A Messy Methodism

The Special General Conference of the United Methodist Church (#GC2019) concluded this week with a vote to uphold the restrictions on the full participation of LGBTQ+ persons in the life of the church. As a Methodist this decision spawned both grief and rage. How can the church that has nurtured my spiritual growth for so many years, whose motto is "Open Hearts. Open Doors. Open Minds" vote to continue to exclude some of God's children because of their sexual identity? The Methodist church finds itself in a bind. On the one hand we say that we are open and affirm the God given worth of each and every person. On the other hand our church law continues to discriminate based on sexual orientation. This debate has irrevocably damaged our witness to Christ and put our theology under intense scrutiny. We have caused our LGBTQ+  brothers ans sisters great pain. Where do we, the people who are called Methodists, go from here?

As hard as it may be to swallow, the first thing to note is that what we saw at #GC2019 was actually a triumph of Methodist theology. Our theology, based on the everlasting grace of God, is so wide and so all encompassing that it is attractive to a wide range of peoples. Unlike in other denominations, it is difficult to get kicked out of the Methodist church for using your brain to think about God. Bishop Karen Oliveto, in an interview on NPR's Morning Edition, made reference to the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral," wherein we use Scripture, Reason, Experience, and Tradition to think about our faith. Such a flexible expression of faith allows for a great diversity of people to all be part of the same church. And it is this diversity that has caused the trouble. Great diversity is an asset, but governing such a large group of radically diverse people is difficult.

What we saw a #GC2019 was not a failure of our theology, it was a failure of our method of governance.

Studies have shown that peace between diverse peoples is possible only when there are proper boundaries in place between groups. Diversity is valuable to the well-being of institutions and cultures, but diversity must be managed. With proper boundaries and managed scale, power struggles between groups of people are reduced. The United Methodist Church, in valuing "big tent" global diversity, has failed to create proper boundaries. Our method of governance simply creates one large body (800+ delegates) that is expected to create church law that is globally culturally relevant and globally just.  As we saw this week, injustice is the result when diversity at large scale is instituted without proper bourndaries.

The task for the Methodist church going forward is to create a more diverse unity. We can be one church, united under the same theological principles, celebrating the everlasting and all-encompassing grace of God under the same banner. But that banner will need to effectively and justly incorporate the many flavors of belief that spring from our emphases on Scripture, Reason, Experience, and Tradition. The Methodist commitment to diversity is commendable, but we must manage the power dynamics within that diversity by ensuring that the people who are called Methodist, in all of their wonderful difference, can worship in contexts and with rules that are appropriate to who they are.

It is my hope and prayer that the leaders and lay people of the Methodist church will take this challenge seriously. We will look like a radically different church going forward. But if we are to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ we must seriously consider changing how we govern the diverse peoples who worship under the name Methodist.

God’s Infinite Games

I was introduced to the book Finite and Infinite Games [i]by James Carse by the “Games and Game Theory” episode Seth Godin’s podcast Akimbo. The Wikipedia entry on the book has this to say about its content, “There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. Finite games are those instrumental activities - from sports to politics to wars - in which the participants obey rules, recognize boundaries and announce winners and losers. The infinite game - there is only one - includes any authentic interaction, from touching to culture, that changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game. A finite player seeks power; the infinite one displays self-sufficient strength. Finite games are theatrical, necessitating an audience; infinite ones are dramatic, involving participants…”

The properties of the finite game are essentially why it is so difficult to engage political or economic change as an individual or “regular person.” The rules are different. It is a different game from what we are used to engaging in daily life. The finite game is a reinforcing feedback loop, it is one-upmanship and brinkmanship. It produces the prototypical damped sine-wave cycle, wherein a disturbance causes an oscillation about the goal point that decreases over time. The next disturbance sets up the oscillation again. It is the pursuit of the win. It is the game played by the various institutions, businesses, and even churches that order our reality.

Damped sine wave oscillation

We can only access the infinite game, in other words see a glimpse of God, when we cease trying to win, when we begin to live life for the sake of living life well. This was the Israelite’s problem, the reason that they periodically experienced exile and famine of various types. The Levitical code spells out the processes of life, the means of access to God. It uses the language of rule and regulation, but the living out of every minute rule was never the point. The attempt to live perfectly by the Law was the error of the Pharisees. This is also why means of reconciliation are built into the Law. It cannot be followed perfectly. The Law is death, Jesus is quoted as saying. Salvation cannot come through adherence to the Law. But the Law is all that Israel had.

