This post is a special edition of Rocky Road Devotions, as a response to the recent news of the proposed “Protocol” suggested by a group of leaders in the United Methodist Church, as to how the church might be split-up, so as to put an end to the UMC’s struggles concerning human sexuality. I sense a need to express thoughts that have been brewing for some time over this intractable stew and the attitudes and actions of those at polar odds in the making.
Wednesday,
January 22, 2020
Wherever you go, stay in the same house until you leave town. And if a town refuses to welcome you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.” Luke 9:4-5
For the Lord gave us this command when he said, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.’” When the Gentiles heard this, they were very glad and thanked the Lord for his message; and all who were chosen for eternal life became believers. So the Lord’s message spread throughout that region. Then the Jews stirred up the influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town. So they shook the dust from their feet as a sign of rejection and went to the town of Iconium. And the believers were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Acts 13:47-51
Those first-century Christian radicals
tended to live like Jesus taught them to live.
When sending his disciples out to spread the Good News Jesus told them
to go to the surrounding cities, find a hospitable family with which to stay,
and get busy telling the story. But if the
message was rejected, they were to shake that town’s dust off their sandals and
move on. The dust hanging in the air was
a warning that rejecting the Gospel meant rejecting God’s loving embrace.
That’s exactly what happened at
Antioch as Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, came to town and preached a sermon
at the local synagogue about how God’s grace had been extended to even the
non-Jewish nations. It started a riot,
and got Paul and Barnabas chased from the city.
But as they left, they did what Jesus had instructed; they shook the
dust off their sandals and moved on with joy.
Twenty centuries later Christians
seem to have forgotten how to do that! That
is, at least some Christians in the United Methodist
Church.
It’s no secret that progressive,
centrist, and traditionalist Methodists have been at each other’s necks for a
half-century over whether the denomination will be an evangelical/Biblical or
socio-political movement. The focal
issue of late (since about 1972) has been the acceptance of other than traditional
heterosexuality as normative.
Traditionalists believe homosexuality, trans or bi-gender, and even
multi/self-identifying (non)gender proponents are attempting to re-define what
God has clearly stated; that is, we are created male or female…clearly. Progressives prefer the door wide-open, and all
restraints removed on human sexuality.
In short, traditionalists believe the very idea of LGBTQ[2]
as normative is sin, while progressives believe the historical orthodoxy of heterosexuality
is open for individual interpretation without prejudice. This is the immovable object
of heterodoxy meeting with the irresistible force of
cultural rebellion.
True Wesleyan practice holds what
its founder held, a quite high view of Scripture, that our loyalty to Christ is
lived-out with adherence to God’s Word, not trying to change God’s Word to fit the
image of progressive cultural trends.
Progressive thought tries to scramble
for the higher moral ground, proclaiming the love of Jesus as
their marching banner; albeit a love which ignores the righteousness
of the Christ, the One who will one day judge
every action. That is certainly a fly in
the ointment of progressive thought. To
hold that one is following Jesus, when one is unquestionably following self-desires
and cultural popularity, is a de facto denial of what Christ said
plainly:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. Matthew 16:24
Progressives have little desire to
be crucified daily, when one can be puffed-up daily with a platitude that elevates
humanism’s I must be true to ME over Christianity’s I
must be faithful to God.
In case you haven’t yet detected where
my deeply-held conviction lies, let me come out front with the substance of my
argument here: I am shaking the
dust off my sandals, abandoning progressivism (as if there was any
embrace of it in the first place!), and moving on down the road with Paul and Barnabas
in joy.
With that declaration I wish to
hold up an admonition to my sisters and brothers in Christ who hold the
opposing view. If you claim to be
followers of Christ, do like the first century Christians did – follow Him…not
your disobedient bishops.
According to The
Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation the “separation” will
be when the Traditionalists leave the United Methodist Church to form other
denomination(s). This is as odd as it
gets.
For a moment, pretend I support
the Progressivist position. And we go
back in time to – well, pick a time in history when homosexuality was
considered a normative alternative as opposed to heterosexuality – Oh…pardon me;
you can’t find one? Perhaps that’s
because there isn’t a time frame such as that, even if you go all the way back
to the Garden of Eden. And since that is
so, it is hard to imagine John Wesley presiding over a conference to wish the
traditionalists Godspeed while he and his progressivist bishops
actually do the Lord’s work.
Considering Jesus’ instruction to not
get embroiled in the disbelief of others, but to leave and continue your own
work (working out your own salvation with fear and trembling), how is it that
Traditionalists are blamed for ruining the United
Methodist Church by imposing bigotry and homophobia on the United Methodist
Church, which was founded upon, governed by, and operating within traditional
orthodoxy according to Scriptural parameters?
Traditionalists (as I understand the term) wish nothing more than to
continue within those parameters
My question then, for my dear
friends in Christ who hold progressive convictions, presumably for the purpose
of honoring and following Christ, is:
Shouldn’t you be shaking the traditionalist town dust
off your sandals, instead of taking over and inhabiting what you didn’t build,
and only acquiescing to separation if the traditionalists leave town…how is
THAT denying self?
The sin in this takeover is it
finds zero precedent in Scripture.
Perhaps the Scriptural precedent is being seen in the Traditionalists willingness
to leave the home ground (as Abraham did when God called) and begin a new work,
unencumbered by petty grabs for money, notoriety and power. You can grab the house if you want to, but
what will you have when it collapses around you (as it has done in the case of
every other mainline denomination to embrace progressivism)?
It’s difficult for me to fathom
why progressives want anything to do with Traditionalists, seen as stodgy and
obtuse…weak-visioned orthodox troglodytes, prejudicially abusing the gender rights
of liberated souls. That does not seem
smart or right, as this impasse has demonstrated. Progressivism won’t hold anything together,
but only does what it always does, fight against something. Progressive doctrine is to dismantle every
doctrine, to drive whatever wedges of separation exist deeper between whomever
resists. And the unfolding ultimate consequences,
in this case, will be tallied in souls.
Here is how Jesus described such takeover
attempts to co-opt tired, rigid, outdated and unsuitable mechanisms to do new
things:
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17
For
You Today
Remember the
monsters of Nazi Germany, or Russian Czars, or Mafia, or any other group trying
to push another out? If you adopt the
monster’s methods, you then become the new monster!
Go to VIDEO
[2] An acronym
for Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Trans-gender Queer
