Our church is fighting in public. Again. This month – this week in particular – it’s a church trial in Pennsylvania. Rev. Frank Schaefer is on trial for officiating at the wedding of his son, who is gay. 
Currently our United Methodist Book of Discipline, in a feat of fence-sitting “balance,” considers every human regardless of sexuality to be an individual of “sacred worth” but maintains that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” We do not allow people to be clergy if they are “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” but we hold fast to (most) civil rights for LGBT people and unequivocally condemn violence against them . Our churches are not permitted to host weddings for same-sex couples, neither are our pastors permitted to officiate at these weddings.
It’s an uncomfortable fence and we have been straddling it for a while.
The basic details in the Schaefer trial are this: His son asked him to officiate at his wedding and Schaefer agreed. The pastor told his district superintendent but not his congregation. Life and ministry went on. Over 5 years later – in the month when the statute of limitations would have expired for this “offense” – a member of Schaefer’s church filed a complaint. The member, Jon Boger, was by this point living in another state and not involved in any church congregation but his membership was still on record at Schaefer’s church. Boger’s mother worked at the church and had recently been fired.
Many have noticed the unusual timing of Boger’s complaint (many years after the wedding but just in time to cause trouble) and his own anger and presumed retaliation over his mother’s job loss. It certainly explains a lot.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t explain why we went ahead with a trial clearly forged out of anger and vengeance but that just happened to have an actual complaint wrapped up in the middle. If the Council of Bishops has “discretion as the chief pastors of the church over the manner, purpose, and conduct of any supervisory response and just resolution under ‘fair process’” then they have missed a golden opportunity to exercise that discretion – especially given the retaliatory nature of the so-called complaint. To make it even plainer: If Boger had expressed his true complaint (i.e.,” You fired my mom!”) and this wouldn’t have gone to trial, why did it proceed? A genuinely contentious and heartbreaking issue has been hijacked to serve another purpose and the Council sat by while it played out.
Something else bothering me throughout conversations about this trial is the well-meaning but theologically insubstantial point that Schaefer did this wedding for his own son. This line of reasoning seems to posit that since it was a family matter, charges, punishments, and what’s at state theologically and pastorally are different. Indeed, Schaefer may be speaking in a mixed way about both his duty as a father and his duty as a pastor – and who could blame him?
But for those of us observing and praying and talking about this from a few steps back, I find it dangerous to talk about pastoral-priestly actions clergy take within their own families as somehow separate from their vocation and ordination “to the rest of us.” I am a pastor all the time but it is dangerous to think of myself as a pastor to my husband, for example. That is not my role in that relationship. This doesn’t mean we never officiate at funerals or weddings or baptisms within our own families, but it does require greater clarity on the part of the pastor as to her motivations and role in those moments.
In the terms I hear Jesus using (“Woman here is your son”; “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”), he more often points us outside of our intimate and familial circles to those unrelated by blood, even those we don’t yet know or like or understand. In theological terms, “he was doing it for his own son” seems to hold less water than “he did it for a church member” or “he did it for a person from the neighborhood who he didn’t know previously.”
I say this not to diminish Schaefer’s actions but to ask all of us to consider the terrain more closely. The argument that the church should go easy on him because he “just” did this for his son is a weak argument and not theologically sound. The body of Christ forms us into a new family, creating brothers and sisters where before there were strangers. The body of Christ does not call us to close ranks and minister to those closest to us but rather to extend the good news of Christ’s gospel to people and places where we are uncomfortable, challenged, or even afraid to go.
It seems clear to me Schaefer was acting both as a loving father and a minister of the gospel when he agreed to officiate at his son’s wedding. He has said, “I did not want to make this a protest about the doctrine of the church. I wasn’t trying to be an advocate. I just wanted this to be a beautiful family affair, and it was that.” His ongoing concern for where his congregation is on these issues, even as he sought to minister to his son and respond to the call of the gospel, strikes me as pastoral (not cowardly or culpable as Boger and others might imply). Schaefer has also said, “I love the United Methodist Church. I’ve been a minister for almost 20 years and there are so many good things about the United Methodist Church except for that one rule.”
I support what Schaefer did, along with the actions of Bishops Swenson and Talbert and the group effort of solidarity earlier this month elsewhere in Pennsylvania. I want our church to get off the fence and I want us to match our actions and our Discipline to the radically inclusive and norm-breaking love of Christ. Of course, I want us to get off the fence in one particular direction: full inclusion of all people in the full life of the church.
I have no idea if this will happen or when. But I write about it and I pray for it. And I pray we United Methodists will remember both Jesus and John Wesley, who said, “As to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.” The sexuality issues we are fighting about are not at the root of Christianity. But to refuse full inclusion in the body of Christ to our brothers and sisters chops right into the root and threatens to sever it. It’s a refusal to see Jesus for who he is (Matthew 25: 31-46).