God showed up, became visible, when Israel was focused on the process of living rather than on achieving the specifics of the Law. When Israel cried out to God during their enslavement in Egypt or their exile in Babylon and elsewhere, God listened, became again present to the people, because the process of their living had become so unbearable that they had no choice but to focus again on that process. They ceased their pursuits of power, wealth, and status – the objectives of the finite game – and refocused on the rhythms and processes of life – the focus of the infinite game. It is in the processes of life, in the cycles and liturgies of everyday existence, and in the relationships in which we experience love that we best find God. No amount of winning, no amount of power, no amount of positioning will enable us to find faith or experience God.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games

On Order

The sixth chapter of Ephesians contains one of the most quoted verses in all of the Bible. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”(Ephesians 6:12) The common interpretation of this verse is that people of faith are in (or should be in) a constant struggle with the systems and forces of this world that seek to usurp God’s order and send us all spiraling into chaos and darkness. 

As appealing as this interpretation is, as comforting as it can be to those of us who seek a sense of order and security, I wonder about the broad idea that our struggle is to (help) create order. For one thing, theologians and social scientists have noted that the “powers and principalities” of the earth, though they create many injustices, still serve to maintain an order that is pleasing to God, or, if not pleasing to God, then at least an order that is broadly beneficial to humanity. If our job, as Christians and as human beings, is to struggle against the powers that create a recognizable version of order, where is God? What order is God trying to achieve and would we even recognize it if we saw it?

Question: Is God’s idea of order as limited as our own?

The motion of particles in a fluid seems disorderly and chaotic to us. This type of movement is called brownian motion and is defined thus, "the erratic random movement of microscopic particles in a fluid, as a result of continuous bombardment from molecules of the surrounding medium." We cannot quantify or predict those movements. But if God is who we say God is, the Creator and sustainer of all things, might it be that God is able to comprehend the patterns in the seemingly chaotic? Might God see order where we do not? Might God understand pattern on a level incomprehensible to humanity? Why then do we limit God’s idea of order to what we can calculate or comprehend?

Brownian Motion: image credit "physics.TutorCircle.com"

Convergence:

I am not advocating for the devolution of society into anarchy, but a less managed society can still be orderly, especially if we expand our imagination of what order can be. A messier set of human relationships, defined by a more equitable distribution of power would indeed more chaotic and far more difficult to manage, but if a greater distribution of power leads to more human flourishing then the cost would be worth it. Where can we loosen things up, slacken the grip of order, efficiency, and organization so that God might do more work in the revealed space?

In Between: A King Day Reflection

The Super Blood Wolf Moon was on everyone’s minds last night, at least here on the east coast. I will admit to having slept through it, but I woke this morning to find photos of the spectacle littering my social media feed. As I drove in to work this morning (yes, I have to work today...) I saw that huge moon, still in the sky, competing with the rising sun. The confluence seemed a good metaphor for the man that today’s holiday celebrates and for the unfinished work of racial reconciliation that continues to this day. We are still in between, between the proclamation of the Dream and it’s realization in a new day of peace, justice, and equity. Sometimes the light intrudes upon the night. And sometimes the night intrudes upon the light. And so today, a poem in honor of Dr. King, whose light intrudes upon the night of racism

King Day 2019 (January 21, 2019)

We find ourselves, as ever,

trapped between the coming and the going,

between the rise of day and the setting of night. 

Except in those odd moments, where the two meet,

where Super Moons are obscured, 

their brilliance bloodied by the intrusion of daybreak,

where day and night fight for dominance in the same sky,

out competing one another for the love of heaven and earth. 

And we, terrestrial bound, gaze upon the struggle 

and see in it the beauty 

of both the meeting

and the parting. 

The Gift of the Magi

Epiphany might be over, and with it Christmas, but I am still captivated by the Magi, by these mythic travelers who noticed a celestial event and followed it across deserts and rivers to the place where its light shone down. We tend to think of the coming of the Magi as a wondrous occurrence, and indeed it was. They heralded the birth of Jesus, the king to come, the messiah and savior of the world. They brought him gifts and worshiped him with immense joy.

Yet as I think about their arrival more I wonder if the common narrative of the Magi is flawed. Yes, they brought precious gifts. Yes, they announced the birth of light into a darkened world. But they also triggered a horrific series of events. Immediately following their departure “by another road” Herod slaughtered all of the newborn children in Bethlehem in a fit of rage over not having found Jesus. (Matthew 2:16-18)

Question: What if the most significant gift of the Magi was not the symbolic trinkets that every Sunday School age child can name - gold, frankincense, and myrrh? What if the truest and most valuable gift of the Magi was kicking off the disruption of an unjust and unsustainable order?

