Confessions From A Christian

Long before I left my former church, back in 2015, I was at church preparing for the following week’s VBS when I got a news alert on my phone about the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges. At the time, I kept my elation mostly to myself - I didn’t know how the pastor at the time would feel about it, and I didn’t want anything to dampen my mood. Just over two months prior, I had defended my undergraduate thesis, which argued that bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, and proposed one thread of reasoning that I thought the Court might reasonably adopt, and while my research advisor and my thesis advisor had both thought I was dead wrong, I was pleased to be proven right (and, of course, pleased that the Court was taking steps to fix what seemed to me to be an ongoing injustice in the United States).

See, I had left the Catholic church, in part, over the same-sex marriage issue. While I’m not LGBTQ+ myself, I felt that the issue was one of fundamental fairness and compassion - and it was important to me that it be resolved. The Methodist church also didn’t support LGBTQ+ rights, but it had always seemed less vehement about it than the Catholic church, so I always kind of just hoped that the change was coming. 

In 2016, with the same-sex marriage issue broiling in advance of General Conference, I took an interest in how the UMC underwent changes for the first time. My pastor’s encouragement of that interest started me on the path toward serving at Annual Conference in my area, but I read news from General Conference 2016 praying for a resolution. The debate, and the protests, left an impression on me, and I had real hope heading into my Annual Conference that year that the compromise - the Way Forward Commission - could actually work.

At Annual Conference, I heard the story of bishops meeting late at night, summoning people from both sides of the debate, to try and find a way to avoid a schism. And at the time, “schism” was a scary word - could the UMC survive a split? I also encountered the Reconciling Ministries Network for the first time. They gave me a rainbow stole; I wore it happily. I also saw my pastor wear one, and for the first time I really believed, not just hoped, that change was on the horizon.

Things stagnated, then, though I had the pleasure of getting to really know a woman who brought their adopted daughter to Children’s Church every Sunday, and occasionally her former foster daughter as well. She was in a lesbian relationship, and especially after I started law school she opened up to me frequently about how frustrating it was for her and her partner to constantly be viewed with more suspicion than an average straight couple. It was one of the reasons, she implied, that her partner didn’t regularly attend church.

In came a new pastor. He was friends with our former pastor, so I had high hopes for him. As my previous posts will display, the hopes were misplaced on a personal level, but we actually had somewhat compatible politics. The Way Forward Commission came out with their three plans.

The Traditional Plan would retain anti-LGBTQ+ language in the Book of Discipline, and strengthen disciplinary measures against gay and lesbian clergy members.

The Connectional Conference Plan would form three sub-churches: one for traditionalists, one for progressives, and one for “unity”-minded churches and clergy. 

The One Church Plan would remove the anti-LGBTQ+ language and permit local churches and clergy to express their conscience on the matter.

And in February of 2019, a special session of the General Conference voted on the Traditional and One Church Plans. I had school obligations those days; I ignored a good chunk of my classes to follow the news. I knew - I just knew - that the One Church Plan would succeed. I had already formulated my arguments to my local church as to why we should embrace our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters. It was the perfect compromise; I never expected it to fail.

But General Conference 2019 voted it down. At the time, this is what I wrote, and I stand by it today when I think back on it:

“I cannot fathom a church that would choose divisiveness and alienation over compromise and compassion. We waited three years in the hope of progress. The delegates gave us nothing but regression.

The United Methodist Church is dying, at least in the United States. Fewer and fewer people are joining. More are leaving. I don’t understand the reasoning behind choosing to alienate and reject people who are begging for inclusion and acceptance.”

The next day, Reconciling Ministries tweeted that they had been informed by the General Conference staff that the area now had “police with their guns and security with pepper spray (or similar) roaming and ready for action.” What it sounded like - and sometimes appearances are everything - was a violent precautionary measure, aimed at intimidating those who had supported the One Church Plan, and who vehemently opposed the Traditional plan, so that those who wanted inclusion and compassion would sit down, shut up, and take what was coming quietly. I felt sick at the time, and still feel sick thinking about it now.

