Sexuality

The End of the Beginning

faithfictionfatherhood 2 Comments

(This is the 9th of 17 posts in my “200 for 200” challenge. Please continue to repost, link, and send your friends my way!)

(The picture above is graciously provided by K, who is attending the Called General Conference as a witness for full inclusion.)

Today the Called Session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church begins to determine the fate of the denomination. Many of us have waited with bated breath to see if these events will unfurl with justice and unity or unravel into division and fractiousness. After nearly fifty years of debate since the institution of anti-homosexual language into the first UMC Book of Discipline (by amendment from a layperson from the floor of the conference, against the advice of the committee who had prepared the language for the BoD) in 1972, there finally seems to be a move toward resolution of the issue.

But this is not the first time such a resolution has been broached–the General Conference established in 1988 a “Committee to Study Homosexuality” (which included no person who identified as belonging to the LGTBQ community) to report to the General Conference in 1992. The report included agreement by the Committee on four points: (1) the seven references to homosexuality in the Bible are artifacts of ancient culture and not definitive expressions of the will of God; (2) Homosexuality is a normal sexual variation which can be expressed in a healthy way; (3) the Church should affirm committed and monogamous homosexual relationships; (4) God’s grace is visible in the life of lesbian and gay Christians.

The majority report from the Committee stated the following:

“The present state of knowledge and insight in the biblical, theological, ethical, biological, psychological and sociological fields does not provide a satisfactory basis upon which the church can responsibly maintain the condemnation of all homosexual practice.”

The same year that this Committee reported, the General Conference voted 3 to 1 to affirm the language: “we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Since 1972, but particularly in the years since the 2016 General Conference, both conservatives and progressives have been maneuvering for advantage in the moment that is now, finally, at hand. Some of the loudest voices on the conservative side, such as Reverend Rob Renfroe at The Woodlands UMC, have long been advocates of a church split. Members of the Weslayan Covenant Association, the Good News Network and other conservative organizations have spent as much time pushing for a “graceful exit strategy” as for their conservative position; this is my mind has always been a strategy to make it easier for progressives to leave rather than advocate for justice rather than a real measure of grace. As one of the speakers at the last Texas Annual Conference argued (in paraphrase): “When your marriage is in trouble, you don’t begin the conversation with: ‘here’s our divorce plan if we can’t work things out, now let’s talk about the issue.'”

Unless some unforeseen and unlikely change happens over the next few days, the choice really comes down to the One Church Plan and the “Modified” Traditional Plan.

Under the One Church Plan, annual conferences will be able to decide whether they want to allow LGBTQ clergy, each pastor will be able to decide whether to perform LGBTQ marriages, and each congregation will be able to decide whether to host LGBTQ marriages in their facilities while, at the same time, no clergyperson may be forced to go against his or her conscience and perform a ceremony they do not want to perform.

Under the Traditional Plan, we maintain the status quo except to spend more time, energy and money on church trials for those who advocate for full inclusion.

I have written about both plans on this blog and rehashing them is not the point of this post.

Instead, I want to remind readers that the next few days, regardless of what happens, are not the end of the matter, but another beginning.

It is my sincere hope and prayer that, through both human agency and the movement of the Holy Spirit, the One Church Plan will pass. It is not a panacea and does not give the LGTBQ community the vindication and respect they are owed, but it is a step in the right direction that helps to maintain the unity of the UMC.

Regardless of the result, some congregations will leave the Church. At least some of those who remain will view the events of this Called General Conference as a “loss” for their “side.” There will be hurt feelings, fear, disappointment, anger–and another General Conference in 2020 where, depending upon what happens in the next few days, there may be an attempt to undo what happens in this Called Conference and/or a need to find a way to allow the exit of some congregations without the decades of litigation that have followed the split of other denominations.

Regardless of result, there will be an increased need for Christians of all theologies within the UMC to do what all Christians are called to do–to love their neighbors, to show grace to others, and to be agents of peace and reconciliation, not causes of discord nor gloaters in some imagined “victory.”

As such, no one should view the next few days as the end of anything, only another step in the path. For those who, like myself, are progressives with theologies of full inclusion, there will be a very difficult line to walk if the One Church Plan passes. We will need to continue to advocate for the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters within the Church while showing grace to conservatives and ensuring that they remain welcome and valued members of the UMC. We are much more than our positions on homosexuality and related issues, and the people involved in this debate, regardless of position, are well-meaning with the intention of seeking after Christ in a genuine and faithful manner. There is much good done in the name of Christ by the conservatives, even if I wholeheartedly believe that their actions regarding human sexuality have been misguided at best. I am proud to call them my brothers and sisters in Christ.

