TEC & UMC

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtfulpastor/2019/05/27/umc-inquisition-arrived-centrists-and-progressives-fiddled/

https://juicyecumenism.com/2019/05/24/liberal-umc-leaders-cannot-affiliate-traditionalist-united-methodists/

The above internet links: I dare anyone to read both “Game Over” and “The UMC Inquisition …”. Not disgusting but disheartening because it's so predictably, unsacrificially, unlovingly human. Strife and division in the United Methodist Church, oh how "same song second verse, could be better but can't be worse" it is, two sides in the church staking out positions in opposition, rejection, certainty, bitterness. An Episcopalian, it would be none of my business except (1) I am interested; (2) there are ongoing unity discussions toward Full Communion between The Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church, and one side (my guess, the traditionalists) will want no part of us; and (3) we TEC have been in the same place with the same issues, which are still in tension.

Our own similar game-changing episode surfaced publicly nearly twenty years ago, when the Diocese of New Hampshire elected a divorced, partnered gay priest as their bishop and it had to be ratified nationally at our 2003 General Convention. Predictably, Christians being human, a bitter fight erupted. My guess, which came true, was that church-wide ratification of the NH election (or, in retrospect, not to do so) would result in split of the Episcopal Church, and alienation of much of the worldwide Anglican Communion, especially those in the African and Southern Hemisphere provinces with cultures and worldview so different from ours. Valuing our Anglican connection, I was, and at the time spoke out, emphatically opposed to the NH election for that reason, that it would bring division. My guess was correct on both counts: with deep certainty and bitterness on all sides, both the worldwide Anglican Communion of which TEC is part, and The Episcopal Church in the USA, split and, in the US church, costly and often bitter property fights have litigated through the courts.

Watching it all work itself out in the ensuing years, I observed and came to realize that the issue alleged as doctrine, tradition, theology, scriptural purity, lovingkindness, was shaded by venom, hatred, fear of The Different, suspicion of the other, and determined resistance to the change that the majority vote brought in. Having been there in a similar fight in TEC a generation earlier, over prayerbook revision and ordination of women, and encountering the same vehement hatred, and finally because of it leaving the disaffiliating (breakaway) side that I had chosen, I know “churchmen” first hand: nothing is so fearsome as a Christian rising from his knees and, with grim countenance, going forth to do the will of God. 

Coupled with that shameful hate fired by certainty on both sides in TEC, and learning that in the Anglican Communion, major figures, bishops and archbishops of certain Anglican provinces in Africa, were politically active in pressing for homosexuality to be a capital crime punishable by the death penalty - - the shattering horror of that "Christian" barbarism - - made me realize that I wanted no part of them as colleagues in any event, and I changed my view.

What I see now in the UMC is a replay of our own nightmare of “traditionalists” versus “liberals”, where in the UMC (with their ecclesiology different from ours: international where ours is basically national) a major contributing part of the majority vote was from their African churches, which share the culture and worldview of Anglicans who, because of our church’s stand on homosexuality, have distanced themselves from us and declared themselves not in Communion with us even through we all share the same link with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Clearly, at least to me, IF for the ideal of Church Unity (which the church has made an ironic debacle, a laughing spectacle) the splitting Methodists want communion with Anglicans, the UMC “liberals” should affiliate with the Episcopal Church. The UMC “traditionalists” might affiliate with the so-called “Anglican Church of North America”, but which I suspect will have no part of them because in the traditional Anglican view, Protestant ordinations and sacrament are invalid.

Where do I stand? As I say, it's not my church or my business, and I have been so wrong on so many issues throughout my life that I'm just watching. Loving many Methodists, sadly watching human nature living into itself: self-certain, imperfect, mucking along, muddling through; as surely grieving the Holy Spirit as we Episcopalians do. WWJD? 

WWJD? Anyone interested in being startled might enjoy contemplating the comments and arguments regarding the Secret Gospel of Mark, which Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) said fit into canonical Mark chapter 10. 
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/secretmark.html


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