Midwest United Methodist Leaders Embrace ‘Progressive Incompatibilism’

John Lomperis on November 19, 2021

Last week, on November 10-11, the United Methodist Church’s North Central Jurisdiction (NCJ), held a specially called, virtual conference session of voting delegates from nine Midwestern states. The 2021 North Central Jurisdictional Conference had no bishops to elect, but was nevertheless rather revealing in several ways, especially what it has shown of the growing embrace by liberal United Methodists of what their leaders had previously dismissed as “progressive incompatibilism.”

There was also helpful recognition of the inevitability of our denomination’s coming split. The conference’s primarily liberal delegates notably named “amicable separation” as a top priority for the short-term future.   

Before anyone believes any propaganda about how post-separation United Methodism will be a “progressive compatibilist” denomination, happy to include and continue to listen to the concerns of traditionalist believers, please ask any traditionalist delegate how included they felt on the second day of the 2021 North Central Jurisdictional Conference. 

The conference’s adoption of a far-left “Covenant” pointedly refutes the myth that the post-separation United Methodist Church (psUMC) will have a “progressive compatibilist” ethos of continuing to fully welcome and include both partnered gay clergy and theological traditionalists. The adoption of this Covenant appeared to be the primary purpose of having this specially called session. 

The dominant faction in the NCJ made clear that they have their hard-left agenda that they want all leaders in their denomination to support, and if any United Methodist does not like it, there’s the door. If the attitude openly expressed by most NCJ delegates in this Covenant does not count as “progressive incompatibilist” United Methodism, then I don’t know what would. 

For the last several years, institutionalist liberals have sought to advance their agenda by trying to reframe the UMC’s internal debates over gay weddings as not only between traditionalists who oppose them and progressives who support them, but also between so-called “compatibilists” and “incompatibilists.” This liberal framing became increasingly widespread in United Methodist discourse after this June 2016 blog post

The basic idea is that “incompatibilists” not only have their position for or against same-sex unions, but they believe that this is important enough to deserve some clarity and consistency across the denomination on this matter. So “traditionalist incompatibilists” support the longstanding rules in the Book of Discipline banning any United Methodist minister from officiating and any United Methodist congregation from hosting same-sex weddings. And United Methodist “progressive incompatibilists” not only want to repeal these prohibitions but also are no more interested in accommodating or respecting the consciences of United Methodists who oppose same-sex unions than they are in accommodating racism or sexism. On the other hand, “progressive compatibilists” are supposedly committed to both liberalizing our denomination’s sexual-morality standards and also wanting their church to continue fully including and respecting the consciences of traditionalists. And “traditionalist compatibilists” are okay with their denomination liberalizing its official definition of marriage and sexual-morality standards as long as traditionalist pastors are not forced to personally officiate same-sex weddings.

Such framing has led to a lot of dishonesty and rhetorical sleights of hand, such as papering over key ways in which many self-described “progressive compatibilists” are actually unwilling to respect traditionalists’ consciences. It has also fueled false accusations that traditionalists who support the UMC’s longstanding marriage standards have sought to expel from the UMC any individual who simply believes in same-sex marriage.

Before the 2019 General Conference, this framing was used to portray the so-called “One Church Plan” to dramatically liberalize our denomination’s sexual morality as somehow moderate. This involved ignoring or sometimes outright lying about the ways in which this plan would necessarily trample on the consciences of any traditionalists who tried to remain in the UMC

As our denomination prepares to split into the Global Methodist Church and psUMC, partisans of the latter sometimes use similar framing to suggest that theirs will be a “compatibilist” denomination, in which theological traditionalists will absolutely be fully welcome. 

But since the February 2019 General Conference, many liberal United Methodists have openly embraced a progressive incompatibilism and increasingly scaled back any “combatibilist” rhetoric.

The Mainstream UMC caucus’s board declared that they “cannot affiliate” in the same denomination with individuals who support the values of the Traditional Plan adopted by the majority of the last General Conference.