How do we progressives walk this fine line of the One Church Plan passes? I must admit that I do not know. But I do know that we must seize opportunities for reconciliation, healing, and increased respect and understanding between the conservatives and the progressives in the wake of the Called Conference. Even as we wait for events to unfold over the next few days, we must remember that our work is far from done and that there will be much of great import to do in the days that follow as we try to bring the Kingdom of Heaven a little bit closer to Earth.

The UMC “Traditional” Plan is a Fantasy

faithfictionfatherhood 10 Comments

When the United Methodist Church’s Commission on a Way Forward and Council of Bishops presented their initial proposals for the upcoming called session of the Church’s General Conference in February, the “Traditional” Plan was not slated to actually go to discussion and vote before the Conference.

Through political maneuvering through the Judicial Council of the Church (the UMC’s version of a supreme court) by certain conservative leaders within the UMC, judgment was rendered that the Traditional Plan must be presented before the GC if a petition for it to be included is made. From the perspectives of jurisprudence and polity within the UMC, that is absolutely the right call. But it ignores the reason that the Commission on a Way Forward and the Bishops did not include it as potential legislation in their report–it isn’t a way forward.

To a certain extent, I understand the conservatives’ frustration with the Commission and the Bishops: the delay claimed for the need to translate the report before making it public–and the delay in even getting that process started–seems to indicate unhelpful politicking on all sides of the issue. Uncollaborative work only hurts the Church as a whole without benefitting either side at this point.

On the other hand, I vehemently disagree with the conservative complaint that the Commission and Bishops didn’t really provide a way forward, they just gave us the same plan that’s been offered and failed many times before. The conclusion of the Commission after deliberation and prayerful investigation is itself a message–the way forward must be one of compromise, and the fact that conservative elements within the Church have remained implacable in their position does not mean that they should get their way. The “same old thing” is the “same old thing” because nothing else has changed–the conservatives’ best offering for a “way forward” is that we do everything the way we’ve always done it, we just spend more time (and congregants’ money) prosecuting those clergy who disobey the Book of Discipline on moral grounds.

The cynical side of me sees the greater strategy here: conservatives have decided that they have two ways to win: (1) get the Traditional Plan passed at the called General Conference or (2) insure that nothing else gets passed. The fight to get the Traditional Plan included at General Conference is really an effort to avoid honestly coming to the table with progressives at all, not really a matter of what is fair and just. As a lawyer, I’m well familiar with the difference between legal and just.

Conservatives understand that, if nothing happens at the called GC, many progressives will give up on the UMC and leave–which is what the conservatives have wanted all along. See Woodlands UMC senior pastor Rob Renfroe’s book, Are We Really Better Together? An Evangelical Perspective on the Division in the UMC, for a clear example of this. If it is the progressives that leave, the case for conservatives to keep the United Methodist Church name–and perhaps the greater part of collective Church assets–will be stronger.

I’ll also note that, in my observation (for what that’s worth), it has been the conservatives who have been most concerned with ensuring in advance that “graceful exit” language is included in any proposed legislation before the GC. I do not believe that this is about the conservatives’ fear that they will have to sacrifice assets and property if things don’t go their way, it’s about trying to make it easier for the progressives to leave. The progressive–and even the majority at the Texas Annual Conference in May–response has been that “we’re not there yet, and that’s not how you start the conversation when you’re trying to keep everyone together.”

Also in my experience, some of the most conservative Methodists I know are also deeply concerned with reaching the unchurched and the younger generations. They should be, as all Christians should be, but I must note some irony when they want to simultaneously be attractive to younger seekers and maintain what those seekers see as at best an unjust position and at worst a hypocrisy.

As I’ve said before, the societal belief about whether homosexuality is morally wrong or not is not determinative of the objective position established by God. On the other hand, there is legitimate theological argument in favor of not viewing homosexuality as sin, and history gives us numerous examples of Christianity being used to support systems and ideas ultimately determined to be immoral (and thus un-Christian). Since neither side can determinatively prove its position, the statement of being unwilling to see that someone else–even another Christian–might be right about something with which you disagree plays right into the hands of stereotypes of Christians that should not be true (but often are). That’s not going to be enticing to seekers of younger generations, who–despite all the talk about their “relative morality”–tend to have a strong sense of right and wrong and a significant allergy to perceived hypocrisy (real or imagined).

