Being a Methodist is pretty much all I’ve ever been. I know. I know. My by-line when I used to write for the paper’s Religion page identified me as “a Methodist with Catholic tendencies.” And I suppose that’s still pretty much true. But I was baptized at the Methodist church in Mabelvale. I became part of the United Methodist church by operation of law when the Methodists merged with….somebody……. when I was 13 or so. About the only impact the merger had on my young self at the time was that the MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) became the UMY or United Methodist Youth which in retrospect sounds kinda fascist. Anyway, I was educated as an undergraduate by the Methodists and they loaned me money to go to law school.
And I’m still a Methodist, albeit a somewhat lapsed one I like to think that i make up for it by being married to a UMC Deacon. I like to think it at least.
So I’m about as Methodist as it gets. The Methodist church I was raised in was a “big tent” informed by the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience. The church I grew up in and remain still, Catholic tendencies notwithstanding, is a tolerant place where a person can get all the welcoming grace he or she wants along with all the religion they can stand.
Which suits me, and a lot of my cohort, just fine.
All is not well however in the UMC. The church is experiencing an honest to God (you should pardon the expression) schism. The reasons for same vary depending on who you talk to. The schismatics (which is what they are) who wish to “disaffiliate” and become something called the Global Methodist Church will tell you that they are leaving to return to a more biblical and “Christ centered” church, which by the way, defines marriage as between a male and a female and whose clergy are at least unlikely to be gay.
Many UMC types I have talked to view the GMC as crypto bigots who are being led by narcissistic Baptist wannabe clergy who are tired of Bishops calling all the shots. And they highly resent the fact that the churches that are leaving at least on paper get to keep their church properties at a discount which would allow said clergy to create their own fiefdoms on somebody else’s dime. Which is what many of the folks in the UMC camp think is the primary motivator for the guys trying to go out the door.
Long story short, things are about to get ugly here in Arkansas really quick. The second largest Methodist congregation in Arkansas, First UMC in Jonesboro, voted to disaffiliate. The Arkansas Annual Conference of the UMC which is the ruling body of the church denied Jonesboro’s application to hit the trail. Long story even shorter, it is pretty clear that we are heading for litigation over all of this.
Which will be good for nobody.
Last year I assisted with the Theology Club at Catholic High. The sponsor asked me to explain what was going on with the Methodists. Which I did. But what I mainly did was to urge the boys to watch this very carefully. The United Methodists are the second or third largest worldwide denomination. And it is in schism. Which doesn’t happen every other day. This is important as a matter of history, both church and human.
What I didn’t tell the club is that the Christian church in America has historically splintered over social issues in the body politic. Mainly slavery, civil rights and now matters of human sexuality.
Somebody always winds up on the wrong side of history in these deals.
We shall see.
PS…I drafted this post a couple of days ago. Since then the Bishop of the UMC in Arkansas has suspended the Senior Pastor at Jonesboro FUMC from ministry pending formal charges. The suspended pastor has vowed, in a post on his Facebook page, to be in the pulpit today despite that fact.
Like I said. Things are about to get ugly here in Arkansas.
