Time for a Hard Reset Regarding Ordination

What I write is nothing new for the 3-4 folks who read what I write. But today it’s been ramped up a notch as being a class and justice issue. 

 

United Methodist’s theology of ordination and practice of credentialing - quite frankly – sucks.

 

I’m not talking about conference or district boards of ministry. I’m not talking about seminaries. I’m talking about our polity, which lacking a THEOLOGY of ordination, is all we have to go by as United Methodists. It’s not biblical, it’s not historical, and the only tradition it follows is one that we’ve largely made up in the 20^thcentury.

 

A quick history/theology lesson about ordination: until very recently, the Western notion that ordination is something you EARNED is simply heresy. Ordination is a charism, that is, a gift from God to the Church, given by the Holy Spirit to the community of faith. In a Wesleyan ethos, ordination is neither an ontological nor functional change to the one ordained, but a pneumatological empowering of an individual. It may be for life, or it may be for a season. But to be sure, it is not EARNED or DESERVED by academic attainment or by hoop-jumping a checklist from church law. Ordination is bestowed by the community of faith.

 

Before we made academia the final arbiter of learning, the apprentice-in-action model served Christianity. Not seen as diametrically opposed to the academy, the apprentice model often paralleled the academy, or made use of the local academy for preparing clergy for parish work. It also served the professions of law and medicine as well. Even today, there are states in the U.S. (California, Vermont, Washington, and Virginia) where a law degree (or even a bachelor degree) is not required to take the bar exam; one can undergo a four-year apprenticeship with an approved attorney.

 

So the fact that “it’s always been this way” is fiction, not fact. The Rev. Homer Johns, my pastor during my elementary school years, came to our church after being a district superintendent for six years. He lead the start of the first thrift store in our city. He served on the Board of Ministry in retirement, and my toughest doctrine question came from Homer, who grilled me at length about infant baptism and baptismal regeneration. Homer didn’t have an M.Div. He had gone to course of study.

 

As late as the 1950’s, this was a model that the former Methodist Church used. It wasn’t until the 1956 Book of Discipline that a bachelor of divinity degree (now called a master of divinity) became the standard for someone to be admitted “on trial” and later ordained as a traveling elder. As Randy Maddox of Duke elaborated at a mid-quadrennial training for Boards of Ministry in 2014: “This growing professionalization was linked to escalated class status, and fit prudential realities of majority of Methodist congregations at the time.”

 

The unintended consequences of such are beginning to be realized in this liminal time for American Christianity. 

 

1.     We’ve created a “class/caste” system of clergy in United Methodism. There are 26 different classifications for clergy in United Methodism. Scripture gives us two (deacon and bishop/presbyter) or three (if you separate bishop and presbyter). We UM’s “license” people to serve the sacraments, but only let those “vote” at annual conference who have been ordained (think about that one for a minute – better yet, try to explain it to someone NOT United Methodist). Clergy membership and ordination are technically separate, but it reality they are not. 

2.     Even when factoring in inflation and average household incomes, a seminary education costs an individual 2.5 times more than it did 30 years ago. The only way someone can reach the minimal standard for being ordained today is (1) be independently wealthy, (2) have affluent parents or a rich uncle/aunt, or (3) be in debt for 20+ years. If you’re second career or older, you have even more obstacles in front of you. This is reprehensible behavior for the Church, and I won’t even go into the class implications of such a policy and polity.

3.     We have an elitist-within-an-elitist mentality when it comes to education. A master of divinity degree isn’t enough (even from an ATS accredited school); it has to be from a United Methodist Senate APPROVED seminary. If you don’t have one of those, you will be getting ANOTHER master of divinity degree.

4.     Unlike our AME, CME, and AME Zion friends, we did not retain the “local elder” category for clergy. We now call them “licensed local pastors.” There is absolutely no theological basis for this. It’s purely bureaucratic. Ordination has become way too closely tied to itinerancy and not the mission of the Church: to make disciples of Jesus Christ to transform the world. Transforming our method of credentialing clergy would be a good start. Ordination doesn’t (and shouldn’t) equal insurance and benefits.

 

This liminal season (literally, “threshold season”) is going to require us to be more adaptive than any we have faced in the last 100 years. Church attendance and practices are not going to return “to normal” anytime soon, and our requirements for ordination are going to assure us of few clergy for the next generation. I will quote Dr. Maddox again: In most of our settings, it is not economically or culturally prudential to rely on or require leadership in ministry that carries the expenses involved in Master’s-level education. That doesn’t mean we ditch the academy. It DOES mean we rethink how we educate, apprentice, and disciple present and future pastors. This means, at the very least:

 

1. We broaden the range of persons that we ordain for ministry. 
2. We adapt greater flexibility in educational expectations for ordination. Context matters! 
3. We separate ordination from conference membership.
4. We have a greater openness to bi-vocational, second career, and other models of clergy leadership. 

