Amendment 1 --Coming to an Annual Conference Near You.

I tend to avoid blogging about hot social/Church topics, but I feel compelled to voice my opinion for once.

When it comes to homosexuality and the United Methodist Church, I really have no compelling position either way. This is not to say that I don't care...but arguing either side seems to be to get too political, polemical, and misplaces our zeal. I don't really take a side, so I figure both sides hate me for not being with them. Or someone's bound to call me a coward or other such thing. Perhaps that's true. I don't know.

I pastored a church with member who was an openly homosexual man who was both a faithful man of God and a key leader in the congregation. His sexual orientation meant nothing more to me than did his hair color. I neither affirmed his sexual orientation nor did I denounce it. I never felt the need to do either. Am I some sort of anomaly? I don't know many others like me, but that might be because people like me don't really talk about it.

If the UMC continues to oppose the full inclusion of the GLBT community in the life and ministry of the church, I'll continue to be a United Methodist (and some level of clergy). If the UMC changes to include the GLBT community in the life and ministry of the church, I'll continue to be a United Methodist (and some level of clergy). You see, this is not what I'm about. I'm about loving God and loving my neighbor. Now I know what you might be thinking, How can I love God if I'm not upholding and defending our doctrines which illustrate how we are to love God? or perhaps you're thinking, how can you claim to love your neighbor if you permit an entire population to be oppressed and excluded by the church?

Here's the thing: Something about how my brain is wired or how I was raise, or some combination of these two things or perhaps some other influence I cannot currently imagine makes it mind-numbingly difficult for me to see this (or many other) things in black and white. Sometimes shades of grey seem too cut and dry. I don't know how to be a good Methodism this issue; I can't tell where abstaining from doing harm ends and doing all the good I can begins. Or vice a versa. And that doesn't even begin to consider my responsibility to attend to all of the ordinances of the Lord. I don't even know what they all are, past the Means of Grace and other works of piety.

I write all of this because I've just heard Maxie Dunnam's argument against Amendment 1 to the UMC Constitution. I agree with him that it opens the door to all people, repentant or not of any variety of sin. It hamstrings the leadership structure of the local congregation, and it further reduces clergy to service providers. As a clergy person I will never be able to require any sort of catachetical process for inquiring members, to clear the roll of any no-participating members, or even require confirmation classes for those baptized as infants.

There are a variety of ways to go about fighting for the inclusion of the GLBT community into the church, but as it look to me, this way does considerably more harm than good. It seems to me to be underhanded; I value transparency when it comes to any sort of communication or relationship, and this seems like some sort of legislative slight-of-hand...misdirection. For the above mentioned reasons, I think its a poorly thought out plan as well that smacks of nothing less than impatience. Though it doesn't translate precisely to this situation, I can't help but think of an old saying form the Army, "There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it twice." If the folks pushing Amendment 1 think that they're goal is righteous and worth doing, then they must attain that goal the right way by equally righteous means.

I won't leave the United Methodist Church if we continue to exclude the GLBT community from the life of the church. I won't leave if we include them.

But if the church votes to completely remove a clergy person's right to discern who and who is not ready for full membership of the church, then I'll have to seriously consider leaving the United Methodist Church. That's not an ecclesiology I can get behind.