wfn.org | Commentary: It's time to re-imagine our relationships

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Jan. 25, 2000   News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-28-71B{031}

NOTE:  Church editors may wish to use a General Conference logo with this
column.

A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. Robert W. Barnes*

In a few months, General Conference will convene and adjourn in Cleveland
for either the first or the last time in the century, depending on how you
count to a hundred. After a whirlwind of meetings and decisions, some of
which we will actually understand, most United Methodists will be relieved
that we have held together for another four years. The battles will be over,
the votes taken, and probably not a lot will have changed. 

Do you ever wish that we could do better?

All of us know that when the secular press reports on our General
Conference, the headline story will be our quadrennial debate over
homosexuality. Most of us are tired of fighting the same war over and over
again, and it is tempting to believe that if this argument would
miraculously disappear we would have unity. 

This is wrong headed. We United Methodists are not divided because of
homosexuality. We are divided because we are divided. If there were no such
thing as homosexuality, our divisions would be manifested in some other
arena. Until we address these divisions, we will never "do better."

The funny thing is that our great weakness, our lack of theological unity,
is also potentially the great strength of the United Methodist denomination.
When the Wesleyan followers of Jesus have made the largest difference in the
world it has been because as a movement we have blended a variety of
Christian perspectives and passions, creating a church that is "bright as
the sun, fair as the moon and terrible as an army with banners." 

Our problem today is not that we have Christians who do not always think and
act alike. Our problem today is that we have forgotten how to work together
with those who are different.

It is overly simplistic to speak of "conservatives and liberals."
Unfortunately, there is no better way to describe our theological identity
crisis. 

Methodists have always been blessed by the presence of both conservative and
liberal Christians. By conservative Christians, I refer to men and women who
are energized by the power and authority of God's word. Theirs is a vertical
faith. Conservative Christianity calls men and women to repent of their sins
and accept the salvation God has offered. It guards the truth, defends the
word and proclaims the gospel.

Liberal Christians tend to be more horizontal. Their great commandment is to
love their neighbors as themselves in a world where everyone is their
neighbor. Liberal Christians reach out for the hurting and marginalized,
doing everything in their power to feed the hungry, lift up the fallen and
include the excluded. Their watchword is: "Let justice roll down like a
mighty river.

These definitions need not suggest that conservative Christians are uncaring
or that liberals never read their Bibles and pray. Most of us are far more
balanced than that. The thing is, most Christians are either energized
primarily by the conservative or the liberal impulse. We have theological
orientations, if you will. Either nothing is so serious as the eternal word
of God or so pressing as the latest great social cause.

Our job in reconstructing the denomination has to be to find a way to blend
what is right with conservatism and liberalism. If we don't, we will
continue to war among ourselves, or worse yet, settle for a bland faith
without conviction.

Let's be honest. We need each other. Without liberals, conservative
Christians would find it too easy to walk around in their own little worlds
of scholarship, biblical prophecy and church growth. I thank God for the
liberals who come to us and say "go." Go to the hungry. Go to the homeless.
Go to the excluded. Go to those who struggle in sin. I think Jesus wants
conservatives to listen to these voices and has promised that not even the
gates of hell will prevail against us when we do.

Conversely, liberals need conservatives because they know how to say "no."
No to philosophical trends that take us away from the gospel. No to
surrendering essentials of the Christian faith. No to losing our distinctive
identities as Christians. If conservatives need liberals to tell them what
to do, liberals need conservatives to remind them of who they are.

The time has come for us to re-imagine our relationships with one another,
to see brothers and sisters in Christ where once we saw "narrow-minded
bigots" and "godless heretics." (Isn't it always easier if our enemies are
awful people?) To do this, we will have to repent of our theological
prejudices and hardened hearts. 

It will be hard. It will feel risky. The thing is, until we find unity, we
will not be able to share the good news as a denomination, to homosexuals,
or to anyone else for that matter.

Sometimes the hardest fight we face is the battle to make peace.

# # #

*Barnes is pastor of Bedington United Methodist Church in Martinsburg, W.Va.
This column previously appeared in UM Connection, the newspaper of the
Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.

Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

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