by Chris Ritter
Your General Conference delegates need to see this: 3.0 Love Alike Legislation
The biggest weakness of all structural proposals for amicable unity in the UMC (including mine) is that they require constitutional changes. Amendments must be passed by a super majority of delegates. Then they start the long and winding road through every annual conference around the globe where they also must be passed by an aggregate super majority. This is a high hurdle to meet, especially with anything having to do with human sexuality where we are hopelessly divided. Non-structural solutions (softening our language, stating we disagree, etc.) put the church at risk of continued schism. This is the nature of our stuck-ness.
I had a new idea earlier this week about how to accommodate divergent views on homosexuality under the umbrella of United Methodism without forcing some, including our growing African church, into moral compromise. It retains our denominational position. It creates new freedoms for those who must dissent. I am calling it the “Love Alike Plan” after a famous quote by John Wesley.
The plan uses elements from the Jurisdictional Solution, Adam Hamilton’s “We disagree” and “Local Option” proposals, and the Covenantal Unity Plan to create something entirely new.
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The hour is late! The need is urgent! Let’s build a movement to solve this thing.
Share the legislation and related information found here in PDF form: 3.0 Love Alike Legislation
People Need Jesus 
Ok, so if I’m a minority traditionalist pastor in a minority traditionalist congregation in the Western Jurisdiction, who might we possibly relate to under this plan? If, for example, the only traditional annual conference that is even remotely close to us is 1,500 miles away, how does that actually work? We would, in effect, be anomalous step-children when it comes to itinerancy and conference relations. I like parts of the plan, just trying to figure out how it would work in practice. Clarification appreciated.
Excellent question. Thanks for reading the plan. There would be several options for a church like yours. One is that you could get together with other like-minded clergy and congregations and form your own conference under another jurisdiction. This might require some scrambling to get things to fall correctly on the quadrennial calendar. Another option would be to go shopping for a conference to take your church and a few others for a western district (or two) of their conference. I would say a provisional traditionalist conference comprising all of the Western Jurisdiction (but relating to another jurisdiction) would be your best option. There will be a lot of renewed interest in doing ministry in the West once the borders are opened. Your phone will be ringing!
Chris, thank you for your continued prayerful thoughts on how we might move through these issues with faithfulness to God and love for each other. I think that this is more likely to work than your Jurisdictional Plan. The only problem that I see here is that there is a mechanism for congregations and clergy to leave a dissenting conference for a non-dissenting conference, but there is no opportunity for congregations or clergy to unite with a dissenting conference if their conference chooses not to dissent but their understanding of faithful ministry calls them to dissent. Shouldn’t open boarders be entirely open (both ways) related to this issue? God blesses, Shane Smith
Thanks Shane. This was a necessary omission in order to keep things constitutional. However, non-dissenting conferences are strongly encouraged to allow the exit of dissenting churches. This would happen under Par. 41. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thanks for the clarification. If it isn’t constitutional then it won’t fly.
Who would appoint those pastors that associate but want to stay in their original conference? Seems like an administrative nightmare. Just saying
The supervising bishop.
Chris,
Constitutions are foundational documents upon which institutional structures are built. They are and should be difficult to change because large structural changes to them while the structure is on them runs the risk of the entire structure collapsing.
This issue is a foundational core issue regardless of which side one falls one in relation to the issue. Due to the connectional nature of the UMC I don’t see any of the compromise positions that will not cause both sides of the issue to directly and indirectly support something they foundation ally disagree with. Call me cynical but I see the proposed “compromises” including your prososal which I see as “schism lite” as merely incrementalism disquised as compromise.
Schism lite appears to merely use tape on the floor to divide the home of spouses that have been squabbling over an issue for over 40 years while forcing them to live in the same house and share expenses.
Call me crazy but I don’t see what the big deal is over schism. I realize it like a divorce is not the preferred solution but while painful in the short term it may in fact be the best solution that allows both parties to go their separate ways and grow happily while allowing for an amicable relationship to grow.
