Things fall apart

Perhaps W. B. Yeats got it right. In the aftermath of the horrendous slaughter of World War I and at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence, he wrote:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. (The Second Coming)

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In his newly-released history of civil religion (American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present), Philip Gorski says that our problem is that “the chorus of shouting drowns out the quieter voices of the vital center.” He calls for “a new vital center” that isn’t “a mushy middle that splits the difference between Left and Right. It is a living tradition that cuts across these divisions…something much older and also more radical.”

When it comes to our nation, I’d say that both Yeats and Gorski are correct. But what about the United Methodist Church?

The vital center holds!

There is a “chorus of shouting” that has been drowning out “the quieter voices of the vital center.” They picture the UMC on the brink of disaster or division because equally faithful United Methodists hold differing biblically-rooted convictions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy.

But Yeats didn’t stop with a center than can’t hold. He went on to say: “Surely some revelation is at hand.”

I caught a glimpse of that “new vital center” when I gathered in Nashville last week with 48 church leaders from all five Jurisdictions of the church, 27 of whom were under 45 years old. The spirit of the gathering was as energizing as it was encouraging.

We were drawn together because we share a Spirit-led conviction that there is still a vital center in Methodism that is neither a mushy middle of ecclesiological niceness nor casual compromise of conflicting convictions.

The “vital center” is faithful to Scripture, formed by our Wesleyan spiritual and theological tradition, passionate about our mission, energized by disciplines of prayer and utterly dependent on the leading of the Spirit of God.

We believe the genuine center of United Methodism is composed of faithful disciples who are connected at the center of our mission and ministry while honoring our differences around the circumference. In the spirit of John Wesley, we say, “Though we may not think alike, may we not love alike? If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.”

No one was naïve about the depth of our differences or the possibility that our denominational debates may pull us apart. We know that the denominational structures through which we’ve done ministry in the past are inadequate for the future. But we are committed to searching together for the means by which we can bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in our mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world.

This gathering was just the beginning of a witness that will gain clarity as more people “whose hearts are as our hearts” are drawn into the conversation.

A witness of hope

I’m convinced that the hope of the UMC is in its new generation of leaders who are committed to “a living tradition that cuts across these divisions.” It’s a deeply Wesleyan tradition that is “much older and also more radical” than institutional inertia or denominational politics.

It’s time for the quieter voices at the vibrant center of United Methodism to rise up with a hope-filled, Spirit-energized, world-transforming affirmation of the “vital center” of our life together. A deeply polarized nation is desperately in need of our witness!