Test the Spirits

As of today, over ninety churches in the Central Texas Conference have voted to disaffiliate from The UMC. These churches supposedly went through a time of discernment before voting to do so. That number will likely increase as other churches are currently involved in the discernment process.

These votes to disaffiliate raise questions in my mind: what criteria did these churches use in their effort to determine what they would do? Did they seek to discern the Spirit’s guidance? If so, what did they identify as the Spirit’s guidance? Did they merely operate out of what they thought and believed, assuming it reflected the mind of Christ and aligned with the heart of God?

The author of First John identified the need for discernment. “Test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). In doing so, the author also identified the focus of discernment. His exhortation is an important guide to any church involved in a discernment process regarding disaffiliation (or any other issue).

The author’s exhortation calls us to exercise discernment. Discernment is about discerning what is of God and what is not — “to see whether they are from God.” It is the ability to distinguish truth from partial truth, the genuine from the pretentious, what is healthy from what is crippling, what is life-giving from what is destructive, good from evil. Discernment is what helps us determine the will of God.

Discernment is the work of the Spirit; hence, it is spiritual discernment. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul identified the ability to exercise discernment as a gift of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10).

The author’s exhortation calls us to give spiritual discernment a conscious place in the life of our church. It is to be exercised every time our congregation faces a challenge or crisis or decision. It is to be exercised in regard to the issue being faced and the decision to be made, in regard to what is said and what is done, in regard to motives and objectives. Sadly, spiritual discernment is often absent in many churches. It has been replaced by committee recommendations and majority votes in which the Spirit and the Spirit’s guidance have been assumed or unconsciously neglected. This lack of discernment opens the door to power brokers imposing their will on the congregation.

The author’s exhortation also instructs us regarding the focus of our discernment. “Test the spirits.” Spiritual discernment goes beneath the surface to the underlying spirit, beyond the issue to the spirit with which the issue is being addressed.

According to the information being published, those voting to disaffiliate from The UMC base their decision on a combination of issues: the place of LGBTQ+ individuals in the life of the church (ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy), moral standards that view homosexuality as a sin, the view and use of scripture, etc. Each of these issues is considered to be a right-and-wrong issue, that is, there is a right position and a wrong position. Consequently, decisions are based upon what is viewed as “right.” In such decisions, discernment is not needed.

The author of First John calls us to go beyond the issue to the spirit with which the issue is addressed. The author did not deal with whether an issue was right or wrong. Rather, he called his readers (us) to “test the spirits,” that is, to discern the underlying spirit. Does that spirit reflect the spirit of Jesus? Does it expresses the grace and forgiveness and unconditional acceptance Jesus offered to every person?

Moral issues call for black-and-white, right-and-wrong thinking. They involve moral standards by which we are judged (and by which we judge others) — what Paul called “the law.” Failure to conform to such standards brings condemnation and judgment. Moral issues are an expression of merit-based thinking. Merit-based thinking is about earning and deserving. What we receive is determined by what we do. We get what we deserve. Merit-based thinking opens the door to condemnation, judgment, rejection, and exclusion of those who fail to conform to the moral standards or who fall short of their demands. The spirit of merit-based thinking is one of condemnation and judgment. It is an arrogant spirit that looks down on those who do not measure up from a posture of moral superiority. Such a spirit does not reflect the spirit of Jesus.

The spirit of Jesus grows out of grace-based thinking. It is expressed in grace and forgiveness, in unconditional acceptance that views and values, accepts and embraces all as beloved children of God. Because it does not deal in earning and deserving, such a spirit looks beyond behavior to see the need and hurt of the other. It responds to the other with compassion and understanding. The spirit of Jesus is a servant spirit (Mark 9:35; 10:42-54). It gives freely and generously of self to address the need of the other. This grace-filled, servant spirit of Jesus mirrors the spirit of God. The Spirit cultivates the spirit of Jesus in our hearts by teaching us to think with what Paul called the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:1-11). The Spirit moves us from merit-based thinking to grace-based thinking, from a critical, judgmental spirit to a grace-filled, forgiving spirit.

