YES AND NO

At The Federalist, Glenn Stanton is delighted that the recent United Methodist General Conference vote on human sexuality went the way that it did.

At the end of February, the United Methodist Church bravely dodged what would have been a self-inflicted kill shot. Pushed to definitive action by gay activists within their ranks, they not only refused to mutilate clear biblical teaching on same-sex couples and gay clergy, the UMC voted to strengthen its adherence to biblical sexual ethics.

We must appreciate just how against-the-tide this move is for a mainline denomination, and they should be roundly celebrated for their bold fidelity. But here’s the spin.

Many media stories are going with the “United Methodist Church Positions Itself for a Massive Split” angle because of the “hard-liners” inflexibility—as if all would have been hunky-dory if the denomination acquiesced to LGBT demands. The media is getting this one all wrong. (Why stop now, right?) The UMC did nothing short of averting its own death.

The adopted Traditional Plan strongly asserts the value of all people without exclusion, each being “of sacred worth, created in the image of God.” It proclaims that “All persons need the ministry of the Church” and affirms that “God’s grace is available to all.”

Those of us in the traditional camp know this is not mere happy talk to just make people feel better. It is basic Christianity. But just as basic, the plan also affirms a traditional sexual and marital ethic in line with what the Methodist church, and Christianity itself, has always held without doubt or contest.

Better yet, it gives real teeth to the matter, requiring every bishop to submit an official and public statement declaring whether they can or cannot fully uphold and enforce the church’s biblical standards around marriage and the ordination of clergy. This will halt the shenanigans LGBT agitators have been playing within the church to move their ball inch-by-inch down the field. If these leaders cannot affirm church teaching, a protocol is established for them and their congregations to go somewhere else so they can create some other faith from their own wishes.

Encouraging as far as it goes.  But we former Anglicans know two things about the Christian left.  The first, and most important, is that they believe that they not only have the only right answer, they have the only conceivable answer.  QED, any other answer cometh from the evil one.

Since they believe that, they're entirely willing to play a long game.  Whether it takes them four years or eight years or twelve years or sixteen years or twenty years or even longer than that, they're going to stay at this until they fully achieve and implement their goal.

At one of the past iterations of this site, I started covering the Anglican implosion in 2003, the year Gene Robinson got his pointy hat and I finally abandoned Anglicanism.  But the controversy had been brewing at least a couple decades before that.

And since the left has the only right and only conceivable answer, their goal is not merely to be "tolerated."  If this plays out like it did with the Anglicans, the exhausted Methodists will eventually, at some point down the road, pass some sort of "compromise" measure which would allow conservatives and liberals a brief period of "peace."

But once the Methodist left acquires enough power, that "compromise" will become a dead letter the day before yesterday.  Consider Episcopalianism.  Does anyone still seriously believe that anyone with traditional Christian views could even graduate from an Episcopalian seminary anymore, much less find a parish or be selected as a bishop?

Is the UMC doomed to follow the Episcopal Organization's path?  Not necessarily; it depends on how seriously the UMC acts upon this resolution they just passed should the need arise.  For the sake of the Gospel, I pray that the UMC has faith and courage because it's going to need both.