General Conference and dreaming a new church

I get it if you’re tired of reading about General Conference. Even so, I have a couple things to share.

Pastor Sarah writes a blog she calls A Snarky Pastor’s Rantings. She offers an FAQ on what happened. Here are some of her interesting points.

The Traditional Plan was written haphazardly by a small group of rogue conservative bishops. The Commission on a Way Forward hadn’t considered the doubling down on punishment, so these bishops did. Then they used back-channels to get it on the GC floor.

It was not meant to pass. It was meant to scare people into letting the conservatives leave. (It may have worked.)

Parts of the Traditional Plan have been ruled unconstitutional by the Judicial Council. The whole thing now goes to the JC in April. The presiding bishop has said the JC is supposed to rule on the Plan as a whole – it is all constitutional or none of it goes into effect.

There is an exit plan. It got passed in a hurry with few people actually reading it. Pastor Sara says no need to figure out what it says – it’s unconstitutional.

A charge of bribery was referred to the Ethics Committee.

Terrifyingly, it only got 52% of the vote. One of my African brothers responded, "that means that 48% of the delegates were involved in bribery."

The bribe appears to be laptops and tablets handed to the African delegates.

The United Methodist Church is not technically dead. But, says Pastor Sara:

For the first time in my life though, I think the answer may be: morally and theologically, yes.

The movement for LGBTQIA+ rights in the church has been fighting for 47 years, which is 9 years longer than I've been alive. This morning after, for the first time in my life, I don't know that this is a church whose soul is worth fighting for.

The conservative plan since 2004 was to make the UMC untenable for progressives to live in any longer. I fear they have finally succeeded.

The second thing to share is by Joey Lopez, who used to live around here. It is posted in the blog Hacking Christianity.

For too long we’ve been seeking incremental improvements to the church, one little piece at a time. But if the UMC dies, this is an opportunity to completely redesign the church and how it works. We can avoid the sexism, misogyny, and homophobia that are a part of the foundation of the UMC. We must be honest about and confess the sins we will likely carry with us so we can true both to our history and our commitment to being something different. It is time to dream of a new church.