If we want to discern what is of God, don’t get trapped in arguing right-and-wrong. Test the spirit!

Hate the Sin

It’s one of those pious statements church people often say. It has been repeated frequently in the splintering of The UMC over the LGBTQ+ issue. “Love the sinner; hate the sin.”

On the surface, it sounds right, but beneath the surface, it is deeply flawed.

On the surface, the statement appears to pass all of the theological tests. It proclaims love for the person while maintaining a strong moral stance against behavior labeled as sinful. It refuses to compromise a moral posture. In reality, the statement reflects the thinking of Western Evangelical Christianity rather than the spirit of Jesus.

Western Evangelical Christianity emphasizes belief and behavior. A Christian is someone who believes the right things about Jesus, the Bible, sin, etc. That belief is expressed in moral living coupled with faithful church involvement. This emphasis has at least one major flaw: it focuses upon externals, overlooking the heart — the interior realm — that was central to Jesus’s thinking.

“For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come,” Mark 7:21. Jesus rejected the scribes’ and Pharisees’ focus upon behavior, calling attention to what was in the human heart. The condition of the heart was the problem to be addressed, not behavior that failed to conform to a religious or moral standard — the tradition of the elders (Mark 7:1-23). The attitudes and spirit with which we live — the condition of the heart — are what needs to be changed.

Focusing on externals — belief and behavior — allows us to criticize and judge those whose behavior fails to conform to our religious-moral standards just as the Pharisees criticized Jesus’s disciples because they “ate with defiled hands” (Mark 7:2). When we hate the sin, we are criticizing and judging. We say we love the sinner so we won’t think of ourselves as judging. We blind ourselves to what is in our hearts. A critical, judgmental spirit is a heart issue — the very thing Jesus said was the problem.

Focusing on externals — belief and behavior — appeals to our ego-centric nature. Every time we criticize and judge another person, we unconsciously say “I’m not like that.” Our critical, judgmental spirit expresses a not-so-subtle sense of “I’m better than them.” It looks down on the other as inadequate and less than. The word for such an attitude is arrogance — an issue of the heart.

Focusing on externals — belief and behavior — reflects merit-based thinking. We profess to love the sinner, but our love is limited. We do not love them fully or freely. We do not accept them unconditionally. When we say “hate the sin,” we condemn their sin, viewing it (and them) as unacceptable. Our authentic acceptance of them is reserved for when they no longer sin. Our love is conditional — merit-based.

Focusing on externals — belief and behavior — repeats the very thing Jesus rejected in the Pharisees.

To be a follower of Jesus is to allow the things Jesus taught to shape how we think and live. Jesus related to every person with grace and forgiveness. He did not indulge in the emotional games of criticizing, judging, and condemning. To be a follower of Jesus is to embrace his spirit of grace and forgiveness, laying aside our inclination to judge, criticize, and condemn. Jesus viewed and valued, accepted and embraced every person as a beloved child of God and as a member of the covenant community. His acceptance was unconditional. The other person’s conformity to or failure to measure up to a religious-moral standard did not impact how Jesus viewed or treated him. To be a follower of Jesus is to embrace that spirit of unconditional acceptance that sees beyond our differences to embrace the other as someone that God loves.

To be a follower of Jesus is to do what Jesus taught. It is to love as Jesus loved. Loving as Jesus loved does not involve “hating the sin.” In fact, loving as Jesus loved focuses on the person, not on sin.

Our pride in “loving the sinner, hating the sin” reflects our struggle to love as Jesus loved. It reflects a heart problem.

 

Scapegoats

We all have them. For Cain, it was Abel. For the Jews of Jesus’s day, it was the Samaritans and the Gentiles. For the Pharisees, it was those who didn’t follow the scribal interpretation of the law. For the Republicans, it’s the left-leaning Democrats with their socialist agenda. For the Democrats, it’s the Republicans with their pro-business, dark-money conservativism. For the MAGA crowd, it’s the RINOs and the libs. For the Lincoln Project, it’s Trump and his supporters. For those advocating white supremacy, it’s people of color and immigrants. For The UMC, it’s the GMC. For the GMC, it’s The UMC. We all have our scapegoats.

