South Central Jurisdiction Vows to Uphold UMC Discipline

Since the 2016 General Conference, a lot of attention has been paid to some smaller regions of the United Methodist Church, encompassing only a relatively small minority fraction of our membership, voting to adopt resolutions and take actions of “nonconformity.” These are basically regional declarations of independence from the United Methodist covenant, particularly in terms of our denomination’s official policies and teaching statements affirming biblical standards for sexual self-control (either celibacy in singleness or fidelity in marriage between one man and one woman).

Here is my friend Walter Fenton’s report on the Northeastern Jurisdiction. And here is the bishop’s ruling of law invalidating that jurisdiction’s resolution demanding no consequences for clergy who violate our standards. Curiously, while the Western Jurisdiction was said to have adopted a “nonconformity” resolution, full-text official reports of that resolution have been rather slow in coming.

In one sense, these are not altogether new things. Some more liberal annual conferences have for years routinely adopted such resolutions. These often get appealed to the UMC Judicial Council, which has tended to invalidate any resolution that calls for any direct action to contradict the standards of our governing Book of Discipline while allowing resolutions deemed to be merely “aspirational” (i.e., “we won’t take any action now, but we just want to say that we really hope that some day a future General Conference will change the Discipline”).

On the other hand, we have already reported on the collective statement of the bishops of the Southeastern Jurisdiction, which has over one million more members than any other jurisdiction, strongly repudiating such “nonconformity,” and how bishops from other regions have joined their stand against “nonconformity.”

In any case, not much notice has been taken of how the North Central Jurisdiction (which is slightly larger than the Northeastern Jurisdiction) and the South Central Jurisdiction (which has more people than the Northeastern and Western Jurisdictions combined) adopted, by sizable majorities, resolutions last July explicitly committing to uphold the sexuality-related standards of our Book of Discipline.

This was a particularly pleasant surprise in my own North Central Jurisdiction, given its well-earned liberal reputation, as I reported on earlier.

But the resolution overwhelmingly adopted by the 2016 South Central Jurisdictional Conference resolution is also significant.

Amidst the predictable pleas for prayer and working together, this “Resolution for Patience, Peace, and Prayer” affirms the language in the General Conference motion to create the new bishops’ human sexuality commission calling on bishops to seek “ways to avoid further complaints, trials, and harm even as [our bishops] uphold the Discipline.” Despite some initial confusion, several bishops subsequently clarified that this language does NOT give any permission for clergy to perform same-sex unions or impose any sort of “moratorium” on enforcing our standards. Rather, it calls for bishops to continue upholding the Discipline, which forbids clergy from performing same-sex union services or from being personally sexually active outside of a monogamous and heterosexual marriage, while seeking to minimize harm and following the Discipline’s own explicit guidance to treat church trials as a “last resort” but ultimately remaining willing to have trials when needed to enforce our covenant. Obviously a main way to avoid “further complaints,” and related harm and trials would be to actively discourage intentional violations of our human sexuality standards. This particular resolution made even clearer its intent to not shelve these standards by making this explicit commitment as the South Central Jurisdiction: “we will uphold to the Book of Discipline as we have vowed to do as United Methodist leaders while we wait for the Commission to complete its work and offer its recommendations.”

Aside from the commitment to upholding the covenantal standards of our Book of Discipline, including biblical standards for sexual self-control, the resolution made other helpful contributions to our denominational discussion. It frames human sexuality as a matter of holiness rather than civil rights, thus applying traditional Wesleyan rather than secular Western lenses. It calls for treating each other in ways that “work toward improving relationships while diminishing hurtful conversations.” And it concludes by reminding us of our world’s need for redeeming grace, for the sake of which we must commit to reaching out to our neighbors beyond the church.

The resolution was originally submitted by Kip Gilts, a clergy delegate and district superintendent from the Texas Conference who is known to be conservative on such issues.

An alternative resolution entitled “Unity Amidst Diversity” had been submitted by Andrew Ponder Williams of the Missouri Conference and Pastor David Livingston of the Great Plains Conference, both of whom are outspokenly, aggressively liberal on homosexuality. Williams is a young man who until recently served on the board of directors of the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) and who now works for a United Methodist congregation in California. I have never met the Rev. Livingston, but know of him primarily through his expressing his commitment to “unity in diversity” and “improving relationships” in such ways as defending a clergywoman recklessly breaking the covenant that serves as our basis of unity (even to the point of snark-tweeting his own bishop) and for offering such pastoral love and grace as broadly accusing folk in the evangelical renewal movement of “constant lies and intentional deception.”

On his blog, Livingston explicitly described this second motion as “an alternative resolution” that he and others submitted in intentional response to Gilt’s, since “upholding the Book of Discipline has become code language for what those on the left see as prosecuting (persecuting?) LGBT pastors” and according to Livingston, the simple fact that the first resolution’s author was from Texas, which has a “well known conservative bent,” is “[p]articularly” sufficient basis to judge the resolution as “seem[ing] divisive rather than uniting.”

At the 2016 South Central Jurisdictional Conference in Wichita, Kansas, Gilts and Williams conferred to agree on what was reported as compromise language that was adopted “overwhelmingly.”

But comparing Gilt’s original resolution with the final, amended version adopted by the jurisdictional conference, we see that not one thing from the former was removed in the latter.

I have not been able to find the full text of the alternative “Unity Amidst Diversity” resolution. But if we again compare what Rev. Gilt submitted with what was passed, the only apparent change is a single section near the end calling on the South Central Bishops to:

1. “cultivate a spirit within their cabinets and clergy sessions that treats all clergy and laity respectfully and fairly regardless of their views on matters of human sexuality” (which is very welcome language given the history of how some more liberal bishops in this jurisdiction have really mistreated more orthodox clergy and laity); and
2. Uphold the Discipline while merely “explor[ing]” – a rather weak word – “ways to avoid further complaints, trials and harm”; which just affirms the language from the General Conference motion addressed above.

With that one amendment, this resolution passed overwhelmingly with no significant opposition. So it likely would have been able to pass if stronger language about enforcing our biblical covenantal standards had been amended in.  But at that point in the conference’s final afternoon, delegates still had other important business to get to and understandably were not eager to spend a whole lot of time debating amendments.

The various actions of “non-conformity” promoted in other regions of American United Methodism are serious problems that need to be addressed. But we should not forget other actions from leaders of much larger numbers of United Methodists affirming our disciplinary covenant, faithful United Methodists who are surely no less important than the smaller numbers of church members rejecting our doctrine and Discipline.