Then in my own Indiana Conference, there was the release of the so-called “Hoosier Response.”  Signers of this manifesto publicly made clear that they see a minister violating her own promise to follow our denomination’s sexual-morality standards, practicing occult spirituality, and encouraging the bullying of orthodox pastors out of United Methodist ministry as all within the boundaries of “serv[ing] faithfully.” They also indicated that they find it unacceptable to “allow” a single congregation of their annual conference to include as a lay member an outspoken theological traditionalist who would dare challenge such a minister’s misbehavior. This statement was publicly endorsed by several of Bishop Julius Trimble’s cabinet representatives as well as the national president of United Methodist Women, most of those elected as delegates by their fellow clergy, and the liberal caucus leadership (despite their “room for all” rhetoric). 

By an overwhelming 135-32 vote (81-19 percent), delegates to last weeks’ North Central Jurisdictional Conference adopted a “Covenant” to build the kind of denomination they want, continuing this “progressive incompatibilist” vein. 

Very predictably, this Covenant includes a section calling for ignoring and disobeying the UMC Discipline’s prohibitions of same gender weddings and non-celibate gay clergy. Our church law and consistent Judicial Council decisions could hardly be clearer that jurisdictions cannot adopt statements to curtail the obligation of bishops and others to enforce these parts of our church law. So as a delegate, I submitted a legal challenge to this section of the Covenant. 

But the NCJ Covenant, worth reading in full, nevertheless reveals much about the current values of liberal United Methodist leaders in the Midwest, and probably throughout America. 

Clearly, the psUMC will be a denomination that celebrates non-celibate gay clergy as well as transgendered clergy. It will have little and decreasing interest in giving traditionalist congregations any firm right to refuse such a pastor. I originally wrote that this “will be regarded as unacceptable bigotry” in the near future, but with this Covenant, liberal American United Methodist leaders have effectively said that they already regard any such traditionalist congregation as an unacceptably bigoted pawn or source of “evil.” No longer shrinking from progressive incompatibilism, this Covenant of NCJ United Methodist leaders lists “heterosexism” (moral disapproval of homosexual practice) alongside racism and sexism as “evil powers” which the church must forcefully renounce.  

Stop to think of the implications of liberal United Methodists so openly admitting that they actually regard the approach to faith of traditionalist United Methodists (by definition, those of us who support our denomination’s historic and still-official doctrinal and moral standards) as unholy, oppressive “evil powers.” It makes no sense to expect much toleration or secure safe spaces for congregations and denominational leaders who minister in ways the leaders of the new psUMC see as advancing “evil powers.” Such rhetoric is reminiscent of an official column in the liberal-run newspaper of the Illinois-Great Rivers Conference, by a district superintendent no less, that literally likened fellow United Methodists in IRD/UMAction to demonic, non-human “principalities and powers” (see page 3 for my response). No religious leaders with any integrity seek to protect and accommodate the flourishing within their own ranks what they sincerely regard as “evil powers,” let alone those they literally dehumanize as demons. The psUMC will likely soon get to the point where pastors will get in trouble if they even express disapproval of homosexual practice in a sermon (just as I would expect any United Methodist pastor to hear from her bishop if she openly preached racism). 

The 2021 North Central Jurisdictional Conference further made clear that they believe the jurisdiction owes apology and repentance for the sin of how the UMC’s moral standards have allegedly harmed “LGBTQIA+ people.” And the Covenant further asks for the next jurisdictional conference to subject all delegates to a one-sided propaganda/re-education session about the supposed evils of “homophobia, transphobia and heterosexism within United Methodist Churches.”

Shortly after this, the Covenant acknowledges that “some congregations and clergy may feel called to a different future in the faith” and points to the exits.

This Covenant of progressive incompatibilism offers no room for current United Methodist leaders in the NCJ who believe that the Discipline’s moral standards are faithfully biblical rather than something to apologize for. As much as I criticized the so-called One Church Plan for the incomplete and temporary nature of its supposed protections for the consciences of traditionalist congregations, pastors, and bishops, the NCJ Covenant does not even bother with any pretense of continuing to include traditionalists.

The only line of this NCJ Covenant that I have trouble believing accurately represents most liberal American United Methodist leaders today is the sentence: “We grieve each separation.”

The NCJ leadership also notably rejected even symbolic opportunities to signal a genuine willingness to listen to or include more traditionalist or moderate believers. 

