THE HUBRIS OF INCLUSION: Thoughts on the Future of the United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church was born in a specific time and place, in the mid-twentieth century in the United States of America. Protestant denominations were ascendant, and with them a brand of "ecumenism" that would only decades later be recognized by those who championed it as culturally bound to the white "mainline." Mergers were all the buzz, including the one that created the UMC in 1968, and Methodists embraced their new denomination as partial fulfillment of a dream of "Christian unity." As the historian Robert Handy noted in his wonderful little 1971 book, A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities, leaders of the new denomination thought of it as "a kind of unofficial national church." Because they sat at the midpoint of mainline American Protestantism in so many respects -- ecclesial, theological, liturgical -- it was easy for them to assume that as all churches became one, pretty much everyone else would eventually gravitate to the center and become good Methodists.

A half century later, this spiritual inheritance -- call it "the hubris of inclusion" -- is on powerful display as leaders from across North America scramble to salvage the denomination. Many United Methodists are horrified at the outcomes of February 2019 General Conference of the Church.* In response, conversations have sprung up across the denomination to protect and preserve the "center" of the church. Mainstream UMC, formed originally to support the One Church Plan that was endorsed by a majority of UMC Bishops, is continuing its work in advance of the upcoming 2020 General Conference. A group calling themselves Uniting Methodists are dreaming of a church "that, instead of mirroring the painful polarization of the world around us, is united in our faith, mission, and ministry (Ephesians 4:1-6) while honoring diversity of conscience and practices given the varied contexts in which we serve (Acts 15:1-29)." Leaders working under the banner of UMC Next are bringing "centrists" and "progressives" together to "build a church which affirms the full participation of all ages, nations, races, classes, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities."  UMC Next leaders who participated in a large gathering in Kansas City in May declared, "We affirm the sacred worth of LGBTQ persons, celebrate their gifts, and commit to being in ministry together."

As a pastor in the United Methodist Church, I celebrate and honor the hard work being done by my colleagues who perceive themselves to be at the ideological center of the denomination. But these efforts are marked intrinsically, inescapably, by the hubris of inclusion.  This hubris is sometimes communicated explicitly, sometimes more implicitly, but the message is always the same: the (inherited, culturally-bound) church is the one that does the affirming and including, and "others" are the ones who get affirmed and included.   The Inclusive Church is the agent in the transaction, and the ones to be affirmed and included are people who get acted on.

This spirit is inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not act on people as an agent of inclusion, but challenged them to claim their own agency, to rise to the fullest expression of who God had called them to be. Those who gathered in large crowds to hear his preaching on the mount and on the plain were not told to enroll in membership classes, they were sent back to their homes to share with others what they had heard and experienced. (see, for instance, the sequence of stories in Matthew 8)  The good news Jesus proclaimed to individuals was customized to the circumstances of each. To some he said "repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15) To others he said, "go and sin no more." (John 8:11) To some he said "your faith has made you well. Go in Peace." (Luke 8:48) Some he called to leave their lives behind and follow him. (Matthew 16:24)  But even this was understood by his closest followers to be a life of radical "send-out-edness," the life of apostleship ("ex-apostello" in the Greek). (Acts 22:21) Jesus was more preoccupied with "sending out" than he was with "gathering in." 

Although it is hard for good, faithful church-folk to understand, Jesus's essential invitation was not to join his movement, much less to join an organization or institution.  His essential invitation was to embrace a calling that he saw as distinctive to each child of God. "The kingdom of God is not something that can be observed," he told the Pharisees, according to Luke, "the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21) The Inclusive Church is preoccupied with things that can be observed, things like worship attendance and size of annual budget.  Every institution needs its "measurables," but these benchmarks are signs of movement from the outside inward, of the capability to attract and include others within the orbit of the church. The idol is "large congregations" and "growing churches." "How many people does your church worship?" is the question asked by the Inclusive Church. Note that even worshipers are acted on. This is not the vernacular of Jesus, who was much more preoccupied with healing and forgiving and feeding and sending people than he was with "worshiping" them. Jesus was more preoccupied with "sending out" than he was with "gathering in." 

