Thoughts on "Pastoral Discretion"
What Ruling #1032 "May" Mean for the United
Methodist Church
As a United Methodist pastor, I find this ruling by
the Judicial Council to be deeply troubling. They have ruled that senior pastors
have the sole discretion to admit or to not a admit someone into church
membership. But it seems to me they have parsed the word "may" in a
manner that could not have been intended by those who wrote it into the Discipline. Clearly the writers of this
Disciplinary language meant the language in the sense of "you may sit down," and
not "you may or may not sit down."
But they have turned "may," a positive and inclusive term, on its logical head.
Further, this ruling opens up a Pandora's Box of possible exclusions, as well as having limited the power of Bishops and District Superintendents to offer pastoral supervision for individual pastors. I understand that this is one of the issues that troubled the Council of Bishops greatly during the past few days. And I commend heartily their response. They could have simply responded in concern about the issue of their own supervisory authority being ursurped. But they did not. They went far beyond this to specifically address the issue of the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church. If you have not read their pastoral letter on this situation, I commend it to you (Read it here) Not only did they respond by raising this concern about "discretion," but they also made it clear that, to their mind, a United Methodist Church may NOT exclude someone based on homosexuality.
This pastoral letter they released yesterday came unanimously; .from a group that is know to have widely differing views on the issues of homosexuality and the church. I commend them for their unanimous voice in this matter, and I hope and pray they will publicly call for the Judicial Council to reconsider its decision.
The Pandora's Box of pastoral discretion seems to be limitless. What are the excluding factors that might prevent someone from being received into a United Methodist Church by a pastor?
-- Political views?
-- Making controversial statements?
-- Being a smoker get you excluded? (The Discipline speaks against it...)
-- Being divorced?
Certainly these examples will strike you as absurd. However, in this ruling, discretion is completely undefined. Given this, it seems that the decisions an individual pastor makes could be all over the map. The church I pastor tends to be progressive in nature. Can I exclude a fan of George Bush? Should I? I don't think I should, and I can tell you that I most certainly would NOT. (We DO have fans of George Bush in our congregation, and I'm glad for them!) But doesn't this decision seem to say that I could if I wanted to?!! Or, what about folks who are for the war? The United Methodist Church is explicit in its opposition to war. What if someone is "for" the current war? Could they be excluded?
You can see, from just a cursory few examples, that discretion is a Pandora's Box. My immediate worry, as I stated in my pastoral response, is that homophobic pastors will take this ruling well beyond its limits...perhaps even going on "witch hunts" of their current members. This would be wrong and should be condemned by everyone.
It seems to me that the Judicial Council SHOULD have done, in Decision #1032, is to allow the fact of pastoral discretion, but to say that, in this case, the pastor's actions were an abuse of pastoral discretion. Surely there is a place for the Judicial Council to rule that certain "discretions" by a pastor fall into the area of "abuse of discretion."
I will speak to this idea of "abuse of discretion" in my next post, where I call on the Judicial Council to reconsider their decision
.
But they have turned "may," a positive and inclusive term, on its logical head.
Further, this ruling opens up a Pandora's Box of possible exclusions, as well as having limited the power of Bishops and District Superintendents to offer pastoral supervision for individual pastors. I understand that this is one of the issues that troubled the Council of Bishops greatly during the past few days. And I commend heartily their response. They could have simply responded in concern about the issue of their own supervisory authority being ursurped. But they did not. They went far beyond this to specifically address the issue of the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church. If you have not read their pastoral letter on this situation, I commend it to you (Read it here) Not only did they respond by raising this concern about "discretion," but they also made it clear that, to their mind, a United Methodist Church may NOT exclude someone based on homosexuality.
This pastoral letter they released yesterday came unanimously; .from a group that is know to have widely differing views on the issues of homosexuality and the church. I commend them for their unanimous voice in this matter, and I hope and pray they will publicly call for the Judicial Council to reconsider its decision.
The Pandora's Box of pastoral discretion seems to be limitless. What are the excluding factors that might prevent someone from being received into a United Methodist Church by a pastor?
-- Political views?
-- Making controversial statements?
-- Being a smoker get you excluded? (The Discipline speaks against it...)
-- Being divorced?
Certainly these examples will strike you as absurd. However, in this ruling, discretion is completely undefined. Given this, it seems that the decisions an individual pastor makes could be all over the map. The church I pastor tends to be progressive in nature. Can I exclude a fan of George Bush? Should I? I don't think I should, and I can tell you that I most certainly would NOT. (We DO have fans of George Bush in our congregation, and I'm glad for them!) But doesn't this decision seem to say that I could if I wanted to?!! Or, what about folks who are for the war? The United Methodist Church is explicit in its opposition to war. What if someone is "for" the current war? Could they be excluded?
You can see, from just a cursory few examples, that discretion is a Pandora's Box. My immediate worry, as I stated in my pastoral response, is that homophobic pastors will take this ruling well beyond its limits...perhaps even going on "witch hunts" of their current members. This would be wrong and should be condemned by everyone.
It seems to me that the Judicial Council SHOULD have done, in Decision #1032, is to allow the fact of pastoral discretion, but to say that, in this case, the pastor's actions were an abuse of pastoral discretion. Surely there is a place for the Judicial Council to rule that certain "discretions" by a pastor fall into the area of "abuse of discretion."
I will speak to this idea of "abuse of discretion" in my next post, where I call on the Judicial Council to reconsider their decision
.
Posted: Friday - November 04, 2005 at 04:57 PM |
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Published On: May 05, 2008 04:46 PM
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Published On: May 05, 2008 04:46 PM