Same Sex Marriage and Church Discipline

There are twenty four points in the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (COF). Twenty four. Yet only one can get you (be it church or individual) disciplined: Marriage. Fail to care for Creation ? (Yup, that one get two mentions.) No one bats an eye. Don't make peace and seek justice? No one is going to lift a finger. Doubt that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are three in one and one in three? (For the record, I do struggle with Trinitarianism.) It's all good. But violate point 19?

From the Gospel According to Samuel Jackson 14:32.

Perform a same-sex ceremony and/or support LGBTQ rights and/or come out as LGBTQ and prepare for the full might of the conference to come down on you. Are you an affirming congregation? Prepare to have your voting rights stripped away or be denied entry into a different conference, though steps forward have been made to reconcile Hayttsville and their conference. Though, some of this rings hollow in the face of the treatment of Germantown Mennonite Church (which still remains in a broken relationship with two regional conferences and MCUSA).

In all fairness, there are exceptions to this...kind of. But these exceptions are few and far between. By an large the rule is that if you are LGBTQ and serving the church in some capacity (so far the focus has been on ordained and licensed ministers) or are affirming, most likely your regional conference wants you out of the church.

This brings up my question. Why is the focus of discipline on LGBTQ members and their supporters? Seriously, there are twenty three other points in the COF, which are also violated. But no pastor is having his or her credentials revoked if he or she does not care for Creation (again, which gets two mentions in the COF). No pastor has it noted on his or her Ministerial Leadership Information form that he or she is not actively working for racial reconciliation.

Just to be clear, I am not advocating a legalistic approach to the COF. I firmly believe "that the church of Jesus Christ is one body with many members...[and] diversity in unity evokes gratitude to God and appreciation for one another." Not every person is called to work in racial reconciliation, or in victim/offender reconciliation, or in pastoral care, or in substance abuse treatment, and so on a so forth. The different parts of the body, with our different passions and strengths, makes us stronger. Besides, if legalism became the approach, then I would be among the first out. I doubt the Trinity as a theological certainty and I am in support of an LGBTQ inclusive church. In other words, I am a heretic.

Seriously. Screw board games.

As this is a blog post, I am not able to to justice to the complexity of the issue in the various conferences and between MCUSA and the conferences (to do this topic justice one would need to write a book on each situation as a case study, including how MCUSA relates to the conferences). I do realize that I am presenting this is a rather simplistic way. In truth, there are more than a few examples of people attempting to combat this bogus standard at the congregational, conference, and denomination level. I do not want to be little their efforts or deny them their due. They are courageous individuals who refuse to keep silent and they deserve our support and more of us need to have the courage to openly join them. Our silence only helps preserve this ridiculous double standard. To be sure, we do not want to go crusading, being the inclusive version of the exclusive voices, but that is no justification for our silence.

Yet my perplexity remains. Why the hell is article 19 such a big deal?