So the split within the UMC, even if it leaves the conservatives holding most of the cards, does not mean a resurgence of conservativism among Methodists–it means a slow death lamenting the “way it used to be.” While there will always be conservative Christians and theologians, and there always should be for us to honestly and eagerly explore theological issues, the Methodist Church is not on the more conservative side of most issues (at least not within our Social Principles), making the conservative position on homosexuality stand out more than seem to be in line with the rest of Methodist positions. This regressivism matches a certain political movement in our country largely based in privilege and the fear of sharing with others.

The Judicial Council will decide this month on the constitutionality of all three plans to be sent to the called General Conference in February. With regard to the Traditional Plan, the only real question of constitutionality falls on the modifications proposed to the status quo–enhanced enforcement and prosecution. But the Council’s decision on this doesn’t really matter. Eight UMC Annual Conferences (Baltimore-Washington, California-Nevada, California-Pacific, Desert Southwest, New England, New York, Northern Illinois and Oregon-Idaho) have already passed resolutions collectively refusing to participate in trials of homosexual clergy or clergy who perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.

The Virginia Annual Conference voted in favor of full inclusion for LGBTQ members and to allow both LGBTQ clergy and same-gender marriages, despite the Book of Discipline, the Judicial Council or the General Conference.

In purposefully electing the first openly-gay bishop in the UMC (Bishop Karen Oliveto), the Western Jurisdictional Conference opted to ignore sexual orientation as an appropriate qualification for clergy.

With this intentional civil disobedience, the Traditional Plan could not be enforced across the US UMC jurisdictions. It’s dead on arrival, a guaranteed split in the church.

To be fair, there are plenty on the progressive side of the issue who have done much to make some form of compromise and reconciliation impossible. We, too (at least corporately), are responsible for the conference-stopping protests at recent General Conferences, the demonization of conservatives, and a refusal to make any compromise in place of “total victory” (which, let’s be honest, is not a thing here at all, regardless of result).

The Methodist doctrine expressed in the Book of Discipline prefers that decisions in the governance (of the local church at the committee level, at least) be made through discernment and consensus-building rather than through purely political democratic vote.

And perhaps that’s the real problem here. While the Book of Discipline does allow us to follow a “take a vote, majority wins” approach, it also understands that that approach is not the best way for the church to operate–without some consensus-building and compromise, the only option is winner-take-all politics. Even if you don’t find that ideologically troublesome in the church-context, the history of the question of human sexuality in The United Methodist Church since 1972 is ample evidence that a tyrannical rule of the majority can’t solve this problem.

A vote for the Traditional Plan in February will not end the issue, it will only force the issue by insisting that there is no place for progressive Christians within the UMC. The same is true of the “no result” strategy, as I’ve discussed above. So why aren’t we calling the Traditional Plan what it really is–the “No Compromise Doctrine”? It’s been clearly articulated outside of the “official” channels of the church, so why not be honest about it within the polity?

 

Interim Report From Texas Annual Conference 2018

faithfictionfatherhood 1 Comment

It’s 7:40 a.m. before the start of the 8:30 a.m. business session of the TAC on the second full day of the 2018 conference. I’ll be speaking in favor of one of the petitions before the conference. I figure, what better way to prepare myself than to write?

As it often is for me, the conference is a whirlwind of emotions and activities. I’ve gotten to reconnect with friends I do not see nearly often enough–including fellow travelers in Israel earlier this year. I’ve been inspired by sermons, reports and updates from the conference as well as the words of those friends. But it’s also a time of frustration and palpable tension.

I’ve described the Commission on the Way Forward and Council of Bishop’s recommended plan for the UMC–the One Church Plan–here. Yesterday morning, I attended a breakfast (attended by nearly 500 people) to respectfully discuss the plans with the Texas delegates to the General Conference in small groups. I understand that–especially as a lay person–I’m something of a nerd when it comes to the workings and polity of the UMC, but I was surprised about how little some of my fellow attendees knew about what was going on. This is especially unfortunate as certain interest groups and factions within the UMC attempt to manipulate outcomes and go largely unnoticed in such efforts. Some of the members of our conference are extremely gifted in the fields of rhetoric and diplomacy. Unfortunately, those gifts are not always employed in a way that is direct about the desired outcome. I’m used to political machinations being something I read about in fiction, set up as the backdrop for my own writing or roleplaying games, or that I am otherwise somewhat insulated from. TAC is the exception to that rule, and my involvement this year has given me access to more information about–and even participation in–those political gambits and struggles. But, the heart of our denomination is at stake here, so I feel obligated.

