Alone On A Limb: Dealing with "Difference"

Friday, August 26, 2022

Dealing with "Difference"

I Am a United Methodist

I am a double United Methodist "Preacher's Kid". I sat with my sisters and listened to my Mother read us Bible stories throughout my childhood. I loved to look through and then read the stories from that beloved blue-backed Bible story book myself.

I grew up in the church.

A wonderful little white haired lady sat with six-year old me at Antioch Methodist in the early fifties and pointed to the words as we sang "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder". Miss Helen Spangler at little Sunnyside Methodist Church's Vacation Bible School about 1957 or so helped me and my fellow little Methodists memorize the names of 66 books of the Bible. I sang as a little boy on the radio program my Daddy sometimes hosted in Griffin, Georgia. Most summers I attended more than one Vacation Bible School -- Midway, Sunnyside, Milstead, Mackville, Antioch, etc. I attended Sunday School and Sunday morning worship with very few exceptions every Sunday for the first 20 years of my life. During much of my growing-up years we had Sunday evening services and Wednesday night services too.

I loved Camp Glisson, our North Georgia Conference camp ministry of the Methodist Church. I attended Glisson every summer I was eligible and twice one summer. I think I never felt closer to God than at Glisson. It was/is Holy Dirt! Much of my first serious thought about theology was spurred by Rev. Bill Landis, and other leaders at Glisson.

At Asbury College I attended three chapel services every week of school for four years. I managed to pass New Testament Survey, Basic Christian Beliefs, and The Teachings of Jesus classes.

After Sheila and I married and moved to Rome we joined Trinity. But when we moved to the country it was a long drive to town on a Sunday morning. During my twenties and early thirties I became very lax about church attendance. When we moved back to town, and encouraged by Rev. James Sanders, Sheila and I got more involved again in the early eighties. We joined the choir and have missed very few Sundays since.

Under Rachel Jones' music ministry I became a frequent soloist and even helped her coach the children's choir for several years. Our daughters were active in the Cherub, Children's, and Youth Choirs as they grew up. They were baptized and eventually confirmed as United Methodist Christians.

Reading (and Listening to) the Whole Thing

During those years I several times started reading the Bible with the intent of reading it from Genesis straight through Revelations. I never got very far. I soon got bogged down in the repetition and dreary counting of Numbers and the other early books. Despite a lifetime in the church, hundreds of sermons, and a pretty good familiarity with the Bible, I managed to live nearly three-quarters of a century without having read the Book all the way through.

Then a couple of years ago Rev. Joe Palmer challenged our members to read the whole thing. As it turned out I was not able to keep up with Joe's schedule, but using the Bible app on my phone and the very understandable text of the Message version, I stuck with it this time. I even enjoyed it, though all those numbers and begats and stuff like that were still tedious. I actually listened to most of it rather than reading it, and often had to replay a chapter when my mind wandered.

Below, I am going to write about how that experience affected me, but I want first of all to admit that, intellectually, I already knew much that I re-learned from the experience. It's just that actually reading it straight through made my previous learning much more real to me.

Here is the simple but overwhelming lesson I learned more profoundly:

The New Testament is a NEW Testament! Wow!

When you have spent a whole lot of time wading through the law and history of the Old Testament you have been inundated in some awfully vile, despicable, horrible, nightmarish material. By the time you have finished that Old Testament you are wondering whether you really want anything to do with the vengeful, arbitrary, bloodthirstiness you've just read about. Then you turn past Malachi into Matthew and meet Jesus.

Wow.

Yes, I've known intellectually that He leads a revolution, but I can fairly taste and feel and hear and smell and see a whole new creation. The Word is made flesh.

God is Love.

It says so right there.

Love God. Love each other.

He commands it.

Here is a Lord I can admire.

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The Wesley Quadrilateral

John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, is interpreted to have taught a "quadrilateral" on which Christian faith rests: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. Scripture is primary but is interpreted in light of the other three.

My reading of scripture is informed by the traditions of the church I grew up in and my experiences with the Christians in my life. Even in talking about God's laws, my Christian examples talked of God's love and his laws as guides for a happier more loving life. I think of the open and loving saints that I learned under: Charles Shaw, Ruth Shaw, Y.A. Bailey, Ieula Baird, Both Grady Shaws, Miss Helen Spangler, Lavay McCullough, Mavis Matthews, Brady Drummond, Miss Lottie Duncan, James Sanders, Miss Annie Beth Terrell, Martha King, Burnita Burton, Leonard Hancock, --- I could go on. Or my grandfather, whom I never met but whose beliefs influenced me through his wife and children. He famously advised a cousin who was entering the ministry, "Don't try to scare folks into the Kingdom; you've got to love 'em into it."

