United Methodist Church Is NOT a “Big Tent”

As our denomination goes through a slow-motion separation, liberal bishops and other officials have been spreading short-on-details slogans about how the post-separation United Methodist Church will supposedly be “a big tent.” This often includes explicit claims that the United Methodist “big tent” will still have “a place” for theological traditionalists who morally disapprove of sex outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

When the rubber met the road, however, last month’s jurisdictional conferences, held throughout America, forcefully rejected big tent United Methodism. Those controlling our denomination have effectively nullified the global General Conference, by abrogating the standards General Conference set and cynically preventing General Conference from even meeting. In the vacuum they have created, the denomination’s liberal American leaders stepped forward last month to establish a new United Methodism which is firmly committed to a liberal social agenda and pointedly not interested in genuinely, graciously sharing a big tent with United Methodists of a more moderate or conservative persuasion.

We saw this in policies adopted, as well as in sometimes extreme intolerance of traditionalist individuals and congregations. 

Liberal Resolutions Adopted

In celebrating the dramatic shifts in all five United Methodist jurisdictional conferences, a main liberal caucus reported that the Western Jurisdiction adopted a resolution “that creates an LGBTQ+ caucus with a budget and a seat in Western Jurisdiction leadership” (with this “line item” presumably funded by apportionments forcibly extracted from the offering plates of the region’s congregations).

But for a change, the other jurisdictions are now not far behind the West. All five jurisdictions adopted three largely identical liberal resolutions, usually by overwhelming margins. 

One of these adopted resolutions was the “Queer Delegates’ Resolution to Center Justice and Empowerment for LGBTQIA+ People in the UMC.” It was jointly submitted by dozens of self-identified “queer” delegates. This resolution forcefully supported liberalizing church standards on sexual morality. But it went much further, calling on relevant leaders to effectively block enforcement of the UMC’s longstanding ban on same-sex unions (“[i]mplor[ing] our member Annual Conferences to either not pursue or resolve in an appropriately timely fashion through a non-punitive, just resolution process any complaints against clergy regarding their sexual orientation or clergy who officiate weddings of LGBTQIA+ persons”).

This effectively advances a formally approved de facto, nationwide reality in which operative church policies are now liberalized, regardless of what the UMC Book of Discipline and the global church say. And this resolution goes further by making clear that now the only acceptable bishop candidates are those “who commit to upholding this resolution,” and seeking a future in which bishops and other denominational leaders include “LGBTQIA+ people.” The latter suggests that after non-celibate gay bishops, the now-dominant faction may want to also elect transgendered, intersex, and asexual bishops. 

One co-submitter of this resolution, the openly homosexually partnered Cedric Bridgeforth, was elected bishop, in further open defiance of longstanding church law prohibiting “self-avowed, practicing homosexual clergy.”

So just as with the UMC’s “on paper” orthodox doctrine about Jesus Christ, the UMC Discipline’s biblical standards on sexual morality increasingly don’t matter. The leadership of every region of American United Methodism is now overwhelmingly, officially committed to not enforcing these standards. The dwindling numbers of American bishops who still uphold the Discipline with integrity will come under increasing pressure, and it will be shocking it more of these do not retire early in 2024, as several such bishops already have. The jurisdictional conferences made clear that even if the Discipline does not change, American United Methodists will never again elect any bishop in any region who believes in a traditionalist sexual ethic or who will uphold these standards. 

In case generally theologically orthodox non-American United Methodists object, all jurisdictions adopted another resolution pushing “global segregation” to preserve Americans’ supremacy and severely limit the power of others, in rather systemically racist and colonialist ways.

The message was clear: this is the agenda of the new United Methodism, and if you don’t like it, you can leave the “big tent.” 

And lest there be any doubt, all five jurisdictions also adopted another resolution seeking to effectively purge orthodox believers from denominational leadership, in rather hypocritical ways. For good measure, the North Central Jurisdiction (NCJ) also adopted an additional resolution further pressuring theologically traditionalist delegates to “recuse themselves.”

