Blogger Rev. Jeremy Smith of Hacking Christianity has critiqued a draft of the Indianapolis Plan: its authorship, its process, and its "knives" as he puts it. I appreciate Jeremy's incisive insights to the conflict in our denomination. Excerpts are below. Blogger Rev. Darren Cushman-Wood points out that the final copy didn't have the 50/50 asset split mentioned in the draft. But Jeremy cautions that some of the work of the draft document allegedly from the Rev. Tom Lambrecht might end up in the legislation.
The Spin Cycle
August 16, 2019 by UMJeremy
Earlier this week, all the United Methodist lights went up on the Indianapolis Plan, a plan for the future of The United Methodist Church. ...
…But the reality does not match the marketing.
A Well-Meaning But Stilted Gathering
All three articles allege that the Indianapolis Plan was created jointly between Progressives, Centrists, and Traditionalists. That turns out to be a deceptive claim.
Here’s the endorsers. Among the conservatives involved were the WCA chairperson and the Good News Vice President (two major leaders of their perspective), and a WCA Leadership Council attorney and GC delegate (Nicklas). The moderates involved were centrist folks (here’s one reflection), and the progressives involved were…well…not equivalent caucus group leaders of progressive movements. No offense to them and their terrific local ministries, but their involvement in global ecclesial politics is not equivalent to the Traditionalists.
Indeed, the Executive Director of Reconciling Ministries Network spoke out that she did not participate (“The group included no LGBTQ people or LGBTQ justice caucus leaders at its inception”), and the ED of MFSA did not participate, and neither said someone was there on their behalf. No Queer Clergy Caucus or UMForward involvement either. There are dozens of present board members of those organizations that could have participated. This mixture of movement leaders and local leaders (who have unequal levels of accountability—at least two had potential employment considerations) makes the document very stilted...
In short, the claim that the Indianapolis Plan is the scion of the three movements in United Methodism is not an accurate claim: while involving people from various perspectives, they did not represent or hold accountability to their movements in the same way.
...My critique is the same I had for the Commission on A Way Forward: When you have caucus group employees whose positions and income have accountability at a different level from local church pastors, then you do not have an effort in good faith. When one side authors a proposal and it does not change in negotiations, it is not an effort in good faith.