A scapegoat is an individual or a group that another individual or group views negatively. The scapegoat is viewed as the source of a problem or of an unwelcomed situation. Viewing the scapegoat through this negative lens leads first to judging them and then to speaking critically of them. The scapegoat is to blame—“It’s their fault. They’re the problem. If it weren’t for them . . . !” The blame, in turn, can lead to treating the scapegoat cruelly, harshly, even abusively. The scapegoat is viewed and treated as being in a one-down, less-than position.

Not only do we all have them, it seems we also need them. We use scapegoats in at least three ways. First, they are a way we establish our own sense of identity and our sense of being okay. “We are not like them!” The implication is that we are better than them. Scapegoats are also a convenient way to avoid issues we don’t want to acknowledge and don’t know how to address. By blaming the scapegoat, we can live in denial, blind to ourselves and to our contribution to the problem. In addition, scapegoats are an easy target of our unrecognized, unaddressed, and unresolved anger. They allow us to dump our anger with a not-so-subtle sense of self-righteousness.

While we assign blame to the scapegoat, the scapegoating process is really about us. It is about what lies in our shadow that we do not recognize or acknowledge. It is about old pain that we stuffed down out of our awareness, leaving it unrecognized, unaddressed, and unresolved. Because we cannot face it or own it, this pain gets projected out onto others. Unresolved pain gets projected outward onto others. Unaddressed grief becomes a grievance directed at others. In other words, our scapegoat is a mirror reflecting what we don’t want to see about ourselves.  

It seems Jesus understood the emotional dynamic at play in the scapegoating process. In the Sermon on the Mount, he taught “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). We become critical and judgmental of others when we do not recognize the 2x4 in our own eye. Our unrecognized, unaddressed, unresolved pain gets projected onto others in the form of criticism and judgment. Our critical spirit is the indicator of inner pain needing to be recognized, acknowledged, addressed, and resolved. 

We all have our scapegoats. That reality raises two questions. First, who—what individual, what group—is my scapegoat? To answer this question, we only need to identify those we repeatedly criticize, judge, find fault with, and feel anger toward. The second question: what am I avoiding by focusing on my scapegoat? What about myself do I not see because of my focus on the faults of others? What is the 2x4 in my own eye that I don’t see because I am focused on the speck in my neighbor’s eye?

Scapegoating is a normal part of our human nature. It is a dimension of our constructed, ego-centric self. It is the inevitable expression of us-them thinking. Jesus warned us about these kinds of emotional games. “Do not judge,” he said (Matthew 7:1).

For those of us who are the followers of Jesus, scapegoating is not the last word. The Spirit is at work in us, bringing us to Christ-like spiritual maturity. That work includes healing the emotional wounds and the old pain we have stuffed into our shadow (an often neglected aspect of spiritual formation). “First take the log out of your own eye,” Jesus said. Dealing with and resolving our own inner pain changes how we see and treat others. It changes how we view and deal with the speck in their eye. As we work through our pain in pursuit of healing, we become more understanding of and compassionate with others. Rather than being critical and judgmental of them, we become supportive and helpful as they do the hard work of dealing with their pain. As the Spirit heals our pain and matures us emotionally-spiritually-relationally, we move beyond us-them thinking. The Spirit leads us beyond scapegoating.

Scapegoating is not a characteristic of the follower of Jesus. 

Maintain the Unity of the Spirit

As the splintering of The UMC continues, the sadness in me grows. As we quarrel and fight, I see very little of the spirit of Christ. As we criticize and accuse, I look in vain for evidence of the fruit of the Spirit. Rather, what I see is the spirit that permeates our polarized culture. I see the Church following the ways of the world rather than the ways of the kingdom Jesus taught. I see people who call themselves Christians being critical and judgmental, harsh and bitter toward other Christians. (It may be that even this lament does not reflect the spirit of Christ and is devoid of the fruit of the Spirit.) In the schism we United Methodists are experiencing, it seems to me we United Methodists Christians have squandered a rare opportunity to demonstrate to the world the redeeming ways of God.

