In the aftermath of the recent United Methodist General Conference, I choose to believe some important things today as an evangelical centrist, a heartbroken unifier, and an embracer of gracious and justice-minded orthodoxy within the United Methodist Church.

I choose to believe what is best about people in the midst of our serious divisions. Some would call this either naïve or morally irresponsible—or both. But I see it as my only way to breathe healthy air at this point in the journey, especially as a District Superintendent in the church.

I choose to believe, for example, that my conservative friends are not driven by hatred, bigotry, or a crippling homophobia in their support of the United Methodist Church’s current restrictions related to homosexuality. Rather, the conservatives with whom I relate are driven by the conviction that souls, eternity, and Biblical truth are at stake, and that to love homosexual people authentically means something far more unpopular and complex than affirming their choices. (I desperately hope, of course, that my conservative friends will have a profound sensitivity to the fact that their stance, irrespective of its motive, lands as something oppressive, abusive, and contemptuous upon the hearts of LGBTQ+ people, their family members, and their advocates. Such a sensitivity will help my conservative friends to approach the current negative responses to General Conference with a more durable patience and a more nuanced understanding.)

I choose to believe that my progressive friends are not driven by an irreverence toward Scripture or an eagerness to dismiss Biblical teaching in order to accommodate societal trends. Rather, the progressives with whom I relate are driven by an unwavering passion for a history-altering liberation to which they believe the ministry of Jesus points, somewhere way beyond what they interpret as the incomplete and culturally-conditioned Biblical condemnations. (I desperately hope, of course, that my progressive friends will have a profound sensitivity to the fact that many conservative United Methodists are just as heartbroken concerning our bitter divisions, even though they occupy the majority side of a winless debate. Such a sensitivity will help my progressive friends to approach the current conversation with righteous and well-stewarded anger instead of abusive insults and bitter vituperation.)

I choose to believe that my centrist friends are driven neither by a cowardly refusal to choose a side nor an idolatrous fixation on preserving the institution. Rather, the centrists with whom I relate are driven by the belief that the saving grace of Jesus Christ makes possible a wide and durable unity in which divergent viewpoints can live and breathe together, and that none of those divergent viewpoints necessitate a severing of our connection in the mission to which all of us are called. (I desperately hope, of course, that my centrist friends have a profound sensitivity to the anguish that is taking place to their left and right and an awareness of the fact that their position may sound like an abdication of leadership to some on both sides. Such a sensitivity will help my centrist friends to nurture deeper relationships across the spectrum.)

I choose to believe that my Christ-following LGBTQ+ friends are not driven by a desire to diminish the the church’s emphasis on sexual holiness. Rather, the LGBTQ+ friends with whom I relate are driven both by their understanding that their orientation is an integral part of their personhood and by their desire to be seen, not as an “issue” or as a group of “incompatibles,” but as souls within the Body of Christ who are called, gifted, and equipped, all the while longing for relational covenants and spiritual wholeness like all the rest of us. (I desperately hope that my LGBTQ+ friends will know the love of God in tangible ways in these hard days through the ministry of caring people, so that they might not be further crushed by a debate that is often dehumanizing for them.)

Most importantly, I choose to believe that Jesus is still Lord and that God cares about the ministry and mission of the United Methodist Church even more than we do—FAR more than we do, in fact. Furthermore, I choose to believe that our current struggle has not taken us beyond the boundaries of what God can redeem, reshape, reconfigure, and restore.

Therefore, I choose to remain in this broken, imperfect part of the Body of Christ called the United Methodist Church. I choose this messy, heartbreaking, and important journey with progressive, traditionalist, and centrist Christ-followers, many of whom have forgotten more about discipleship than I will ever know. I choose to embrace the struggle of it all, not with cynicism, but a strong conviction that the struggle is worth it (as it so often is in the life of God’s church).

What I have written here will strike many as being woefully inadequate, a theological or moral cop-out during a time that demands a clearer sense of certainty; or a deeper commitment to Biblical faithfulness; or a more passionate pursuit of justice and radical hospitality. If that is your take on what I have written, then perhaps you are right.

Then again, perhaps God is utilizing United Methodism as a sacred instrument by which to announce to a politically, racially, culturally, and philosophically fractured world that there really is a better way forward—that there really is a countercultural and rugged unity that is as gracious as it is urgent.