The Authenticity Impulse

Yesterday a Facebook post told the story of a United Methodist pastor whose license was revoked for performing a same sex marriage. http://wlos.com/news/offbeat/chattanooga-pastor-fired-for-officiating-same-sex-wedding

I quote the story directly "She said that her commitment to be their pastor meant that she should be with them through this day."

If you follow stories like these you’ll note that this theme “commitment to be their pastor” is quite common. Pastoral commitment to a same-sex couple demands being pastor at their wedding. 

Let’s look at another story. “Two big churches seek to leave denomination.” http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/2-big-churches-seek-exit-from-denomination

Again a quote, "Lead pastors of both churches expressed frustration with the denomination’s intensifying homosexuality debate, calling it a “distraction” from ministry.” And Rev. Bryan Collier, “we can reach even more people for Christ if we weren’t distracted by this argument.”

Although the pastor(s) performing same-sex marriage and those leading their congregations out of the denomination come from completely opposite sides of the current debates in the UMC they have something in common. They are essentially congregationalists, concerned with serving their congregations and leading a congregational mission undistracted by the larger denominational conflicts.

This focus on having a primary responsibility to congregation and its mission is at odds with the ecclesial tradition of which Methodism is a part. In the Methodist tradition, stretching to John Wesley’s refusal to be bound to a parish, serving a congregation is just an instance of serving the Methodist mission. And sometimes that mission means confronting rather than comforting a congregation and its members.

Similarly congregations are a missional outpost of the United Methodist church. They don’t exist for themselves, or for their sense of congregational mission, but to serve the mission of the larger church. And the pastor’s job is precisely to keep the congregation engaged in that larger church, not to lead it out.

In both cases responsibility to the larger church which creates both pastors and congregations for its purposes may mean that personal and congregational goals and purposes are thwarted. But of the many reasons that the UMC ordains clergy and creates congregations, self-realization isn’t one of them. 

Now I fully expect that a lot of folks across the spectrum don’t like this analysis of where they and their congregations stand in relation to the larger church. There is a difficult and sometimes painful balancing act when one is called to serve two competing goods. Neither pastors nor congregations, or anybody for that matter, likes to have their ministry or mission rendered less effective or even denigrated through guilt by association.

Yet in the end we humans are not individuals but social creatures. Every individual draws his or her identity from those with whom he or she has chosen to, or is even forced to associate. We don’t get to create ourselves. And every small society (and even mega-churches are small societies) is part of a much larger and more complex social context. It doesn’t get to create itself either. 

I think traditionally Methodists (and thus United Methodists) have understood this. But as the representative stories above show, we may be forgetting and thus join the individualist, and thus congregationalist, impulse that has always animated part of American culture. 

It remains an open question what will be the most effective form of witness in our present cultural context. Ours is a context that strongly associates ethical credibility with personal authenticity. And the quest for authenticity is manifest in everything from pastors who feel compelled to act against the teaching of the church to congregations whose authenticity is threatened by association with those pastors.