Recently while suffering from recurring bouts of insomnia, I turned to a “cure” that was guaranteed to put me back to sleep. Over a period of several weeks I plowed through John Boswell’s 1981 “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality.” Dr. Boswell was a history professor at Yale when the book was written and followed an academic approach with lots of footnotes on every page so that it was easy to lose my train of thought. I won’t try to summarize his discussions of the scriptures, social change, and theological traditions, but it is interesting to note that in the early church homosexuality wasn’t an issue. It existed not only among the laity but also the clergy, but it didn’t become an issue until the Middle Ages when the church assumed a much more repressive role.

Much of the church’s traditional beliefs about sexuality dated from Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas who discussed sexual morality at length. In other words, the church has been struggling with this issue for a very long time. While this book makes some significant points about the fluctuations in theological reasoning about homosexuality over time, it does emphasize that these occur in the context of massive social, economic and political changes.

On the other hand, I fear I may face more sleepless nights in reaction to a recent commentary by Rev. Russ Whaley that was published by the United Methodist News Service as a preparatory feature for General Conference. He states flatly that the church has reached a stalemate on the issue of homosexuality, and so we should just put it aside as another controversial, divisive and minor issue and go on to focus on major issues such as poverty. He also states that his views are private, but then exclaims that “I do not believe the right answer is simply to deny church membership to people of homosexual orientation … (but) a person unwilling to repent of clearly identified sin should not be a leader in the Body” so that really spells out his negative views. He then says that “it’s also a God-given truth that there is grace for those who truly seek transformation” which clearly aligns him in the camp of the Transforming Program. He implores us “to quit fighting and find a different way to confront the problem” without suggesting what that might be.

I’ve often said that the debate about homosexuality is less about sexual orientation and behavior per se and more about inclusion/exclusion and how we approach evangelism. I’ll have to modify that and opine that this debate really is bell weather for larger issues. Does the United Methodist Church want to move more towards the Southern Baptist theological view of biblical inerrancy or follow the Wesleyan Quadrilateral? Rev. Whaley alludes to Saint Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” that could not be removed and asks “Why isn’t God removing this thorn from our flesh” as though the debate was solely a impediment to the political maneuvering of the conservatives and if we (i.e. the church) just work for unity then the “problem” may just go away. What about social justice and discrimination? What about coming to a better theological understanding of the nature of sin? What about making the church more relevant in a radically changing world rather than clinging to the past? Is he preaching “peace” or “passivity?”

To quote from an earlier commentary by the General Secretaries of the United Methodist Church: “Methodism began as a movement. John Wesley sought to make disciples of Jesus Christ who were both transformed individually and committed to changing the unjust practices of the society in which they lived. With their actions, Wesley’s early followers demonstrated a commitment to live faithfully and, importantly, to apply their energies to offer healing and reconciliation to the world.” The commentary notes the declining membership and aging of Methodists in the United States and advocates four areas of focus [that] provide the answer. In fact, they focus mainly on social action and the only goal related to church membership is to “start new congregations and renew existing ones,” a rather vague injunction to continue to “play the numbers game.” If we focus only on reaching out to new geographic areas and funding new church buildings, what does that accomplish in evangelizing the populace who regard the mission of the church as irrelevant and the message hypocritical? Joel Osteen recruits thousands with his “feel good theology” and message of prosperity, but does that reflect the Methodist theology? I think not. So it’s really not about trying to “outnumber” other denominations or congregations or determining “success” of evangelism by growing church membership numbers. It’s about applying the Wesleyan injunction to reach out to the disenfranchised, and that is not just the poor. It also includes the socially ostracized, namely the GLBT community.

So is the debate about homosexuality really just a “stand in” for the debate about whether the Methodist Church is to become more inclusive or more exclusive, more theologically conservative or more relevant to today’s concerns, more preoccupied with maintaining the status quo or reaching out in new fields of service? Why do some bishops and preachers change their views only after they retire? Why do leading theologians say that sexual orientation really isn’t an issue, we should stop proof texting the Bible, and that the current debate is a red herring? Is it really more of a political hot potato of a clash of cultures than a theological debate? We need missionaries in the United States as well as Africa, and perhaps we should start reaching out to the millions of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered people who are alienated from the church because of its discriminatory practices.