CREEDE HINSHAW: United Methodists’ ‘iceberg’ is melting under its hypocrisy

“Homosexuality is just the tip of the iceberg!” Such was – and is – the nonsensical justification repeated ad nauseum by those who cajoled congregations to exit the United Methodist Church.

But there is no iceberg. There never was.

“O foolish Galatians,” wrote an exasperated Paul. Soon after he planted the church, supplanters followed, sowing doubt and division. “Who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 3:1)

In reality, exiting United Methodist churches departed because they are convinced lesbian and gay persons are sinners who must confess their sin, repent of their sin, and stop choosing to be gay or lesbian. Homosexuals, they demand, must stop claiming to be created that way by God

“We love gay and lesbian persons,” the new church professes. “We love you the same way we love shoplifters, car thieves, adulterers, and pornographers. But the truth, dear misguided homosexuals, is that to please God you must quit choosing to be gay and quit having sex.”

Can gays and lesbians join or remain in the new church? Yes, but with an asterisk: They can’t get married in the church; God hates gay marriage. They can’t be ordained in the church because God wants only heterosexuals in the pulpit. Rejecting the “authority of Scripture,” homosexual persons face a stern eternal judgment.

This is the harsh reality the new church wants to obscure. “We’re not leaving because of homosexuals. (Wink and nod). That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

And what, pray tell, is the so-called 90% of this conservative ice mountain? It is an invented, exaggerated, illusory tale. Breathlessly, earnestly, darkly, they wheeze, “They (whoever that is) don’t believe in the Virgin Mary. They don’t believe in Jesus. They don’t believe in scriptural authority. We are the only people who really, really, really believe.”

Not a single United Methodist church within a thousand miles of here fits this description, and they know it.

Their new church is almost a carbon copy of the one they left, with the exception that departing churches own their property, a dubious change. Both old and new churches embrace the same historic Christian faith. Both use the same ritual of baptism and holy communion. Both know Jesus died for sin. Both know Mary was a virgin. Both have district superintendents and bishops. The churches could easily be mistaken for each other, except for their position on gay and lesbian Christians.

When, in the 1940s, segregationist Methodist congregations saw their denomination edging towards racial equality, they denied that prejudice and racism were their reasons for exiting. Instead, they accused the church of liberalism, communism, and ignoring the Bible. Nobody was fooled, but maybe it made them feel better.

Jesus never talked about icebergs, but he knew about building on a solid foundation. Those who build a church on anything else are eventually doomed. To claim there is an ominous iceberg is to build on sand.

I say to my former United Methodist brothers and sisters, “You have a right to leave the church over homosexuality. People have left for far lesser reasons. Claim it. Stop denying it. And quit inventing icebergs to describe your former church.”