Early on in my theological education I was in an awkward place. I knew I was called to pastor, but because I had been running from God for so many years, I didn’t have a church home and therefore did not know where I might one day land. So I began investigating different denominations, what they believed, how they did church, who could and could not be ordained within them, what the qualifications were for their pastors, etc. I quickly discovered that there were several denominations that were not options for me due to my divorce. After crossing those off my list I began pursuing those churches where those sins of which I repented (like my divorce) would not preclude me from being a pastor.
Hello, United Methodist Church.
I have much respect for those churches who have a stated covenant – a standard by which they as a church, particularly its leaders, will order their lives. There is an integrity about them which I find compelling, even if and when I don’t agree with their standard. I have an equal if not greater amount of respect for people I have met along the way who feel they have been called by God into pastoral ministry, but for one reason or another, they cannot do so in the church they have long called home. Throughout seminary I met many women who found a home in the United Methodist Church because they could not be ordained in the church of their youth. They could have stayed, I suppose, and tried to change their church. Many of them even tried, so they said. But after being rebuffed a number of times they remembered Jesus’ command,
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet (Matt. 10:14).
They determined to practice biblical obedience by moving on rather than casting their pearls before swine, so to speak.
I have much respect for them. Rather than lobby year after year after year, for 40 years or more, stirring up dissension among their peers and rivalry among the ranks, they chose instead to find a new home. They brought their charge before others, and when those others would not repent and change their ways, they found a place more amicable to their convictions.
It never occurred to me to chastise these women for leaving women behind in the churches they left. Nor do I recall the women who did leave worrying about the spiritual well-being, or physical safety, of the women they left behind. I did hear, however, much respect all around for those who stayed and those who left. I heard things like, “Many of them seem to flourish in that environment, and they are following their convictions, as I am. I wish them well,” and other such sentiments.
Churches that do not ordain women on biblical grounds are still thriving, with many women within their ranks who are flourishing. Beth Moore doesn’t seem to be hurting too terribly from complementarianism, and this is true for thousands if not millions more. No one is forcing them to stay in a church which abides by certain rules. They are free to leave and find a new home just like the many women I met in seminary and have been blessed to serve alongside. While I may not agree with their interpretation of scripture and how women may or may not serve the church, I can respect it.
That respect for their institutional rules, coupled with how I think it best to love my neighbor, conditions how I would counsel a young woman in, let’s say a Baptist church, on what to do with her perceived call into ordained ministry. It would be very unloving of me, I think, to encourage her to stay and fight the system, or “kick against the goads.” Rather, I’d probably encourage her to become a Methodist.
Which is why I find the current advice of one of our bishops so out of place, if not harmful. Karen Oliveto, the UMC’s openly defiant, lesbian bishop, wrote that she will not leave the United Methodist Church, and urges others not to do so either. Rather, they should stay and continue to fight so that the church she loves will not “derail their ministries or commitments to love all people.” Aside from the fact that the bishop should know better – that loving someone and exercising church discipline are not mutually exclusive (amen, parents?) – why does someone who believes that the Church’s teaching is harmful to LGBT people encourage said people to stay and kick against the goads?
Having said that, I am mostly in agreement with the bishop at least on one point. I don’t want to see gay people leave the church, either. I want to see them, along with everyone else, being redeemed through the body of Christ. I want to witness waves of people laying their disordered loves at the altar and being transformed from the inside-out. I want to see people humbled and broken before God, willing to die to an identity rooted in sexual brokenness (this is for both gay and straight people) and rise again in Christ alone.
And none of us should expect anyone to show up at the doors of any church ready to embrace this cruciform life. I know I’m not most of the time and I have been in church all my life! But I do expect, and I think it’s fair to expect, that as a Church we are speaking with one voice when it comes to the things we believe Christ desires to redeem, and chief among them in our present day (as is true of all days) is how deeply fractured we are when it it comes to understanding sex and our bodies. If we as a Church cannot be united around this, than we render ourselves double-minded and thus unstable in all our ways (James 1:8).
May we as a Church love our neighbors well by offering them gracious counsel should their conscience not allow them to abide by their Church’s teaching, and may we love those who stay well by being united in how we speak about these things which have so thoroughly divided us as of late.
Desire Mercy 