Those purging non-liberals and making life needlessly difficult for those seeking disaffiliation do so under the sanctimonious pretext of their supposed “loyalty” to the UMC. But these purgers are actually the ones who have shown extreme disloyalty to the UMC’s historic doctrine, its official morals, and the official UMC way of doing things as outlined in the Discipline, while betraying basic promises and standards of fairness to United Methodists who are loyal to these standards. Being proudly disloyal to the doctrine, polity, congregations, and people of the UMC is an odd way to claim the moral high ground on “United Methodist loyalty.”

No Big Tent in United Methodist Leadership

In and beyond these resolutions, the pressuring of theologically orthodox delegates to refrain from participation was especially odd given how we were already such a fractionally small, outvoted minority, in every jurisdiction. So evidently, these purge efforts were about more than winning already-secure liberal voting majorities. Such efforts sought to more thoroughly eliminate even minor non-liberal influences in denominational governance.

Delegates in all jurisdictions made clear that among fourteen new bishop slots, there was not room for even one theological traditionalist, no matter how qualified. 

Last year, over 80 percent of NCJ delegates adopted a “Covenant to Build BeLoved Community” which, among other things, made clear that they will elect no bishop who is unsupportive of same-sex unions. In both the Southeastern and South Central jurisdictions, highly qualified, Hispanic, theologically traditionalist bishop candidates went nowhere after receiving virtually no votes, if any, from non-traditionalist delegates (see here and here).

In rare instances when liberal officials offer anything remotely concrete about how a United Methodist big tent could really work, they tend to distinguish “traditional compatibilists” from “traditional incompatibilists” (or “the incompatibles”), admitting that the latter are the sort who should probably leave the UMC. While such framing tends to characterize “incompatibilist traditionalists” in overly harsh, distorted ways, it also raises the question of who exactly are these “traditional compatibilists” who will supposedly still be fully welcome and respected in the United Methodist big tent. 

According to one main liberal caucus’s definition, traditional compatibilists do “not personally agree with LGBTQ ordination and marriage, but [are] willing to be in a church that allows it.” I am reliably told that these words well describe the administratively well-qualified Western Pennsylvania episcopal nominee Alyce Weaver Dunn. After last month’s Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference elected its first of two bishops to elect, Dunn emerged as the top vote-getter, peaking at 49 percent. 

Upper New York delegate Dan Fuller has reported on how ultimately, the vast majority of delegates other than theological traditionalists supported an extraordinary power-play parliamentary maneuver that prevented electing any additional bishop, after Dunn had pulled well ahead of every other candidate. (This follows the pattern of liberal United Methodists suddenly, heavy-handedly changing the rules of the game when it looks like they may not win all that they desire.)

Thus, the dominant faction of the UMC has made clear that they would rather go to extreme lengths to prevent the election of any bishop at all, for an admittedly needed bishop position, than allow a single one of 14 new bishops to be even a “compatibilist” traditionalist!

United Methodist big tent, indeed.

From my own North Central Jurisdictional Conference, two defining moments stand out.

One was when a traditionalist lay delegate Holly Grant proposed a very slight, moderating amendment to the conservative-purging, so-called “Leading with Integrity” resolution. Her amendment would not even have deleted any of the resolution’s offensive content. As noted, she respectfully acknowledged the reality of how those of us who have been loyal to the UMC and its official doctrine and morals are now being driven out of our own denomination, and pleaded for the liberal majority to at least express support for “allowing for free and open discussion.” But some 80 percent of delegates voted against this minor olive branch.

This echoed how last year, a special session of the North Central Jurisdictional adopted a lengthy resolution one-sidedly committing to major priorities of the hard-left faction, after an overwhelming majority of delegates rejected a modest amendment by traditionalist Illinois-Great Rivers Pastor Andy Adams pleading for agreement on the basic values of grace and civility in treating those who separate. Among those leading the way in speaking against the Adams amendment was now-Bishop Bigham-Tsai.

From all of this, the message was clear: there is a hard-left faction in charge now, and they will not accept even the mildest input from any remaining non-liberals.

Congregations Beware: The Small Tent is Here

What about conservative United Methodist congregations hoping the big tent will at least offer a bargain of leaving them alone locally while excluding them from beyond-the-local-church UMC leadership? 

A second defining moment was ominous for any such hopes. 

