Unity Out of Chaos, A Look at JCD 1341

"Warning," I wrote on an earlier draft I shared with a friend, "this contains mature materials that some will find offensive."  In my experience, both the far right and the far left hate my point of view, because each has decided to set in stone their respective basic premises.  Eventually, of course, both will fail because they are not based on reality.  That is, if we survive the next ten years.

UNITY OUT OF CHAOS, A LOOK AT JCD 1341

When the Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto was elected bishop, there were challenges and charges brought and all kinds of legal mayhem.  Like in any other chaos situation, things began to pattern out.  The fact that the South Central Jurisdiction forwarded a request for a declaratory decision meant the focus would fall upon the Judicial Council.  That meant that complaints against her and others involved in her election, consecration, etc. could be put on hold pending the decision of the Council.  And everyone sort of relaxed for awhile, except for those preparing briefs for the Council's session of last Fall.  Only there was a deferral to allow the Council time to study the issue.  From the length of Decision 1341, they needed that extra time.

My reading of the original motions stating the request left me feeling that the Council could not take jurisdiction. By long precedent, the questions had to be conference specific, affecting what was going on in their own precincts.  The intent of the request as I read it was to remove Rev. Oliveto.  The Council is an appellate body, not a trial court, so it would note her fair process rights and not remove her.  

Speculation about this new Council raised several concerns.  For one, there is the depth of the politics surrounding homosexuality.  It is such that it would be hard for Council members to refrain from acting.  The prospect was that the Council would be very conservative.  Would that manifest in the kind of polarization we saw with the Holsinger Council or would there be a strong emphasis on precedent?

For a second concern, there was the problem I've experienced with a Council that felt it had to give a little to both sides.

A third fear I had was that the Council would feel beholden to its respective nominators, usually the Council of Bishops, and lay out a decision helpful to them rather than to the whole Church.

Finally, there is a skeptic's rule of thumb about appellate bodies, that the Council would first decide what they wanted and then twist and bend Disciplinary passages and prior rulings to make it sound like the decision was based on law.

After years of studying decisions, upon reading Decision 1341, I felt that the majority of the Council acted in good faith and tended not to be affected by the concerns I've noted.  It felt like good-hearted people were trying to find their way through what the General Conference had given them in the way of laws, what prior Councils had decided, and the multifaceted request for a ruling on actions in another jurisdiction.  If so, their ruling could show us where we are in our experiment with use of law to define our nature as a denomination.

The decision is relatively simple.  The Council said that it and the SCJ are limited in their options.  It said that at most the only issue that could be interpreted as having general applicability was regarding consecration.  But the Council pointed out that the bishop is due fair process.  Only the Western Jurisdiction could act on that and she could not be removed from office without fulfillment of the complaint process against her.  Even her marriage license was only presumptive, something that could start a review but could be rebutted upon review.

In effect, the only thing changed by the request and the decision is that now the Western Jurisdiction's College of Bishops will have to act on the complaints they had shelved.  

There are several things I see in the main text and the opinions added at the end which deserve more attention.  I will do that when I prepare the commentary of the Council's whole set of decisions.  You will find them at www.aiateam.blogspot.com when I get done later this spring.

But there is one phrase that the Council used again and again that struck me: "highest ideals."  I got to thinking, as I'm sure others have.  What are the highest ideals to which we should aspire?

In Jesus' day, which were the higher ideals, to respect the men, the husbands, or to also respect the women, wives, and children?

In Jesus' day, which were the higher ideals, to respect Jews or to also respect Samaritans?

In Paul's day, which were the higher ideals, to respect the slave holders or to also respect the slaves?

In our day, which is the higher ideal, to respect the married or to also respect the divorced?

How about this: which are higher ideals, to respect the heterosexual singles in their chastity and the married in their fidelity, or to respect both heterosexual and homosexual singles and marrieds in their chastity and fidelity?

Which is the higher ideal, the view that practicing homosexuality is against nature or Navajo recognition of four sexes: male/males, male/females, female/females, and female/males? 

These last two questions have as their premise that, as with the eunuchs of Jesus' day that some were made by God and some were made by man, there are at least some homosexuals who are made by God. (Note: Most God-made Gay people are aware of their predisposition before they enter junior high.)  

These two questions are also based on the contemporary experience of encountering all kinds of different people who just do not fit into a simple categorizing as "male" or "female."  Science is helping us discover that sexuality is more on a continuum, and expresses itself in many more outcroppings than just as "men" and "women."

In the old days, the actual numbers of these variations could be hidden.  Now with the population explosion, we have a greater chance to encounter more of these variations.

Science is also aware that there are people who, against their own predisposition, choose to emulate those whose nature is different.  An African friend pointed it out to me as a major bad influence in his country.  In my own country I saw a man claiming to be Gay rather than face the reality of his children's genetic illnesses.  I saw people claiming to be Gay in order to get or keep their jobs in certain parts of the country and in some occupations.  

Yes, God-made and man-made homosexuals exist among us and that really complicates our perception of the reality around us.

But the goal of establishing the highest ideals touches all of us and requires that all of us have to rethink just what those highest ideals are.  If we are to be perfect in loving our neighbors as God is, that makes all of us realize how far short of God's highest ideals our laws are.

Maybe our homework as a denomination is to re-evaluate our highest ideals and let that re-unify us.

Talk about chaos!  What new ideals do we need to consider?  Which ideals are higher?  How will we know?  Who will decide?  

It will all pattern out.  Just as we did with other moral dilemmas, we will figure out something.  And we won't necessarily have to divide over it like we did over slavery.  How did we get past all the other conflicts like divorce?  By looking at the realities because we cared as God cares.  And then we changed our laws accordingly.

Thank you, Judicial Council.  You may have provided the right new focal point for our search for unity: highest ideals.