By Edwin Cooney
No, I’m not referring above to gravity, wind, rain, or fire — although I could be! I’m thinking about a phenomenon that — next to nature’s most potent forces — nurtures almost all of humanity’s ambition and sense of purpose. I’m thinking of both your religious faith and mine. The focus here will be on the woes of a branch of Christianity known as United Methodism. Keep in mind, however, no religious faith is free of conflict. Although I’m far from an expert on the history or even the full significance of religious belief, I’m ready to defend the proposition that religion is either soul-enhancing or soul-destroying.
I define the soul as the center of one’s being that energizes and regulates one’s capacity for spiritual comprehension. The big question, however, is what is the most constructive role our religious beliefs can play in 21st Century America? My answer to that question is that religion should be the wellspring of healing, healing from physical ills, abstinence from the aggrandizement of political thrills, a commitment to brother and sisterhood, and the nurturer of world peace and unity. You know, it’s the kind of “peace” we Christians sing about each Christmas!
However, what occurred last Tuesday night at the conference of United Methodist Global Ministries wasn’t healing; it was downright wrenching! The Conference of United Methodists voted to uphold the church’s ban on LGBT Methodists. Methodist clergy who ordain or marry homosexuals will be subject to suspension or expulsion. Earlier in February at the quadrennial United Methodist National Conference held in Pittsburgh, they came close to taking that same action, but at the close of the conference there remained the possibility that the conservative and reformers might well decide to co-exist for another four years. Of course, everyone prayed for God’s guidance. It was clear to this observer, however, that prayers on both sides were more likely prayers of self-righteousness than they were pleas for God’s guidance. Ultimately, it was as much a political food fight as it was a debate over holy principles. Its objective was ultimate control of the United Methodist Church. Of course, there are ramifications that are too numerous to go into here. However, the ultimate reality is that the United Methodist Church is no longer united. Hence, with disunity come the lawyers and ultimately the politicians.
As a lifelong Methodist, I’ve often taken great comfort in two vital elements of Methodism: tolerance and reason. As I see it, if you destroy those two Methodist principles, you destroy Methodism itself. Conservative Methodists insist that any tolerance of LGBT behavior would make the Methodist clergy “chaplains of ungodliness.” More to the point, as I see it, such an attitude more than suggests that the LGBT lifestyle is a matter of sinful choice rather than a matter of biological function.
Human history is bedecked with religious conflict. No church or other religious faith has ever been created that isn’t vulnerable to serious dissent. The cause of church dissent is generally a secular political cause. Many believe that Henry VIII left the Catholic Church because he and Pope Clement VII differed over an interpretation of scripture. However, numerous Western European princes had been granted divorces when it profited both the church and the princes. The real problem Henry faced was that at the time he applied to the Pope for his divorce, Pope Clement VII was mired in a quarrel with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and was a virtual prisoner. That royal gentleman had thousands of troops surrounding the Vatican. To make matters worse, Catherine of Aragon, the wife Henry was trying to divorce, was Charles V’s sister. Hence, since both military might and politics required valor, Henry decided to start his own religious faith with his personal self at the head of it. The result was both deadly and costly. Hopefully, this new religious conflict won’t be deadly, but you can be sure it will be very, very costly. The lawyers are waiting with upturned palms for all those struggles over church property rights.
The victims, of course, will be LGBT Methodists as well as the clergy who believe that LGBT people are children of God whose sins aren’t any worse than the sins of all the well established straights. Their livelihoods may well be at risk if they deny their consciences thereby denying equal rights and opportunities to sinners.
Conservative Methodists insist that allowing LGBT religious and marital rights would force them to choose between the dictates of scripture thus turning them into “chaplains of Godlessness.”
My reaction? I say NUTS!!! Consider the following questions:
1.) Did Jesus come to earth to sit with the righteous or with the sinner?
2.) If you believe that one people’s sins are more evil than your own, please provide, for the benefit of all sinners, a Biblically based hierarchy of sins. (Note: the Roman Catholic Church used to divide sins into Cardinal and Venial sins which Protestants came to ridicule so I would be shocked if any Evangelical Christian were to provide me with one!)
3.) Didn’t Jesus engage in a longstanding argument with the Pharisees for insisting that tradition and law were superior to any new covenant with humanity? And finally,
4.) Wasn’t it those very Pharisees who condemned Jesus to the cross?
As time passes, I’m sure that, at least in America, the power of the conservatives will substantially wane. The conservatives know it, too, which is why they are so vehement in their denunciation of the future. Ironically, some of the most insistent defenders of the conservative movement are those immigrant and ethnic minorities which conservatives are always denouncing.
A few months ago, I joined the Disciples of Christ thus leaving the Methodist Church. That decision was largely circumstantial rather than principled. Were I to make that move today, principle rather than circumstance would be the primary factor.
I’ve often relayed in these pages the story of the president of Princeton who once scolded General George Washington for inoculating his troops against smallpox by asserting that had God not wanted us to get smallpox, he would never have allowed for them. One of the major errors of too many Christian clergy has been their tendency to explain God’s intentions strictly biblically. The value of the Bible, as I see it, is found less in what it directs and more in the power of its guidance. We know more about medical and scientific cause and effect today than we did during the fourth and fifth centuries CE when the Bible became the sacred book of Christianity. If it weren’t for the Bible, I probably wouldn’t be a Christian. After all, it was the spiritual lodestar of those who came before and taught me. Although I wouldn’t want to be without the Bible, I’m a Christian, not a bibliophile. I’m convinced that too many well meaning Christians misuse the Bible because they are too frightened to use their God-given minds.
There’s more, much more to say about the disunity of the former “United Methodist Church” than I’ve written here. Thus, I’ll close with just a few brief observations.
First, believe what you want to believe no matter who it displeases because that’s your business and God’s, not anyone else’s. It’s how you practice your beliefs that matter.
Second, remember that you don’t actually practice your faith with the guarantee that what you teach will be followed and, even if you do make that assumption, you can be sure that hasn’t been God’s experience! Almighty God knows that not even God’s Ten Commandments are regularly obeyed.
Third, be aware that if you choose not to associate with a conscientious group of God’s children, God may well decide not to associate with you.
Fourth, when you get to Heaven, it’s more than likely that you’ll discover that you have little in common with perhaps even most of your Heavenly neighbors.
Fifth, and finally, you won’t get to Heaven because of your interpretation of scripture or because you rejected and then joined the right church. You’ll most likely get to Heaven because you loved your neighbor as yourself.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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