Inch by inch - a report from annual conference

It is annual conference season here in the birthplace of American Methodism. We are meeting in a fine hotel in Baltimore, the city where the first Methodist conference in America –ever– was held at Lovely Lane Methodist Church in 1784. The accommodations back then were, I’m sure, less luxurious.

My congregation presented a resolution to annual conference this year. (For the text of our resolution, see p. 41-2 of the pdf here.) A group of our members started working on the resolution last summer after General Conference had ended. People from other churches joined in the work. Folk put countless hours into preparing and refining the resolution, garnering support for it, and planning for its presentation.

Our resolution passed, so I suppose I should be happy. Because someone called for a vote count, we even know that it passed by a vote of 587 to 327 (about 63 percent of those voting). Yet I find myself somewhat depleted.

I know we should be celebrating. A lot happened here today that should encourage those of us who dream of an inclusive church. A group of bright, accomplished men and women, who had plenty of other things they could have done with their time, cared enough about the United Methodist Church to prepare a resolution for annual conference. They wrote clear interpretative materials and handed out leaflets to conference delegates. They prepared themselves to speak on the floor of conference and then spoke articulately and movingly. Some made themselves vulnerable far beyond the call of reasonable expectation.

Our folk, and all those who supported this resolution, should feel a deep sense of satisfaction and achievement. I do not mean to diminish what happened today in any way. Our folk did exceptional work. This was a great advance in the movement toward reconciliation. The angels are cheering.

But, still, when the well-deserved hoorays and yippees are over, I am left with a touch of pain in my heart. One reason for this is that 327 delegates voted against our resolution even though we made it as mild, moderate, open and non-confrontational as we could imagine. Our resolution was practically innocuous. It simply called for dialogue within our conference about issues concerning people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender orientations. This is something so mainstream that even the 2004 General Conference encouraged us to do it. General Conference passed the report of the Task Force on Homosexuality and the Unity of the Church which concluded: “Be it further resolved that the 2004 General Conference encourages further dialogue throughout The United Methodist Church designed with worship at the center to lead to greater understanding, love, and care for each other, and with the hope that our struggles with these concerns will take a more civil character to the benefit of all.”

Yet 327 delegates to our annual conference voted against “greater understanding, love and care for each other.” Admittedly, we added a tad more specificity than the General Conference resolution had included, but nothing radical: Each district of our conference would hold dialogues; the first ones would be held in 2005; local churches would be provided with resources to enable dialogues; and LGBT people would be included in the dialogues so that United Methodists are talking with each other rather than about each other. It was a tame, reasonable resolution.

So how can it be that 327 delegates to our annual conference, almost 40 percent, voted against dialogue with other United Methodist Christians? After listening to the discussion and seeing the vote, I have concluded that more than 300 members of our conference would have voted against any resolution whatsoever with the words “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender” in it. If our resolution had said: “Be it resolved that we smile at people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender orientations,” 300 delegates would have voted against it. In some ways it feels worse than 25 years ago. The hostility and coldness on the part of these 300 delegates seems harder and meaner than it used to be. Or maybe I was just expecting people to have become more understanding and accepting by now.  I suspect, however, some people have just become more autocratically doctrinaire, less thoughtful and reasonable, determined to “hold the line.”

The other reason I am discouraged is because so many of the speeches against our resolution were insulting and mean. There were a lot of references to “the homosexual lifestyle.” What’s that? Oh, I know –we all know– what references to “the homosexual lifestyle” are meant to imply: that gay people are promiscuous and intemperate, sex machines. This is a stereotype. This is a straight people's fantasy.

Delegates speaking against our resolution seemed to have no difficulty painting all LGBT people with the same brush. They mouthed stereotypes as their justification for why they did not need to be in dialogue with real people, making it obvious why dialogue with real people is so important. But they themselves could not see this. It is hard not to think that the reason they were resisting dialogue and conversation is because they have made up their minds and want to make sure reality doesn’t intrude.

Even more distressing and hurtful were those delegates who bluntly called LGBT people sick or immoral. Several speeches against our resolution went something like this: If we are going to have dialogue with gays, then why don’t we have dialogue with pathological liars, addicts, alcoholics, murderers, and adulterers? Now, personally I would not be opposed to having dialogue with any of these folk. In fact, I am pretty sure some of the above were in the room today. But to thoughtlessly group sister and brother United Methodists who are prayerfully seeking to discern what it means to be followers of Jesus in their LGBT bodies with pathological liars and murderers is crude, mean, and mindless. It is –to use an old term– pharisaical. Save us.

One pastor who spoke against our resolution was poignant. Her son is, as she put it, “a homosexual.” She said she loves her son, but she is afraid he will go to hell unless he repents of his sexual orientation. “I love my son, but can't tell him I agree with his lifestyle," she said. "If I am wrong, I've lost nothing. If he's wrong, he's lost everything."

I fear she has misread Scripture. If Matthew 25:31-46 is right, we will be judged precisely by the way we have treated others and by whether we have been compassionate. To cruelly tell someone that he or she is going to hell for loving authentically just because she or he is different from straight folk may well be spiritually risky. Her assumption that she can say anything she wants about gay people, including her own son, and justify it by interpreting the Bible anyway she wants, no matter how facile, and it would not matter, seems to me biblically questionable.

Well, I need to remember that this is a long struggle, and we took a step forward today. I also need to remember that when you lance an old festering wound, what comes out is not always pleasant. So let me not get bogged down in the negatives. We did well today and the church has moved at least a tiny step closer to the love of Christ.

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