Thread by @frodofied

It was not a great day for the #LGBTQ community nor for their supporters and advocates at the #UMCGC2019 #gc2019.

The person I love most in the world is likely to have his life upended by whatever decision the delegates to the GC make.

This does not sit well.

1/

I had held out hope that the African & South American Conference delegations would seek to move beyond mere provincialism and instead would try to hold the denomination as a whole to a different and higher standard. A standard the outside world would be encouraged to emulate.

2/

That has not happened. Nor have the American Conference delegations been able to break away from the tribalism that can infect smaller allied groups within larger ecumenical bodies.

Thus, coalitions that would seek to demand better of itself have not been formed.

3/

And, as always, when the splintered remain splintered the grey force of inertia will rush in to fill the vacuum. Those who might've been persuaded had the right voice led the charge look inward & back not outward & forward.

And cue the music for the rising tide of tradition.

4/

I hate the word tradition, because it's rarely used in the innocuous way it is presented. It is almost always a wolf in sheep's clothing. A word invoked by those seeking to use the past to undermine the present and stop the future.

This is the job of the Traditional Plan.

5/

One should automatically be suspicious when the word tradition is invoked outside of a strictly social or ceremonial context.

It certainly should never be used in connection to politics. And make no mistake, the General Conference of the @UMChurch is a political body.

6/

The question the delegates to the #UMCGC2019 are tasked with answering for the whole of Methodism is in every sense a political one.

Anyone claiming otherwise is lying and they are big fat liars.

And the Traditional Plan is the single most political of all the options.

7/

The Traditional Plan is a full frontal assault on #LGBTQ participation within Methodism. More, it's an attack on those who call themselves allies of gay participants.

It's provisions would actually seek to thwart any future attempt to enable #LGBTQ participation.

8/

It would seek to erase and readdress past disciplinary decisions made from within individual conferences and would demand strict adherance to adopted doctrine, ecumenically.

It would silence dissention and punish active dissent and all dissenters.

9/

I pray that when the #GC2019 adopts the Traditional Plan this week that the denomination disintegrates from the exodus that it will hopefully inspire.

In adopting this plan the denomination will only be hastening it's own future demise.

#GC2019 #UMGC2019 #LOVEoverfear