absolutely eat you up and spit you out 10 percent at a time.
I say let's build leadership teams who have one purpose. Let's build teams with the idea of expressing Jesus' love to others, and let's have long and wonderful coffee-filled, music inspired, intensive worship covered meetings to get the how-tos and the where's it at questions dealt with.
If, and I stress if, our people are most interested in
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