 

Conference boards of ministry need much more latitude in making these decisions on a case-by-case basis, instead of a national standard that assumes one-size-fits-all, which it clearly doesn’t.

 

And… we better hurry. We are going to quickly find (1) we have a church polity we can no longer afford, and (2) standards for clergy which may find us in a place with no future clergy.

 

Few of us like change. But I suspect none of us will want the pain that’s coming when we have to endure the consequences of staying the same.

 

Lamentation

Every generation has its crisis(es) moment(s). Throughout history, people have lamented that “it’s never been as bad as this.” I found an article that a Robert Wilson wrote in his column, “From Bob's Cluttered Desk,” that reminded me that, at times, it’s actually been worse. Consider these very Amero-centric crises (with a few of my own thrown in):

·      Our country was partially founded upon the near-genocide of one race and the enslavement of another.

·      The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was actually a coup, in that it developed documents and systems that completely threw out an existing but failing government structure.

·      In 1804, a sitting Vice-President of the United States shot and killed the nation's first Treasury Secretary. (To put that in modern day terms: it would be as if Vice-President Mike Pence shot Bush-era Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.)

·      More than 1,264,000 Americans have died fighting wars. The Civil War (1861-65) accounts for over 620,000 of those lives. 

·      The Depression.

·      Measles.

·      Smallpox.

·      Polio.

·      Two World Wars.

·      Vietnam.

·      JFK's assassination.

·      MLK's assassination.

·      Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

·      9/11.

It does not diminish the pain we are going through now:

·      Church and societal polarization over sexuality

·      The Pandemic of COVID-19

·      Watching a trusted police officer put his knee on a man’s neck until he died

·      Political and ideological tribalism being placed above kinship and friendship

When people hurt, their emotions become involved. When our emotions become involved, we lash out: sometimes with righteous indignation, other times with angst and fear.  We lament. Before you say that’s a foreign concept for us Jews or Christians, consider:

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept

    when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars

    we hung our harps,

for there our captors asked us for songs,

    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;

    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the Lord

    while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,

    may my right hand forget its skill.

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth

    if I do not remember you,

if I do not consider Jerusalem

    my highest joy.

Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did

    on the day Jerusalem fell.

“Tear it down,” they cried,

    “tear it down to its foundations!”

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

    happy is the one who repays you

    according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants

    and dashes them against the rocks.

Now, your grandmother may have said, “Don’t be wishing hateful things on others,” but the psalmist certainly didn’t have any trouble doing it: he prayed revenge on the Babylonians, that someone might take their babies and kill them all. The psalmist wasn’t just pissed off, the psalmist was morally outraged: Jerusalem had been destroyed. They had been exiled. They lamented. 

Moral outrage isn’t new; abolitionist Frederick Douglas even wrote a speech based on Psalm 137 entitled, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" making the point that it was similar to asking the Jews “to sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land,” thus humiliating them and adding insult to injury. He lamented.

We are living in difficult times. But we have been here before. The only thing unique about it is that it’s happening to us, in our time. We lament.

My denomination was set to split at General Conference 2020, except that it didn’t because the COVID-19 pandemic came upon the world. So our angst was delayed. The pandemic meant that we could not (safely) be about our business as usual, we could not (safely) worship, so we have been forced to be creative… yet feel stifled… about how we live, work, and worship. So more angst piled upon angst delayed. Worse, during all of this we as a nation witnessed a terrible act of aggression and racism, causing more (and justified) angst. It’s even difficult to know how to react or demonstrate, as ethical questions we have never been faced with now confront us: is it ok to risk endangering the lives of others during a pandemic to demonstrate against racism? What an unholy and difficult decision for some.

Our angst keeps on piling up. After a while it is easy to pray, think, and say anything about each other, whether we know the truth or not, whether it is righteous or not. We’ll say it on social media. We’ll text or email others. We’ll say in front of some and behind the backs of others. That’s how we lament. It’s not right, but we all do it.

A year ago, I honestly thought that the local church I serve was going to be split along the lines of our denominational struggle with sexuality. I wondered how to pastor a very diverse, non-homogenous church through that struggle, knowing that I was sent here to pastor all of the church and not just some of it. That struggle was soon yesterday's news as we began a new struggle about how many worship services to have and what one – or two – services should look like where music and style are concerned. That struggle became moot when the pandemic forced us to worship online, and now our future struggle will be - at least for several months or years - how MANY worship services will it take for all of us to (safely) worship in place? Since I’m not a doctor, I have to trust those who are for guidance. 

Frustration. Angst. Lament.

Now the struggle has shifted to “where are we in the midst of this terrible time in our country and where are our pastors?” Over the weekend, the struggles have been:

·      Is our church organizing a march? (The answer was/is no, but several in our church invited others to join them in previously planned marches and demonstrations – which is ok). 

·      Why can people gather to demonstrate but we can’t worship together? (Doing either in a pandemic is risky behavior. We’re supposed to stand up for the oppressed. We’re also supposed to protect each other’s health. I don’t know a good answer to this one.)