In regards to Wesleys quote, we may not think like our Baptist, Catholic, Et al brothers and sisters on many issues but I do think we can love alike.
Chris, I would like to ask a couple of questions. I hope they don’t come across as critical. They’re really just thoughts I have about the implementation of your plan.
1) Realistically, given the 2/3 majority requirement, how many annual conferences outside of the Western Jurisdiction will vote to dissent?
2) Given the likelihood that many dissenting clergy will find themselves in non-dissenting conferences, won’t they find themselves having to turn their whole lives and careers upside-down in order to exercise their own dissent and continue under appointment?
3) If only a handful of conferences dissent, won’t they be overwhelmed by transfer requests from dissenting clergy, of whom there are likely to be hundreds?
4) If every annual conference has boundaries that coincide with USA national boundaries, how effective will supervision/support be for dissenting congregation and clergy outside of the conference’s original geographic boundaries? How effective will their participation be in the life of their new annual conference? For example, a congregation in Georgia that becomes part of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference.
5) How will this affect delegate elections for future GC’s? Will it tend to concentrate dissenting clergy and laity in a small number of conferences, thereby further reducing the weight of their votes? Will it also almost guarantee that future delegations from non-dissenting conferences will be less diverse on a range of theological and philosophical positions?
6) Regardless of the intentions, will the special “neutral” keyboard character added to names of dissenting conferences and congregations end up being viewed as a stigma?
Good questions all. Forgive my brevity as I am typing with my thumbs: (1) Northern Illinois and New York are examples of quite progressive conferences. There are several conferences who requested a change in BOD language. (2) No one has to leave their conference if they don’t want to. (3) People tend to go where the jobs are. No need joining a conference with no place of ministry for you. This will self-regulate. (4) Don House says we will only have 17 AC’s by 2050 due to decline. Larger conferences are our future either way. Technology might help us be the church over wider spaces. There is a district in Russia that covers several time zones, I am told. (5) Formulas will be the same for all U.S. conferences. Conferences will be more unified theologically… That is sort of the point of this. (6) A well-known reconciling leader told me they would cherish the opportunity to symbolically differentiate themselves from the official positions of the UMC on sexuality. Thanks for reading and thinking this through. Again, sorry for brevity of response to your thoughtful questions.
I would follow up on your responses, some of which don’t really seem to address the points I was raising, but I know you are busy.
You are wanting to keep the “U” on the “UMC” at all costs, which won’t accomplish anything in the long run. You can’t have a united organization where some believe one thing and others believe another. That is not the definition of “united”. I personally don’t want to be a member of a religion that allows things I don’t believe in. This idea just creates sects within us. It does not unite us.
The main reason one becomes a member of their particular religion (aside from being born and raised into it) is because it is a place where they feel they are with like-minded people, people who believe as they do, not just on a local level, but as a whole, however big that “whole” may be. How can I call myself Methodist if I know there are churches in another state calling themselves Methodist doing exactly the opposite of what my church does? That makes no sense and in the long run will not work.
Ask any kid who’s parents stayed married “for the kids”. They’ll tell you they wish their parents hadn’t.
I agree completely. There is nothing “united” about this plan, and I will not belong to a church that eschews church tradition and Holy Scripture in order to appease those who want to follow a popular movement.
The bottom line here is to think of what Jesus would have done. I know that he would have said something like “Suffer the gender confused to come unto me” and that would have been that. While it troubles me on one level, it must be remembered that although there are some anti-homosexual references in the Bible, we must consider that there are a lot of things in the Bible that were O.K. then (polygamy, concubines, slaves, etc.) that are outlawed now, so perhaps it is time to rethink their prohibitions against the sexually-confused. Remember, what would Jesus have done when confronted with the LGBT of that day – throw them out of Grace?
What do you do with sin? How do you interpret God’s word? We can not be united with our own definitions of sin. If the LGBT community want to come into our church then, just like all of us sinners we must recognize the sin in our own lives and determine like Wesley and others to turn and renounce that in our life that does not please Jesus and strive for perfection.