That was fast. In the primary General Conference since essentially the most conservative congregations disaffiliated, the United Methodist Church liberalized its teachings on marriage, sexuality, and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.
In other mainline denominations, just like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (USA), the conservative exodus has tended to come back after the progressive victory. But within the UMC, the conservative American contingent is already gone, so the vote wasn’t close.
With that settled, the following and maybe final battle between American Methodists who’ve been on opposite sides of theological and social issues for greater than half a century will concern who can win over the Africans, who’ve been the “principal group opposing the changes in policy” on sexuality and are also the biggest UMC contingent outside the United States. The breakaway conservative denomination called itself the Global Methodist Church in no small part because members hoped to stay in fellowship with churches within the Global South, where Methodism is more orthodox—and growing as Methodism within the US hasn’t in years.
But the United Methodist Church has also set in motion a plan to permit regional autonomy on the very issues that broke up the denomination domestically. This would permit African churches to stay traditional in how they define marriage and—so the pitch goes—otherwise insulate themselves from the Americans’ liberal course.
African Methodists have previously rejected similar proposals, likely understanding how such rules would dilute African churches’ influence over the denomination and exempt leaders of the shrinking US church from accountability to their African counterparts. They could be clever to reject the plan again.
I give that advice as a conservative Methodist myself—and one facing an analogous quandary over denominational affiliation. For now, I remain a United Methodist. My church is theologically traditional but fell in need of the congregational vote threshold to disaffiliate, and there’s no Global Methodist presence in my area.
Yet, long run, I see no future for conservatives of any nationality on this denomination. With so many evangelical congregations and far of the organized resistance to theological liberalism gone, the trajectory displayed on this week’s conference votes will only speed up.
A greater path, as we near the tip of the mainline, could be continued connection between the African and American Methodists who together prevented the UMC from happening this road for greater than 50 years. Global Methodists have a possibility to inherit essentially the most vibrant parts of United Methodism while disentangling from its outdated bureaucracy. More importantly, they’ve a probability to offer an orthodox Wesleyan witness that’s compromised neither by liberalism nor by fundamentalism.
The UMC held together so long as it did since it was orthodox on paper but progressive in practice, except in jurisdictions where traditionalists were numerically prevalent. But eventually, liberals who saw prohibitions on same-sex marriage as morally reminiscent of racial discrimination could not live with even nominal orthodoxy. And conservatives could not watch those prohibitions being routinely flouted without consequence.
Yet our divides were never solely about same-sex relationships. When Methodists began debating homosexuality in 1972, it was a reliable proxy for beliefs about biblical authority and the Christian understanding of affection. Today, I still consider liberalizing on sexual morality reflects an errant, culture-conforming view of Scripture and tradition, but I also think Methodists produce other pressing questions to handle—questions that sometimes cut across lines of debate over gay marriage and related topics.
Today there are more Methodists who passionately disagree with one another on LGBTQ questions while with the ability to recite the creeds together without crossing their fingers. And there are Methodists who’re slipping away from very basic doctrines about Christ and Scripture. If we will complete the denominational split and welcome the African churches into Global Methodism, perhaps conservative Methodists can put aside decades-long sexuality debates and focus as an alternative on core theological matters—and the broader work of the church—without compromising on marriage or abortion.
That vision is especially appealing because a lot of us on the conservative side have come to consider we weren’t ambitious enough. Over an extended time period and with considerable effort, even without real executive authority to expedite the method, perhaps we could have step by step transformed the UMC from a center-left denomination with a powerful evangelical subculture to a (mildly) center-right one with a powerful liberal subculture.
That opportunity, if it existed, has passed. But now, perhaps, we will do even higher by going our separate ways. I used to be recently at a dinner outside Washington, DC, with longtime combatants within the fight for Methodist renewal. Many expressed their wonderment and relief now that the fight was “lost”—that they may now follow conscience and conviction without energetic resistance from progressive church leaders.
Just a couple of years ago, they might have been hunkering all the way down to do battle on the General Conference, an experience a pastor friend once described to me as being like attending the Republican and Democratic National Conventions at the identical time. Now, conservative Methodists are free to practice an orthodox faith marked by the distinctive parts of our Wesleyan heritage.
There’s no guarantee that conservative Methodists will flourish, after all. But the brand new starting offers real promise, and our prospects can be higher if our African brothers and sisters join us. Global Methodism is constant a convention that shares their values and biblical perspective, and membership from the Global South is significant to the church we’ve sought to construct together for thus long.
W. James Antle III is executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.
