The Death of Grace?

     We are witnessing the end of grace in the church that was built on a foundation of grace.

    If you are a United Methodist, you have almost certainly heard of Rev. Frank Schaefer.  An ordained elder in The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of The United Methodist Church, in 2007 he chose to officiate at his son’s same-sex wedding in Massachusetts.  As a result, charges were brought against him, a trial was held and he was suspended for 30 days so that he could consider whether or not he could promise to uphold the “entire” Discipline of the church (essentially a promise never to do this again).  After 30 days he returned and said that he could not promise to do so and the Board of Ordained Ministry (BOM) voted to remove his credentials (the newspapers call this being “defrocked”).

    What follows is a weird sort of legal maneuvering.  Rev. Schaefer appealed the decision of the BOM essentially on the grounds that he was punished twice for the same offense, first a 30 day suspension, and then the removal of his credentials.  He won that appeal, and then this week, that appeal was upheld by the Judicial Council, the church’s highest “court.”  The basis of their decision is not really a cause for celebration or concern on either side.  It really does hinge on a technicality and does nothing at all to change church law.  The Judicial Council upheld Rev. Schaefer’s reinstatement on the grounds that the original ruling (by the BOM) was poorly written.  It did not clearly state that Rev. Schaefer would lose his credential permanently after the 30 day suspension even though it was apparent from the beginning that this was their intention. 

    And so, Rev. Schaefer will have his credentials returned to him, he will receive his back pay, church law is unchanged, and everything is the same as before.

Except it isn’t.

Rev. Schaefer might have won, but everyone else lost.

    It is reasonably obvious that the Board of Ministry never intended for the 30 day suspension to be the only punishment.  The 30 day suspension was intended as an act of grace, a second chance, a recognition that we do things for our children that might be unwise or against the rules, and a chance for Rev. Schaefer to walk away with his integrity (and his credentials) by admitting that he loved his son enough to break the rules. 

Perhaps it was poorly written, but now it appears that an act of grace is being punished.

An act of grace is now responsible for undoing the entire trial.

And so now, even though the poorly written decision was “technically” responsible, grace will suffer.

    In future trials (and I have no doubt that there will be more) those who make similar rulings will remember the trials and the appeals of Rev. Schaefer.  They will want to avoid being misinterpreted.  They will want to avoid mistakes.  They will want to avoid being overturned on a technicality. 

There will be no recognition that sometimes people make unwise decisions.

There will be no understanding or sympathy because we love our children.

There will be no second chances.

We are watching the death of grace.

No matter which side you think is right, 

                  ...when we lose grace, 

                                   ...we all lose.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To receive email updates to the Crossfusion blog, click here.

Methodists vs. Catholics? (Part 2)

Question: Methodists vs. Catholics? (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a two part series answering two separate but similar questions, “What is so different about the Catholic Church?” and, “Why is there so much tension between the Methodist and the Catholic Church?”

Part one can be found here: Methodist vs. Catholics? (Part 1)

----

    Since there were already hundreds of Methodist lay preachers in the colonies, John Wesley begged his bishop to ordain some of them so that the members of the church could have access to communion. 

The bishop refused.

    Eventually, John Wesley took it upon himself to ordain Thomas Coke as a bishop (even though he technically did not have that authority), who then travelled to the colonies and ordained Francis Asbury.  In this way, the Methodist Church was born.  No one intended for the Methodist movement to become a church, but it did.  As a result, the Methodist Church structure, belief and doctrine are similar to the Church of England (which today is known as the Episcopal Church in the United States).  We are not a congregational organization, but an ecclesiastical one, which means we have a hierarchy where pastors answer to a bishop. 

    Because of the way that our church has separated from the Catholic Church, our structures and beliefs, although quite different, are also sometimes strikingly similar.  Even so, there was a lot of bad blood between the reformers (like Martin Luther) and the Popes.  Remember that in that era, the Pope controlled the Holy Roman Emperor who, in turn, controlled the Army. 

    In those days, there was no separation of church and state.  For generations, anyone who even hinted at problems within the church could be arrested, their property seized, they could be tortured or even put to death for believing anything different than what they were told.  Nations who chose (actually their kings chose) to become Protestant, were attacked by the Empire’s Army.  For hundreds of years, wears were fought between Catholics and Protestants.  In the 30 Years War (1618-1648), part of Germany fought against other parts of Germany with support thrown in from the kings of France and Spain, as well as from the Empire.  During that time, 25-40% of the entire German population was killed.

    There was also much bloodshed in England.  Although Catholics and Protestants often got along with one another, their rulers were not so kind.  As England’s Kings and Queens changed from Catholic to Protestant and back again, everyone, including the priests, were forced to convert.  Those who did not, were forced from their homes or worse.  There was much bloodshed on all sides.

