An Open Letter to Traditionalists, Centrists, and Progressives

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Grace and Peace to you in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. During this week where we pause to focus on Thanksgiving, we pray each of you find time to reflect on all the many blessings God has given us. There are many and God is so, so good to us.

This past weekend (November 19, 2022), a called session of the Arkansas Annual Conference failed to ratify the disaffiliation agreements of three churches. Depending upon your perspective, the reactions have included a wide range of emotions – from hurt and anger to celebration – and everything in between.

As two leaders amongst traditionalist, centrist, and progressive voices, we have come together to speak calm and reason into what is an extremely contentious time.

The United Methodist Church is going through a divorce. Divorces are hard and often extremely painful. This one certainly has been. As a local church pastor and a layperson who has walked with many couples going down that path, here are a few things we can say with certainty:

  1. Adding personal attacks or sharing slanderous words about fellow sisters and brothers in Jesus never helps. We have our differences and it’s fine to disagree about theology, doctrine, and vision. It’s fine to advocate strongly for those positions. Getting up and sharing (or repeating) alleged negative words and deeds about another isn’t necessary and is never helpful. It only serves to sharpen and deepen conflict. We have no doubt this has been done by people on all sides of the present issues, and we should avoid it at all costs. We commend for study and use the guidelines for Christian conversation on difficult topics written by retired Bishop Sally Dyck which may be found following this link.
  2. Getting even is never a good strategy. It’s antithetical to the message of Jesus. We likely will not be reconciled on our approaches to theology and doctrine, but we can be reconciled in our relationships with one another – even if it’s to love each other from a distance.
  3. No church departing The United Methodist Church is getting out without significant costs – relationally and monetarily. Disaffiliation votes raise the anxiety of the church and often lead to people leaving. The entire process requires, for most churches, a sum of money that typically reaches into six figures. Stopping the disaffiliation process of a church is not a “win.” It’s simply furthering the hurt. The idea that it would lead to reconciliation is suspect. More often than not it will lead to the hiring of lawyers and further contention. The opening sentence of paragraph 2553 is clear, “Because of the current deep conflict within The United Methodist Church around issues of human sexuality, a local church shall have a limited right, under the provisions of this paragraph, to disaffiliate from the denomination for reasons of conscience….” (emphasis added)
  4. The disaffiliation process is long and hard. Many annual conferences have prescribed multiple steps including mandatory discernment periods, numbers of congregational meetings, even allowing the public to comment on the process. All of this is overseen by a bishop, district superintendents, and other members of the annual conference leadership. Unless one of those leaders has shared public concerns that the process was unfair or one-sided, then we should trust the process. In our humble opinions, the only reason to reject a disaffiliation agreement is if there is credible evidence offered by the annual conference that the church conference vote was made illegitimate by some violation of the prescribed process. Otherwise, we should trust the church and its people to discern what’s best for them. That’s the spirit in which paragraph 2553 was adopted by The United Methodist Church. Votes of 66.7% represent two-thirds of the church – a large margin. Yes, all sides are using “get out the vote” strategies. Let’s be honest about that. Two-thirds is a significant hurdle and should be respected. We use that number to amend the United Methodist Constitution. If it’s good enough for that, it should be good enough in this instance.

Acts 15:36-41 which tells the story of the “sharp disagreement” between Paul and Barnabas can and should guide us through the remaining meetings of annual conferences. We can disagree sharply. In fact, we do. We can also let each other go to pursue our different directions trusting that everything is in God’s hands, and He will deal with things in the best way possible.

Moving forward, we pray cooler and calmer heads will prevail. God bless you!

In Christ,

Lonnie D. Brooks
General Conference Reserve Delegate
Alaska Conference

 

Rev. Jay Therrell
President
Wesleyan Covenant Association

 

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