The heads of various annual conference delegations selected a six-member writing team who drafted the Covenant, and chose to not include a single traditionalist delegate. While other delegates were offered opportunities to give this team input on what to put in the covenant, through small-group discussions on the first day and online “pre-work” submitted ahead of time, there is little evidence that the writing team listened too much to this feedback, rather than just plowing ahead with what this tiny group was already determined to write. The way in which the draft Covenant statement was only emailed to delegates a little before midnight the night before the Thursday morning session to consider it (when many delegates were probably already in bed), and the way we were told to defer to the NCJ’s centralized leadership, made it unrealistic for this resolution to be amended except in a few minor ways.

In this context, a proposed amendment by orthodox clergy delegate Andy Adams of the Illinois-Great Rivers Conference to delete one sentence and replace it with three sentences of his own probably never stood a chance. This, despite the fact that Adams’s amendment was well worded, was not framed in a “partisan” way, and in several ways affirmed what liberal leaders themselves had expressed as their values for wanting to be amicable in the coming separation. The speeches against the Adams amendment at times did not make much sense. One prominent liberal delegate, after speaking against and helping defeat the Adams amendment, then bizarrely reached out to Adams on the conference’s publicly viewable chat to offer the assurance, “We overwhelmingly support Amicable Separation.”

But the mood of the conference appeared to be such that the mere facts that Andy Adams and all others speaking for this amendment were known to be traditionalists, while those speaking against it were all known to be liberal, was all most delegates needed to know to vote down this amendment by 73 percent, while approving every other proposed amendment. 

The message of all of this was clear: the NCJ is a decidedly liberal jurisdiction, its leaders are determined to transition into an exclusively liberal denomination, and they are emphatically not interested in giving orthodox believers even a minor, token voice in helping shape the future of the psUMC. 

On the bright side, shortly before Rev. Adams proposed his amendment, a prominent liberal delegate had proposed an amendment in a similar spirit, by adding, in the context of acknowledging the coming separation, this sentence: “We respect our siblings who depart and desire to do no harm as we anticipate cooperative ecumenical efforts in the future.” While the Adams amendment would have helpfully fleshed out these principles a bit further, this previous amendment at least established an important beachhead.

This one-sentence amendment sailed through in a vote of 153-11. That indicates that despite the overwhelming progressive incompatibilism of this United Methodist conference, there was 93 percent support for the basic principles of wanting to respect those who continue into the Global Methodist Church, to “do no harm” to each other in the acknowledged separation to come, and to preserve some goodwill for the future. 

At least when these principles are proposed with shorter wording by a liberal delegate. 

  1. Comment by Bill Cockerham on November 19, 2021 at 8:54 pm

    It breaks my heart to see what is happening to our church.

  2. Comment by SenecaGriggs on November 20, 2021 at 12:05 pm

    They recognize not their inevitable decline; The trajectory is this; rejection of Biblical orthodoxy then die as an organization. It’s a slow but inevitable process if history is any indication.

  3. Comment by jeff on November 20, 2021 at 1:11 pm

    When these homosexual transgender pastors are fanned out to churches, think about how many families will leave. Liberals have a death wish.

  4. Comment by Joan Sibbald on November 20, 2021 at 2:04 pm

    Jeff:

    It saddens me to disagree with you when you write, “….think about how many families will leave.”

    They won’t leave because in the 1970’s sexual revolution baby boomer feminists and LGBTQ… joined hands to “Let It All Hang Out!”

    Incrementally, since then feminists and LGBTQ… have been indoctrinating children from kindergarten through university that they are “inclusive” and “welcoming” of “all” and those who disagree with their agenda are haters!

    I agree with you when you say, “Liberals have a death wish.” Sadly, they control the culture.

  5. Comment by td on November 20, 2021 at 3:06 pm

    Thanks, john. Your update only reinforces my opinion that while local churches will technically be able to leave the UMC and join the GMC, this option will only be available on paper. We must accept that the UMC will not employ or encourage graceful processes for local churches to initiate and hold votes. They view anything short of embracing homosexual sexual acts, homosexual marriage, and practicing LGBTQNA as types oppression and injustice that Jesus would have fought against.

