Contents
May/June 2006
FEATURES
Guardian angel on alert Chuck Ferrara discovers something beyond the badge.
John Wesley and United Methodist renewal James V. Heidinger II appeals to the wisdom of Methodism’s founder
The emergence of confessing Christians Thomas C. Oden encourages mainline renewal.
Anne Rice: The dark wing of night Trish Teves inquires the once gothic author about her conversion.
Holiness Manifesto The Wesleyan Holiness Study Project makes an appeal.
Columns
Editorial Why membership matters
Next Generation The answers are right, but the life is wrong
RENEW Women’s Network The tie that binds
The Great Commission The world in high resolution
From the Heart Tell
DepartmentsLetters to the editor
Straight Talk
News
Re-thinking ‘doing church’ to reverse membership decline
Prayer event brings unity to community
U.S. church opens arms to Iraqi girl with birth defect
Culture in View
Family films with a message
Walking the line into a ring of fire
By the time you read this, our denomination's Judicial Council (our "Supreme Court") will have decided whether to reconsider Decisions 1031 and 1032. These two rulings from last fall overturned punitive disciplinary action against the Rev. Ed Johnson, who had been removed from ministry by the Virginia Annual Conference. The offense: his refusal to receive into membership a man involved in an active homosexual relationship.
The rulings last November brought an immediate (less than 72 hours) response from the United Methodist Council of Bishops in the form of a confusing Pastoral Letter, which while not stating outright that the bishops disagreed with the Judicial Council's decisions, it clearly implied as much. An article in The New York Times referred to the Bishops' Pastoral as a "rebuttal" to the Judicial Council. Some bishops voiced vigorous protest.
In recent weeks, the National Association of Schools and Colleges of the United Methodist Church (NASCUMC) made a rare public statement expressing its disagreement about Judicial Council Decision 1032 (the Ed Johnson matter) as well as Decision 1027. The latter upheld the removal of ministerial credentials from Beth Stroud, who had been found guilty in a church trial of being in a lesbian relationship. This group's resolution was approved unanimously in March by the Division of Higher Education of our General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. So, the chorus grows.
Judging by the amount of attention these rulings have received, one senses this is a matter of enormous importance for the church. In briefs about reconsideration sent on to the Judicial Council, Bishop Charlene Kammerer (Virginia) states that Article 4 of our Constitution intends that no one be excluded from membership in the UM Church due to status, a term she claims includes homosexual orientation and practice. In his brief as advocate for the Rev. Ed Johnson, Dr. H. O. (Tom) Thomas, Jr. disagrees, noting that both Article 4 and Paragraph 214 do speak of "inclusiveness," but this inclusiveness is limited to those who meet "the requirements" (Par. 138) of the United Methodist Discipline. All are "eligible" for membership, but not entitled.
Bishop Kammerer insists we gladly receive and welcome persons to our fellowship and congregations who have been baptized members of other Christian denominations. Thomas says our language here is contingent-they "may be received." Kammerer believes that the Discipline does not grant to pastors the "sole discretion" in determining readiness for membership. Thomas says that nineteenth and twentieth century Methodist Disciplines provide "overwhelming evidence" that historically, pastors have been given discretionary authority to determine one's readiness for membership.
What is apparent amidst the outcry from various groups and leaders is that this controversy is not just about membership or the discretionary powers of pastors. It is, once again, about homosexual practice. I don't remember any serious questions about these issues in my 39 years of ministry. Even some liberal pastors have admitted recently that matters of membership have always been left to the discretion of the local church pastor. But for many bishops and leaders, they see neither homosexual orientation nor practice as a barrier to membership. However, for most all evangelicals, homosexual orientation is not a barrier, but practice is.
But what is it about the homosexual controversy that makes it so volatile and divisive? Right now, the unity of five mainline denominations in America is being threatened by it.
Robert Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001), helped me understand better the answer to this question. He says that in this debate, you have two main camps: the Scripturalists and the Experientialists. The Scripturalists have historically ranked Scripture above all the other interpretive factors, followed by philosophic reason (nature), scientific reason, and experience. The Experientialists, on the other hand, tend to reconfigure this long-standing hermeneutical ranking by reversing it, giving experience priority. Gagnon then writes, "Never before in the history of the church has a position so at apparent odds with Scripture gained ascendancy in the church. In any given denomination, should support for committed homosexual practice triumph.it will probably herald for that denomination a decisive paradigm shift in the reorganization of hermeneutical criteria. It will not necessarily knock Scripture off the hermeneutical scale. But it will relegate it to subordinate status, probably placing it at the bottom of the scale" ("Why The Disagreement Over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?" at RobGagnon.net).
That, it seems to me, is exactly what makes this issue so critical and so potentially divisive. For evangelicals, Scripture cannot, and must never be, relegated to subordinate status on the hermeneutical scale.
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