Autocracy of Consensus and Dignity of Dissent

I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Rev. 3:15-16)

There is so much handwringing going on in Mennonite circles about same-sex relationships, the threat to church unity and the possibility of raised voices, that we are forgetting the point. We are confronted; we have been confronted for several decades, by persons who by their very presence ask whether the church will embrace them not just as individuals, but as couples. They have grown old, waiting for our response. Our deliberations have grown tired.

Perhaps at one point this hesitation could be forgiven. Once, Mennonites had reputation for schism, harsh separation and (I hear) authoritarianism. Since then, we have preferred to characterize ourselves as communities epitomized by sensitivity and potlucks. Who wants to disrupt a family dinner with politics and religion? Why force a question that may polarize and disrupt? Well, we have had our chance and more than enough time to find an easier way. The thing is, this is not about "us". It is not about unity. It is about the responsibility of the church to answer, with integrity, those who have been knocking at the door for much too long. If forming a response results in discomfort, conflict, strained relationships, and perhaps separation, we may just have to take our medicine.

At this time I am not advocating a particular answer, but pointing to the proper question. The question is not: "How will we weather this storm?" "How will we manage this conflict?" "How will we avoid division?" The question is "How shall we respond to these couples, who have challenged us by the fact of their relationships?" And there really is more than one legitimate response. One of these was articulated with integrity and clarity by Ronald Sider in the Canadian Mennonite ("A Biblical and Better Way" January 19, 2015 http://www.canadianmennonite.org/articles/biblical-and-better-way): the church should confess and repent of past homophobia, it should love and listen to gay people as it has not done in the past, but it should insist that to love God truly means conforming to biblical and traditional norms of sexual behaviour (which for gays and unmarried heterosexuals means celibacy). An alternate response is recorded in an earlier post in this blog. Both of these approaches take seriously the church's responsibility to speak with love and conviction to same-sex couples. Either of these answers to the question at hand could generate conflict and division. But recall, Anabaptism itself began with a response to a question that shattered the church. The question was George Blaurock's request to be baptized upon confession of faith. The response was not mere words, but an immediate and impetuous act; an act of baptism which set "a man against his father, a daughter against her mother" and turned the predecessors of Mennonites into hunted fugitives. One wonders where Mennonites would be now if the question had instead triggered a season of discernment.

This is not to say that how we deliberate is of no importance. Should we offer counsel with humility? Absolutely! Should we consider contrary counsel with seriousness and respect? Of course! Ironically, Mennonite establishment's dedication to notions of discernment, consensus and reconciliation have inhibited counsel, humble or otherwise, and precluded a forum where opposing views can be aired and debated.  Proponents of consensus cannot help but aspire to  a moment when everyone is saying the same thing. The temptation and the practice in Mennonite circles is to structure the conversation to discourage public statements that generate dispute. The classic exercise is to fragment discussion into multiple table groups. The theory: we thus place value on each and every voice. The practice: we muffle what needs to be said and mute the debate by compartmentalizing conversation. Strong, intense or angry voices are constrained within a small circle, and the participant designated to report to the larger group presents a summary of "what was discussed" that, in an effort to represent every voice in the table group, is unable to properly advance any position. "Motherhood statements" are the norm - proposals crafted to which nobody can object. Motions that could generate dispute are deferred as long as possible in the hope of "moving the congregation" to a point where it is ready to accept the suggestion with a shrug. Unfortunately, the effect is to paralyze the community exactly during those times when decision is most important - when circumstances or new insights require the church to reconsider how it has been proclaiming the love of God to those inside and outside its walls. It is inevitable at these moments that people will disagree, and that is when consensus fails us; or at least fails those outside of the mainstream. For almost two thousand years, the western social consensus has been that same-sex relationships are a perversion, and even twenty years ago that consensus was reflected in our congregations. Recently, in affluent western societies that consensus has reversed. We all enjoy watching Modern Family now. Irony abounds. For two thousand years the church has followed the mainstream in marginalizing gays. Now, liberal Mennonite congregations are in a position to congratulate themselves on their progressive inclinations without once having had to go through the actual effort and disruption needed to deviate from social norms. All that is needed is to continue to manage the tools of consensus to make sure that the shrinking number of contrarian voices (contrarian to the new social consensus) are muffled by the process, or worn out by it, and we will be able to claim that we have successfully managed a "difficult decision" without descending to the indignity of an actual argument. This of course, will not work so well at a conference level, or the international level, given that not all Mennonite congregations fall under the category of "liberal". There one would hope to see a real effort to work out differences between deeply held and contradictory convictions. More likely,  we may anticipate that congregations will be encouraged to each set their own course in a kind of "you're ok, I'm ok" mentality. Once again, but this time at a conference and perhaps international level, gay couples will find their question deferred, in a kind of institutional "washing of the hands". The final irony: by prioritizing conflict management and consensus over responding directly to same-sex couples, the Mennonite church will have fractured itself in fact, while maintaining the facade of institutional unity.

