The Racial Theology Resolution | Considering Johannesburg Ep. 4

On the Thursday morning of the General Conference in Johannesburg, Chappell Temple, chair of the Social Witness committee, explained why his committee wouldn’t recommend Resolution 1466. They had rewritten it, and they liked the rewrite. But “we substituted something for it that was not at all what he had written.”

He was talking about me.

Years before the conference, I filed a resolution called “The Racial Theology of the GMC.” It’s the one item in this series I had a direct hand in. All my other petitions were handily dismissed in committee; this one reached the floor. The committee rewrote it, and then in one morning the body amended it, passed it, and rejected it. The delegates may have been right, and I’ll try to represent them fairly. But I still think it was an unforced error that may cause the Global Methodist Church real grief down the line.

What We Already Say

Nobody in Johannesburg was debating whether racism is okay. Our Constitution, ¶204, begins, “All persons are made in God’s image and are loved by Him,” and makes the conditions of membership spiritual ones. Our Social Witness, ¶302.1, says, “We denounce as sin racism, sexism, and other expressions that unjustly discriminate against any person.” Among its Scriptures:

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all and is in all.” —Colossians 3:11

The question was whether we should say more, and anticipate the corruptions of the world, or just stand on grand-sounding speech. In the name of fighting racism, many in the anti-racist framework think it’s appropriate to keep being racist in the opposite direction to ameliorate past racism. That’s especially where many of us came from in the United Methodist Church. How much of it has followed us over? That’s my concern.

One more piece of inheritance matters. A resolution isn’t church law. It’s the General Conference speaking at a moment in time, and ¶208.13 says resolutions “shall require the support of three-quarters of the General Conference,” in order “to effectively speak on behalf of the whole church.” A petition to strike that rule was rejected, so it stood.

What I Filed

I filed it as an individual, as any member may. My rationale called it “an attempt to provide a theological framework in which to root future decisions.” I wasn’t asking for a program. I was asking the church to say what it believes about race, so that later decisions about leadership, appointments and how we measure ourselves would be made rightly.

It said race, as the world uses the word, isn’t the church’s category. It said we won’t judge our faithfulness by racial counting, and it rejected segregating the church by race. It named anti-racism and rejected its claim that “current discrimination must be practiced in order to remedy past discrimination.” It welcomed all people to every level of ministry on one condition, the one in Wesley’s General Rules: that they “desire to flee from the wrath to come and be saved from their sins.” It said, “The GMC will not be a happy home for people who want to stick with their own worldly identifiers.” And it closed with a promise of Jesus: we will seek first the Kingdom of God, trusting God to add to us all people of all ages, ethnicities and nations.

Looking back, “shown the door,” in one sentence, was an American turn of phrase that wasn’t right for a global document. And a resolution couldn’t have had teeth anyway. Its purpose was to make anti-racists uncomfortable. Some will call this an American worry. I don’t think so. America has been exporting its culture for most of a century. Grievance knows no borders.

What the Committee Did

A subcommittee rewrote 1466, using a substitute from Alex Hoffman, a lay delegate from Allegheny West. In the Daily Journal every word I wrote is struck through. Then the committee voted 29 to 12 not to approve its own rewrite.

The substitute was a gentler, cleaner, more likable text, a nicer cousin with a family resemblance. It kept the rejection of racial quotas and metrics as measures of the church’s faithfulness, the rejection of segregation, and “seek first the Kingdom of God.” It turned my “neo-Marxist understandings of race” into ideologies that “make group conflict fundamental to human relationships,” a fair description in words that travel better. It dropped the words anti-racism and neo-Marxist and Wesley’s condition, and it added Genesis 1:27 and “reconciliation and justice.”

Twenty-nine to twelve is about 71 percent, short of the 90 percent needed for a consent agenda, so 1466 came to the floor on its own. Most legislation in Johannesburg was a slam dunk one way or the other. This margin points to a real fissure.

Thursday Morning

Temple introduced it as a resolution, “should we choose to go down the route of having those sort of things.” This was a new kind of animal for the GMC, and the committee wasn’t sure we ought to have resolutions at all. Tying my effort to a United Methodist habit put a real stink on it, and a chair with long-standing conservative bona fides made it pretty clear how he expected everyone to feel.

Alex Hoffman spoke for it. His argument was about what resolutions should be: short and principle-first, with Wesley’s social holiness as the principle. He also told the body resolutions “can be adopted by a simple majority.” Remember that.

Then Daniel Buck, a lay delegate from Great Lakes, moved to strike the paragraph that began “We reject ideologies and systems that segregate people.” Such a paragraph might reach things like countries, he said, and “I also find some concern with the racial quotas aspect as well.”

