The “Done” Church Plan

I already wrote a blog calling the One Church Plan the “None” Church Plan. It’s worse than that. It’s a surrender to all things that we as United Methodists are not. So, a better title is the “Done” Church Plan, because if it passes at the GC Special Session, we’re done. The Propaganda War for the One Church Plan is well underway. As a delegate to the Special Session of the UM General Conference next February, I and others are being inundated by material touting one plan over another. The most pressure is from the proponents of the One Church Plan. As head of our delegation, in our local church, and in the district, I have spoken at listening sessions and done my best to pay careful attention. I will not panic over some of the misleading information, but I will trust that Jesus and the mission of the church will prevail.

Here are some of my problems with the One Church Plan (OCP), and specifically yesterday’s brochure from the group calling itself “Mainstream UMC.” I want to quote from the actual words of the document to cite my issues: “Many of the leaders of the organizations supporting the Traditional Plan are willing to throw away 250 years of Methodism over the issue of homosexuality.” The problem with this is that for 250 years, and including right now, the UMC has supported marriage as between one man and one woman. John Wesley’s commentary on Scripture supports the traditional understanding of God’s best plan for humanity through the complementarity of male and female union. This isn’t just the teaching of Methodism for 250 years, and the action of every General Conference since 1972. This has been the position of Judeo-Christian teaching for 4,000 years! Who in the world do we think we are that we can overturn the consistent teaching of the Bible?

Sure there have been those who used the Bible to put down women and promote slavery, but the same Scripture promoted women in leadership from Miriam, Deborah, Esther, Huldah, Ruth, Mary, Elizabeth, Anna, the Women at the Empty Tomb, Philip’s 4 prophetess daughters, Phoebe, Euodia, Synthche, and many more. Scripture has also been used to promote slavery and racism, but Scripture also says, “In Christ there is no Jew, nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free (Galatians 3:28).” Here’s the bottom line, the whole of Scripture teaches a morality UNLIKE the pagan world. Here we are in 2018-2019 doing the opposite. We want to reshape ageless Biblical ethics into the time-limited circumstances of our fallen world, not the other way around.

And for those who say Jesus never talked about the practice of homosexuality, you’re mistaken! Jesus used the foundational passage about human relationships from Genesis 2:24 that “a man shall leave his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” From the beginning of creation we have been made in God’s image, “So God created humankind in his own image… male and female he created them (Genesis1:27).” Jesus used this exact passage in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:6-8, and there are other exact quotes in the NT.

So here’s the point for those of us who choose the Traditional Plan over the One Church Plan. The OCP redefines the Biblical definition of marriage for the whole UMC. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the Philippines, Africa, or Europe. The Bible will be overturned. Now I believe in civil rights for everyone, but I will not compromise a high view of Jesus the Logos, the Word of Scripture for the sake of being politically correct. What’s worked for 250 years in Methodism and Biblical sexual ethics for thousands of years has not changed.

Then the brochure from “Mainstream UMC” goes way out on a limb. It says as it quotes one author’s perspective, “The reason that I cannot support the Traditional Plan is because it is in opposition to the unity of the church.” The unity of the church has taught exactly what the Traditional Plan promotes! If anything, it is the One Church Plan that is seeking to overturn the clear teaching of Scripture and destroy the unity of the church. I’ll say it again, EVERY General Conference of the UMC has kept faith with the sexual ethics of the vast majority of the church.

It is the One Church Plan that wants to let every local church have a church conference and vote on whether it will allow same-sex marriages on its property. That’s not unity. You’ll have one church in this part of town pitted against another one. All of the tension and disruption that’s been at the General Conference level will be brought to our local churches. The whole One Church Plan isn’t about oneness! It’s about letting everybody do what they want to do! They can call it “contextualization,” or whatever, but it is wrong from Scripture and our historic self-understanding as a denomination.

We have been a connectional people working together to spread the Gospel and do missions around the world. The One Church Plan causes us to fragment into a congregational system where sexual ethics will become THE litmus test for pastoral appointments. Let me ask it this way, “If local churches are going to decide whether they want to follow the historic traditional teaching of the church universal, then who is going to lose?” Will it be the pastor, the local church, or both? The answer up front and personal will be everybody. Can you imagine the divisiveness and rancor? Then another question arises. Whom do you think most churches will want as their pastors if you slip into the One Church Plan’s congregationalism? Wake up, people! This is not how we do church. We are a sent system of clergy deployment. This flips that and it won’t look good for our prophetic voice to the world. Church unity will have been sacrificed on the altar of progressive hubris and false fruitfulness.

The Traditional Plan is faithful to the Bible, church history, and United Methodism. The One Church Plan asks each local church and pastor to violate their most sacred loyalty to God. The One Church Plan will bring the fight to each and every pew and person. The Traditional Plan will uphold the values that our faith heritage has supported for thousands of years. The One Church Plan will turn us into a denomination that will have thousands of localized interpretations, and have no real Book of Discipline. In a Congregationalist system every church becomes its own arbiter of truth and hiring agency, and our UM heterogeneity and diversity of clergy will be squeezed into the box of a market-driven call system of clergy deployment. We will not be United Methodists. The adherents of the One Church Plan are selling out, but I will not. I am confident that we will uphold Scripture, the historic teaching of the church on marriage, and will not lose our connectional ecclesiology.

The Traditional Plan has won this battle not just since 1972, but for 4,000 years. The falsely named One Church Plan will result in chaos and defeat. We must stand tall and expose its problems. The Traditional Plan is who we are as the UMC, and as the church universal. The One Church Plan is a disaster in the making. This is a fight that we have won over and over again, and if we want to transform the world for Jesus, we’d better win again.