·      Why aren’t our pastors at demonstrations? (They’ve been at some, but not all.)

·      Why are our pastors at demonstrations? (They haven’t been to all of them, but they went to stand with those who are hurting and wanting justice for all.)

·      Why do we have any racial demonstrations at all, we are all one in Christ? (Good point, I wish we could actually act as one in Christ).

·      By the way, what are we doing about the homeless and needy? Are we turning people away? (The answer is no). Are we enabling poor behavior and making it hard by not cooperating with our other Downtown agencies? (The answer is also, no. We work closely with other agencies and have each other’s backs).

These are real issues. They are real painful issues. As Eddie and I talk about these things we realize that it is difficult to balance the scriptures that tell us “do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others,” with “What good is it if someone says they have faith but do not have works?” All of us wrestle with what is the right thing to do. Being a Downtown church is messy. Being the body of Christ amidst those from diverse backgrounds is messier, still. We lament.

Politics and taking political sides will not fix this. It is good to know what you believe, but Jesus was clear that Caesar is not our Master. God does not make cookie-cutter disciples and Christians, as our differences from each other are our gifts to each other. For every Peter there is a Paul. For every Martha there is a Mary. We need to celebrate that, not lament.

Determining the number of worship services will not fix this. A vaccine will not fix this. Splitting a denomination will not fix this. A new president or re-election of a president will not fix this. The only thing that can “fix” what ails us is the grace, peace, and love of Jesus Christ. We are still not practicing this as well as we could – hence our angst. Our only healing will come by practicing the faith.

To be clear: racism is wrong. It always has been. It always will be. God will not condone us mistreating, much less killing, a child of God made in God’s image. Our history in the United States, even in the Church, even in the Methodist Church – is tainted with the stain of racism. Have I done racist things? Yes - sometimes aware, sometimes unaware. Do I consider myself a racist today? No. Is that good enough? No. I have to move beyond just not being a racist; I have to become an anti-racist. Christ demands no less than that. We are neither male or female, we are neither black or white, but we are one in Christ Jesus. The Scriptures are clear. Long before the Pledge of Allegiance, our faith demands that we live with liberty and justice for all. It is past time that we live out both our baptismal vows and our Pledge of Allegiance.

Striving to be that, anything else we fuss or complain about ought to pale by comparison. If someone wants to march, pray for them as they make a public witness. If someone chooses not to march, assume not the worst but the best - that they may be praying and acting in secret as our Father rewards in secret. If we are doing neither, may God have mercy on our souls for our inaction.

Brothers and sisters: life is short. Be swift to love, and make haste to be kind.

Sky+

When… and How… to Resume Church Services

A worshiper at Westminster Cathedral. (ANSA)

Note: This is a transcript of a video recorded yesterday on our church website.

Hello, my name is Sky McCracken, and I am the senior pastor of First Methodist Downtown Jackson. I know that the question of when and how to resume church services is on your minds. 

Before making major decisions about our church, I like to surround myself with others around me. Bishop Bill McAlilly often says, “The wisdom in us (the collective us) is greater than the wisdom in any one of us.” So when making a determination about when to return to in-person worship, I think it’s important to surround myself with people with medical training, epidemiology, cleaning and mitigating methods, and people who think logistically. I don’t have any training or expertise in any of those matters. My bachelor degree was in psychology and criminal justice. My graduate studies ended with a master of divinity degree. Neither of those areas of study qualify me to make a major decision in the midst of a pandemic without first consulting those who ARE qualified. 

Our church has had two groups working on this issue: a “When” group made up of medical professionals, former company managers, teachers, and an attorney; and a “How” group including a wide assortment of backgrounds from medical to professional cleaning. 

I can’t begin to tell you how blessed our church is with persons of various and diverse gifts who are helping us with this decision. Your safety, and our doing no harm, is our guiding principle in our decision-making process.

It is also helpful for you to know who and what I am not consulting:

·   Political leaders. I have respect for our president, our governor, and our city and county mayors. They are doing their jobs as I would expect them to. However, they do not and cannot speak for the Church, nor can our government “order” a church to close, open, or meet. They can certainly urge and suggesthow to do these things, and they have.

·   Peer Pressure. “But so-and-so church is going to meet. Why can’t we?” Or “Why can Walmart be open but we can’t have church services?” Most of us can remember our parents’ response when we asked such questions as a child. Our contexts vary in various ways. There is no one-answer-fits-all answer. 

I know there is also the frustration of not being able to worship in our usual manner. A seminary classmate of mine at one of our larger UM Churches sent me a text this morning:

Feedback is coming in from churches who have reopened with massive COVID guidelines in place. Pews have been pulled. Greetings are gone. Social distancing. No singing. Masks. Many people HATE it. They are saying, ‘This isn't the church I remember.’ This supports my conviction that we delay live worship until most restrictions are lifted.

