The weekly recap of our 1 Corinthians study will come a little later, but this morning, I want to address some Methodism stuff.

Last week, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) passed a mostly unconstitutional plan to further restrict and alienate LGBTQ Christians. I was disappointed by the decision, but this kind of denominational politicking felt all too familiar to me.

I grew up during the split between the conservative Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). In the late 70s and 80s, a massive conservative shift in the SBC forced more moderate and progressive Baptists to the fringes. Unable to regain their voices in the SBC, these other Baptists formed CBF in 1995. Growing up, I experienced the animosity between the increasingly authoritarian SBC and the more theologically conflicted CBF, and throughout my career as a Baptist youth minister, I still navigated this conflict on a regular basis. As a child of the 80s, I’ve never known a time when Baptists didn’t dislike and distrust each other, and as far as I knew, being part of a Baptist church meant forever walking in that tension. When I left my church job in 2016, I began attending a Methodist church in my neighborhood. Though always keeping a foot in the CBF world, I felt a modicum of relief from the church split baggage in this new setting. Still, 30 years of denominational distrust didn’t automatically melt away.

When I learned of the debates around LGBTQ inclusion in the UMC, I initially shrugged it off as more of the same. You see, for all the beautiful language about the Church being Jesus’s body on earth or the Bride of Christ or whatever metaphor you choose, individual churches and denominations are still flawed human institutions, and at the end of a day, every human institution’s goal is to preserve itself. When faced with the prospect of an affirming change which would have celebrated and empowered thousands of queer Christians, a slim majority of UMC General Conference delegates did what the SBC and CBF did before: choose the path of self-preservation, and they harmed a lot of innocent people in the process. Though I’m pretty jaded to denominational politics, and it would be easy for me to ignore this as more of the same, there’s a key difference prompting me to care this time around.

Over the past week, I’ve observed some of my queer Methodist friends glued to their phones. I saw them hanging onto every word of General Conference as it wound down. I saw their shock and disappointment and pain. I saw the laments on social media. These wonderful people have dedicated their lives to serving God, and the traditionalist delegates inflicted a deep and unnecessary wound to them. Many of these young leaders have spent the majority of their lives fighting and hoping for the UMC to be one church moving forward together toward radical inclusivity, but at least for now, the UMC has failed on this front.

Here’s what gets me though:
In their responses to this painful event, even though these queer Methodists were angry and hurt, they still expressed the same hope and love they’ve been fighting for and continue fighting for. Social media has been an outpouring of sorrow these past few days, yes, but it’s also been a wellspring of determination and love.

So look, I may be a cantankerous old veteran of church splits and other denominational chicanery —in fact, it’s the only kind of church I’ve ever known—, but these queer Methodist leaders still have a lot of faith in God’s people. They still hold high expectations and hopes for the church and the denomination. They genuinely want what’s best for the church, and they know God’s table always has room for more people. They won’t be content circling the wagons to preserve a declining institution; they want to see the church thrive. They know bigotry will always lose out in the end, and they believe and practice a radical love. So I’m going to do what I think the denomination as a whole should have done (and what I hope the denomination will still eventually do):

I’m going to follow these young Methodists’ lead.
I’m going to continue to hope.