The highlight so far has been hearing Rev. Vicki Flippin, the Pastor of Social Justice, Exploring Faith, and Intergenerational Ministries at the United Methodist Church of the Village (in New York City) speak at the Reconciling United Methodists, Texas Conference dinner last night. If you are not familiar with her, look her up. Listen to some of her sermons. I certainly will be.

She started her inspirational exhortation by drawing upon science fiction–so of course I was sold (and K might have been sizing her up) from the get-go. She spoke about hope (finding and maintaining), conscientious resistance when our Book of Discipline doesn’t match the Gospel, and how narrative carries the power of change. Given my feelings about Paul Tillich’s theology and my own aspirations of professional authorship, these topics carried great weight with me.

This is tempered somewhat by what I hear about the conservative activity at this conference. For those of us who are progressive Christians, much of our goal this year is simply to let our brethren and sistren in the UMC know that Texas is not a monolithic bastion of religious conservativism. From what I hear from reliable sources, some (though I would caution about overgeneralization of this statement) within the conservative groups have labeled we, the progressives, as the Enemy. To my mind, that alone speaks volumes about the mindsets of the two sides (again unfairly generalized) and which interpretation is the closer walk with Jesus (when considered in toto).

Last weekend, after K’s graduation from seminary (I’m so proud of her!), I had a very good, honest conversation with my brother-in-law on my position regarding human sexuality within the Methodist Church. That discussion drew me to make a difficult confession, one that it is only right that I share with you, my readers.

I have chosen to prioritize the unity of the church over the immediate achievement of victory in regards to the justice issue that confronts the UMC. I am willing to compromise with conservatives to accept the One Church Plan because, despite how thoroughly I may oppose their theology, I wish to remain in fellowship with my conservative counterparts in our denomination. I believe that our ability to disagree and yet love and respect one another is a fundamental aspect of the witness we are called to in Jesus Christ.

But this compromise does a disservice to the LGBTQ community. The truest justice for those whose gender identities or sexual orientations do not match with mainstream social expectations is full inclusion and acknowledgment that they are children of God in the fullest sense of the phrase, without caveat or reservation, and that who they are and who they love is not a matter of sin, but a part of the uniqueness in which they were created; something that should be celebrated.

My stance asks the LGBTQ community to wait a bit longer for that true justice and acceptance–something they’ve been waiting for for far too long already. As the Supreme Court says, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Of that, I must confess guilt.

Yes, the One Church Plan will give us permission to do what is already right–to bless marriages born out of Christian love regardless of the sex or gender identities of the participants and to ordain those called to serve God in this Church without reference to their sexuality. But it does not give believers in those positions the full respect and acceptance they deserve, and it will explicitly allow the continuance of discriminatory and un-Christian practices by those who claim that “conscience” prevents them from treating the LGBTQ community as anything other than “less than.”

It is a hard path to walk; my heart aches every time think about how I’ve been forced to prioritize these conflicting convictions. For that, I ask for your prayers and your forgiveness.

Rooted

faithfictionfatherhood Leave a comment

This seems a great follow-up to my last post.

In Chicago, from August 11-13th, the Rooted conference was held. Rooted was a conference for trans and gender-noncomforming Christians. That’s right, despite popular belief and common misconception, there is room for all people within Christianity–our God is everyone’s God.

More of a testament, I think, is the fact that there are enough people of non-binary gender or who are transgendered who manage to reach out to God despite what “mainstream” and (too-)conservative demagogues tell them Christianity is. They have a faith that speaks to the foremost issue currently confronting the Church–our getting in God’s way when we should be making the path to God easier. That they can overcome such obstacles gives me hope that perhaps others will, too–those we refer to as the “unchurched” who by upbringing or by bad experiences in churches have rejected Christianity because it is easier to see fallen people describing our faith than it is to see Jesus who creates our faith.

