Most of you will have heard by now the the Council of Bishops has reached their recommendation. Like everything about this process, it’s a mixed bag. You can read about it if you need to catch up.
So first the good news. There will be some sort of traditionalist plan presented alongside two other plans. This is somewhat surprising since the traditionalist plan was discarded fairly quickly. It seems that there just might be a few Wesleyan bishops left after all. They are to be commended for making this happen.
The bad is that the official recommendation from the bishops is the local option that has already been considered and rejected multiple times. Like everyone, I have some thoughts about why this is. My first thought is that there has been an agenda that was being pushed all along. It sounds conspiratorial even as I type it, but there is a lot of evidence that seems to suggest this very thing. From the beginning there have been many people, myself included, that were convinced that when it was all said and done, the local option would be what the recommendation would be. Since I am being admittedly conspiratorial, I am very curious of the vote count. Is the recommendation a true majority, as in over fifty percent, or do they mean a plurality?
Unfortunately, there seems to be more ugly than anything else. A few things come to mind off the top of my head. The first thing that I noticed was that there was no mentions of graceful exits. I noticed because all through this process, the Council has gone out of it’s way to keep mentioning this. If it’s a simple oversight, then it is a bad one given the climate of distrust in general and continual cries of no confidence in the bishops. It may mean nothing. It may mean something. We don’t know. This leads to the next piece of ugly….we don’t know. Still. At this point it frankly seems like shenanigans. With each new update from the bishops it seems we know less and not more. That is a failure on their part. It’s ugly that they have a recommendation, but there was apparently enough significant dissent to the recommendation that two other proposals are to be included. It’s ugly that the bishops can not do what they were asked to. It’s ugly that millions of dollars have resulted in us being in the exact same place we have been over and over again.
I want to end on a positive note though. A final good point that may have been lost in all this. The United Methodist Church has one official voice, the general conference. We are left then with two basic choices. We either choose to believe that the general conference is honored by God as the mechanism we use to discern His will under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, even when we, especially when we disagree, or we don’t. If we trust this, then we can be assured that Christ is still the head of the church, and if not, why are we pretending to be a church in the first place? The future of the UMC is back in the hands of those it always has been, the general conference. That is the voice of the church. That is where the decisions are made. At the last general conference, under some questionable circumstances, the general conference said that they could not find an answer, and asked the bishops to do so. The general conference abdicated it’s authority and responsibility. The one voice of the church went silent. Then the bishops took the responsibility and nearly immediately abdicated it to the commission. The bishops of the church went silent. Then the commission worked to come up the same solutions we had before. Those solutions went back to the bishops who chose two of the three to further examine. Back to the commission then back to the bishops who took those two, chose one, then forwarded all three to the general conference. Instead of being mute, the bishops spoke with so many voices than you can barely hear any of them. So, now back to the general conference again. It always was the job of the general conference in the first place. The voice of the church once again has the chance to speak once more, decisively, to set the course.
Faithful men and women have worked in, and through, this process for a very long time. We shouldn’t forget that and should applaud and thank them all. We need to remember though that if we are to have any hope, when the general conference gathers, it needs to be greater than the sum of its parts. The general conference must, once again, speak with one voice, the voice of God, through Christ, by the moving of the Spirit, as best as we can discern it. I dare say that the general conference is not only the voice if the church, but also it’s heart, and it is a heart that desperately needs to be strangely warmed again. If this can not happen, then we have no business calling ourselves a church in the first place.
Even if the General Conference chose the Traditionalist plan, the bishops 10 years of apathy wrapped in collegiality and there vote here , define there is no one left to enforce the discipline. So local churches are only left with one ethical option – move from United to untied.
Just my impressions. It would seem that all sides need to send ”activists” to General Conference. We already know that plenty of “activists” on one side have attended previous Conferences. This became apparent by watching portions of the last Conference on the web. My impression is that the “activists” were active, and the others were mild manner, shrinking violets, that wanted to make sure they did not offend anyone.
I personally don’t really care which option is selected. I just hope that an option is found that reflects what the majority wants. The last thing I would want to see is that the most vocal group gets their way, while the majority keeps quiet because they don’t want to offend anyone. So all sides need to send “activists”, in quotes, meaning be active, express your opinion, without worrying about offending anyone. Playing nice, doesn’t get the job done, when one side doesn’t play nice.
Most of you will have heard by now the the Council of Bishops has reached their recommendation. Like everything about this process, it’s a mixed bag. You can read about it if you need to catch up.
Even if the General Conference chose the Traditionalist plan, the bishops 10 years of apathy wrapped in collegiality and there vote here , define there is no one left to enforce the discipline. So local churches are only left with one ethical option – move from United to untied.
To that I would say, as I have said before, the GC has the power to remove ineffectual bishops, and it likely should.
Just my impressions.
It would seem that all sides need to send ”activists” to General Conference. We already know that plenty of “activists” on one side have attended previous Conferences. This became apparent by watching portions of the last Conference on the web. My impression is that the “activists” were active, and the others were mild manner, shrinking violets, that wanted to make sure they did not offend anyone.
I personally don’t really care which option is selected. I just hope that an option is found that reflects what the majority wants. The last thing I would want to see is that the most vocal group gets their way, while the majority keeps quiet because they don’t want to offend anyone. So all sides need to send “activists”, in quotes, meaning be active, express your opinion, without worrying about offending anyone. Playing nice, doesn’t get the job done, when one side doesn’t play nice.