Wednesday, March 21, 2018

UMC Disagreement: It's Worse than You Think it is

If you are reading this, you are surely aware of some of the challenges facing the United Methodist Church.  In the popular spheres of media, our disagreements have been framed as fundamentally a disagreement around whether or not our connectional church should choose to change its polity so that those who engage in non-traditional sexual intimacy are welcome to 1. be married in our local churches and 2. be candidates for ordination by our annual conferences.

But what if I told you that this particular disagreement is the tip of the iceberg... That even if, by some act of divine grace, tomorrow morning every United Methodist had the same view on this issue, we would still be a church in schism.

I think the deepest divide in our church is not between those who want to hold to a traditionalist view of marriage and those who wish to change it; I believe the true divide is between those who privilege tradition as the primary tool to interpret the Bible and those who privilege experience.

Just yesterday, on the United Theological Alumni page, a debate was raging between an alumnus who is convinced that the Holy Spirit has spoken and that the polity of the UMC is in defiance of the will of God and a different alumnus who found it suspect that the Holy Spirit would wait 2000 years to reveal this truth to the church, allowing the church to be in error for two millenia.  And as I read through the thread it became painfully clear: the difference in the interpretive lens between these two is so dramatically different that they can't even comprehend how their debate partner could come to the conclusion they come to.

I would argue that Outler/Barth/Wesley do a good job of describing the ideal way a person might interpret the Bible in saying that everything read in the Bible should be filtered through the lens of experience and of reason and of tradition... what they fail to recognize is that every single person naturally favors one of the three.  And we know these people (and here are somewhat hyperbolic sketches of them):

The traditionalist:  Mark is the typical traditionalist's favorite Gospel because it was first.  And being first, it was most likely the most accurate commentary on the life of Christ.  Undisputed Pauline epistles are better than the undisputed because they were written earlier.  Augustine is better than Aquinas because he wrote earlier.  You get the picture... When in doubt, the traditionalist will side with the tradition.  It's not that the traditionalist has a different set of experiences than the experientialist, as has universally been assumed by the progressives in this debate; rather, it is the decision to error on the side of the wisdom that has been passed down over and against the wisdom of one's personal experience.

The experientialist: The experientialist typically prefers John to the other Gospels because of it's vivid imagery and relational tone.  The experientialist prefers to read and gives preference to the narratives of others over other types of literature.  The timeline doesn't matter nearly as much for the experientialist, however, for the experientialist, the narrative of a marginalized person is privileged and accept these narratives without critique.  In fact, I would argue that the cardinal sin for the experientialist is to critique the truth of someone else (especially their truth).  It is important to recognize that the experientialist, for the most part, comes from the same tradition as the traditionalist, however, when in doubt, the experientialist will error on the side of their experience and the experience of others, especially the experience of the marginalized.

The reasonist:  The reasonist is hardist to find, because they are least likely to enter into social media debates.  The reasonist will often prefer Luke because it came latest as a synoptic Gospel and has the most information.  The reasonist wants to live on the cutting edge, and will tend to privilege recently published material over things from the past.  The reasonist typically will seek the wisdom of other areas of study in order to make sense of difficult questions.  Notice that both the traditionalist and the experientialist will use outside scholarship when it supports their position, but it is only the reasonist who uses the outside sources as a key feature of their interpretive process.  The reasonist shares the same experiences as the experientialist and comes from the same tradition as the traditionalist, but is skeptical of both tradition and experience as sufficient lenses by which to interpret and to determine truth.


Can you see how these differences in interpretative privilege have caused our current impasse with regards to the question of human sexuality?  Can you also see how these differences are not limited to creating the impasse surrounding human sexuality?

It is important to note that this isn't the only factor at work and everyone use all three to some degree, and I am sure that someone who is smarter than me will likely be able to pinpoint something with an even greater influence; however, as I have conversations with the self-identified progressives and the self-identified traditionalists, I am encouraged that almost everyone wants to be faithful to God.  Almost everyone wants to grow in holiness.  Almost everyone wants a church where everyone is welcomed and everyone is given the opportunity to grow in Christ-likeness.

But, in the information age, the gap between those who error on the side of tradition and those who error on the side of experience is not a gap but a chasm that has been supercharged by the postmodern turn.  And even if the miracle occured and this issue was no longer a source of disagreement, the next one would be just as ugly, and for that reason, I don't think it would be a terrible idea for the church to seperate.  Allow, those who are committed to a democracy of the dead have the opportunity to live out their mission without the pesky experience terrorists getting in the way.  Likewise, those who privilege experience shouldn't have to deal with the prison of tradition as they do their best to faithfully follow Jesus.  And honestly, the reasonists don't need their own denomination.  Because the reasonist operates best as the faithful opposition and the reasonists I know would likely split based on who they respect and who they are already most deeply connected to.

So please, Commission on the Way Forward, draw up a plan for getting us out of our own way, but don't fall into the trap of thinking this is primarily a disagreement on human sexuality.  Define the theological process for the new denominations and allow them in their first independent general conferences to elect their own bishops. 

Post Script: After the writing of the blog, Rob Renfroe over at Good News Magazine posted an exerpt (likely the introduction) of a new book calling for an amicable separation in United Methodism.  I often find myself critical of Renfroe, but I found very little to criticize with this most recent post.  His lens is different than mine, but his reasoning is sound and I appreciate that someone with the clout that he possesses had the guts to say it, knowing that he will be labeled a schismatic.