I was in class during the vote on the Traditional Plan, ignoring my professor as I watched Twitter and Facebook for the news. And by the time I got home, I had recognized why passing the Traditional Plan bothered me so much: John 8:3-11. 

For those who aren’t Bible buffs, John 8:3-11 recounts the story of the Pharisees bringing Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery, then punishable by stoning. When the Pharisees demand that Jesus tell them what to do, he famously responds: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Of course, no one could live up to Jesus’s standard. Those hoping to stone the woman disperse and, when the woman observes that her accusers have left, Jesus sends her on her way: “Neither do I condemn you.”

Back in February, I summed it up like this, and I can’t really think of a better way to phrase it now:

“To declare that clergy members who do their earnest best to live the life God calls them to live should be punished because we disagree with their moral determinations is arrogant. We allow liars to be clergy. We allow those who speak unkindly to be clergy. We allow it, even if these sins happen more than once.

Why is the sin of loving the wrong person worse than lying? Worse than being unkind? And even if you believe that the sin is worse, who are we as humans to overrule what Jesus said about justice and mercy?

In my heart of hearts, I can find no rationale for pushing to increase enforcement of the anti-LGBT language in the Book of Discipline other than hatred for that which the Traditional Plan’s supporters do not understand. Jesus calls for compassion; and, as a church, we have no right to ignore that call.”

As time wore on, I observed one more thing: if God calls a lesbian woman, or a gay man, or anyone else, to the clergy, who are we as humans to deny that calling? Who are we to tell God that he called the wrong person? How arrogant and presumptuous must we be under the Traditional Plan?

In February, things were drawing toward the end at my church. But in the days following General Conference 2019, I found myself heartened by the message on the marquee sign outside: “ALL MEANS ALL.” My pastor signed an open letter to the church condemning the Traditional Plan, and one of the women in the church whom I’d thought was genuinely a good friend told me that she, too, was broken over the decision, but had resolved to fight for something better.

My co-teacher and I made the decision on Sunday to talk to the kids about the decision of the General Conference. It was difficult - remember, one of our students had lesbian parents - but, we felt, it was necessary. And I have never been more inspired than when our little kids expressed their confusion and outrage over a decision that, to them, made no sense. One little girl expressed confusion at how something as basic as the freedom to love someone and get married to them could be controversial.

The little acts of resistance, the outrage from the kids, it all came together to reignite my own hope.

In the months that followed, just about everyone expressed their opinions. In the Washington Post, a queer clergywoman summed it up: “We queer clergy begged our fellow Methodists to love us. They voted no.” On Facebook groups, on Reddit, and in person, the heretofore forbidden s-words became more common: splitting. separation. schism.

A prominent minister on the traditionalist side, less than a month after “winning” at General Conference 2019, made clear that unity, compromise, and compassion were never an option. Mainstream UMC posted his e-mail in full - in summary, he gloated over the traditionalist win at General Conference 2019, and suggested that those who opposed it should leave, as their continued presence in the UMC is an embarrassment. 

And talk of schism, and of separation, has continued to simmer, until now. Now, the water’s reached its boiling point. We have a plan. We have the Way Forward we were promised. And at General Conference 2020, at least the way I see it, the delegates have two options: stop the pot from boiling over, or ignore the problem and hope we can clean up the mess in 2024. 

Membership in the Methodist Church in the United States has been dropping for years. Increasingly, young adults looking for churches veer away from churches that preach or even merely accept exclusion and intolerance. Splitting the church, accepting that we cannot compromise on issues of love and compassion, seems to me to be the only way to prove that we mean it when we say “Jesus is Love.” It seems to me that this is the only way to prove that we’re convinced of our own beliefs, that we’re serious about welcoming everyone, that we’re a church of love, and inclusion, and protection of human dignity.