  6. Comment by td on November 20, 2021 at 3:29 pm

    In short, they believe it is sinful to not fully celebrate clergy who engage in homosexual sex, homosexual marriage, and sex altering therapies and surgeries. And this applies to members also. Local churches who try to initiate a separation will be met by leaders, even by the pastor in their own church, who will not gracefully allow a vote.

    They will think it is a sin to let a church remain in their sin of oppression. They will not tolerate being complicit in the perpetuation of oppression- even as a separate church. I wish it wasn’t true, but i think we must realize that it is.

  7. Comment by David S. on November 20, 2021 at 11:20 pm

    As a now former, traditionalist member of the PC(USA), heed this warning. While the denominations comprising the Reformed Tradition are more congregational in governance than the more episcopal nature of those denominations within the Wesleyan/Methodist Tradition, I think there is something to be learned. Since the passage of the 2014 amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order, which is comparable to the UMC’s Book of Discipline, the national entities of the PC(USA) have shown increasing disregard and increasing intolerance for traditional members, even as they feign patently insincere reverence for the denimination’s diversity of thought provisions as first espoused in the Westminster Standards, and thus show themselves to be liars and hypocrites. Fortunately for Presbyterians, selection of local clergy is by the congregation. The local presbytery provides a supporting role, but unless there is a violation of process, it cannot require traditional congregations to accept a leftist cleric. Still, there are other ways to make life difficult, such as refusal to permit a gracious dismissal being one of them, should a congregation decide to leave.

    As I have noted here before, you name the issue and the PC(USA) national entities and leadership repeatedly “speak on behalf of Presbyterians” on all sorts of matters that I think many people may have issue with, 8f they took notice and thought the issue through, and some times in ways, most notably abortion, that run contrary to the express positions of the General Assembly. For Methodists, frankly, once the Protocol is adopted, expect the liberal wing to utter an expletive to the traditionalists and tell them where to go with an additional expletive following. Of course, I am increasingly convinced from my experience in the PC(USA), the leftists in each of the four major mainline denominations (UMC, ELCA, TEC, PCUSA), who are pulling the levers, are nothing more than agents of the devil masquerading as angels of light. And yes, I have expressed this to the current Stated Clerk, the current Executive Director of PMA, and copied their counterparts at the Presbytery level. I pray that God has mercy on them and the other false prophets, preachers, and teachers working alongside them for the shipwreck they are making of many a person’s faith.

  8. Comment by Dan W on November 21, 2021 at 12:14 am

    UM leaders, who couldn’t keep covenant with their Methodist brothers and sisters, have adopted a new covenant. The pre-separation UMC continues to destroy itself. Will there be anything left to separate?

  9. Comment by MJ on November 21, 2021 at 5:13 pm

    “dishonesty…rhetorical sleights of hand…papering over…ignoring and disobeying the UMC Discipline…chose to not include a single traditionalist delegate”
    It’s only going to get worse, John. I hope you’re ready.

  10. Comment by Star Tripper on November 22, 2021 at 8:24 am

    Celebrating sin and denigrating those who call it sin is known as inversion. This is a mark of Satanism whether the practitioners realize it or not. Like the old oak rotted from the inside the UMC decline has been decades in the making. It was just hidden behind a facade.

  11. Comment by FYI, a letter from a Bishop on November 24, 2021 at 9:41 am

    Here you go:

    A Narrative for the Continuing United Methodist Church

    Friends,

    On November 4, the Council of Bishops overwhelming approved A Narrative for the Continuing United Methodist Church. Last week, the delegates of the North Central Jurisdiction voted to affirm the document. I commend the following for your prayerful reflection and earnest conversation.

    United Methodists all over the globe are liturgical, contemporary, charismatic, social activists, urban, suburban, small town, rural and much more. We are children, youth, young adults, senior adults, new Christians, and mature Christians. We are present on four continents, in more than 45 countries, and we comprise an unknown number of cultures and languages. We are a holy communion of different races, ethnicities, cultures, and perspectives united by the Holy Spirit, driven by the mission of Christ, and bearing the good news of an unmerited grace that changes lives and transforms communities.