Unity is the central theme of the book of Ephesians. The Trinity – Father, Son, Spirit – are actively engaged in bringing unity back to creation under the lordship of Jesus — “to gather up all things in him (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). Restoring the oneness of creation is the primary objective of God’s eternal, redemptive purpose. In that redemptive purpose, each member of the Trinity — Father, Son, Spirit — plays a specific role (Ephesians 1:3-14 — Father, 1:3-6; Son, 1:7-12; Spirit, 1:13-14). The Church plays a central role in this purpose (Ephesians 3:10). The Church is to demonstrate the unity or oneness that characterizes the love-based relationships of the Trinity. We — both Jew and Gentile — have been saved by grace (Ephesians 2:1-10). The Spirit works to move us beyond our differences, molding us into a new humanity (Ephesians 2:15) in which God lives (Ephesians 2:21-22).

The author appealed to this holy calling (to demonstrate how grace and love make unity or oneness possible) when he exhorted his readers to live in a way that reflected the life to which they had been called — the life found in the Trinity (Ephesians 4:1). He urged them, “making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).

We humans commonly seek unity in sameness. We segregate ourselves into groups of those like us — those who look like us, those who think like us, those who believe the way we believe, those who do things the way we do things. (Segregation is the way we deal with differences.) This way of relating naturally involves comparing and competing. We judge people based on how they conform to our expectations, our thinking, our beliefs. We are critical of those who do not measure up and exclude them. Our critical, judgmental spirit is tied to rigid, black-and-white, right-and-wrong thinking that cannot tolerant any way of thinking that challenges how we think and what we believe. We think of ourselves as better than them. We use our power to protect our way of life against those whom we view as a threat to it. In this way of thinking and living, agreement is a prerequisite to unity.

Christian unity is different. It is oneness experienced in the midst of differences. It reflects the life of the Trinity — unity in diversity. (Ephesians 4:1-16 is a unit. Verses 1-6 are about unity; verse 7-16 about diversity.) Such unity embraces differences as God’s creation and God’s gift. The differences are strengths that make community possible. In Christian unity, each person is valued. Each has a gift to offer that enriches the life of the community — “as each part is working properly” (Ephesians 4:16).

Christian unity is the work of the Spirit — “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). It is a gift of the Spirit that we are to protect and maintain. Maintaining the unity of the Spirit requires Christ-like maturity (Ephesians 4:13). It is only possible as we are “made new in the spirit of your minds” (Ephesians 4:23). This new way of thinking which produces a new way of living is the work of the Spirit. As our thinking is shaped by the character of God and the ways of God, the Spirit transforms our hearts and minds. The Spirit leads us to put off our old self that follows the ways of the world (Ephesians 4:22) and to put on our new self that reflects the likeness of Christ (Ephesians 4:24). We live in love (Ephesians 5:2), as beloved children of God (Ephesians 5:1).

The unity of the Spirit is to be protected and maintained “in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). “The bond of peace” refers to the work of Christ (Ephesians 2:11-22). “For he (Christ) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups (Jew and Gentile) into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:14). Christ laid the ground work for unity. The Spirit works to make it a reality by growing us up spiritually. Unity is the Spirit’s gift to the Church.

Protecting and maintaining this gift of the Spirit is not easy work. It requires “humility and gentleness” coupled with patience. It requires “bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2). The original language means “putting up with each other.” It seems to me that, in the splintering that is happening in The UMC, there is a lack of humility. Instead, I see a lot of “I’m right, you’re wrong” arrogance. Instead of gentleness, I see a lot of anger and resentment being spewed out in attacks on and condemnation of others. Rather than bearing with one another and putting up with one another, I see a willingness to angrily walk away from one another. I see a disregard for the Spirit’s gift of unity and the bond of peace created by Jesus’s death on the cross.

It seems to me we United Methodists have squandered a rare opportunity to demonstrate to the world a better way of living in relationship. We have failed to show them the way of love.

