Another explanation
As I continue to share and clarify my thoughts over the the Cross and Flamers site (UMC social networking site), I thought I'd save here my response to a very pointed question I get a lot. The person asking this question is a Methodist who agrees with the current Methodist position, but I get the question just as often from non-Methodists who disagree with the current position. For those of us in the middle, here are my thoughts, directly pasted from the thread.
I'm going to stray off topic a little here, but hey, it's my thread. In your post, you ask: Why would someone who believes homosexuality is just fine in God's eyes want to join a church or be a minister in a denomination that believes homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching?! Why so anxious to join a church that doesn't believe what you believe about God and sexuality?!
As someone who is a minister in a denomination that unfortunately currently states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, let me attempt an answer.
Because there's more to Christianity than what I believe about God and sexuality.
Plain and simple, the United Methodist Church, despite what I believe to be an erroneous opinion about God and homosexuality, is in my opinion the denomination most faithful to the totality of what it means to be Christian. It has, in my opinion, the most of the essentials right. We, as a denomination proclaim God's grace-- prevenient, justifying and sanctifying; we put our faith into action in meaningful and sustainable mission; we have an appointment process that, while often painful for clergy and congregations who must sunder their beautiful relationships (or try to work in less-than-beautiful ones), also encourages and empowers local churches to be defined around their own sense of identity and mission rather than the particular vision of an individual pastor. These are just a few of the many things I love about my chosen denomination.
In the face of all I love about the UMC, there are only a few things I think we could do better. I think we have reached a critical point when we must decide who we are (we do proclaim well whose we are) and how we will be the people of God in an ever-changing world; we do not do enough to live into our role of stewards of the earth and its life; we do not speak with enough conviction about the horrors of human violence. These are our sins of omission. We also have sins of commission. Racism still runs pretty deep in our denomination. And, by word and action, we intentionally and deliberately disqualify, demean, and reject certain of God's children based on their sexual orientation. I get fired up about this because I think it is the biggest way in which we fail in the very least of what is asked of us: to do no harm. We harm ourselves and others by our stance on homosexuality; we fail to proclaim grace, we falsely use the cause of justice, we deny the indwelling of God's love. That hurts, because otherwise we are so often remarkably grace-filled, just, and loving.
If I didn't care about this denomination, I could walk away. But I do, so I don't.
It's because I love it that I want to be part of it. It's because we are so close that I want to encourage us to be even closer. It's because this is where I feel God's presence so well that I want to help others-- all others, not just straight white others-- feel it too.
Why am I a part of a denomination that doesn't believe everything I believe? Because together I think we come the closest to what it can and should mean to be Christian in this time and place, and because we tenderly and yet forcefully help shape the ones we love into better versions of themselves. That's what I try to do, to help the UMC that I love and the people in it become better versions of who they are, closer to the heart of a God who is our deepest, truest, most essential.
I'm going to stray off topic a little here, but hey, it's my thread. In your post, you ask: Why would someone who believes homosexuality is just fine in God's eyes want to join a church or be a minister in a denomination that believes homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching?! Why so anxious to join a church that doesn't believe what you believe about God and sexuality?!
As someone who is a minister in a denomination that unfortunately currently states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, let me attempt an answer.
Because there's more to Christianity than what I believe about God and sexuality.
Plain and simple, the United Methodist Church, despite what I believe to be an erroneous opinion about God and homosexuality, is in my opinion the denomination most faithful to the totality of what it means to be Christian. It has, in my opinion, the most of the essentials right. We, as a denomination proclaim God's grace-- prevenient, justifying and sanctifying; we put our faith into action in meaningful and sustainable mission; we have an appointment process that, while often painful for clergy and congregations who must sunder their beautiful relationships (or try to work in less-than-beautiful ones), also encourages and empowers local churches to be defined around their own sense of identity and mission rather than the particular vision of an individual pastor. These are just a few of the many things I love about my chosen denomination.
In the face of all I love about the UMC, there are only a few things I think we could do better. I think we have reached a critical point when we must decide who we are (we do proclaim well whose we are) and how we will be the people of God in an ever-changing world; we do not do enough to live into our role of stewards of the earth and its life; we do not speak with enough conviction about the horrors of human violence. These are our sins of omission. We also have sins of commission. Racism still runs pretty deep in our denomination. And, by word and action, we intentionally and deliberately disqualify, demean, and reject certain of God's children based on their sexual orientation. I get fired up about this because I think it is the biggest way in which we fail in the very least of what is asked of us: to do no harm. We harm ourselves and others by our stance on homosexuality; we fail to proclaim grace, we falsely use the cause of justice, we deny the indwelling of God's love. That hurts, because otherwise we are so often remarkably grace-filled, just, and loving.
If I didn't care about this denomination, I could walk away. But I do, so I don't.
It's because I love it that I want to be part of it. It's because we are so close that I want to encourage us to be even closer. It's because this is where I feel God's presence so well that I want to help others-- all others, not just straight white others-- feel it too.
Why am I a part of a denomination that doesn't believe everything I believe? Because together I think we come the closest to what it can and should mean to be Christian in this time and place, and because we tenderly and yet forcefully help shape the ones we love into better versions of themselves. That's what I try to do, to help the UMC that I love and the people in it become better versions of who they are, closer to the heart of a God who is our deepest, truest, most essential.