I grew up Catholic, and I left the Catholic church in college because, increasingly, Catholic doctrine started having more holes than substance (at least, to me and my reading of the Bible) and none of the priests I reached out to were willing to give me anything more substantial than “the Bible says so,” even when I couldn’t find where the Bible actually said anything about the matter at hand.

Add on the longstanding problems in the Catholic church (where priests’ jobs have been repeatedly placed ahead of innocent children’s physical and psychological wellbeing, and the few authority figures who try to take local action keep getting told to wait for a comprehensive plan), and, well… I realized that I was getting more stress than fulfillment, and I felt like an outsider every time I went to Mass, so I stopped going.

So I turned to Methodism, because I was raised to be a Good Christian Girl™ and not going to church just wasn’t really an option. I ended up really involved in the Methodist Church in the mid-2010’s, and particularly in the children’s program at my own small church. And that was great for a while.

My conversion to Protestantism was always a sticking point between me and my mother, and I will always regret that a difference of religion meant that many of the times I saw her in the last months of her life were filled with bitter, frustrated arguments.

The day I finished the long process of writing and defending my undergraduate thesis, I drove 3 hours to my hometown with my roommate (a friend from my pre-college years), and didn’t go home because I was too proud of my pro-same-sex-marriage thesis (this was pre-Obergefell) and too tired to put up with another argument about my Protestantism, my liberal views, and my different interpretation of the Bible from the priest at my former church. I called her, told her I was done, that I’d done well, and that I’d see her the next evening, but I was going to crash with my roommate at her parents’ house.

My mother died the next afternoon, before I could call her again. I missed my last chance to see her because I feared another fight about religion. I would give anything to take that decision back.

My father was not thrilled at my conversion, but he’s come around since my mom passed away; he supports me finding a place where I feel spiritually filled, I think more or less because he’s lonely and he’s afraid to lose me (but I won’t ever let a difference of religion come between us). He volunteers at the church I went to as a child, and, up until the events that led to me leaving my small church, he always supported our kids’ programs to.

Although my church always had problems that left me frustrated, I got a lot of fulfillment out of teaching the kids in the church. But then, in 2016, I ended up as an Annual Conference delegate, and I think that’s where things started to spiral, happy as I was to go at the time.

AC was great, and I’m a law-brained sorta person, so all that legislation was wonderful. But I also had the opportunity to see the gritty reality of a world where religion is designed to make money, not just to fill spirits. Churches that don’t make money - even if they don’t lose any - can be closed, regardless of the negative effects, if someone in power thinks that a different kind of church can be more profitable. And if people at AC express dismay over the results? They’re probably good Christians, or they wouldn’t be at AC. Call for a prayer so they’ll shut up and you can move on.

But, you know, power corrupts. So I went back to my small church to try and fix everything I could on a local level, because I while I couldn’t fix the United Methodist Church, I could fix MY church. And, as an AC delegate, I had a spot on the Church Council to help with that goal. But, as it turns out, sometimes even people on a local level really just want the church to make more money. My dream (shared with a couple other church members, admittedly, but by no means all) was to use our children’s program to reach unchurched and underserved kids and bring them to Jesus. That, unfortunately, is not a financially profitable dream. Kids cost money, and unchurched kids are usually not rich ones. And their families often don’t come for more than the children’s events - and they only come for the children’s events because it’s free babysitting.

So every step was like clawing my way out of quicksand. Getting volunteers was like pulling teeth. Getting supplies was usually a matter of “do what you can with the church budget, and donate the rest.” Without volunteers, setup became “work until you’re about to pass out, go home, sleep two hours, then come back and finish before the kids get here.” Meanwhile, programs meant to draw in rich retirees from our community (so that they could give donations while they were in the building, of course) had more volunteers than they needed, and no one questioned whether practically every single man in the church was going to stay after on Sunday to help set up.