Discerning the Will of God

For fifty years – since 1972 – The United Methodist Church has struggled to discern the will of God regarding the issue of homosexuality.

The current language of The Book of Discipline (2016) states: “The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.” The language of “incompatible with Christian teaching” is what the majority of delegates to General Conference have discerned, since 1972, to be the will of God.

Other delegates to General Conference have a different understanding of God’s will concerning homosexuality. They have sought legislatively to change the language of The Discipline, seeking to amend the language to be less condemning, but their efforts have repeatedly been voted down. They have staged demonstrations at General Conference in an effort to make their voice heard. In recent years, some have defied the mandates and prohibitions in The Discipline, specifically in regards to ordaining homosexual individuals and to performing gay marriages.

Individuals on both sides of the issue appeal to the Bible to support their positions. One group appeals to what, in their minds, are clearly stated moral laws that support their position. The other group appeals to spiritual principles which, they argue, take priority over those moral laws. Both groups believe their position reflects the will of God. Both groups believe they are right and the other side is wrong.

This fifty year struggle over the will of God regarding homosexuality has now resulted in the creation of The Global Methodist Church and the current splintering of The UMC as congregations vote to leave The UMC to join the GMC.

This on-going controversy raises the question: how does one discern the will of God?

In his letter to the churches of Rome, the apostle Paul wrote about discerning the will of God. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2, emphasis added).

Paul’s teaching ties the discernment of the will of God with the renewing of the mind. The renewing of the mind enables us to discern the will of God. According to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 2, this renewing of the mind happens as we learn the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 2:7), taught to us by the Spirit who searches the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-13). The renewing of the mind results in us possessing the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16b). As our thinking is shaped by the character of God and the ways of God, we are able to discern the will of God.

Paul’s understanding is echoed by the author of Colossians. “We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Colossians 1:9, emphasis added). This writer tied knowing the will of God to Spirit-guided thinking. The writer goes on to say “so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” (Colossians 1:10). The objective of discerning God’s will is so our lives can be shaped by it. Knowing God’s will leads us to live God’s ways. The Spirit who guides our thinking in turn empowers us to live the ways of God Jesus taught.

According to these teachings, the will of God will always reflect the character of God. It will be an expression of God’s steadfast, faithful love. It will always be full of the grace and forgiveness Jesus lived. It will view and value, accept and embrace every person as a beloved child of God. It will use power to serve the other, seeking the other’s spiritual growth, development, and maturity. It will never use power to control the other or demand that the other conform to our expectations.

Paul’s teaching in Romans 12 ties our ability to know the will of God to our ability to think, under the guidance of the Spirit, with the wisdom of God and the mind of Christ. In addition, his teaching says that as long as we think the way the world taught us to think, we can never really discern the will of God. His language, in the original, is “stop being conformed to the pattern of this world.” If we want to discern the will of God, we have to learn to think differently. We move beyond how the world taught us to think to how the Spirit teaches us to think. As long as we think the way the world trained us to think, we will confuse our beliefs with the will of God.

In this fifty year struggle to discern the will of God regarding homosexuality, perhaps we have focused on the wrong issue. In our focus on homosexuality, we have overlooked the more fundamental issue: how do we discern the will of God? If we were to address that question, then we could ask, “Which position reflects the character of God and the ways of God? Which position reflects the thinking and ways of the world?”

Do You Believe the Bible?

 “Do you believe the Bible?” An individual asked this question recently in a church meeting that was called to consider disaffiliating with The UMC. One of the reasons being given as churches choose to leave The UMC has to do with the Bible. Many of those who are leaving have said and are saying, “The UMC doesn’t believe the Bible.”

When he asked the question “Do you believe the Bible?”, the man was really asking two other questions. First, he was asking “Do you believe the Bible says what I believe it says?” In other words, “Do you interpret the Bible the way I do?” Then he was asking “Do you use the Bible to support what I believe about the LGBTQ+ issue?” This second question was his real concern, i.e., his bottom line.