So what is to be done? As a start, consider the following:

•         Sometimes conviction demands protest. This applies both to those who consider the past position of the church on same-sex relationships to be an affront to the neighbour, and to those who see the recent trajectory of openness as an exclusion of God from the realm of sexual morality. Either party may conclude that conscience requires separation, even if only temporary, from a community that has lost its way.

• When the times demand it, decisions must be made and positions must be taken, even in the face of difference and at the risk of error. This is especially the case when the church is challenged by those who have been among the outcast and despised.

• There is no true comfort in a majority. In fact, do not trust a community that speaks with confidence and unanimity. The scriptural history of the people of God is a history of failure and idolatry, with merely a handful of the faithful in each generation. The wider history of human experience gives no better testimony to the majority opinion of any age or culture.

• Honour those who dissent. They are no more likely to be right than those who carry the day, but their complaints, their challenge and their energy, may expose false pretense. That, at least, is a service to truth.

Which leads to the question of voting. Mennonites, who prefer to make congregational decisions at the  membership level would do well to re-conceptualize voting in light of the principles set out above:

•  Voting is not about determining who wins. It is about every participant agreeing on how to lose. It is the procedural version of a biblical ethos of being subject to one another. Mature communities understand that not everyone can have their own way. Every governance structure reflects that fact. In what we refer to as a democratic process, all the voters consent to the notion that the vote will govern, even if things do not go their way. Voting is systematic humility.

•  Voting confers dignity on the dissenter. The risk of consensus decisions is that pressure to conform can whitewash over sincere and serious opposition. Votes, properly held, allow dissenters to make their case, and even to propose amendments that could make a resolution palatable. If compromise is out of reach, principled opposition can be recorded and respected by a negative vote. A mature community which understands the ethos of a formal vote can sustain greater diversity than a community which insists decisions be made by consensus, because it offers documented dissent as a middle ground between unanimity and separation.

• Finally, how might a New Testament outlook inform the mechanics and implementation of a decision by vote? Might a successful majority, having clearly articulated their conviction of how the community ought respond to same-sex couples, nevertheless offer to an equally convinced minority to forbear implementation of the vote? Such an offer would reflect the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, or the counsel given by the Apostle Paul in Romans 14:14 to those sufficiently mature in faith to understand that nothing is unclean in itself. One can envision such a scenario playing out in a community of congregations like Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada, if a majority were to support a recommendation affirming same-sex relationship. In that case, the majority might yet refrain from performing marriages in order to express a desire to maintain communion with dissenting congregations (of course, to avoid hypocrisy and demonstrate solidarity, such churches might need to put a moratorium on performing any marriages at all, until all are included).

No procedure, neither consensus decision-making nor voting mechanism, guarantees righteous outcomes.  As far as what the Bible says, conservatives will continue to know for sure, and liberals will continue to know better. The problem, however, is that the agenda has been hijacked by the luke warm middle, invoking the ethos of consensus. The passion of both the hot and the cold, a passion to respond, has been suppressed, and our conferences and too many of our congregations still have nothing real to offer same-sex couples waiting at the fringes of their communities. It is time for a vote.