All of these are things make these decisions all the more difficult. Those are valid feelings and frustrations.

For certain, we will not be driven by fear or guilt. Nor will we question how other sister churches arrive at the decision they make for opening or not opening for in-person worship. We will take all of the information we know, apply it to our local setting, and pray that we make an informed decision that is good for body and soul. This is not a competition. We are going to do the best that we can, and be as faithful as we can.

I share all of this with you because I know the CDC just released (today) this study: High COVID-19 Attack Rate Among Attendees at Events at a Church — Arkansas, March 2020. That will be an important resource in our decision on WHEN and HOW to open for in-person worship.

So I’m saying all this to you just so you’ll know how our decision making process is going, and how we will make our decision: carefully, thoroughly, and with prayer. While several of us will pray and discern when that time will be, I know that as the senior pastor and administrative officer of our local church, I will assume the responsibility of our actions. So I covet your prayers as we continue to wrestle with the obstacles in our path, and how we might convert those obstacles to opportunities as we serve our risen Lord. 

May God bless you and keep you, and may God hold you in the palm of His hand.


Reopening Update 5-20-2020 from First Methodist Downtown Jackson on Vimeo.

Those Pesky People In the Pews, or, Facts Are Inconvenient Things

This blog builds upon a former blog, “The Problem of Labels, Assumptions, and the Economy of the Whole,” which can be found by clicking here.

As a former United Methodist General Conference delegate and politician (now retired by choice), it has been interesting to watch what has happened post GC2019 and the present attempts to reach a better end to GC2020. Some new plans have come to fruition (though some of them are similar to older plans using different names and nuance). 

A new delineation in labels and “sides” is attempting to make this a binary issue so that we can have things neat and binary for the sake of arguments. It is, after all, the American way: people are trying to frame the UMC into the two sides of “traditional” and “centrist/progressive.” Such is getting traction among those who will be in the ring of General Conference 2020.

There’s one flaw in this: such only defines a very, very small percentage of United Methodists. Nearly all these frenzied discussions are among clergy or laity holding significant leadership positions. 

What about the 10+ million people who sit in pews across the world? Are we so sure that they fit into this neatly-assigned polarity of “traditional” and “centrist/progressive?” My hunch is, there is a huge disconnect between (a) delegates, leadership of interest groups, and clergy, and (b) the people in the pews. The fact is, there isn’t any factual information supporting such a binary reality in the pews at all. 

My somewhat-informed observations reveal at least this much:

• There are always extremes, but most UM Christians believe Jesus is the Christ, and believe in a historical and literal crucifixion and resurrection… even those who embrace the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ folks. This confounds the traditionalists… and the progressives.
• Most of American United Methodists live in “red” states, as do most Americans. That is something traditionalists usually celebrate… until they dig a little deeper and realize that partisan politics and church politics don’t always jibe… especially in areas of sexuality. Extreme progressives sometimes to fail to acknowledge that most UMC’s are located in red states and areas.
• Traditionalists have divorcees among their ranks – which represents a conundrum to those using strict interpretations of the New Testament on traditional marriage and who is eligible for church leadership. Also, other than on LGBTQ+ issues, many folks would be considered “traditionalist” in belief and practice. Some progressives have not reconciled LGBTQ+ full inclusion with their faith. These folks are often ostracized by their “constituencies,” but they are more numerous than either “side” likes to admit.
• There are LGBTQ+ folks that vote Republican. They also hold to traditional church doctrines and traditions. That drives traditionalists and progressives alike absolutely nuts. 

One layperson came to me concerned about “voting” as a congregation: “If we begin a list of bullet points that we are going to start voting upon, we’re not going to have much of a congregation left.” I agreed.

I wonder how our traditional and centrist-progressive camps at General Conference, along with our special interest groups, are going to deal with the larger majority of United Methodists who don’t find themselves represented by either camp?

The “middle” is bigger, wider, and deeper than most think. If a new narrative doesn't replace the present one that has us in our present gridlock, we are doomed to make the same mistakes.. which will lead to continued split after split after split, and continued decline.

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty. Our American way of aligning by partisanship and a false sense of certainty isn’t going to help us that much in a Christian faith that has at its heart a mystery. 

Sky+

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Christians: Take a Season Off from Politics - We Don't Do It Well.

To be clear: yes, Christians should be concerned and involved IN the world. The trick – and our call – is not to be OF the world. The πολιτικό σώμα, the body politic, is certainly a part of our lives. But the partisan politics of America have taken a decisive turn away from the Christian ideals of ethics and morals in how we live our lives in Christian witness. 

From the book God’s Politics, p. 76:

“Most simply put, the two traditional options in America (Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative) have failed to capture the imagination, commitment, and trust of a clear majority of people in this country. Neither has found ways to solve our deepest and most entrenched social problems. Record prosperity hasn’t cured child poverty. Family breakdown is occurring across all class and racial lines. Public education remains a disaster for millions of families. Millions more still don’t have health insurance or can’t find affordable housing. The environment suffers from unresolved debates, while our popular culture become more and more polluted by violent and sex-saturated ‘entertainment.’ In local communities, people are more and more isolated, busy, and disconnected… The political Right and Left continue at war with each other, but the truth is that these false ideological choices themselves have run their course and become dysfunctional.” 