“Do you believe the Bible?” is the wrong question. It is a smokescreen designed to discredit the one having to answer the question while presenting the one asking the question as more spiritual and “right.”

Every United Methodist I know believes the Bible. Granted, there are plenty of United Methodists that I do not know, so I can’t speak for all of them. But I dare say the vast majority of United Methodist Christians believe the Bible. The issue is not “Do you believe the Bible?”

 So “do you believe the Bible?” is the wrong question. A better question is “How do you read-understand-interpret what the Bible says?" After all, that’s what the man was really asking. “Do you believe the Bible says what I believe it says? Do you interpret the Bible the way I do?” Implied in the man’s question is a second issue: “How do you use the Bible?”

Underlying the LGBTQ+ question is the issue of interpretation. How do we interpret the Bible? How do we get to its meaning? How do we identify its word for our lives today?

Many (most?) of those throwing rotten eggs at The UMC concerning the Bible (yes, I am making a broad generalization here) read the Bible literally. They do not believe they have to interpret it. They believe it means what it says. They see it as God’s word, i.e., a divinely inspired and divinely produced book that is infallible (that is, totally reliable) and inerrant (that is, no mistakes). In their mind, it means what it says.

On the surface, this position sounds admirable and appealing. Beneath the surface, however, this position has a number of weaknesses. It ignores the fact that reading the Bible literally is a form of interpretation. In other words, those who read the Bible literally are interpreting it. In addition, reading the Bible literally allows me to read what I already believe into what the Bible says. It allows me to use the Bible to support what I already believe rather than allowing what the Bible teaches to shape how I think and what I believe. When I read the Bible literally, I read each verse from the same posture, giving equal weight to every verse — the purity laws of Leviticus carry the same authority as the teachings of Jesus. Reading the Bible this way ignores how Jesus read and used the Bible. Ironically, what the literalists say they believe about the Bible and what they practice is different. They pick and choose which verses to emphasize. For example (and there are many other examples), they emphasize what the book of Leviticus says about “homosexuality” but ignore what it says about stoning a daughter who is pregnant but not married or a son who is defiant. They argue those later commands are time-bound and so do not apply to our culture or our day. They accept, as did Jesus, the Leviticus command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18b) but ignore the command “You shall love the alien as yourself” (Leviticus 19:34). The verses the literalists choose to emphasize are the ones that support what they already believe. Another weakness: when we read the Bible literally, we confuse cultural norms from another time with spiritual truth (e.g., women speaking in church). Again, picking and choosing based upon what I already believe is involved in this confusion.

Claiming to read the Bible literally is really a smokescreen that allows us to avoid having to consider the possibility that we might be wrong. After all, if what we believe is wrong, then we would have to change what we believe. Changing what we believe, in turn, would challenge the attitudes we harbor in our hearts. How we view and treat others would have to change, as well.

We all interpret the Bible when we read it. That reality calls us to bring our best thinking to the task.

Sound interpretation takes the Bible seriously. It deals with the Bible as a divinely inspired work given to us through the work of ancient authors and editors. It seeks to understand the message and meaning of any given text by understanding the original audience to whom it was addressed, including its historical and cultural context. The objective of interpretation is to understand the meaning of a text. What spiritual truth was the biblical author attempting to communicate to the original audience? Believing Jesus was the true Word of God (John 1:1, 14), sound interpretation reads through the lens of Jesus as the fullest revelation of God (John 1:14, 18; Colossians 1:15, 19; 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-4). What Jesus taught about God and the ways of God guides how we understand the other parts of the Bible.

The work of interpretation raises another issue: how do we use the Bible?

Presumably, we read the Bible to know God and the ways of God. We seek the wisdom of God taught by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:7-16). We seek to know the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5-11). In other words, we allow the character of God and the ways of God revealed in Jesus to shape how we think — what Paul called the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2). We move beyond how the world trained us to think and live. This renewing of the mind produces a transformed life (Romans 12:2), a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a), a new self (Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9b-11). How we live is then shaped by and patterned after the ways of God Jesus taught (the Kingdom of God). The renewing of the mind leads us to love God and neighbor. It leads us to love as Jesus loved.

