For the
past several years I have been a volunteer mediator with New York State Unified Court System's Community Dispute
Resolution Centers Program.
My role is to help parents have the best conversation they can have about how
to jointly parent their children, once they are no longer sharing the same
household. Often these parents are able to come to agreement about how to
organize time and care for their children. Sometimes one of the parties leaves the
conversation abruptly. Sometimes parties decide to submit the decision-making to
Family Court.
Since the
Special Session of General Conference, I have been thinking a lot about the
ways in which the situation we face as a denomination is similar to the
situation separated parents face in coming to agreement on a parenting plan for
their children. In particular, I am reminded of a mediation session with a
couple who needed to revise the parenting arrangements to which they had
previously agreed. Within moments of the start of the conversation they found
themselves in a heated back and forth, quickly exchanging accusations and
recalling past hurts and betrayals. But soon – without any real intervention on
my part – the conversation calmed, and they began to settle into the
cooperative task of setting a weekly custodial schedule and allocating holiday
times for each of them to be with their children.
The Special
Session of General Conference was a very heated conversation. Accusations,
recollections of hurts and betrayals, and attempts to shift blame came to the
fore. It became clear to me that the dominant motive of many of the speakers on
the floor was to win control of the denomination. To my mind, the One Church
Plan (or the Simple Plan) was proposed not as a way for progressives to win,
but to allow room within the denomination for those with differing views on
human sexuality to have space to live out their position. However, it also
became clear to me, that supporters of the Traditional Plans did not believe
that the One Church Plan gave them the room that they wanted (or needed). And
in the end, it does not matter what I think that they ought to believe. I
cannot convince or change them at this point in the midst of the conflict.
Perhaps we
as United Methodists are not yet ready to turn from our conversation based in
our grief, our hurt feelings, our outrage at injustice and the harm done by
traditionalists, our sense of betrayal, a belief that our denomination has been
stolen by fundamentalists, and our fear that we and our friends are going to be
unjustly treated by the enforcement of new Disciplinary rules. All this is real
and important. Yet, as important as this conversation is, we must also engage
in another conversation.
If I had an
opening to intervene in the heated conversation between the parents I
mentioned, I might have used an intervention called a “check in.” Again, my job
as a mediator is to help the parties have the best conversation they can have, not
to control the conversation. In that spirit, I might ask, “You’ve spent some
time talking about hurts and disappointments. Would you like to continue to
talk about these topics, or would you prefer to work on coming up with a weekly
parenting schedule?” In offering an opportunity for the parties to refocus, I
empower them to make a choice about how they want to use the time to engage one
another. They do not have to be locked into a primary agenda of blame and
accusation. Each parent may still carry the same hurts and disagreements that remain,
but the focus turns toward the task of managing how they move forward.
Parents try
to create and live up to joint parenting agreements for a variety of reasons,
but certainly one reason is their recognition that they are stewards of
precious and vulnerable children. Even after the parents have split up, they
share responsibility for their children. Parents remain connected through their
children. Most parents feel obliged to share the care of their children despite
the failings and misdeeds they attribute to their former partners.
Our
connectional polity makes it difficult for us United Methodists to disentangle
ourselves from one another. We, along with our traditionalist fellow United
Methodists, are jointly stewards of some precious and vulnerable persons and
institutions. We have local churches and members thereof. We have agencies that
fight for justice on many fronts, ministries of compassion that help hurting
and desperate people. We have camps and conference centers, chaplaincies, and
ecumenical partnerships with important ministries. We have a Wesleyan theology
that still has something to offer to the larger Church.
What sort
of “parenting plan” will we agree on? How will we proceed to take proper care
of the precious and vulnerable persons and institutions that are entrusted to
the United Methodist Church?
Some have
said that we have been having the same conversation around human sexuality for
47 years. That is simply not true. It is true that the parties have come to a stalemate
with respect to many of the theological and doctrinal arguments. More
important, however, is the fact that we now have many called and gifted queer
pastors and lay persons, whose contributions are no longer closeted, but
visible for all to see. We have come to know gay couples in our congregations who
are clear examples of the Spirit’s fullness. These people have grown up within
our church, or have chosen to join our church as adults, despite the fact that
we have such hurtful language in our Book of Discipline that attempts to compel
unjust, exclusionary practices. [Note: It is this development that has made
Traditionalists feel disempowered and led to their reactive attempt to double
down on punitive measures, as they become increasingly self-absorbed, refusing
to see the fruit of the Spirit’s activity among us.]
It is true that, as positions
become entrenched, the theological argument becomes increasingly less helpful. Traditionalists
feel increasingly disempowered by increasing conscientious disobedience among
progressives and the steady growth of LGBTQIA membership. Progressives fear
increasing disempowerment in the wake of the actions of the traditionalists at
the Special General Conference. Our mutual self-absorption and mistrust make a
convincing arguments for our positions futile at this stage. It is time to
check in with ourselves about the most helpful and appropriate conversation we
need to have with our counter-parties going forward. We are free to have
another, different conversation.
A foundational
issue between separated parents is whether custody of their children will be
joint or whether one of the parents will have sole custody. Roughly speaking,
sole custody means that one parent has the decision-making power over the
children. Joint custody means that both parents will share in making important
decisions. Neither will have full control. A decision for joint custody entails
that the parents will need to work together to share decision-making, even when
they have experienced hurt and betrayal from the other parent.
The Special
General Conference was a heated conversation with each party fighting for sole
custody. The Special General Conference was a clarifying moment in which we
learned that neither side can win sole custody. The progressives do not have
the votes to pass the One Church (or Simple) Plan convincingly. Neither do the traditionalists
have a constitutional way to impose their will on those who believe differently.
Again, I believe traditionalists are mistaken in thinking they cannot live with
the One Church Plan. But I cannot force them to realize that. Perhaps it’s time we considered joint
custody; a way to share the responsibility for the care of that with which we
have been entrusted.
How shall
we responsibly share that responsibility? I believe that something like the
Connectional Conference Plan allows us to separate in a way that allows us to
have a quasi-denomination (or we might think of it as an Order) that empowers bishops,
jurisdictions and central conferences, annual conferences, local churches,
clergy, and lay people, to choose a congenial connectional home.
This connectional plan honors that
we are stewards with joint responsibilities to safeguard vulnerable and
important persons and institutions. It invites us to shift the conversation
from an "all or nothing" argument
about who is right to seeking a way forward that is equitable and makes space for
groups of people who disagree to live out their call as they understand it.
This is
certainly not a perfect solution. Traditionalists will continue to live out
what I take to be their mistaken and harmful theology. Under the traditionalist
plan they will continue to live that out under a United Methodist umbrella. If
I had the power to keep that from happening, I might want to do so. But I
don’t. If the One Church Plan had passed, perhaps many traditionalists would
have left, and the United Methodist Church would have become more congenial to
progressives. But that did not happen.
Theoretically,
progressives might leave and start their own denomination. But the legal and
administrative costs are significant. The Connectional Conference Plan offers
as close to a turnkey operation as we are likely to get.
Finally, we
may find that once we stop trying to impose our wills and consciences on one
another, we will be able to have a more fruitful theological argument. Our
conversations across connectional conferences may surprise us. I believe that
in so doing our witness as progressives will be more creative and stronger.
