The first official day of General Conference 2019 (GC) was a day spent in prayer and preparation. The bishops of the church led us in different forms of prayer. We heard prayers in several different languages. We sang or listened to hymns in different languages.

We prayed for delegates, for attendees, and consecrated prayer rooms. We prayed for various parts of the mission of the church. We submitted ourselves to God for the work to be done during the next few days. It was a good start.

It was cold and rainy when I arrived and immediately the delegates and observers were greeted by people supporting one or another agenda. Of course, there were the usual suspects as well, those who have no skin in the game, want their voices heard, for and against the changing of current church policy.

On my trip to St. Louis I started reading Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi, a Muslim apologist who converted to Christianity. The book gives us a glimpse into the Muslim world and describes how Qureshi came to embrace Jesus as the Christ.

The juxtaposition of the opening chapters of that book and what I witnessed at GC was astounding. Qureshi and other Muslims have a reverence for Allah that is seldom found in Christianity. In a story of Qureshi praying in a mosque, he struggles with his Muslim faith but is fearful that his doubts and questions will offend Allah even as he voices them in prayer. He is beginning a move toward seeing Jesus as Messiah but worries he may be wrong and in asking this question he is offending the God he was raised to worship.

At GC there were many people sporting rainbow stoles or lobbying for changing the UMC’s current stand on LGBTQ issues as if all it really takes to change this is a little political finesse. Do we really think God is indifferent to these things? We can be so glib and familiar with divine things that we have lost our reverence – or dare I say it – our fear of God.

This stark contrast has caused me no little heaviness in my heart, not because I lack compassion for certain people, but because I have had a glimpse of my own tendency to close my eyes to reverence for God, the Holy One of Israel. How can I say with any confidence that I think God would endorse this or that position without a clear word from Scripture?

Have we depersonalized God from the right and the left? Drs. Scott Kisker and David F. Watson talk about this depersonalized God in this way:

God functions, in a lot of church contexts, not as a person, but as a construct. God is an idea that sort of gives some weight to a set of ethical claims you want to make, instead of being a person who has done things in history for the redemption of humanity.

God is an idea that I need to be able to harness and the church is an institution I need to harness to promote whatever vision of the future I want to bring about.

(Plain Truth Podcast. Dec 17, 2018)

I have personally wrestled with many issues that would have been quickly settled if I could have said, “God is doing a new thing through the Spirit” even though the Scriptures clearly said something different. I guess that is the strength of having a scripturally grounded faith, it keeps me from creating a faith in my image.

I sometimes ask the question, “If the GC votes to travel a path that is not in harmony with Scripture are we to say that God is doing a new thing and we are following the fresh wind of the Spirit, or that we have once again followed a course of action based on political lobbying and left historic Christianity behind?” I also ask, “Would the Spirit of God lead a group in a direction that is contrary to God’s word, and if so, what does that mean for the other ‘truths’ of Scripture we cling to?”

If we have prayed for God to have God’s way in this conference, what happens when a decision is passed which one side or the other believe to be wrong (it will happen) will the side who feels wronged bow and say, “God has spoken,” and submit to that decision? I doubt it. Our whole human race has a long track record of knowing what God desires and going our own way (Gen 3:1-7).

I realize this post may cause more questions than it solves but dealing with questions like these is one way I try to be honest with my faith and hopefully honor God in the process.