I would add that both parties give lip service to the increasing national debt and unfunded liabilities… and yet both get bigger and bigger every election. Not very fair to our children, and far from a conservative financial practice.

The moral dilemma many voters had in 2016 was one that resulted in the largest undervote for president in recorded history: a record 1.7 million people in 33 states and D.C. cast a ballot without voting in the presidential race (which is legal, by the way) – nearly 1 million more than in 2012. In other words, 1 out of 50 folks left the “choose one” on the presidential ballot blank.

“False equivalency” is the new buzzword people use when folks like me point out the dysfunction of a system that many of us feel passionate about. But there's no getting around the fact that, morally and ethically, people had good reasons not to support either candidate from a strictly moral/ethical standpoint: 

• People were upset that Hillary Clinton stood by her man, and in so doing put a stamp of approval of silencing his abuse of women “for a greater good.” 
• Likewise, American Evangelicals put their stamp of approval on Donald Trump, a thrice-married man caught on tape saying some very unflattering things about women, and who publicly stated once regarding repentance and asking God for forgiveness: “I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there… I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."

Neither of these folks would have survived such in days past. In fact, past presidential candidates dropped out of elections for things far less problematic than what we are willing to "overlook" today.

All people have feet of clay, and all fall short of the glory of God - myself included. In this season, I think it only faithful to act this way: support your candidate and/or party for their political ideology and philosophy. But please leave God and faith out of it, because there’s no way to bring God into this current season of politics - other than asking for forgiveness and mercy. In a Christian ethic and morality, the ends do not justify the means. In the political world, we seem to be comfortable with such. That may indeed be the practical solution to being a citizen in the present political climate. I’m even finding some peace with it, but please: let’s just leave God out of it. 

President Trump may be right when it comes to politics: “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't.” And before we beat up on our present president, know how many presidents – religious or not – have found themselves in similar situations when it came to war, political strategies, and how to win elections. Again – that may be what gets the job done in the political world. And again, my plea is simply: just don’t bring God into the picture. Certainly, don’t ask for the Almighty’s stamp of approval, or tout any candidate as “ordained by God.” That’s the classical definition of blasphemy.

I’m not advocating people divorce themselves of politics, but I am advocating that those who claim to be practicing Christians give it less press (and certainly less vitriol and passion) than we presently are giving it. It has become idolatrous. Ask yourself how people know you best by your public witness – social media, casual conversations, bumper stickers – and then examine such through your baptismal vows: is this how I want to be known in how I am a member of Christ’s holy church and serve as one of Christ’s representatives in the world? Is this how I best witness to the world with my prayers, presence, gifts, and service?

I’m an admitted political cynic: I’ve been a Republican, and I’ve been a Democrat. Now I am neither – as I cannot place either party into a Christian framework and live in either with integrity, and even using the logic of the “lesser of two evils,” I still find that doing such is still choosing evil. I envy those who can find a way to do so. 

Bryan Roberts, a former church planter and now a freelance writer, helped me put my difficult feelings on the matter into words: “Political discourse is the Las Vegas of Christianity—the environment in which our sin is excused. Hate is winked at, fear is perpetuated and strife is applauded. Go wild, Christ-follower. Your words have no consequences here. Jesus doesn’t live in Vegas.” He continues: “I balk when pastors tell me the Church should engage in the political process. Why would we do that? The political process is dirty and broken and far from Jesus. Paranoia and vitriol are hardly attractive accessories for the bride of Christ.”

Roberts suggests that Christians be involved, but that we talk about politics in a way that models the teachings of Jesus rather than mocks them. That I could live with. But I can’t abide the way it’s presently configured. My own denomination is beginning to mirror the US’s political environment, because our culture seems to thrive on competition, paranoia, and vitriol. That’s what happens when you move from being IN the world to being OF the world.

Roberts’ seven things to remember about politics might do us some good: as a nation, and as a denomination:

1. Both political parties go to church.
2. Political talk radio and cable “news” only want ratings.
3. Those who argue over politics don’t love their country more than others.
4. Thinking your party’s platform is unflawed is a mistake.
5. Scripture tells us to pray for our governing leaders and to respect those in authority. This doesn’t mean praying the President will be impeached; it doesn’t mean praying your candidate will win and the other lose, and it doesn't mean approving of bad behavior. 
6. Don’t be paranoid. The country is not going to be destroyed if your candidate loses. Democrats and Republicans have been presidents for a long, long time.
7. Stop saying, “This is the most important election in the history of our nation.” It’s not. Every generation thinks it’s living in the most important moment in history. We’re not, our parents were not and our children probably won’t be.