That amendment gutted what was left of any language that would constrain anti-racism activism in the GMC. I was amazed that someone would defend racial quotas. Buck was one of the chairs of the subcommittee that reviewed this, so he knew it was no threat to national borders. Our Oasis Conference already covers many nations at once. Scripture has no quarrel with nations: “From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26). The paragraph was against dividing the church.

The amendment carried. After Sam Gregory of West Plains asked that the body vote on the resolution itself, the chair agreed, “It belongs to you.” The resolution as amended was supported. No threshold was announced.

“I Made a Mistake Earlier”

After the break Bishop Mark Webb came back to the microphone. He was glad, he said, that sanctifying grace applies to presiding at General Conference: “A layman’s term of that is clean up on aisle four.” Then: “I made a mistake earlier.” Resolutions need three-quarters, and the resolution had passed, but not by 75 percent. The body voted again with the threshold stated, and it failed.

The printed rule and his correction match. Hoffman’s “simple majority” didn’t. Two understandings of the rule were in the room, and the first vote went ahead without anyone saying which was right. I don’t think Bishop Webb needed to apologize. The procedural know-how belongs to others at that table, and it was a long, intense week with a lot of pressure to finish on time.

What Stands

There is no General Conference resolution on the racial theology of the Global Methodist Church: not mine, not the committee’s, not the amended one. ¶302.1 says what it said. On race, on paper, nothing changed.

That leaves questions. If the church wants to say more about race, where should it say it? Is “no racial quotas or metrics” a conviction we share, or a debate we haven’t had and don’t want to have? It survived from my draft into the committee’s, then went out with Buck’s amendment. And what should a committee do with a petition it wants to rewrite completely?

I’ll start with the rule that sank it, because I think the rule is right. A church spread across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas shouldn’t speak for all its people on race by 55 to 45. If we say something in the name of every member, it ought to be something every member can say. Otherwise we’d soon be replicating the dysfunction of the UMC, passing meaningless legislation.

Every Nation and Tribe

Look at how the story ends:

“After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.” —Revelation 7:9

In heaven you can still tell them apart. They aren’t erased into some gray sameness. But they’re gathered, clothed alike in white, facing one throne. Distinction without division. Are we going to have a church that fosters this, or one that justifies division?

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility.” —Ephesians 2:14

Many say my desire to have everyone operate equally right now ignores historical injustice. In a sense they’re right: injustice is real. But we can’t undo injustice with more injustice. “Do not repay anyone evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). To move into the future we have to let go of the past. Continued grievance and resentment will poison our fellowship.

Favoritism

The sentence I’d have to defend hardest against Americans isn’t the one about anti-racism. It’s the one against affinity. Many of our church growth and church planting models are built entirely on affinity groups. We love to group people by age, by culture, by hobby, by stage of life. But it’s an unscriptural way to build the church.

“My brothers, as you hold out your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, do not show favoritism.” —James 2:1

“If you really fulfill the royal law stated in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” —James 2:8–9

Favoritism is older than any modern theory of race, and it isn’t only racial. It’s the pull every one of us feels toward people like us: the same school, the same accent, the same side of town. Mine has felt it. I have. When a pastor fills his staff or a committee with the people he’s comfortable with, he’s doing a small version of what James forbids. The answer isn’t a quota. It’s being Christians. It’s repentance.

No Holiness but Social Holiness

Hoffman quoted Wesley: “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” Wesley wrote it in 1739 against the idea that you become holy by going off alone. Holiness is worked out among people: in the society, the class meeting, at the table.

That’s exactly the right text for race. The Methodist answer to division has never mainly been a resolution. It’s been a society: people who didn’t choose one another, meeting week after week, watching over one another in love. No General Conference vote can make a small church in a rural town love the church across town. Only grace does that.

I live in a place of great racial awareness and a long history of resentment and aggression. We need the Holy Spirit here in a big way. He changes who we love, now, in this life, through ordinary means: shared tables, shared prayer, shared work. So ask it of your own church. Are we just an affinity group? Whom have we raised up to lead? Whose table have we eaten at this year? Who has been welcomed to ours, and are they just like us?

Seek First the Kingdom

I also filed Petition 1465 to rule out racially based conferences. The committee barely considered it, because it would have made the Korean-American conference impossible. That was its purpose. Dividing by race is a recipe for resentment.

Still, a majority of delegates voted for what was left of my resolution, despite the chair’s strong recommendation. I believe most of them don’t want racial quotas, continued racial grievance, or a GMC that houses ideologies prolonging racial hatred in the name of solving it. But because my language was dismissed, those in leadership can keep building structures on these things with little correction. That concerns me.

One line survived everything. It was in what I filed, in the committee’s substitute, and in the text the conference voted on twice:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” —Matthew 6:33

Seek first the Kingdom. Build relationships. Keep the one condition Wesley kept. And trust God to add the rest.

May the God who made from one man every nation of men make of us one people in His Son.

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