And my reason tells me: folks are folks. We have our varying faults and foibles, talents and troubles, one and all.

Different

And through my entire life experience I have been aware of some folks who were "different". As long as those "different" folks weren't too outspoken or flamboyant they were an accepted and even beloved part of the community: the women's shop owner who could tell Daddy which dress to buy for Mother -- the exact size, color and style that would compliment her and that she would love. The teenager who grew up in the church and became a wonderful organist, serving his church faithfully year after year, and folks just didn't talk about his "friend". The unmarried ladies who were roommates all those years. That sweet effeminate first cousin that everyone loves but whom we knew would never marry. Every one of us can quickly reel off a dozen names of beloved folks who are "different".

In the 53 years since I began my teaching career, I have known scores of boys and girls, men and women, who were "different". Those "different" kids and teachers were the same mixture of good and bad, high achieving and (well), principled and not so much, etc. etc. etc. --- as their "normal" counterparts. I love and admire them none the less. I believe Jesus would/will accept them just as they are.

So I no longer much care how another human finds happiness as long as they are loving and no one is hurt.

But in 2022, attitudes toward that issue are at the center of a great controversy in my denomination.

And I am no prophet, but I strongly suspect that, in just a few years, regardless of how the current divisions in my denomination play out, almost all denominations will soften their stances on this issue. Society has moved on. The church will too. As surely as preachers today eat "abominable" shrimp; as surely as stoning is no longer accepted as a form of child discipline; as surely as textiles are mixed willy-nilly to no one's consternation; as surely as our wives, mothers, and daughters are no longer shunned as "unclean" once a month; as surely as it is perfectly OK for a guy's very private parts to be intact; we'll quit making such a big deal out of sexual orientation.

Will My Congregation Disband?

So here I am. I have found myself on my local congregation's Church Council. A few days ago I was copied on an e-mail from a fellow council member who proposed to begin the procedures that could force a congregational vote to decide whether a portion of our congregation will leave the United Methodist Church, take over our buildings and grounds, and leave those of us who remain United Methodists to find a new church home. Less than a week later that vote was taken. I wrote an open letter to my fellow council members opposing the proposal, but, alas, we lost that vote 9-5. The effort to disband my local United Methodist Church continues.

There is NO question of where I stand on this issue. I vehemently oppose splitting the United Methodist Church. I will not be a part of such a split. If the issue comes to such a vote a super majority of two/thirds of the membership present at the resulting meeting would be required for us to lose our church building and grounds to a new congregation made up of those who wish to split. And I'll say it again, those of us who wish to remain United Methodists would be forced to find a new church home.

Here is Where I Stand:

I made a pledge to support the United Methodist Church with my prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. I have renewed that pledge many times as other persons have made it in my presence. I believe at least a third and possibly a majority of the current membership of our congregation would join me to keep the pledge and oppose a split. On the other hand, I know from long experience that when controversy arises the "angry-antis" are much more likely to show up to meetings that those who are not "het up". So I do not know how the vote would turn out. However I believe the fact of a proposed vote will harden positions on both sides. The vote itself will cause great discord and division that will cripple our ministry however the vote goes. I will do all I can ethically to keep Trinity United Methodist Church on the block where it has been since 1875. If the congregation is disbanded I and any other United Methodists will in effect be excommunicated by the dissidents and be forced to find another congregation of the United Methodist Church. It is heart-breaking.

So I Beg My Trinity Friends

Let's not split the church. Let's live and let live. The folks on the other side of the issue are my friends. They are people I admire. They are people I worship with every week. They are people I sing with in the choir, that I stand with in the nativity scene at Christmastime, that have comforted me in the loss of my parents and a sibling, who have chaperoned youth trips, served on committees, unloaded pumpkins, knelt at the altar with me. Let's not divide our efforts. We agree on so much. Let's not cripple our mission. We can agree to disagree on some issues and keep working together obeying the Great Commandment and pursuing the Great Commission. Let's just keep working together toward our vision to be... a diverse fellowship striving to welcome, love, and serve all others, following the example of Jesus Christ.

Here's a sermon that addresses the issues
dividing us: