Methodist Bishops Respond to Controversy
CHICAGO – Methodist bishops, meeting in response to the recent controversy surrounding the defeat of gender equity affirmations. The bishops engaged in a prayerful process to discern a way forward. At the conclusion of the discernment process, guided by the mission, vision and scope document, the bishops agreed to recommend the One Church Plan. This plan provides conferences, churches, and pastors the flexibility to uniquely reach their missional context while retaining the connectional nature of The United Methodist Church.
The One Church Plan allows for contextualization of language about the relative worth of females in support of the mission; and allows for central conferences, especially those in Africa, to retain their disciplinary authority to adapt the Book of Discipline and continue to include traditionally masculine language, masculine values, and male dominated structure while fulfilling the vision of a global and multicultural church which believes God loves everyone equally.
This plan also encourages a generous unity by giving United Methodists the ability to address different missional contexts in ways that reflect their theological convictions. The One Church Plan removes the restrictive language of the Book of Discipline and adds assurances to pastors and Conferences who, due to their theological convictions, can not affirm that a God values men and women equally, that God transcends gender (transgender?), or that it is wrong for pastors and conferences to deny members access to the life, worship, and governance of the Church because of race, color, gender, national origin, ability, age, marital status, or economic condition.
“With convicted humility, bishops want to be pastors and shepherds of the whole church in order to maximize the presence of a United Methodist witness in as many places in the world as possible and with as much contextual differentiation as possible,” said the newly installed Council of Bishops President. When asked to clarify the meaning of the council’s response and recommendations, the council president noted that they “are working on translating the Council’s recommendations into the various language’s spoken by conference attendees, including English.” “However,” he added, “due to the difficulties involved, these recommendations won’t likely be available in time for membership to engage in meaningful debate or prayer prior to the special session. Everyone knows that translation services in the 21st Century are extremely difficult and time intensive. We hope that soon the Lord will bless us with some Divinely inspired machine in which we can enter a sentence of one language, and a translation will immediately show up next to the original! This may seem crazy, but with prayer, all things are possible. In the meantime, we’ll just have to be patient.”
Since details of the One Church plan have yet to be released, many church members have expressed confusion. One member of the Texas Conference voiced his frustration: “Does this mean I could be nominated to serve on the Nurture Committee? Decorate the sanctuary? Organize the next church dinner? I mean…wow…where does it end?” In an email, the office of an African Central Conference Bishop voiced his support for gender equity, but raised concerns about the affirmation vote, saying that “of course women are equal in God’s eyes, but affirming gender equity would likely limit my flexibility to uniquely reach our missional context and threaten the connectional nature of The United Methodist Church.” When asked for clarification, the Bishop responded simply “The answer is Jesus, of course, through Whom all things are possible…can I get an Amen?”
While the bishops recommended the One Church Plan, they affirmed that the Connectional Conference Plan and the Traditionalist Plan held values that are important to the life and work of the church and will be included in the final report to the General Conference.
The other two plans on the table are:
- The Traditionalist Plan would affirm the current language in the denomination’s Book of Discipline, the denomination’s governing document. This plan would retain gender language. Some worry that this plan would restrict woman’s ability to lead. However, the president of The Good News Methodists added that “these worries are unfounded. In fact, if this plan is affirmed, the first thing we want to do is celebrate God’s special love of women by sponsoring a special course dealing gender issues.”
- The Connectional-Conference plan would allow congregations to choose among three connectional conferences for affiliation. The connectional conferences would align based on theology or perspective on the relative value of male vs female in God’s Kingdom. This plan has been widely accepted as utterly ridiculous in every respect. One proponent of the plan, wishing to remain anonymous, stated that “…the plan doesn’t have a chance in Hell of passing. In fact, it’s chances of passing may be even lower than that of One Church Plan. However, the Connectional-Conference plan is still useful as a fallback position, serving to keep apportionments, real estate, retirement funds and other assets flowing to, and administered by, the UMC® ,regardless of any single member or conference’s theological leanings. This is something that we can all agree that God wants.”