Methodist Minister Defies Church in “Deeply Personal Act” of Politics (UPDATED)

from Stand Firm by David Fischler http://reformedpastor.wordpress.com

The former dean of the Yale Divinity School, the Rev. Thomas Ogletree, is a supporter of gay marriage. Unfortunately, he isn’t Episcopal or a United Church of Christ. He’s United Methodist, and according to the New York Times, therein lies a problem:

It started out as a deeply personal act, that of a father officiating at the wedding of his son.

But it was soon condemned as a public display of ecclesiastical disobedience, because the father, the Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree, is a minister in the United Methodist Church, which does not allow its clergy to perform same-sex weddings.

“Sometimes, when what is officially the law is wrong, you try to get the law changed,” Dr. Ogletree, a native of Birmingham, Ala., said in a courtly Southern drawl over a recent lunch at Yale, where he remains an emeritus professor of theological ethics. “But if you can’t, you break it.”

Yes, I’m sure “It started out as a deeply personal act.” I’m sure it has nothing to do with making a point, trying to force your denomination’s hand, or playing politics. Nothing of the kind. Hell, he probably didn’t even know his church forbade such actions by its clergy.

For Dr. Ogletree, the issues are not just academic. He has fully accepted, he said, that two of his five children are gay. His daughter married her partner in Massachusetts, in a non-Methodist ceremony. So when his son asked him last year to officiate at the wedding, he said yes.

“I was inspired,” Dr. Ogletree said. “I actually wasn’t thinking of this as an act of civil disobedience or church disobedience. I was thinking of it as a response to my son.”

Because ethics is always about changing the rules when your progeny are involved.

The wedding of Thomas Rimbey Ogletree and Nicholas W. Haddad, held on Oct. 20, 2012, at the Yale Club in New York, incorporated readings from Scripture and the Massachusetts court decision legalizing same-sex marriages. A wedding announcement in The New York Timesprompted several conservative Methodist ministers to file a complaint against Dr. Ogletree with the local bishop.

Yes, I’m quite certain that there was no desire to overstep the boundaries laid down in the Book of Discipline. Including a reading from the apparently revelatory Massachusetts court decision was just so that New York officials knew the wedding was legit, or something. And putting a “wedding announcement” in the nation’s “paper of record” had nothing to do with making a public statement. Nothing at all.

“This ceremony is a chargeable offense” under the rules of the church, wrote the ministers, led by the Rev. Randall C. Paige, pastor of Christ Church in Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.
In late January, Mr. Paige and Dr. Ogletree, accuser and accused, met face-to-face in an effort to resolve the dispute without a church trial. Mr. Paige, who declined to be interviewed for this article, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings, asked that Dr. Ogletree apologize and promise never to perform such a ceremony again. He refused.

“I said, this is an unjust law,” he recalled telling Mr. Paige. “Dr. King broke the law. Jesus of Nazareth broke the law; he drove the money changers out of the temple. So you mean you should never break any law, no matter how unjust it is?”

Actually, Jesus driving the money-changers out of the Temple broke no law, and was in fact meant as a cleansing, as a restoration of the Temple to its rightful place as a house of prayer rather than of commerce. But that’s OK, because Dr. King is even more important, and he really did go to jail. In any case, Ogletree comparing himself with the Crucified Savior, and a man who was jailed for civil disobedience, really is a bit rich, since he’s in no more danger of actually suffering for his acts than John Spong for his apostasy. Rev. Paige is correct that it is a chargeable offense, but I’d say the chances of Ogletree being convicted, much less disciplined, are essentially nil, this being New York and all.

Like many Christian denominations, the United Methodist Church has struggled over issues of gay rights. In 1972, the denomination added a line to its rule book declaring the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” It bars the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” as clergy, and prohibits clergy from officiating at same-sex unions. But it also calls homosexuals “persons of sacred worth,” and welcomes them as members. “We try to be nuanced about it,” Mr. Lambrecht said. “Although we disapprove of the practice of homosexuality, we believe that people who are gay or lesbian are loved and valued by God and worthy of the church’s ministry and welcome to participate in churches.”

The result is contradictory, Dr. Ogletree said. “The church’s official motto is open minds, open hearts, open doors, even though our rules on same-sex marriage contradict that claim,” he said.

Given that the Methodism’s “oficial motto” is essentially meaningless, I’m not sure how any substantive claim can contradict it. Of course, if what it actually means is, “believe anything, do anything,” then yes, I suppose prohibiting something might be problematic.

At the Methodists’ general conference last May, tensions reached a boiling point after an attempt to modify the church’s stance on homosexuality failed by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.

“The time for talking is over,” one retired bishop, Melvin Talbert, declared in protest. “It is time for us to act in defiance of unjust words of immoral and derogatory discrimination.”

The time for talking is over. People like Ogletree and Talbert lost, and lost decisively. The drastic decline of Methodism in blue America (New England, New York, and the West Coast especially), and the rapid growth of the church in Africa, means that there is no possibility in the foreseeable future that world-wide Methodism is going to give liberals what they want. That being the case, it is time for them to shut up, or leave, rather than throwing repeated tantrums.

UPDATE: In the Washington Post, Ogletree comes forth with his own version of why he felt compelled to ignore the Book of Discipline. Answer: same-sex marriage is just like Jim Crow. Isn’t that obvious?