Reading the Bible to know God and the ways of God leads us beyond how we are inclined to use the Bible. Following the merit-based thinking of the world, we are prone to read the Bible looking for what to believe (which inevitably corresponds to what we already believe). We look for laws to obey and rules to follow. We look for a moral standard by which we judge our lives and the lives of others. For the most part, we often do more judging of others than we do ourselves. This way of reading the Bible emphasizes obeying and conforming, not loving. It allows us to judge those who do not believe what we believe or measure up to our moral expectations. It allows us to reject and exclude. This way of reading the Bible uses the Bible as a club, to attack and condemn others.

It is important to ask the right questions. The right questions bring clarity, facilitate understanding, and lead to progress. “Do you believe the Bible?” is not the right question.

The Fatal Flaw Exposed

 The splintering that is taking place in The UMC exposes the fatal flaw in The UMC (and in most institutional churches in Western Christianity).

A fatal flaw is a weakness that causes the downfall and destruction of an endeavor or an individual or an institution or a business or a society.

The fatal flaw in The UMC is seen in the splintering. In last week’s blog, I argued that the splintering is an expression of what the apostle Paul called “the flesh” — our default, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me, ego-centric nature. “The works of the flesh are obvious: enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy” (Galatians 5:20-21). The splintering in The UMC is full of enmities, strife, anger, quarrels, dissensions, and factions. It is fueled by our default human nature, i.e., the flesh. It is devoid of Spirit-led spirituality.

And therein lies the fatal flaw of The UMC (and of Western Christianity, in general). We have proclaimed and followed a theology that has not addressed our default human nature. It is a theology that does not lead to the transformation of heart and mind and life. It provides a religious veneer for our basic nature but fails to produce spiritual transformation, what Paul called a new creation in which “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21). In fact, the theology we proclaim and practice appeals to and strengthens the ego-centric self rather than calling us to die to it as Jesus taught (Mark 8:34). The theology we proclaim and practice does not require us to put off the old self and put on the new self by being made new in the spirit of our minds (Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9b-11; Romans 12:2).

The popular theology of Western Christianity (and in most UM churches) is focused on going to heaven, not on the transformation of our hearts and minds and lives. It emphasizes belief, not faith. Its nature is transactional, not relational. Belief is the key that opens heaven’s door to us. This theology calls for church involvement and moral living as evidence of our believing the right things. It inherently fosters us-them thinking — those who believe (or those who believe what we believe), those who don’t; those who participate in church activities, those who don’t; those who conform to the moral expectations, those who don’t. As with all us-them thinking, this theology creates a subtle arrogance expressed in judging and condemning those who don’t believe what we believe or don’t participate in church activities or conform to the expected moral standard. This theology emphasizes sin, what Richard Rohr calls sin management Christianity. It wraps the ways of the world in religious garb.

This theology produces a religious ego-centric self that is rigid in its thinking. This religious ego-centric self rejects anything that does not align with its beliefs and thinking. It has no self-awareness. Consequently, it is innately resistant to anything that would require change in how the religious ego-centric self thinks and believes. 

This theology is me-centered, not God centered. Even its emphasis upon sin keeps the focus on me. Consequently, it cannot lead us to love God with all of our heart, minds, soul, and strength, much less love our neighbor as ourselves as Jesus taught.

The current splintering of The UMC is the end result of fifty plus years of conflict over LGBTQ+ issues. Since the formation of The UMC in 1968 and the adoption of its first Book of Discipline in 1972, we have fought over how to view and treat LGBTQ+ people. We have argued over the place they are allowed to have in The UMC.

I can’t help but wonder: how might things be different today (not to mention throughout those fifty plus years) if we had functioned out of hearts and minds transformed by God’s grace rather than out of our default, ego-centric nature dressed up in religious garb?  

The splintering of The UMC exposes its fatal flaw. Now the question is: will we recognize the flaw and address it? Or, will we simply blame the other side for what is happening so we can go back to doing what we have always done without learning or growing from the pain?