As I’ve argued in the past, I don’t believe that secularism is simply the result of the evolution of science and technology. Science and technology show us that there are gaps in our understanding and methods of human inquiry that can only be filled by faith, whether it’s faith in God’s provenance or in cold materialism. Thus, the next obvious answer for the push to increased secularism is that the faith isn’t living up to its calling. As a student of theology, I find that there are sound and well-argued philosophies about Christianity that incorporate science and critical methodologies into them; secularism is not the failing of our theology (though it might be a failing of those theologies which remain most popular). Instead, it is the failing of us as the Church to project Christ rather than to hide him.

My soapboxy tangent aside, I’m especially proud that Rooted was coordinated by the Reconciling Ministries Network of the United Methodist Church, an unofficial group of likeminded Methodists in support of full inclusion. I am a member of Reconciling Ministries through my participation in Reconciling United Methodist Texas Conference (formerly “Breaking the Silence.”) At the same time, I’m slightly dismayed by the fact that I only found out about Rooted almost a month after it happened.

I am not one to blow inherent media biases out of proportion (they’re there, but most mainstream journalists–at least in “neutral” outlets–have the integrity to mitigate and minimize them whenever possible) or to give much credence to the “fake news” outcry of the alt-right (boy, is that crying “wolf” if ever I’ve seen it), but I am curious as to why something like the Nashville Statement gets so much press and the only place that I’ve seen Rooted reported on is within the United Methodist News.

Maybe its that the internecine conflict over sexual and gender identity issues within Christian congregations is old hat now–the Episcopals have done it, the Presbyterians have done it, and we Methodists are still in the thick of it. On the other hand, though, I wonder if it’s that the Nashville Statement plays into the popular conception of Christianity, but that Rooted does not. Those of us convicted that full inclusion and the celebration of sexual and gender diversity rather than calling it “sinful” represents the truer understanding of Christianity ought to be looking for more ways to be more vocal about our theologies.

As I’ve also argued in the past, it’s unfortunate that–within Methodism at least– issues of sexuality and gender have become the battleground for a proxy war over hermenuetics and the theology of interpreting scripture. Hence the common buzzwords in issues of sexual and gender theology: “scriptural authority.” That’s not fair to people of faith with non-cisgendered identities or non-heterosexual desires.

Nevertheless, the Rooted conference is evidence of hope, that most necessary of spiritual gifts in any dark time. I am so proud of my siblings in Christ who attended and declared that they know and feel the love of our God despite what the world–and our own denomination–may throw at them.

 

A Response to the Nashville Statement

faithfictionfatherhood Leave a comment

Having read the “Nashville Statement” issued by the (self-proclaimed) “Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” (viewable here), my gut response is to respond with vim and vitriol, fire and brimstone—I am infuriated that people may engage in such hatred, fear and bigotry and yet have the nerve to call it Christianity.

However, the properly sarcastic response has already been made, so I would simply direct you to John Pavlovitz’s “Plain English” translation of the statement.

My intent here is to do two things: (1) provide a careful response to the language of the statement and (2) invite you to flood social media with response bearing the #againstnashvillestatement hashtag.

My response:

Scriptural Reference

I understand that the intro reference to Psalm 100:3 is an attempt to latch onto that conservative slogan “Biblical authority,” but the irony here is that in releasing a “manifesto” in the Nashville Statement presumably aimed at those outside their club, the CBMW has used a statement that could just as easily be construed against them—the member of the LGBTQI community responds by saying, “Yes! God made me this way, so who are you to tell me I’m bad/wrong?”

Preamble

The preamble opens with a lament that we live in a “post-Christian” society and that the “spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life.” I do not disagree with the fact that we live in a post-Christian society, but I see this as a failing of the Church as a whole to accurately be the disciples and ambassadors of Christ to the world, not as a moral failing of those who disagree with my own faith.

And in this supposition, more than the microcosmic debate about human sexuality, is where the CBMW commits theological crime. The Nashville Statement is a thinly veiled argument for a dying theology, one that I believe is dying because of its utter failure to focus on the most important aspects of Christianity and to accurately portray the nature of God.

Like many ultra-conservative Christian groups, the CBMW’s first error is to insist upon the Bible as the literal word of God; this despite the fact that the Bible never claims to be an inerrant and literal message from the divine and points elsewhere for the source of the authority of the Word of God—to the person of Jesus Christ. The fatal error here is substituting a dead book for the Living God. Vehicle of divine truth though the scriptures are, there is no way to justify making an idol of them that usurps the place of Jesus in our theology.