In Jesus’ time, Caesar Tiberius was the emperor. He was also a murderer, abused many sexually and mentally, enslaved Jesus’ people, and claimed to be a god. When some asked Jesus about supporting the emperor by paying taxes (and thus trying to trap him), he told his detractors: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” They didn’t respond by saying, “Told you so!” or “Now we know the answer to that question!” They were amazed and couldn’t respond at all… and left on their way. In short: Jesus didn’t play their game nor dignified their questions with an answer. 

Neither should we. Let’s be in the world, but not of the world.

It's About Jesus, Or It's Nothing

The latest Pew Research Center report on the decline of Christianity in the U.S. came out last week, noting that the decline is continuing at a rapid pace. A good article on the report can be found here, and the report itself can be found here. As with all surveys, there are always flaws in methodology, but Pew does a better job than most on admitting such and how they perform their interviews, publish their sample sizes, etc.

Here's some of the things that the survey reveals about the United States:

• trends toward increased church disaffiliation continue
• church attendance is in decline
• "religiously unaffiliated" is most pronounced among young adults
• both Democrat and Republican church numbers are swelling in decline
• the U.S. population is increasing, but numbers of Christians are decreasing in absolute numbers (in other words, we aren't even maintaining our own)
• the largest decrease of Protestants is in the South

What does the report reveal? I think it implies that we are beyond being a post-Christian culture, and are instead what Southern Baptist Russell Moore calls "pre-Christian." Before you argue too much, consider how many generations have now been unchurched. Now, more than any time in recent history, there are lots and lots of folks who haven't been introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason, I would assume NOTHING regarding religious background, basic Christian beliefs, or past experiences when (1) a first-time visitor comes to church, or (2) if I were to invite someone to come to church.

We are now missionaries. (Hint: We always were - but most of us in the U.S. Church have never seen ourselves this way!)

In short: this could be a time "ripe for the pickin's" where evangelism, sharing the Gospel, and making disciples is concerned. It could also be a time where we could royally screw up the opportunity - basically, by remaining ourselves. The definition of insanity: doing the same thing, yet expecting different results.

Shirt/swag purchased from the
podcast  Crackers and Grape Juice.

Here's what Christian churches, members, disciples, and pastors/priests/ministers will have to be willing to consider, ponder, and do:

• All the fighting and infighting by and within denominations, autonomous churches that split and split and split, etcetera - has got to stop. We've created a culture of distrust of anything institutional or organized. No one wants to join another special interest group. Fellow Christians are not against us; they are for us, and we are diminishing in number.
• We've got to get on our game regarding hospitality. Christians were once known for their hospitality: welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. 
• Quit the blame game. "Today's culture" isn't causing a decline in Christianity. Homosexuality isn't causing it. Liberals aren't causing it. Conservatives aren't causing it. Christians are to blame for not spreading the Gospel. It's that clear, and it's that easy. It's a hard pill to swallow.
• Folks on the Left and Right, make peace with each other, and with the Middle. Before you say, "The middle of the road is where dead animals end up," remember that they initially got hit by someone from the left or right side of the road... those that didn't end up thrown into or left in a ditch, that is.
• More and more young people don't trust politics or our government. Don't give them reason to distrust the church by sounding the same as our media outlets or your favorite political candidate on social media, casual conversations, etc. Do an audit of your personal social media, daily conversations, and bank accounts: how much of a Christian witness is coming through? Who would be more apt to ask you to follow them: Jesus, or your favorite political candidate?
• With fewer folks and diminishing resources, what is the best use of our money re: buildings, staffing, missional outreach, and program? All those will need hard discernment and reconsideration. We won't always like the answers.
• Don't major in the minors. 

It's all going to boil down to change. Deep change. HARD change. What's clear is this: whatever we did for the past 50-100 years ultimately didn't work. Even the stuff that we Christians love so very much, but might not have that much to do with the Gospel.

Bill McAlilly, my bishop, preached in our town a couple of nights ago, and reminded us that on the Day of Pentecost the Church started with five thousand-some families. Two centuries later, there were five million followers.

It can be done, if we remember Thy will - not my will - be done.

Pax,
Sky+

Some Social Media Guides

Some social media guidelines:

• Don't believe everything you read on the Internet just because there's a picture next to a quote. Vet and verify. Progressives and conservatives alike post "fake news" and misattributed quotes.
• Be wary of article titles and bylines. They often say one thing, yet the article says another. Media needs money to operate (news is a business). Misleading titles and bylines can be clickbait. Our media is owned by a handful of folks. Rupert Murdoch owns both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Both of these news sources often clash on opinions and reporting. Yet money is getting made on the conflict of news and "truth" - by the same person. It's like owning both the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs.
• No political party has a monopoly on the truth, and both parties issue war cries and make promises they can't keep. They always have. No one is going to take away anyone's guns, and Mexico will not pay for the wall to be built.
• Religious interest groups and caucuses see their rivals as extremists and make the most noise. Yet few Americans subscribe to extremism.
• Labels are rarely helpful - or even accurate. Just more rhetoric. This applies to politics, and to Christianity.
• Many of the Founding Fathers warned about the evils of a two-party system. John Adams: "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." The two-party system reflects human nature, but it does not reflect the wishes of the Founding Fathers.
• The words of Jesus are clear - choose which Kingdom you give your allegiance to: Caesar, or Christ. To quote my friend Eddie Bromley, "If the Democratic or Republican plank has become your Gospel, why do you still need the church?" 

Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus

You can have all this world

But give me Jesus. - Spiritual, author unknown

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The UMC: Single-Issue Driven, Bad at Math, and War Weary

My beloved denomination is getting ready to wage war again for General Conference 2020. Submission for proposed legislation is due on September 18th. I'm not a delegate and I am not submitting any legislation. I've decided to become a conscientious objector in this season. I was a soldier long enough in a war that is going nowhere.

It's starting to feel a little bit like Vietnam: the public was all behind the war when President Johnson sent troops in. Then the country became horribly divided. President Nixon withdrew troops eight years later, but the division remained. Three million people died - half of them civilians. Soldiers came home and were vilified: some who opposed the war thought way too many innocent civilians died and accused them of being butchers, while some who supported the war viewed them as "losers" for not being successful. We were horrible to Vietnam veterans. Shame on us.

These things took their toll on those veterans: many later suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and high rates of divorce, suicide, and addictions. And even though a war was fought and finished, a country remained divided.

In my opinion, our denomination is headed toward the same ending of the Vietnam war: nothing will be accomplished, everyone will be upset and blame the "other", and many will bear scars that will forever remind them of the war... a war among those who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior and the Prince of Peace, who will find themselves once again divided. How many denominations will Christianity be up to by then?

Besides breaking the first General Rule (do no harm), we are fighting the wrong war. While we piss and moan about sexuality, the denomination is hemorrhaging in every way measurable. The United Methodist Church has not had a net gain in membership since its creation in 1968. To be sure, Christianity is not ALL about numbers. But at the rate we're going, things are going to be unsustainable pretty quickly. The Kingdom will certainly go on, but is it really necessary to self-inflict all this damage upon ourselves and the legacy that some left for us to thrive instead of squander? Over, of all things, sexuality?

We Americans have learned some of this behavior from our government. Our two parties are at war with each other over lots of things. Each believes passionately in their being "right" and being "superior." There are hundreds of issues to debate upon. Yet the one thing both parties continue to platform upon doing something about is the national debt. It makes for great debate. And yet, when they get elected (anyone, regardless of their party) - nothing gets done about it. Other issues get raised, fought over, and social media-ed to death. And the debt gets bigger, bigger, and bigger. Andrew Jackson was the last president to have a debt-free government. That was 1835.

Today, the U.S. national debt is $22.5 trillion. That doesn't count our UNFUNDED debt and interest, which then shoots that figure to $74 trillion. The unfunded liabilities on Medicare and Social Security, along with veteran and federal employee benefits, are $125.5 trillion.

How much is a trillion? Think about this:

• 1 million seconds = 11.5 days.
• 1 billion seconds = 31.7 years.
• 1 trillion seconds =  31,710 years.

Convert seconds to dollars, and you soon see the problem. This is not sustainable. The math is bad.

Have you heard any real urgency about this from our politicians? Maybe it's just me... but this would seem to be a major priority above all other issues. An individual's share of the national debt is $225,000, $876,000 per family.  (All of these are always inexact figures, and extrapolate from several sources, but their accuracy is close to being in the ballpark)

The math is bad where the United Methodist Church is concerned, too: U.S. membership fell from more than 11 million in 1968 to less than 7 million in 2016. The biggest reason: people died. The theory that it's because of "liberal" or "progressive" issues isn't holding much water these days, because the Southern Baptist Church is also in decline: The largest Protestant denomination in the United States declined in membership to 14.8 million in 2018, which is the first time it has been below 15 million since 1989, and the lowest it has been since 1987. Southwestern Baptist Seminary's president, Adam Greenway, simply stated: “Facts are our friends, even when the facts themselves are unfriendly." This is not sustainable. The math is bad.

Just a hunch: I don't think the decline of the Southern Baptist Church can be blamed on its liberal/progressive stances!

While the Southern Baptist decline is not yet at the rate of the UMC's, neither denomination can sustain that kind of decline for long. Christianity in general is in decline. Signs of that decline are undeniable. The main culprits behind church decline? Internal divisions, an identity crisis, and lower birthrates. And because doing something about those would require a huge shift in our thoughts, words, and deeds... we need to blame something else. Blame is always a convenient excuse to keep from dealing with reality.

