Power-Mad and Punch-Drunk

The desire for power is a curse on all it touches. Just look at the UMC. 

What United Methodists have been fighting over is a mythological “Christian” marriage, a myth promulgated by early institutional Christianity in order to gain, and more recently keep control of a secular, and notably universal, form of human relationship. In reality there is no such thing as a Christian marriage. there are only Christians that are married. 

Some key points. 1. In scripture marriage clearly predates Noah, and the command to be faithful in marriage is part of a universal covenant with all humankind. 2. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find that Christ is particularly present in some marriages as opposed to others, so as to justify a distinctive category of “Christian.” 

Paul describes the marriage relationship in terms of Christ’s relationship to the church, but he never suggests that such a description applies only to those married in a church by some kind of Christian leader. Indeed the idea is absurd, since the vast majority of his readers would have been adult converts already married by whatever custom governed their society. But let’s look at specifics. Did Anna and Sapphira have a Christian marriage? Cornelius? The mother and grandmother of Timothy? The apostles? Mary and Joseph?

Did Jesus ever marry or perform a marriage? No. Did one of the apostles? No. Did any of them ever suggest that marriage was a sacrament? No. Does the Bible anywhere suggest that marriages were to take place in the presence of the Christian community? No.

Jesus cared about marriage just as he cared about other social institutions, but he didn’t invent it.

Marriage is social institution celebrated and confirmed in thousands of different cultures involving all kinds of religious and cultural sanctions. Does the Bible suggest that any of these are not valid marriages? Do we allow Christian converts to walk away from their “non-Christian” spouses with no further responsibility? If two Christians are married by a judge is it a Christian marriage subject to regulation by the church?

And please do not get started on “tradition.” Tradition was celibate priests until the Reformation. It was no ordination of women in the UMC until the 1950’s. It was no divorce and no remarriage (and remains so in much of the Christian world.) Tradition is a voice with no vote that United Methodists listen to until we no longer like what it says. Calling on it to authorize our participation in an institution not mandated in scripture is specious. 

The debate about marriage is about the claim of the UMC to have power over a social institution it did not create and does not maintain. We don’t issue marriage licenses, grant divorces, deal with common property, manage child welfare or custody. We just claim that marriage is somehow ours to define. 

The intensity of the debate in the US comes about because the secular society has now completely broken the power of the church over this institution by legalizing of same sex marriage. Now powerless, we still try to claim some last grasp on power by regulating the clergy relationship to marriage. We have pragmatically given up on the laity who pay the bills and thus have actual power.

The last General Conference of the UMC was in many ways a farce: children fighting over who has a right to hold the reins of their imaginary pet dragon. But of course it was carried on by deadly serious grownups made childish by their delusions of having and desire to wield power.  But like children, all we can do in our struggles for power is hurt each other. And particularly the LGBTQI community. But we are, after 50 years, punch drunk and reeling while the grownups with the real power; the politicians and judges and businesspeople don’t even bother to care about our decisions. Nothing that happened in St Louis will have or could have the faintest effect on any social structure in the world. 

We need to realize in this heaven-sent secular world, God’s greatest gift to the Church, what being Christian actually entails in terms of witness in a social context. And it is not to Christianize. Christendom was an experiment doomed to failure. “My kingdom is not of this world.” When pastors and bishops begin hanging around at coronations and trying to get the seat next to Pilate the rot has already infected the church. Prayers in Congress are not a witness to Jesus Christ, except as he stands in chains before Rome’s emmisary. Pastors in the Whitehouse are not a witness to Christ except to evoke Paul before Agrippa, except now a fawning, subservient anti-Paul begging for Rome’s ratification of his ministry and a share in imperial power. 

And most importantly - A pastor’s signature on a marriage license only bows to the ability of the government to jerk our chains while we seek a share in its power. Pastors can’t regain their independence by refusing to sign some legal documents; they sold themselves to power the first time they acknowledged that the government, and not they, confects a marriage. They are only witnesses. Can a UM pastor sign a marriage license now that same-sex marriage can be made legal under that same license? Apparently so. You see, we’ve already caved in long ago. 

And blessing a marriage? Only if in doing so we witness to Christ, and the UMC has given up that ability through a succession of General Conferences. By making marriage the central theme in a battle for ecclesial power, as a tool for gaining political advantage, the UMC has lost any credibility it might have in witnessing to Christ through its “blessing” of marriage. We have by our actions cursed marriage.  

All we can do now is repent. But I’m not holding my breath.