    In any case, by the time of John Wesley, there were bad feelings between the Church of England and the Catholic Church.  This is evident in John Wesley’s writings as well as Catholic writings of the time.  But today, 200 years later, those bad feelings have faded and Catholics and Protestants get along quite well (particularly here in the United States).  Technically, according to some Catholic doctrine, anyone who is not a part of the “official” church of Saint Peter is going to hell.  For our part, we deny several key Catholic doctrines and emphasize that salvation if through grace alone where the Catholic Church believes that both grace and works are required.

    Despite our differences, we there are a great many similarities.  We have a similar structure (although we do not have any “rank” higher than bishop and we do not have a Pope).  We have bishops who are in charge of particular geographical areas, and we have one set of rules that govern all of our churches. 

    Today the “bad blood’ that once existed isn’t what it used to be.  Most of us have both Catholics and Protestants mixed among our families and our friends and many Catholics and Protestants are married to one another.  I had a professor in seminary that did his doctoral studies in a Catholic University.  There have even been times that modern theologians, now having the benefit of being a few hundred years distant, suggest that Protestants might reconsider some of the Catholic teachings that were thrown out during the Reformation.  Recently, the Pope has invited evangelical leaders to be his guests in Rome to discuss how we might work together. 

    During my last pastorate, I became friends with Monsignor Mark Froelich who was the local parish priest.  He and I were the only people in town who were members of both the Kiwanis and the Rotary clubs and so we had lunch together twice each week (and it didn’t hurt that he was a Cleveland Indians fan).  I think we are finding that our differences may now be less than they were when our churches split during the Reformation.

    In the end when we consider what the differences are between the Methodist Church and the Catholic Church, the answer is both, “A lot” and, “Not much.”

 ---

Part One of this series can be found here: Methodist vs. Catholics? (Part 1)

 Note: I asked our youth to write down any questions that they had about faith, the church, or life in general.  This is a part of that series.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other questions and answers in this series can be found here: Ask the Pastor

To have Crossfusion delivered directly to your email, click here.

Methodists vs. Catholics?

Question: Methodists vs. Catholics?

    Today’s question actually grew out of two separate but similar questions, “What is so different about the Catholic Church?” and, “Why is there so much tension between the Methodist and the Catholic Church?”  In order to answer either question we need to go back several hundred years.  Once we understand how we got to where we are, our differences and any tension can be more easily understood.

    Let’s go back to the early 1500’s.  At that time, no one would have referred to the “Catholic” church but just “the church” because there really was only one church.  But that was about to change.  In 1517, a German priest named Martin Luther wrote 95 complaints about the way that the church was doing business.  Among these complaints was the way that funds were being raised to build what is known as St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  It is a fantastic achievement of art and engineering but it was incredibly expensive.  The man who was tasked with raising the money, John Tetzel, was an unscrupulous man who would do anything for a buck.  In order to raise money, he sold “indulgences” which were forgiveness of sins.  For a price, you could buy forgiveness for relatives who were already dead, or even for sins that had not yet been committed.  If you had enough money, you could buy forgiveness for having a mistress (and keep her), or you could, quite literally, get away with murder. 

    Martin Luther probably did not intend to cause the uproar that he did.  His intent was to post his list of complaints and start a dialog that would reform the abuses of the church.  But as fate would have it, the printing press had recently been invented and instead of merely posting his complaints on the church door, they were printed, translated, and distributed all over Europe.  Eventually, the one church began to splinter into the Catholic Church and various groups of protestors, known as Protest-ants.

    Now jump ahead to 1534.  King Henry VIII is married to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the former King and Queen of Spain.  But Catherine was not giving Henry a male heir and, since England had recently had a civil war over who would succeed the king, having an heir was a big deal.  Originally, Catherine was married to Henry’s brother who had died young and she then married Henry in order to keep Spain happy.  Marrying your brother’s widow required the Pope’s permission but for Kings and Queens, this sort of thing could be managed.  So when Catherine wasn’t having any male children, Henry thought that his marriage ought to be annulled so he could marry someone else.  An annulment required the permission of the Pope but again, this sort of thing was not entirely uncommon for royalty. 

Except for one thing. 

    Catherine of Aragon’s nephew was Charles V, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor.  Charles commanded an army which was just short distance from Rome.  Charles told the Pope that he would be (hint, hint) very unhappy if Henry received an annulment.  Since the Pope couldn’t keep both Henry and Charles happy, he stalled. 

For several years. 

    Finally, Henry decided to break off from the Catholic Church and create the Church of England, whose head was no longer the Pope, but the King of England.  And so although the Church of England became a Protestant church, it retained many similarities to the Catholic Church.

