In this connection, a conflict of covenants
UMR Communications
Charles W. Brockwell Jr
April 4, 2004
Our denomination is experiencing a tragic and dramatic conflict of covenant relationships.
One of them is the matrimonial covenant between two people in love who wish publicly and reverently to commit to life together "until we are parted by death." The other is the connectional covenant every ordained United Methodist publicly and reverently agrees to when received into conference membership and set apart as a commissioned minister, deacon or elder.
United Methodist clergy connectional vows are also lifelong. Even in retirement, a United Methodist pastor is a member of a disciplined order of persons, accountable to the world church through this denomination.
Both matrimonial and conference membership/ordination vows are solemn vows voluntarily taken by consenting adults.
For some United Methodist homosexual clergy, these two deep relationship covenants are currently incompatible. TV news got it wrong last week by saying The United Methodist Church does ordain homosexual persons. The Church, however, requires homosexual clergy to be celibate.
At each major step toward ordination, all candidates for clergy status are asked if they agree to observe "fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness." Since The United Methodist Church sanctions only heterosexual matrimony, this phrase, sometimes termed "United Methodism's seven lust words," constitutes a commitment to celibacy by homosexual clergy.
Our connectional covenant for clergy further stipulates, in Paragraph 304.3 of the Book of Discipline, "self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church." A non-binding Social Principle, Paragraph 161.G, and a binding statute, Paragraph 304.3, assert, "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."
Finally, engaging in "practices declared by The United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings" -- Paragraph 2702 -- is a chargeable offense for which a clergy person can be tried and, if found guilty, punished.
In our Pacific Northwest Annual Conference, the Rev. Karen Dammann came forward and declared that she is in a committed relationship with a female partner. This issue was brought to trial.
Thirteen clergy of one's annual conference comprise a pastor's trial court. Conviction requires nine votes.
On March 20, Ms. Dammann was acquitted by 11 members of the trial court, with the other two recorded as unable to reach a conclusion. The jurors acknowledged Discipline paragraphs 304.3 and 2702, but said they felt insufficient evidence had been presented to prove these had been violated.
Had she been convicted, Ms. Dammann could have appealed. According to Paragraph 2715.10, the church, however, "shall have no right of appeal from findings of the trial court."
It seems to me the conflict of two sacred convenants has been intentionally precipitated in our connection. Apparently, Ms. Dammann meant to challenge the church, and the trial court communicated, "In this annual conference, Discipline pars 304.3, 315.98n and 2702 do not apply."
Where do we go from here?
Delegates to the General Conference April 27-May 7 in Pittsburgh will begin to answer that question.
The Dammann case has ended the chances for revising Social Principles 161.G to say that Christian people disagree about whether homosexual practice is compatible with Christian teaching. General Conference may now move our official teaching farther to the right.
At the least, I think it will make future trial court decisions appealable by the church.
How should this be dated from General Conference to the congregations? Certainly not in terms of "love" versus "law." Love ways warm; law says cold. Those people who deplore the Dammann verdict on the grounds of "the law of the Church" ultimately forget the argument.
Neither can we fruitfully debate this issue consistently on the traditional found of biblical authority. Jesus, our key to Scripture, had nothing to say about homosexuality, but prohibited divorce, either absolutely or perhaps for all reasons except infidelity.
Yet, in my experience, Christians who take the hard line against homosexuality as a matter of "biblical authority" never apply the same criterion to divorce. I'm glad they don't, but they cannot be given a bye on where to conform literally to "biblical authority."
The Bible part of this debate must distinguish between being biblical from being biblicist. Biblical thinking prayerfully searches for the basic principles of the Triune Lord's interaction with humankind in our story from "in the beginning" to "come, Lord Jesus." Biblical believers strive to hand this on to coming generations as a living tradition by applying reason, including scientific research, and experience, including experience with "them," whomever "them" may be, to what the story tells about God and people.
Biblical thinking is open; the Bible is the "revealing Word of God," to use Dietrich Bonhoeffer's phrase.
Biblicist thinking looks for precepts and commands, the Bible as the NFL Rulebook -- Normalized Faith Living. Biblicist thinking is closed; the Bible is the veiled Word and God and we have seen all that it reveals.
For me, it is more helpful to pray and act on the Dammann case in terms of questions surrounding the conflict of covenants.
Does the Church have the right to tell me which covenants I may make?
If the Church's standards for admission to the covenant community of United Methodist conference are clear, and I voluntarily accept them, do I have the right later to select which of them I will keep and which I will not?
If I insist upon continuing to serve as the Church's representative with the full credibility of the Church's authority, on terms that I alone determine, am I proclaiming, "Challenge authority -- unless it is mine?"
If loyalty to my conscience makes life in the Church harder for other persons of good will who are not yet where I am on an issue, and makes progress toward my vision harder to achieve in the connection as a whole, do I have any responsibility to the connection? Does the exercise of my freedom become a stumbling block to the weak?
If my Church divides into new denominations, what chance does my light have to shine in "their" darkness? How could my leaven then work in the Church? How can I witness to people who no longer have to deal with me because I have forced them, or given them opportunity, to put me where I am no longer seen by them?
Have I told part of the body of Christ, "I have no need of you?"
Is painful patience with my loving and also troubled and hurting "not there yet" sisters and brothers part of what it means to be a biblical Christian?
"Bear one another's burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
"Deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow me."
Will our denomination continue under a common Discipline? Will we develop into a confederation of annual conferences that may not recognize each other's ordained ministry? Will the two fringes tear the fabric of our Church by their will to power, their determination to make the Church conform?
What do I think about the Dammann verdict? This verdict seems to me a clear choice to affirm a personal covenant and deny the connectional one.
Everything I've read from the court's decision and the interpretation by bishops in attendance strikes me as double talk. However, much as I may have wanted to vote for acquittal, I could not have done so for any of the reasons I have read.
We are called to live together in love into the "much more" the Lord wants to tell us, but we can't bear now. The Dammann verdict has lessened United Methodism's chances for doing this. Too many people on both sides seem to view homosexuality as a Church-dividing issue -- willing to throw each other away as parts of the body of Christ they don't think they need or even to remove the other as a cancer fatal to the body.
Do not give up hope! Pray for General Conference! Pray for your "enemies!" Pray for those who "say all manner of evil against you!" Pray for all families and all loving forms of family! Bear each other's burdens, even when "their" burden seems to be your cross!
Finally, thank God for calling us to a connection, The United Methodist Church, that loves so much that it therefore hurts more deeply. Mr. Wesley said of us, "The only way in which I want Methodists to be different from other Christians is for them to be known as those who love the most."
We're trying, Mr. Wesley, we're trying.
Dr. Charles W. Brockwell Jr. is pastor of Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church in Louisville, Ky.