This week's UM Reporter presented side-by-side articles with differing yet compelling views on our polity. Christy Thomas wrote an article arguing that recent Judicial Council decisions overturning the will of General and Jurisdictional Conferences have demonstrated that the standard United Methodist approach of shaping our life and ministry together through an orderly administrative process no longer works. She uses strong language (as UMC-speak goes) like "revolution" and "strangulation" to describe the need for UMs to take the bull by the horns and bring radical change to our ministry outside of the legislative process.
On the opposite page, Bishop Woodie White defends the "power" of UM polity with a compelling personal story. He tells of a visit with a segregationist pastor during the civil rights movement. When he informs the pastor that he intends to worship at the all-white Methodist congregation, the pastor tells him that he will have him arrested. Bishop White tells the pastor that the Book of Discipline defends racial equality. The pastor argues that statements about racial equality are in the Social Principals and are not church law, and then surprises Bishop White by sharing that he would support integration if the denomination were to make it church law.
Most, if not all, United Methodists feel strongly about supporting our Book of Discipline and working through the conference structure to make changes to keep us faithful and effective in our ministry. We generally react strongly against those who snub their noses at church law, perhaps recognizing the threat such actions pose to an orderly life together, even at the local church level. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if a local congregation cared nothing for the order that the Discipline provides for our ministry. And so this questioning is a sign of the deep frustration a lot of UMs are feeling right now.
Our current situation has caused me to reflect on the theology behind our polity. Sure, our legislative process is probably more inspired by the American system of representative democracy than by any scriptural form of church governance. Still, our polity expresses assumptions we hold about the manner in which God speaks in our collective life.
John Wesley considered "holy conferencing" a means of grace. Though he tended to be dictatorial in his administration of the Methodist movement, he understood that God has a way of speaking to groups of people, to communities, rather than only individuals. In "Life Together" Bonheoffer said that the voice of Christ in me is weak, but the voice of Christ in my brother [or sister] is strong. The weak voice of Christ in me needs to hear the strong voice of Christ coming through others. We are arrogant if we think we know the will of God better than anyone else, and we are foolish if we think we know the will of God better than everyone else. From the time of Acts 15, Christians have gotten together hash out differences, pray and share, to discern together the will of God for their collective life and ministry. That's the basis of our whole conference system, our entire legislative process, all the resolutions, petitions, elections, hotel bills, caucus breakfasts, boards, logos, paragraphs, insider jargon, etc., etc., etc.
We believe that God speaks to all of us. We believe that when any of us think that all of us are moving the wrong direction, any of us can share our concern so that all of us can consider it and we can together move in another direction. We believe that if we are going to work together to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ is ways beyond what any of us can do on our own, we've got to have a common community rule and practice, a mutual respect and agreed upon ordering of our life.
The challenge we are facing and the frustration we are feeling is that the Judicial Council has created a situation in which our polity, which is designed to move the denomination according to the collective wisdom of the people, has made it impossible for the will of the people to direct the ministry of the denomination. General Conference says that the collective discernment of the people called Methodist is that we no longer can efficiently accomplish our mission if we continue to guarantee appointments of clergy. Judicial Council says that it doesn't care what the UMC thinks--Methodist preachers have guaranteed appointments. General Conference says the will of the people is to streamline the work of boards and agencies to focus on mission. Judicial Council says it doesn't care what the collective will of the people might be. Jurisdictional Conference says that a bishop is ineffective and must retire. Judicial Council says it doesn't care what the collective wisdom of the people might be. Those who disagreed with the decisions of these General and Judicial Councils should be as concerned as anyone else about the implications of their overturning. How can we have collective discernment on mission when what really matters is crossing all the t's and dotting all the administrative i's? If the Jerusalem Church of Acts 15 had a Judicial Council to deal with, Christianity would still be a Jewish sect.
Perhaps the most pressing challenge we face as United Methodists is the challenge to restore our polity to its purpose. How can our system be restored to serve the purpose of collective discernment to create a continuous reformation of our collective life toward our mission to the world? How can our polity be reshaped so that holy conferencing determines our decision making rather than legislative skill and legalistic wordsmithing?