From a logical standpoint, the CBMW, like most fundamentalists, refuse to acknowledge that what they purport to offer is an interpretation of the Bible and that such a massive and sometimes idiosyncratic document does not have meaning uncolored by the interpretative preferences of the reader. To accomplish this, the CBMW and those likeminded must ignore both logic and the by now well-developed field of literary criticism. They must plead ignorance to maintain their position.

But the problem goes well beyond the denial of intellectualism—to maintain its position, the CBMW must deny any competing spiritual authority: it must deny the movement of the Holy Spirit through both personal revelation and life experience, Christ’s example of loving your nature without caveat or command to “fix” their sinfulness, it must deny the validity of persons whose sexuality conflicts with their interpretation—telling them that despite their feelings to the contrary, they fall into the LGBTQI community by choice.

“It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences,” the Statement reads. This is logical garbage of the basest sort. First, this statement uses the flimsiest of strawmen: the argument of the faithful in the LGBTQI community is not that God gave them the right to self-determine their sexuality, but that God created them the way that they are and thus God’s “design for human life” must include a spectrum of sexuality rather than a binary. The statement ignores the argument altogether. As an aside, I ask how often our Triune God has made existence complicated versus how often our God has made existence simple and binary—simply playing the odds of likelihoods militates against the statement above.

Even if the argument were that God’s design gave us the right to self-determine our sexuality, is that an indefensible position? Of course not; we spend most of our waking hours creating our selves: pretending not to be the things we are ashamed of, struggling to become more like the ideals we’ve set for ourselves and, for the faithful at least, endeavoring to become more like Jesus Christ. If God’s commandments to us are to love God and love our neighbor, there are nearly limitless methodologies for both maintaining individuality and complying with our marching orders. The choice of sexuality itself, then, seems to at best be morally neutral—it doesn’t prevent a person from loving God and neighbor. Still, that’s exactly what CBMW wants to argue, as we’ll see. And, to reiterate, all available evidence of which I’m aware—most important the self-reporting of the LGBTQI community—indicates that human sexuality is rarely, if ever, a choice.

To follow, in pseudo-cryptic expression, the CBMW attempts to maintain the position that non-binary sexualities necessarily “ruin human life and dishonor God.” No support is given for this statement and none is available. Further, the sentence indicates a very fragile image of God if God’s glory may be diminished by human action.

If the CBMW wants to condemn promiscuity, sexual assault, adultery and other aspects of human sexuality that are destructive to self and others, that’s just fine. But these items are all entirely separate from the identities of the people involved in them. This comports with the Bible, probably to the chagrin of the CBMW—all but two of the references to homosexuality in the Bible (those being Leviticus 20:13 and Paul’s reference to the same in 1 Corinthian 6:9) include some universally-agreed upon sexual offense—slavery, pederasty, rape, etc. Therefore, those scriptures that denounce the acts as immoral never reach the question of homosexuality because of the other act also described—the homosexuality may well be irrelevant to the condemnation.

By my judgment, aside from societal influences, a homosexual relationship really isn’t different from a heterosexual one, because people are people and the genitalia with which they are equipped actually means little in relational dynamics. Societally-constructed gender expectations seem to be far more influential, though it must be emphasized that genders are thought constructs not necessarily based in any objective reality.

The Statement continues: “This secular spirit of our age presents a great challenge to the Christian church.” Before I logically destroy this sentence, let me first point out the position that it comes from—a view of Christianity as embattled, a Christianity that imperialistically needs to suborn all others to it. That’s not the Christianity of Christ.

Logically, the causation is backwards. The Church is not where it is today because of outside forces secularizing in a vacuum—the Church is where it is today because vocal aspects of it (like the CBMW) cling to antiquated and ultimately indefensible interpretations of the nature of existence.

Again, the statement must deny competing sources of authority whole cloth to stand. C.S. Lewis described the conscience as a sort of “natural law,” the Spirit moving within us to usher us toward truth even when we are consciously ignorant of it.

In our age, conscience demands a cessation to the creation of “others” of any category, morality requires respect and value for all humans in equality. When these mandates conflict with the teachings of the Church, which will win? Natural law, every time. I’d argue that this is God triumphing in the human spirit in spite of God’s Church rather than because of it.

