Separating

THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH is the third largest denomination in America, its membership upwards of twenty million, depending on whether you include the lapsed and the no shows. The unwieldy organization is far from united. The bone of contention, an internal schism, concerns, not surprisingly, one of America's leading sources of acrimony: homosexuality. The question; whether to accept diverse sexual orientations among the clergy, or whether to take the traditional Christian view, that to be gay is sinful, unacceptable. America's cultural divide, it seems, does not stop at the church door, and infiltrates pew and pulpit. The Methodist church, in a sense, is divided along party lines. According to standard Methodist theology,the issue should, arguably, be a non issue. The church'es founder, John Wesley, laid it out clearly. Everything is the universe is predetermined, a doctrine called "predestination". This includes whether a person is saved, or as they say, a member of the "elect". Accordingly, every sparrow which falls from a tree, and every aspect of our lives we merely live out according to God's preordained plan. Thus, there seemingly should never be anything to argue about, or to discuss, or to try to change, instead only acceptance of and and faith that we are all living precisely as planned, good or bad, straight or gay. That his church is divided over anything at all. one might think, would propel Mr. Wesley to turn over in his grave, lord willing. Yet, the dispute has been ongoing for decades, and now seems poised to boil over. The church will soon formally fracture into at least two groups, along party lines, the blue church and the red church, the former tolerant of sexual diversity, the latter not so much. In point of fact, every gene, every chromosome in every plant and animal on the planet has been identified and gone over with a fine toothed comb. the lord seems intent on our knowing ourselves, well. How could it be otherwise> But there it is, right before our very eyes: the homosexual gene. Written into the very fabric of our molecular make up is God's apparent will that some of us go forth and multiply, and some do not. It seems to be the conservative faction of Methodism which resists God's plan. As the church prepares its inevitable split, the number of denominations of an already fragmented Christian faith will increase by one, one among several thousand. The day may come when the fragmentation reaches its limit, and is atomized. Every true believer will be a denomination of one, worshiping alone in a lonely church, witnessing only within the self. This too may be part of God's ultimate plan. As Goethe astutely said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent my own."