Eric Van Meter

By Eric Van Meter
Special Contributor

Editor’s note: This is the third in an occasional series. See part one and part two in our News Archive.

My imaginary therapist likes to talk about boundaries. She thinks that by defining the borders of our relationship, the United Methodist Church and I will be happier together. 

I have my doubts about that. 

If anything, the boundaries set up by my church are all too clear. I know exactly who belongs, how they belong and what that belonging entitles them to do. It’s all terribly Disciplinary, not to mention divisive. 

Border wars are nothing new for United Methodists. As General Conference approaches, various factions are already mustering troops for battles on familiar territory. Who determines belonging in a church? 

Every so often, we skirmish along these borders. We revert to our default mode: protectionism. We build fences along the borders of the church, whether to protect the faithful from heretics or the vulnerable from zealots. Regardless of motives, guarding our turf requires enormous energy. 

But what if we tended to our borders—and the fences that mark them—in a different way? It’s possible, but it won’t be easy.

A life of its own

Old fences die hard. 

I know this from helping my friend Luka tear out a quarter mile of rusted barbed wire that separates his family’s farm from the national forest it borders. He and his father have maintained the fence for four decades, long enough for the posts to rot and the wire to become too brittle to splice. 

No matter. By the time Luka called me to help him remove it, the briars had woven their way into the wire, forming a twisted, prickly barrier along the property line. The fence took on a very literal life of its own. It happens. 

Luka relishes the thought of killing the fence. The pasture behind it no longer keeps livestock. The wilderness beyond it holds no threats to speak of. Yet for years, Luka’s father has insisted they keep the fence, not for its function, but for the sake of the fence itself. 

I feel that way about a lot of our time-honored United Methodist fences. Like membership. 

Fitness for membership became a big issue in the fall of 2005, when the Judicial Council handed down decisions 1031 and 1032 regarding a Virginia pastor who denied church membership to an openly gay man. The uproar was predictable from both the pro and anti camps. Banners waved. Ink was spilled. Prayer breakfasts were held. 

And nothing much changed. Gay people still belonged to churches, regardless of their membership status. Most folks still believed what they believed and lived their lives accordingly. No matter where the church officially placed the fence, people found a way to tunnel under it or fall back further from it. 

In other words, it didn’t change anything, much less do any good. It just gave people another fence to argue about. 

Regardless of how much time we spend trying to identify our target market, or how many assimilation classes we hold to help people transform from outsiders to one of us, the fact remains that the land between the United Methodist Church and the world at large is frontier territory. It’s chaotic, disorderly, untamed. 

And interesting. 

A desire to work along the borders of the church is what brought me into campus ministry. Young adults—in particular college students—are a foreign species to most United Methodists, and their habitat is not for the faint of heart. They are skittish creatures, prone to staying outside the definitive borders of the church, avoiding the fences as though they were last week’s liver casserole. 

The young adults I work with are no exception. Even though many of them grew up in United Methodist youth groups and consider themselves part of a local church, very few of them speak of a church as their spiritual home. They don’t feel like they fit, although they often can’t articulate why. 

But they do fit with each other. They don’t worry too much about building fences. They talk far more about how to open up their community, often looking within themselves for anything that might hinder someone else from sharing in Christ’s love manifested among them. They have a sense that God is doing something among them, collectively and individually. 

If they’re right—and I think they are—the fence builders among us should be very nervous. 

The Bible narratives tell of a God with the maddening habit of reaching beyond the typical borders to get things done. He puts the Exodus in the hands of a shepherd-in-exile. He gives another shepherd—just a boy, really—the keys to Saul’s kingdom. He turns over the care of the Messiah to an unwed girl. He trusts Jesus’ message of salvation first to fishermen, then to a murderer-turned-apostle. 

When God moves among us again, where will he start? Korea? The Philippines? Africa? American college campuses? Maybe all of the above. The biblical pattern suggests that it won’t start among the border police of the church. They’ll be too busy building and guarding their fences to listen for God’s voice.

Too idealistic?

“So,” my imaginary therapist says. She folds her hands in her lap and purses her lips ever so slightly. “I’m disappointed that you didn’t take my assignment about boundaries seriously.” 

“I did,” I answer. “It’s just that the borders I want most to examine are ones that my church seems blind to.” 

“Are you suggesting that there be no boundaries at all? That doesn’t seem feasible to me.” 

“I agree, and that’s not what I’m suggesting.” I lift my hands in front of me, try to spin together the words to say what my heart tells me. “I just wonder how things might be different if we downplayed the importance of the borders.” 

My therapist raises her eyebrows and nods, a classical expression that says, “I’m considering your answer but have no idea what you mean.” I try again. 

“The borders may be important, but our preoccupation with them is disproportional,” I say. “What would happen if we admitted that we will never agree on certain fences and moved on? Personally, I’d much rather explore the wilderness territory outside our ecclesial pasture than to bicker over the placement of the fences.” 

“Sounds idealistic.” 

“It probably is. Getting people to give up on the turf war is tough, and letting the fences rot may leave us vulnerable. But we still have to do it. The border wars are killing us, and they’re convincing our young adults to stay in the wilderness.” 

My therapist doesn’t have an answer for that. So far, no one else does either. Perhaps those of us outside the fences should start looking a little harder at what life could be like if we stepped out into the open range. 

The Rev. Van Meter is campus minister for the Wesley Foundation at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Ark.

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