Is acceptance of same-sex unions in the liberal dominated,
Mainline Protestant churches inevitable? Not necessarily.
The 2.9 million member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) just
concluded a grueling vote among its 173 presbyteries across
America over whether to delete its requirement that church
officials uphold “fidelity within the covenant of marriage
between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” And to the
surprise of many disappointed liberals and relieved
traditionalists, the biblical standard was upheld, by a final
vote of 95-78.
Liberal caucus groups insisted they had gained ground. But the
original vote ratifying the requirement 12 years ago was not much
different: 97-74. As my Presbyterian colleague Alan Wisdom
describes here, progressives
always claim that inevitable tidal forces of history are behind
their latest causes, same-sex unions just the most recent.
Reinforcing that attitude are often pessimistic and grumpy
conservatives, who sometimes even take grim pleasure in expecting
cultural defeat.
Believers in the God of Christians and Jews should know that
history’s only inevitability is the ultimate triumph of
Providence, whose designs do not always coincide with
contemporary cultural and political fads. But sometimes even
Presbyterians, though ostensibly John Calvin shaped
predestinationists, forget who is history’s final arbiter. Of
course, enthusiasts for same-sex unions will continue to push
within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Possibly they will
eventually win within that numerically declining denomination.
But who knows? Only God.
Opponents of traditional morality have been active for nearly 40
years in all the Mainline churches, which, coincidentally, have
all suffered continuous membership decline over the last four
decades. Perhaps most famously, the 2 million member Episcopal
Church partly caved to the sexual revolution, with its 2003
election of openly homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson. Several
formerly Episcopal dioceses have quit the denomination, along
with over 200 congregations. Together they are forming a new
Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), with over 100,000
members and 700 parishes, whose founding provincial assembly will
convene late this month outside Fort Worth, Texas. Former
Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan is expected to
become its first Archbishop. ACNA will be recognized by numerous
Global South Anglican primates, if not by the Archbishop of
Canterbury himself.
The old Episcopal Church will itself convene in July with its
triennial General Convention in Anaheim, California. Somewhat
surprisingly, even after Bishop Robinson’s election, the
denomination has not formally ratified rites for same-sex unions.
Reluctance to further offend the nearly 80 million member global
Anglican Communion, most of which is now rooted among
conservative Africans, is one factor. The 2006 General
Convention, hoping to mollify the Communion, had even called for
not electing new bishops “whose manner of life presents a
challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on
communion.”
Of course, some liberal Episcopal dioceses have unilaterally
touted same-sex rites. But formal ratification by the General
Convention, speaking for the whole denomination, would more
directly provoke the Anglican Communion and still numerous
conservative dioceses, local churches and individuals who remain
in the Episcopal Church. The church’s House of Bishops, pledged
in 2007 “as a body not to authorize public rites for the blessing
of same-sex unions.” This pledge has not precluded some
individual bishops from blessing same sex unions. Likely the
General Convention will fall short of openly ratifying same sex
rites, while permitting local dioceses to continue as they
please.
Staid Lutherans never get as much attention as the more
flamboyant Episcopalians, but the 4.7 million Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will meet in August at its
quadrennial General Synod in Minneapolis. Currently the ELCA
affirms that “all single rostered people, including those who are
homosexual in their self-understanding, are expected to abstain
from sexual relationships” and, by common understanding,
prohibits same-sex unions. A denominational task force, liberal
dominated as such committees always are, is urging the Synod to
authorize ordination for persons in “lifelong, monogamous,
same-gender relationships.” Wary of following the Episcopal
Church into schism, and cautious by nature, Lutherans may refer
this recommendation to still more stupefying study and dialogue.
More decisively, the 7.9 million (in the U.S.) United Methodist
Church has consistently voted to prohibit same sex unions and
sexually active homosexual clergy, while affirming sex only
within traditional marriage. Its General Conference last year
reaffirmed these stances, but thanks to votes by delegates from
Africa, where there are 3 million United Methodists. Virtually
unique among U.S. Mainline denominations, over a third of United
Methodism’s members are outside the U.S. If current demographic
trends continue, the denomination will have a majority overseas
in the near future.
Liberal United Methodists, most of them from declining churches,
realize they will never persuade conservative Africans. So
liberal bishops and others have proposed partly separating the
U.S. church from the Africans with a new U.S. only “regional
conference” to decide U.S. church business without African
interference. This Spring, local United Methodist conferences in
the U.S. and around the world are voting on this plan. Approval
by two thirds of all individual votes is required, and so far,
the “global segregation plan” is falling short. If it fails,
United Methodism seems dead set against accommodation of same-sex
unions.
Moving in the opposite direction, the 1.1 million United Church
of Christ (UCC) became the only major U.S. denomination formally
to endorse “equal marriage rights for all” at its General Synod
in 2005. It urged local churches “to consider adopting Wedding
Policies that do not discriminate against couples based on
gender.” But the loosely confederated denomination cannot enforce
its policy on member congregations, and probably most local UCC
churches do not celebrate same-sex unions. After the vote, the
UCC’s more traditional Puerto Rican synod voted to withdraw from
the UCC, as did over 250 local churches, helping to make the UCC
one of America’s fastest declining denominations.
Seemingly, if acceptance of same-sex unions is the wave of the
future, then so too is the demographic demise of Christianity.
But history is unpredictable, and traditional Christianity, so
frequently eulogized, is perennially resilient.
