Religion Unplugged believes in a diversity of well-reasoned and well-researched opinions. This piece reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent those of Religion Unplugged, its staff and contributors.

(OPINION) Speaking for God can be a messy business.

Very messy.

No matter how sincere you are, you might turn out eventually to have been wrong. No matter how many Scriptures you cite to prove your point, those who disagree will trot out contrary passages to demonstrate why you’re tragically misguided — if not heretical.

After a half-century of argument, prayer and activism, the United Methodist Church voted recently at its General Conference in Charlotte to remove bans on same-sex marriages and gay clergy. The General Conference is the Methodists’ legislative body.

With this step, the United Methodists have now become the last of the mainline Protestant denominations to end anti-LGBTQ policies. In addition to Methodists, mainline Protestants include Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans and the United Church of Christ. In religious circles they’re all considered moderate-to-liberal in their religious and social views.

Other mainline Protestant groups ended anti-LGBTQ policies years ago, explained Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post.

But “the United Methodists — who historically have been more politically and regionally diverse — remained deeply divided. Tensions stayed high in recent years as advocates for liberal reforms kept pressing for change and conservatives continued to resist.”

Because of those tensions, Boorstein said, “nearly a quarter of the UMC’s 30,000 congregations in the United States have left since 2019, primarily conservatives.”

Reading about these United Methodist developments led me to think about how painful, ragged and glacial change can be for religious groups. Fifty years to reach a decision as big as this one might be a fairly quick turnaround.

I happen to be one of the billions who believe the creator of the universe has chosen to reveal supernatural truths to mere mortals, and that he’s still revealing them.

If you don’t believe there’s a God, or if you believe there’s a God but he doesn’t deign to converse with the likes of us, or if you believe God only spoke thousands of years ago and that settled everything, then you can escape the turmoil of trying to discern what God is saying today.

But if you do believe in a God who is still involved, well, you’re stuck. Sorry.

If you’re here expecting me to tell you whether or not the Methodists made the right call, I’m about to disappoint you. That’s not what this column is about. I want to discuss what Christian leaders wrestle with when trying to decide such matters.

Let’s do a hypothetical.

Say you’re a leader in some faith group — Christianity writ large, or the United Methodists, or, on the small end of the scale, a local independent congregation. 

You’ve got a hot-button issue to deal with. Maybe it’s LGBTQ ordination. Or maybe it’s divorce. Or abortion. Or the role of women. Or one of a thousand other subjects.

You’ve got behind you a canon of Scripture and generations of tradition from whence your group has long declared, “Thus saith the Lord!” You’ve got your principles. Your forebears have lived out these tenets at enormous personal sacrifice.

But a revolution has swept through the larger secular culture. Gradually, what used to be agreed-upon truth is no longer agreed upon at all. Same-sex marriages are great. Divorce is no problem. Whatever. As I said, pick a topic. I’m not choosy.

Activists protest against you and your creeds. The avant-garde within your own ranks — there’s always an avant-garde (and an old guard, too) — sides with the activists. 

You once saw yourself as a respected upholder of goodness, but now others, including folks you thought were friends, deride you as a reactionary, a hater, an oppressor.

If the tenets you preach originated with God, you might argue, then it’s not within your rights to change them simply because the cultural winds have shifted. You must obey God, no matter how unpopular that becomes.

On the other hand, you ask yourself, what if God is doing a new thing? What if the activists are right? If you don’t make concessions, mightn’t you become irrelevant?

Yet if you capitulate too easily, you’re could be implying you’ve mishandled the Word of God from the get-go, that what you’ve long declared to be “Thus saith the Lord” really wasn’t.

That’s hard to admit. “All the stuff we’ve been telling you about God and morality the past several hundred years? Oops, scratch that.”

When that becomes your message, you’ll lose the traditionalists, who are your most faithful — not to mention affluent — members.

You start to doubt your own motives. Is it possible you’re willing to jettison the Word of God in favor of the latest opinion polls? Are you more worried about keeping your conservative financial supporters than about participating in God’s new work?

Whew. How, then, do you ever sort it all out?

Answer: It takes a while.

And it’s not as though if you finally reach the right answer — Change our rules! No, cling to tradition! — a heavenly pinball machine suddenly illuminates the night sky, clanging its bells and flashing its lights, assuring you that, yes, you’ve responded correctly! God is pleased!

Nope, it’s mainly dark up there. You make your final call, cross your fingers and walk forward, praying you’ve done the right thing.

Paul Prather has been a rural Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky for more than 40 years. Also a journalist, he was The Lexington Herald-Leader’s staff religion writer in the 1990s, before leaving to devote his full time to the ministry. He now writes a regular column about faith and religion for the Herald-Leader, where this column first appeared. Prather’s written four books. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.