The Inclusive Church celebrates Methodism's founder, John Wesley, as a great champion of Christian unity and a "Catholic Spirit."  But in his famous sermon of this title, Wesley made clear that he was much more invested in a "union of affection" than he was in "an entire external union." Formal ecclesial union was of secondary importance to Wesley, and by a long shot.  His mission was not that of building up an institution, but rather that of "spreading scriptural holiness over the land" and "raising up a holy people." The trajectory of these early expressions of purpose -- what today we would call mission statements -- is outward, not inward. The early Methodists understood that Jesus was more preoccupied with "sending out" than he was with "gathering in." 

The Inclusive Church is preoccupied with the ecclesial metaphor of the body, a metaphor that invites us to see any separation or division as causing pain and harm. But Jesus never refers to his movement as a body. Paul is the great champion of the metaphor of the body, and this is no surprise, for he was trying to hold nascent communities together across differences of ethnicity and religious custom.  In John's gospel, Jesus says "I am the Way," a metaphor that evokes a journey, and a journey that sometimes requires leaving things behind (John 14:6) And again he says, "I am the Vine," a metaphor that invites growth precisely by sprouting, branching and dividing. (John 15:5)  Jesus was more preoccupied with "sending out" shoots and branches than he was with "gathering in" to fill storehouses of some imagined church.

According to Matthew's gospel, Jesus excoriated those who practice religious exclusion, but he did not tell his followers to "include," nor to seek to "be included" (the word appears nowhere in the gospels).  He told them to love the Lord their God and to love their neighbor as themselves. (Matthew 22:36-40)  He warned them first and foremost against hypocrisy and religiosity. (Matthew 23) He understood the category of "neighbor" in a radical and expansive way, but he did not presume that one had to be a part of his movement to grasp this understanding.  (Matthew 25) Having told his close followers earlier, "whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it," (Matthew 16:25), he demonstrated what this was like by taking, blessing, breaking and sharing bread with them, saying, "this is my body ... do this in remembrance of me." (Matthew 26) As the risen Christ, he addressed his closest followers, challenging them to "go and instruct all kinds of people, baptizing them in the name of the Father." (Matthew 28:18-20).**  Jesus was more preoccupied with "sending out" than he was with "gathering in."

This is what Methodists should be seeking as we head into the middle decades of the twenty-first century, to rediscover this way of being a church that is more preoccupied with sending out than it is with gathering in.  To do this we must first repent of and abandon our inherited hubris, the hubris of the American "mainline," the hubris of inclusion that presumes our principal task is getting "others" to join "us." We must get over the illusion that "inclusion" is a sufficient goal, that the Church's primary task is that of "including" those we think need to be "included."

To discover the kingdom of God anew, we must get back to Jesus's work of baptizing and discipling, of feeding and healing, of repenting and forgiving, of reconciling and peacemaking and sending. In all this our primary goal cannot be our staying together.  Some presently among us will stay and some will go, some will remain and some will be sent; this is good and as it should be. The United Methodist Church -- the "unofficial national church" of the United States --  needs to be taken, blessed, broken and given to the world.

The evangelist Mark shares with his readers the story of the daughter of Jairus, a leader in the Synagogue. When other supposed her to be dead, Jesus "took her by the hand and said to her, 'Talitha koum!',which means 'Little girl, I say to you, get up!'” (Mark 5: 35-43) In this moment of foretelling his own resurrection by practicing resurrection in the moment, Jesus's foremost concern was clearly not the well-being of some imagined church.  His foremost concern was the well-being of the little girl, and he did not presume that her well-being meant her "inclusion" in his movement.  This should be the concern of all of us who understand ourselves to be ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the "getting up" of God's people, first and foremost those who have been left for dead by our own denomination.  But just as Jesus did not presume it, neither should we presume that "getting up" means joining, or preserving, an Inclusive Church. 

************ NOTES

* Legislation approved by the Conference would create a rigid regime of punishment for four categories of persons: for "out" LGBTQ persons seeking ordination, for "out" clergy presently serving under episcopal appointment, for clergy who would celebrate same-gender weddings, and for Bishops who would ordain "out" pastors in the church. The legislation is widely and rightly being called mean-spirited, and it is widely and rightly being criticized as a radical departure from the Methodist tradition of placing authority for ordination and clergy discipline in the hands of Annual Conferences and Bishops.

** I prefer this translation (my own) to the more familiar "make disciples of all nations," because Jesus's command is really not about "making" people into something and it is really not about "nations," as we think of them today.