Open Hearts, Open Minds, Closed Doors
Reverend Edward Johnson, a United Methodist pastor in Virginia who had been put on involuntary leave of absence for denying membership in his congregation to an openly gay parishioner, was reinstated today. (Here's a link to the original story for context.) We United Methodists really don't like gay people today, do we?
To be fair, the ruling is not entirely inconsistent with the Discipline:
Still, Dean Snyder explains how the Council manipulated language to come to this decision.
Personally, I do think that a pastor andor congregation has a right to place expectations on its members. A church might say that, to be a member, one must tithe or participate in a small group or even adhere to certain behavioral standards. Reverend Johnson, by contrast, singled out the sexual orientation of one person as grounds for exclusion.
Let me put it this way: Holding one another accountable for our actions is an important part of our Wesleyan heritage; witchhunts are childish.
To be fair, the ruling is not entirely inconsistent with the Discipline:
The 2004 Discipline invests discretion in the pastor-in-charge to make the determination of a person’s readiness to affirm the vows of membership (¶ 217). Paragraphs 214 and 225 are permissive and do not mandate receipt into membership of all persons regardless of their willingness to affirm membership vows.
Still, Dean Snyder explains how the Council manipulated language to come to this decision.
Personally, I do think that a pastor andor congregation has a right to place expectations on its members. A church might say that, to be a member, one must tithe or participate in a small group or even adhere to certain behavioral standards. Reverend Johnson, by contrast, singled out the sexual orientation of one person as grounds for exclusion.
Let me put it this way: Holding one another accountable for our actions is an important part of our Wesleyan heritage; witchhunts are childish.
posted by Tinley | 3:22 PM
2 Comments:
Interesting post.
So I guess the issue is, how do we discern what is a witchhunt and what is reasonable accountability?
And here in lies the real problem.
The United Methodist Church has tried to stay unified in the face of ever-growing theological divergence until we can no longer answer that question with any sort of consitancy from church to church, pastor to pastor, and Annual Conference to Annual Conference.
I keep saying it though few listen:
this debate is not about sexuality. It is about theology, Christiology, and our understanding of Scripture.
I don't know how a church as ideologicall fractured as ours can ever agree on the difference between accounatbility and bigotry because we have little in common in our basic assumptions about the Christian faith from which to develop a clear standard which we can all live with.
Folks need to stop looking at the symptoms and get to the root cause here. Otherwise, we'll just keeping talking past one-another, getting increasingly frustrated and hostile toward one-another as we go, without ever making progress.
If there is any hope of avoiding a split (and an ugly one at that) we've got to get to the root issues. What each of us hold to be true about sexuality stems from so many other deeper assumptions which we usually ignore.
Josh, I love your blog and your spirit! I must disagree with the way you seem to accept the Judicial Council's statement that the 2004 Book of Discipline grants pastors discretion to reject individuals for membership or determine whether they can properly take the vows of membership. Despite the fact that the Judicial Council cites a paragraph from the Discipline (paragraph 217)that paragraph actually says nothing about the discretion of the pastor. As the on dissenting opinion that has been release so far has said, the Judicial Council has pointed to no language in the Discipline that grants pastors such discretion. Should members of the church hold one another accountable? Yes,but that assumes allowing people to be members first, doesn't it?
So Josh, am I missing something? Have you found the language in the Discipline that actually says that pastors have this discretion over membership--or did the JC just interpret this out of the word "may" and their own anti-gay prejudices?
Steven Webster
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