During a breakout session, I watched one candidate, who was elected bishop later in the week, extraordinarily pander to gay activist David Meredith. Meredith, a longtime liberal leader in the West Ohio Conference, faced a complaint for wedding his longtime male partner in 2016, but has had no real discipline in six years. In the meantime, his supporters have targeted a traditionalist pastor who formally complained of Meredith’s violating church rules with rather hateful, extreme harassment, including a prominent disruption of a worship service.

While Meredith was not a delegate, he repeatedly pressed this candidate to pander to self-described “queer clergy” like himself. Meredith stressed the alleged need for bishops to not just find loopholes and workarounds within the church law they promise to uphold but to “break the Discipline” to protect LGBTQ clergy who choose to violate United Methodist moral standards. This candidate claimed that the UMC does “VIOLENT harm” (emphasis original) to such clergy, expressed commitment to “civil disobedience,” and pledged to go further than even other liberal bishop candidates in preventing enforcement of church standards.

Even this candidate’s offering to “find a congregation open to a queer pastor” was not good enough for Meredith. He likened congregations not welcoming a non-celibate gay pastor to unacceptable racism or sexism, pushing the need for bishops to “stand in the gap for queer clergy,” just as bishops and their superintendents have “for African-American and women clergy” who were “not well-received by congregations.” This new bishop appeared to respond positively. 

We can expect bishops, and in turn, congregations, to continue to be pushed along such lines. As long as any congregations remain in the UMC who are not open to a non-celibate gay pastor, activists like Meredith will continue to push bishops to do something about it. The activists view this as an essential matter of justice and faithfulness. And bishops will increasingly pander to such activists, for the sake of their own political fortunes. Any restraints are increasingly being removed. 

Another bishop was elected in the NCJ shortly after bragging to voting delegates of having led a traditionalist congregation he pastored to become an LGBTQ-affirming “Reconciling” congregation.

All of this suggests that “the place” for traditionalists in the United Methodist big tent is as targets for conversion to liberal ideologies, so that we will change our minds and stop being theologically traditionalist. 

The new United Methodism’s treatment of traditionalists as good primarily for conversion was especially seen in the North Central Jurisdiction subjecting delegates to an LGBTQ liberationist re-education session. One of that event’s official speakers declared, to applause, “It is not possible for the church to not be of one mind” on such a matter of justice, characterized non-LGBTQ-affirming Christians as “abusers,” and encouraged the assembled United Methodist leaders to “rid faith communities” in the UMC of any cultures or policies that failed to fully embrace secular LGBTQ ideology.  

At the NCJ, one of the bishop’s sermons at one point began encouraging a kinder attitude to departing conservatives than “don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” But he went on to frame the value of a kinder approach largely in terms of the utilitarian purpose of persuading people to change their minds. This offered little reason to be nice to theological traditionalists whose minds will not change.

There were numerous other, smaller examples of judgmental liberal intolerance in the jurisdictional conferences. In the NCJ, the apportionment-funded media of the Minnesota and Indiana Conferences posted profiles of young-adult delegates, but exclusively featured those known as strongly progressive, even though these were not the region’s only young-adult delegates. Preaching in worship services hinted at Universalist theology, likened traditional Christian views on marriage to xenophobia, touted the holiness of abortion rights, and echoed hyper-partisan anti-Republican political sloganeering, among other jabs at those with different views from those of the ideologically narrow leadership of the United Methodist “big tent.” One traditionalist delegate in the Southeastern jurisdiction told me of being approached and angrily cussed out by a lesbian activist. The list goes on. 

But at times I found myself feeling particularly sorry for moderate liberals. I mean those who favor same-sex unions, but whose core principles make them deeply uncomfortable with the rule-breaking, the low views of Jesus Christ, the de-prioritizing of evangelism, and the graceless intolerance of the UMC’s now-dominant liberal faction. Yes, such relatively moderate liberals, especially among clergy, arguably bear great responsibility for their choices to disregard traditionalists and hand so much power to the hard left. But before too long, such less-extreme liberals may very well find themselves in the crosshairs of the weapons they unleashed against traditionalists.

As the boundaries of evangelical Wesleyan faith are recklessly abandoned by the new United Methodist Church, it is finding other ways to make its “big tent” smaller and smaller.