Here are some things that have split/re-split communions, denominations, and local churches:

• Argument over the appropriate length of a pastor/priest’s hair or beard (in the case of a male)
• Argument over a pastor/priest's manner of dress (in cases both male and female)
• Using real wine vs. grape juice in Holy Communion
• Ordination of women
• Slavery, racial segregation
• Modes of baptism, including whether to baptize infants or not
• Sexuality: celibacy, marriage, clergy being married, interracial marriage, same-gender marriage

One of these splits is very personal for me. As noted on the "Timeline: Methodism in Black and White":

1866 - A group of black Methodists within the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, petition the General Conference for their orderly dismissal from that church.

1870 - Those former members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, found the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in Jackson, Tenn.

That happened in the basement of the church where I am typing this. Mother Liberty CME is a seven-minute walk away, where an old family friend, Dr. Carmichael Crutchfield, is pastor. So close... and yet so far. What a stupid divide.

Presbyterian cleric Henry van Dyke once referred to his own denomination as “God’s Silly People,” for a couple of reasons: (1) “Presbyterians have a propensity to quarrel amongst themselves and divide their forces on minor issues.” (2) “Presbyterians have an almost incredible indifference to the real significance of their own history.” I think you could substitute "Methodist" for Presbyterian and the quotes would still hold. I tremble about what God thinks of our silliness.

As our church has immersed itself in a study of the prophet Nehemiah and how we are to see our community as our congregation, I have been haunted by the words of Joe Daniel (a former district superintendent and whose book we are now studying): "[T]oo many leaders have become classist and have not come face-to-face with the full picture of why our current situations are the way they are. And as a result, our leadership is often single-issue driven and oblivious to the welfare of all. We don't need leaders like this." (Walking with Nehemiah, pp. 31-32)

The good news is this: some congregations, thankfully, haven't been paying that much attention to the war. They go to a local church somewhat matches their theology and politics, learn to live with the differences within, and allow themselves to be slowly changed into who God wants them to be. They don't give in to stupid divides. They boldly face the present and the future, unafraid. They know that unity is at best an agreement upon general direction, not the pipe dream that everyone believes and discerns God's will with 100% accuracy. For us, that ought to be that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.

We're nowhere near where God wants us to be. But we will not get there fighting wars over the
minors while the majors are avoided because they're hard. Having General Conference after General Conference fight a war over a single issue gains us NOTHING. When it is all over, when whatever is "finalized," what is gained? An internal win for some, an internal loss for others - all of which does nothing for the outside world and damages the reputation and witness of us all.

If you want to argue from "the truth is the truth" position, be reminded of the fact that we are, at best, foolish in our discernment of God's wisdom and truth next to God's wisdom and truth. And if you want to argue from a justice position, be reminded that a just war must have a reasonable chance of success and that innocent people must not be harmed.

Find a way to end the war, General Conference 2020. Peacefully. Declare us a loose fellowship like the Anglican Church, or a consortium of somewhat like-minded people that agree on the majors and disagree on some minors. Just don't be surprised when some refuse to vote or take sides, or others respond, "Whatever. We're going on ahead."

In fifty years, what will our children say? And what will God say?

Put Not Your Trust in Credentials

I recently saw a title for a book review, "Put Not Your Trust in Credentials." It makes me think of one of the most insidious prejudices among United Methodists pastors (that I am convinced one day we will have to answer for): those who went to seminary, and those who didn't.

Some say we clergy should compare ourselves to doctors, lawyers, and other professionals where education is concerned. Yet John Wesley had a strong resistance to the class consequences of “professionalization” – such as medicine and the law. At best, he embraced the tension of academically educated clergy while lamenting it.

As Randy Maddox from Duke Divinity has noted: "In the 1956 Discipline of the Methodist Church (¶332 and following) the default “standard” for ordination shifted from course of study (with college and or seminary as alternatives) to making a Divinity degree the standard for admission on trial and eventual ordination as a Traveling elder, with the course of study now a restricted alternative. This growing professionalization was linked to escalated class status, and fit prudential realities of majority of Methodist congregations at the time." He also points out that our closest pan-Methodist partners (AME, AMEZ, etc.) all retain local elders and wonders why we ever ditched such.

To further paraphrase Maddox: Our cultural and financial realities, as well as the decline in American Christianity, has got to push us to broaden the range of persons that we ordain for ministry, and mandates that we:

• have greater flexibility in educational expectations for ordination;
• separate ordination from conference membership (not just for practical reasons, but theological and ecclesial reasons)
• embrace a greater openness to bi-vocational and other models of clergy leadership

We cannot - morally, ethically, or practically - ask young people to sacrifice 10 years of their life and go into debt they cannot recover for a profession that requires the education of a lawyer or a physician, but is nowhere near as lucrative (nor should be). At the same time, there are other ways to educate and form clergy beyond the traditional "American way" of higher education. We make it even harder for second career folks to answer the call of God, who are usually relegated to the "local pastor route" - which we elders, as well as our denomination, have treated and regarded such as second-class citizenry.

We can do better.

Sky+