From this perspective, it is the failure of Church to provide a true image of our God focused upon the person of Jesus Christ that has pushed others away from Christianity. The rejection of an interpretation of Christianity that increasingly focuses on judgment, identity and supremacy and decreasingly focuses on humility, diversity and sacrificial love lacks the power to resonate in the human spirit—but the Truth of the Gospel is not victim to these things and, when experienced, does not fail. The problem, then, is that fundamentalist sectors of the Christian faith offend the conscience so completely as to cause people to become unwilling to open themselves up to the experience of the Word of God in Jesus Christ. The attitude of Biblical literalism—with its single agreed-upon interpretation of God and God’s design—seeks to replace the ineffably true experience of God with the puerile and emasculated dogma of man.

I’m a big fan of cyberpunk novels, and one of the most memorable lessons from one came from my reading of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. In the world of relativity in social constructs and morality, one of Stephenson’s characters explains that hypocrisy becomes the only means of judging another group—you can’t judge their ideology, but you can sure as hell judge them if they don’t act in accordance with their espoused ideals. To many, this is what the Christian church has become. Whose fault is that, really?

The preamble now asks, “Will the church of the Lord Jesus Christ lose her biblical conviction, clarity, and courage, and blend into the spirit of the age?” In America, fundamentalist Christianity has been a prime force in the “spirit of the age,” not in a positive way. More important, why doesn’t the statement read: “Will the church of the Lord Jesus Christ become an instrument of social justice and equality, an agent of healing in turbulent times and a hand of mercy to the oppressed and downtrodden?” Priorities, people.

Ironically, the CBMW then attempts to set itself up as counter-cultural. Christianity is, in fact, counter-cultural in that it asserts that the things that have meaning in existence are not the same as the things that mainstream society tells us have importance. But the Nashville Statement is about clinging desperately to the cultural-Christianity of the past, where we made statements like, “You can trust him; he’s a good Christian man,” that served as cultural shorthand and an affirmation of the dominance of white culture over all others while having nothing to do with the declaration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the dying mainstream culture of an old empire, not the living water of the life-affirming counter-culturalism of love found in Christ.

The language of the third and fourth paragraphs in the Preamble is telling. It tells us that each person “owes” to God “glad-hearted thanksgiving, heart-felt praise, and total allegiance.” It is good and righteous to give our praise and thanks to the Lord, and as a matter of logic all things that are ultimately derive from God. But the insistence of a feudal paradigm of the relationship between God and man is not what Christ taught, nor how Christ related to us. Not much farther down the page, it is explained that the purpose of God’s design for creation is to bring God glory.

A God who needs anything to complete God’s glory is not complete in and of God’s self and thus does not meet with our traditional Christian understanding of the nature of God. A god who creates purely for self-aggrandizement is not the kind of god I am interested in worshipping. Fortunately, the One True God as revealed through Jesus Christ is as far from that as can be—our God is not about glory, but love and relationship. Why else go to the cross?

At this point, it’s not even worth going through the declarations of the Articles—these kinds of statements have been discussed and dissected ad nauseum. To me, the poor theology expressed by the Preamble says everything one needs to know about the Nashville Statement—that it is not reflective of the intent of our God and doesn’t even reflect a strong understanding of the scripture it asserts is paramount.

The ultimately irony, of course, is how self-destructive this text is. It serves only to cause people to believe that the ignorant authors of this drivel stand for true Christianity, to reaffirm the preconceived and inaccurate understandings of the Christian faith and the Creator God at is heart—to make our culture more secular rather than more faithful by portraying faith as backwards, judgmental, bigoted and fearful.

As such, I invite you to share your own thoughts about the Nashville Statement on social media under the hashtag #againstnashvillestatement. Yep, it’s a long hashtag and it really cuts into the characters you have to use on Twitter, but consider that an additional challenge (and try to show some mercy for the fact that I usually treat hashtags with as curmudgeonly an attitude as is humanly possible, so I am unfortunately ignorant in their best usage).

As a final thought, the Nashville Statement does affirm one thing for me—why I am passionate about communicating the theology I have developed over the past few years and continue to develop through the writing of this blog. It is my sincere belief (and hope) that the theology I offer here is cogent, logical, well-supported by both scripture and the person of Jesus Christ and that offers an uplifting view of both God and man in line with God’s intent for us. I hope that this strongly contrasts with the oppressive theologies espoused by groups like the CBMW.