    Christ’s prayer for our unity and command to gather all to the table, to make space for one another, appreciate one another, and look for Christ in each other, prohibit us from creating individual tables only for those who think, act, look, and perceive the world like we do. We cannot be a church that fractures its identity and commitment to Christ by aligning itself with political parties. We cannot be a traditional church or a progressive church or a centrist church. We cannot be a gay or straight church. Our churches must be more than echo chambers made in our own image arguing with each other while neglecting our central purpose. This is the way of the world.

    Instead, we must be one people, rooted in scripture, centered in Christ, serving in love and united in the essentials. It is hard work. It is sacred work. It is the ministry of reconciliation that Christ gave to each of us. Our best witness is to love each other as Christ loves us, to show the world the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to bind us together despite our differences. This is living out the gospel.

    We are a Church:

    Confident in what God has done in Christ Jesus for all humankind
    Committed to personal and social salvation/transformation
    Courageous in dismantling the powers of racism, tribalism, and colonialism

    All of our members, clergy, local churches, and annual conferences will continue to have a home in the future United Methodist Church, whether they consider themselves liberal, evangelical, progressive, traditionalist, middle of the road, conservative, centrist, or something else. We hold on to our Wesleyan heritage that “the living core of the Christian faith is revealed in Scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.”

    We are longing for a United Methodist Church that will move towards new forms of being a connectional church, a General Conference focused on global essentials, and an empowerment of regions for contextually relevant forms of living our common mission mandate. Deeply rooted in the Doctrinal Standards of the UMC, we pledge to exercise our episcopal role in ways that enable as many United Methodists, lay and clergy, as are willing to remain in the UMC and – together – to continue in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And, because we are part of the Church Universal, we seek to be united visibly and in ministries with other parts of the Body of Christ in God’s mission for the human family and creation.

    We are committed to strengthening every local church, where the word is preached and Christ is offered, and where the table is set before all who hunger and thirst for righteousness, confident in the prayer we have learned to say and share:

    Make us one with Christ—this is faithfulness.
    Make us one with each other—this is unity.
    Make us one in ministry to all the world—this is fruitfulness.

    This is the United Methodist Church we love and serve!

    Council of Bishops
    The United Methodist Church
    November 4, 2021

    Your Servant in Christ,

    † Bishop Gregory V. Palmer

    (Somebody who participated in that conference has no idea what went on there. You make your choice about who that is. Source: westohioumc.org)

  12. Comment by Dr. Lee D. Cary on December 19, 2021 at 10:39 am

    This prolonged exercise in institutional self-destruction is teaching a valuable lesson to those ‘traditionalists’ who began the process possessed by the naive notion that progressive liberals would eventually accept any democratic decision that did not yield to their values ref. human sexuality. Progressives are intrepid. They never quit because they are always, in their own minds, right.

    When they lost at the 2018 General Conference, they yelled, stomped their feet, cried, then backed-off and came at it again. They are nothing if not dogged in their self-righteousness.

    When progressive liberals cannot change an institution, they work, not to reform the institution, but to destroy it so as to build their own in its place. In America, they have that right.

    Once committed, they would never conform to the majority-based, operational doctrine of the UMC (aided by high profile non-compliance to that ‘traditional’ doctrine by some virtue-signaling UMC Bishops). Their choices were two: (1.) Deconstruct the UMC into their own image, or (2.) Politely bow-out of the organization, and exercise the initiative to join, or form, another that aligns with their own human sexuality beliefs.

    They chose #1, because that’s what progressive liberals have been doing politically in the United States since the late 1880’s, with significant success. There’s no reason for an established, and once major, largely US-based, protestant denomination to behave otherwise. Or to expect it to do so.

  13. Comment by Patricia Stone on October 20, 2023 at 9:15 am

    The words of doctrine you refer to were added in the 1970’s as a reaction to culture. 50 years is such a short length of time in Methodism’s history. Feminism and LGBTQ rights are lumped together in your thinking, because you have almost visceral, you say biblical, reaction to the presence of either. Your foundation is not biblical and its not even traditional. It’s sexist, patriarchal, and ignorant to the ifull understanding of the Bible. You say untruths about those who understand scripture in a different way that yourself, and you demonize them. It adds to your shame. Your self-righteous anger is very telling. Be well. Go your way in peace.

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