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the forces that trigger large scale change in his book The Tipping Point. Among other insights he notes that small changes can have out-sized effects when the circumstances are right. Rather than being triggered by big catastrophes as we might expect, systems most often “tip” or undergo revolution in response to seemingly insignificant events. Think about the British Tea Act which helped to trigger the American Revolution. More recently, the global financial crisis of 2008 was triggered by a relative handful of Americans defaulting on their ballooning mortgages. These are simplified explanations of very complex events, but the basic premise holds. Seemingly minor events can trigger massive disruption and systemic change.

Convergence: The arrival of the Magi was a minor event. They showed up on Herod’s steps and made an inquiry about the birth of a child. But this minor event triggered a series of disruptions and transformations of the contemporary order that resulted, ultimately, in the birth of Christianity and the spread of that faith around the world. The ultimate gift of the Magi was the tipping of a system of empire and religious culture that was made vulnerable by the excesses and fears of the ruling elite.     

Tipping points, unfortunately, cannot be readily predicted. (Perhaps this is fortunate for there are many who would use such knowledge for evil purposes.) No one can know when an economy, a political system, or a culture will suddenly flip. The task for people of faith then, is to remain present, to ask difficult and probing questions of the culture, and to be prepared when a simple action begets out-sized consequences. Any of us is capable of producing a tipping point, of giving the gift of the Magi if we faithfully engage in loving ways. Who knows how our love might tip our neighborhoods, our nation, or even our world.

Emergence

For most people the New Year is a time for reflection on the past twelve months and a time of anticipation of the twelve months to come. It is a time where we decide to discard old habits and beliefs and take up new ones. A common meme that runs around the internet around this time of year fondly (or disgustedly) bids farewell to the year past and welcomes a the year coming with gladness and joy. 

Question: 

In welcoming what’s coming, how do we decide what needs to be discarded and what needs to be kept? 

 

 

Exploration:

One of my favorite words is emergence. Emergence is the creation of something unexpected from an otherwise well-known system. Emergence is the systemic property behind the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Boston can create a hurricane in the Pacific. Emergence is the revelation of complexity in what seems to be a simple system. 

This first Sunday of the year is known as Epiphany Sunday. It is the time when the church celebrates the arrival of the Magi at Christ’s birthplace. It is notable that they went to Jerusalem, to the seat of power, looking for a newborn king. And yet, the people there, those who were supposed to know about such things, had no clue what was happening. Their understanding of their world was simple - there was one king, Herod, and he held the reins of power. 

Convergence: 

Emergence and epiphany collide in the birth of Jesus. Where the official powers saw simplicity and secure control, Jesus emerged as a disruptive force. The epiphany of Jesus drew the Magi whose eyes were open and looking for newness to emerge. 

As we go forward into this new year let us hold on to those things that point us toward what is emerging, what is new, what leads us into epiphany. Discard everything else. We must be like the Magi, keeping our eyes open for signs of emergence. We must also be on the lookout for the Magi, those who come bearing news of vague possibility. Do not send them away to report back. Go with them and see the new thing for yourself so that you can be ready to participate in the emergence. God is always doing a new thing.

Welcome!

Welcome to this new project called Questions and Convergence! This is a place to think about the world we live in and how faith and spirituality weave into our how we live. Here you will find ruminations on scripture, politics, church, economics, theology, and current events among other topics. There will be essays and poetry, maybe even some photography.

About the name - questions are essential. We cannot live life well if we do not learn how to ask questions. Often the answers are less important than the asking. So there will be many, many, many questions asked here. But as important as the questions themselves, is where the questioning leads us. Do they lead us off into corners where we can brood about the world all by ourselves, or do they lead us into community with other thinkers and doers? Do our questions cause us to converge with other good ideas and good people, or do they stifle growth and goodness? My hope here is to ask and explore questions that will lead towards community, good ideas, and, ultimately, a better world.

One last note, the posts here will not always be "timely." Since I am asking difficult questions and seeing where they go, it will often take some time to process the events of our world. (Plus I have a day job so I don't always have time to write in a timely manner.)

I hope you enjoy your time here. Feel free to post responses. We think better when we think together!

Peace,

Nate A.