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photo credit: public domain
I very much appreciate Pastor Lewis’s insights in this blog post.
At the same time, I wish our analysis and reflection would take on a wider scope.
It seems to me the problem is really much larger than than simply the response of the UMC to same-gender love. It is an institution that over the last 50+ years has moved from being a champion of the rights of people of color, international human rights and economic justice, a recognition of Palestinians’ right to a homeland, and on and on … to being now a lackluster institution in virtually every respect, hobbled not by the conscientious theologically conservative but by an intolerant right wing whose agenda is about exclusion and limitation. It’s exacerbated, ironically, by the large presence of African and Asian delegates to the General Conference, who understandably react with bewilderment, disappointment and anger when the biblical literalism and near-fundamentalism taught to them by US missionaries in generations past seems to be rejected by a large portion of that same church.
Thank you for this. You are right on and, of course, our global relationships are part of the problem (or solution) here. Our steadier, more robust social justice past shames our current “stances.”
Such good and true thinking here, Deborah.
In your last paragraph, you point to where the real heat and conflict lie. “The sexuality issues we are fighting about are not at the root of Christianity” – I agree with this. But the problem is that for many people it obviously is at the root, because of how they read and understand Scripture. This is what has made this feel like an intractable situation to me – there is a division between people based on what we understand the Bible to be, and what we understand it to say. We divide ourselves based on what we think of as core, and all of us see our core as the real core and everything else as non-essential. So I like what John Wesley says, but who gets to decide what’s at the root of Christianity?
Thanks, Stacey. For UMs we consider these to be at the root of Christianity and, as it says there, we consider these to be held in common with all Christian communities, at least historically. For me this really opens it up a bit beyond the current circular conversations. This isn’t about Christ being fully human and fully divine or about understandings of a Trinitarian God, which would be root issues. But then again, if we still can’t read the Bible together we still have a problem. You say it well when you point out that we don’t agree on “what we understand the Bible to be and what we understand it to say.” It’s interesting to me that in our list of “root things” the Bible is one of several. We consider it a primary authority, but clearly not the only part of the root and this still leaves open to question how we understand it (and then we give four ways to understand it).
I love it that the UMC actually has a list of what is core and it’s labeled “Our Christian Roots.” That’s excellent and does make it easier to say what’s not essential.
Though of course the problem still is in how people see that part of the Roots that is the Bible. I would say that people on all sides agree that the Bible is the Word of God and is authoritative for faith and practice. But then we part ways on what that means and on what it is saying authoritatively. You and I believe that it authoritatively states that to follow Jesus is to be radically inclusive and norm-breaking with our love (I love those two things you have lifted up – now THAT feels core, for sure). But so many believe just as fervently that what it says authoritatively is that homosexual practice is a sin, period, and therefore inclusivity can include welcoming the person but not affirming their practice. Etc.
Sometimes I wish we could just divide our denominations along the lines of how we come down on how to interpret Scripture (on this and other issues), so that like-minded UMC, Baptist, Presbys, Epis, etc., could all line up with their like-minded siblings and just get on with being church.
Even as things are denominationally, you do help me get on with the business of being church! It would be interesting to see how many UMs would come up with these (even as general categories) as roots/core. It seems the things we fight about gather more steam and appear more relevant to people’s lives these days. I can’t think of a single example of people I know arguing about the Three-in-One. Don’t know if that’s because we aren’t preaching and teaching and talking about core theology and doctrine enough or if maybe the ancient teachings sound too ancient, without more modern words or concepts to help people latch on….Just musing here.
I am a 66 yr old grandmother and have been a Methodist my entire life. My last parent died this last Feb and with him, the last member of our family who was a “homophobe” albeit loving one. All his life my father never knew his own brother, who passed before him, was gay. I am shocked that my faith will not allow friends of mine to marry. That way of life, and fear, should be gone from our society as it is now gone from my own family.
Thank you for this. My hope is we won’t have to wait for a literal “death wave” for this to be resolved. We believe in a God who brings life out of death — every time. I hope for this in the deepest parts of our spirits now (before our actual deaths) so we can experience the wonders of that transformation and resurrected living as a faithful and renewed body of Christ.
This was an interesting case indeed. I have several UMC classmates who have been talking about the trial, but I failed to hear about the accuser. I have always thought UMC somewhat progressive. The UMC has made strides that many other denominations have not. As another commenter mentioned, it seems so strange the UMC has yet to fully dive in to support same sex unions with such a social justice consciousness. On the bright side, his conviction is causing much needed dialogue in mainline denominations.
Thanks for being part of the conversation!