AP soft-pedals big story: USA progressives winning (sort of) the United Methodist war

If you have followed the half century of United Methodist Church warfare over the Bible, marriage and sex — I started covering this story in the early 1980s — you know the debates have consistently contained activists in three different camps. Here’s that line-up, for newcomers:

(1) The doctrinal right fighting for enforcement of the doctrines and rules in the church’s Book of Discipline.

(2) The North American establishment that has insisted that it could find a way to tweak the status quo — doctrine would change from zip code to zip code — so that everyone could stay in the same big financial tent, including LGBTQ activists in UMC seminaries and agencies.

(3) The candid doctrinal left — think West and Northeast — that openly proclaims the need to change 2,000 years of Christian tradition to fit the doctrines of the Sexual Revolution.

These divisions only became more complex as the United Methodists evolved into a truly global denomination that included booming churches in Africa and Asia — a form of diversity that made the denomination’s shrinking North American establishment more and more nervous.

In global meetings, a small-o orthodox coalition — most of the Global South plus a conservative U.S. minority — kept winning vote after General Conference vote to defend current doctrines. However, COVID-19 prevented crucial global meetings, allowing the U.S. establishment (Camp 2) several years to steer the ship.

This brings me to a new Associated Press report that does a great job, if that was the goal, of soft-pedaling recent victories by the establishment and candid left. The headline: “LGBTQ-friendly votes signal progressive shift for Methodists.” The overture:

The United Methodist Church moved toward becoming more progressive and LGBTQ-affirming during U.S. regional meetings this month that included the election of its second openly gay bishop. Conservatives say the developments will only accelerate their exit from one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations.
Each of the UMC’s five U.S. jurisdictions — meeting separately in early November — approved similarly worded measures aspiring to a future of church where “LGBTQIA+ people will be protected, affirmed, and empowered.”

How would these aspirations come to pass?

Why are United Methodists at war? Readers need to know that sexuality isn't the only fault line

If you read most of the mainstream news coverage about chaos inside the United Methodist Church, then you know that this war centers on LGBTQ issues.

Readers who use niche websites offering the views of conservative United Methodists, in the United States and around the world, will learn that the war is about sex, salvation, biblical authority and core doctrines in ancient Christian creeds. Hold that thought.

Before we look at recent events in the divided United Methodist Church, let’s consider an important political-science term — “condensation symbol” — that journalists may want to ponder. In a 2021 post (“Queer Santa As A Condensed Symbol Of Progressivism”) — blogger Rod “Live Not By Lies” Dreher offered this material from a reader:

A condensation symbol is “a name, word, phrase, or maxim which stirs vivid impressions involving the listener’s most basic values and readies the listener for action,” as defined by political scientist Doris Graber. Short words or phrases such as “my country,” “old glory” “American Dream,” “family values,” are all condensation symbols because they conjure a specific image within the listener and carry “intense emotional and effective power.” … Graber identified three main characteristics of condensation symbols, as they: (1) Have the tendency to evoke rich and vivid images in an audience. (2) Possess the capacity to arouse emotions. (3) Supply instant categorizations and evaluations.

With that in mind, consider the ministry of Isaac Simmons — currently associate pastor at Hope United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Ill. — who has been accepted as a candidate for UMC ordination. Simmons (they/them) is best known as the drag-queen preacher Penny Cost.

At first glance, it would appear that Penny Cost is a perfect example of the LGBTQ issues causing the UMC split. However, I would argue that Simmons is a “condensed symbol” of the wider concerns of the global United Methodist coalition that wants to retain and defend the denomination’s current doctrines on a host of issues.

Consider the following from The American Spectator piece with this headline: “Methodist Church’s First Drag Queen Pastor: ‘God Is Nothing’.” This is, of course, a conservative publication. However, the following passage focuses on direct quotes from a new slam poem posted online by Penny Cost:

“God is nothing,” the self-described “dragavangelist” repeats throughout the poem, adding, “the Bible is nothing” and “religion is nothing.” In the end, he concludes God and the Bible are nothing “unless we wield it into something.”
“God must be f***ing nothing,” he says, “if her boundaryless, transubstantiated bodies of color are run down, beaten, and strewn in the streets of America instead of ruling the runways of life.”