Skip ahead another two hundred years, and we meet John and Charles Wesley, priests of the Church of England who felt that the church could do better.  In an effort to renew the church, they began a movement that became known as Methodism (because of their ‘method’ of holiness).  The Methodist movement took the church beyond the walls of the church into the countryside and the inner-city.  The Wesleys and the Methodists were concerned that the poor did not have access to the church and the church didn’t care.  That movement grew and spread all over England and into the American colonies. 

But then came the American war for independence in 1776.

    Although the Church of England was the largest in the colonies, nearly all of the priests were British citizens.  When the war broke out, they left their churches and went home.  This left a great many people without access to a priest, or to communion, or to baptism, or a proper burial.  At that time, it was believed that not having access to regular communion, or baptism, was enough to damn you to hell.  Since there were already hundreds of Methodist lay preachers in the colonies, John Wesley begged his bishop to ordain some of them so that the members of the church could have access to communion. 

The bishop refused.

---

(Continued in Methodists vs. Catholics - Part 2)

 Note: I asked our youth to write down any questions that they had about faith, the church, or life in general.  This is a part of that series.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other questions and answers in this series can be found here: Ask the Pastor

To have Crossfusion delivered directly to your email, click here.

Youth Questions: Why Doesn’t the Methodist Church Modernize its Thinking?

 Question: Why Doesn’t the Methodist Church Modernize its Thinking?

    I’m not exactly sure what the questioner had in mind when they wrote this, but the short answer is that we do, regularly, change the way that our church works.  The longer answer will take a little while.

    First, there are some things that we can’t change.  If we believe that the Bible is true and was given to us by God, then we must be formed and shaped by what it says and it is not for us to rewrite the Bible so that it says what we think it should.

    Second, as United Methodists, our organization, structure and doctrine all flow out of “The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church.”  It is not the Bishops who speak for us, nor the Council of Bishops (we don’t have a Pope), but the Book of Discipline.  This book is revised every four years during our General Conference.  The General Conference is a democratic body of delegates who are elected by each geographical area (called Annual Conferences) and each area sends a delegation based on the number of church members in that area, much like we, in the United States, elect members to the House of Representatives.  Because The United Methodist Church is a global church, representatives come from around the globe from every continent except Antarctica. 

    Almost everything is up for grabs when the General Conference meets.  Nearly every page of the Book of Discipline may be amended or even completely replaced with only a small section that is unchanging.  In the beginning of the Discipline is a set of Restrictive Rules that specify those sections that cannot be amended.  These sections include the fundamental doctrine of our church that defines who we are, our basic confession of faith, a few rules regarding bishops, the right of clergy to trial by committee, and how we are able to spend the money earned by through publishing.  In all, from a book with nearly 900 pages, less than twenty are unchanging.  The rest are available for revision every four years.

    Who can suggest or propose a change?  You can.  Any member, or clergyperson, from any United Methodist Church, can write a proposal to the General Conference to amend or replace any section of the Discipline.  And to be sure that your opinion matters, the Discipline requires that the General Conference consider every single proposal that is submitted.  Many of these will be similar or propose changes to the same sections, and these will be read, and incorporated into a single proposal by working groups of conference delegates.  Every delegate belongs to one of these working groups and each group is responsible for a working out the proposed changes to a particular section.  Once the working groups are done, these proposals go before the entire General Conference for a vote.  The exception to this are those changes that are editorial or are so totally uncontroversial, that no one feels the need to vote on them, these are passed, as a group, by the consent of the conference.  But if any delegate feels that any particular proposal should be voted on individually, they can ask that that proposal be moved off of the “consent calendar” and brought to the floor for a vote.

    So, while we maintain core beliefs that are unchanging, there is much of our “thinking” that is being “modernized” on a regular basis.  Among these things that are being revised is the Social Principles, which is a separate publication from the Book of Discipline, but which contains the official position of the church on social issues from abortion and adoption, to the rights of women and youth and everything in between.  It is here, in the Social Principles, that you will find the official church position on divorce, the death penalty, population control, racial and ethnic rights, collective bargaining, sustainable agriculture and a great many other things. 

    Keep in mind that The United Methodist Church is a church made up of individuals that are very different, who come from very different places and different cultures.  Our church has members from nearly every political affiliation you can imagine and we don’t always agree.  Although I admit that politics are sometimes played in the writing of changes to the Discipline and the Social Principles, I appreciate that we are trying to do theology together.   

    We are not a North American church that is writing “rules” that must be followed by people thousands of miles away, but we are one, global, church that is trying to discern, together, what God is saying, and where he is leading us.   

That process can be a little messy, but we are working it out, together.

 Note: I asked our youth to write down any questions that they had about faith, the church, or life in general.  This is a part of that series.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other questions and answers in this series can be found here: Ask the Pastor

To have Crossfusion delivered directly to your email, click here.