And the pastor at the time really was great. But they were a peacekeeper; any problems that arose always had two sides, and always ended in whatever decision kept the status quo because the status quo was safe, and easy.

But then the next AC came, and my pastor retired. The pastor that replaced them had wanted to retire, but had been encouraged by the district superintendent to take on our church instead, as a “part-time full-time assignment.” And I hoped and prayed that they’d bring with them change, but I should’ve been more careful with what I wished for.

They cannot tell the truth to save their life. They would approach me about an issue that was “very important” to them. We’d talk, and come up with a solution. At Church Council, without fail, the pastor would come in and insist that, in fact, we had decided on some entirely different plan. The pastor rarely showed up at children’s ministry events, so getting volunteers got even harder (why care about VBS if the pastor doesn’t?). Slowly, but surely, the church eroded every program I had helped put in place, watering it down or trying to monetize it. So, the Book of Discipline actually mandates a YA representative have a spot on the Church Council. For a while, I and one other millennial (also an AC delegate) fulfilled that role. But the pastor felt it was more important to send the church treasurer, so he could learn to make more money for the church. And that was fine; I and the other millennial approached the pastor at the end of the year about having a YA rep on the council either way (I’d always gone as an at-large delegate; our church was small enough that we only needed 1 lay delegate), and he more or less told us that the Book of Discipline didn’t apply when it was inconvenient for the church.

That’s where I realized that the bridge I was standing on would, inevitably, crumble. But I told myself it was worth trying to fix what was wrong. So I tried. And for a short time, I thought my biggest problem was going to be ensuring that the 2019 General Conference decision didn’t change the way my church embraced its LGBT members.

This new year had brought someone I’d always viewed as a friend into a position of authority in the church. I was excited for her, and I really hoped and prayed that she could do good for the church, and that we could work together to build an inclusive church with a healthy outreach to the underserved and unchurched, things I had always thought she agreed with me about (because she’d told me to my face that she did).

But no sooner did she take the reins than she implemented the volunteer dress code. Which was a far worse thing than it sounds.

We live in Texas. The dress code? No tank tops, no shorts. Ever. Apparently, some anonymous complainer had, at some point, seen an underwear slip or a bra strap. And rather than talk to the volunteers, they wrote a policy. Side note, apparently skirts of any length were fine for women.

Goodbye VBS. I can’t in good conscience ask anyone to monitor children outside, in June, in Texas, in full-length jeans and a t-shirt.

Also, no going barefoot in the sanctuary, ever, for any reason. I was one of two people who regularly shed my shoes during kids’ events where we used the sanctuary. But rather than talk to me about it, it was better to make a policy about it that literally everyone I spoke to knew was a rebuke.

Then, in one of the brand-new children’s oversight committee meetings, they decided to dismantle the children’s program bit by bit. Children’s church? Cancelled. Apparently, we were running a renegade program without pastoral approval anyway.

VBS? “If we can’t charge for it, let’s just cancel it. Add on a few lies about how poorly it was run (by me, in part) to make it seem like a logistical problem.” The children’s director objects to a sexist-worded dress code and refuses to impose it on those under her? “Fire her, no need to look at whether there’s a problem. Make the volunteers (including me) sign the policy before you’ll let them teach the kids on Sunday. Remind them explicitly that this is a prerequisite to working with the kids, so that they don’t feel they have any choice if they want to say goodbye, because they already know that it’s over and they don’t want to blindside the kids.”

I posted about it on Facebook in my frustration and pain at watching them tear apart everything I’ve tried to do for kids that I love like they were my family. I received a termination letter in my e-mail the next day. They proceeded to send a newsletter to the entire church (except me and my family) informing the church that I had been removed as a volunteer for lying on Facebook. No goodbye for the kids. No warning. They couldn’t handle public dissent.

I hadn’t told a single lie. I dared the person who drafted the newsletter to tell me where I lied. No answer.