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 Our friends at Breaking the Silence have just launched a new website, they are collecting personal stories related to full inclusion in the UMC. The site has a handful of video testimonials from clergy, lay people, and even some youth. The sites’s look and feel resemble the early “It Gets Better” project website. It is open to anyone who wishes to submit a story via YouTube and have it posted on the site. [...]  The highlight of the 2011 Breaking the Silence luncheon during the Texas Annual Conference was the keynote address delivered by Houston Mayor Annise Parker. [...] As the old saying goes, if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain later. We always complain. It’s time to say something, to quit waiting for someone else to come along and make things right. [...]
Dear Pastor, It was a good service preacher, in fact, a wonderful Christmas season. You really know how to bring it home on Chrismas Eve; all the candles, and the choir was really on it this year! Kids in the nativity scene were just as cute as can be, as always. I just wanted to mention some things that I think are really, really important to the church that I don’t hear you say enough, and it’s beginning to concern me. I know there’s a lot of division in our wider society, and I think it’s been creeping into the church itself, and it makes me grieve. I think you need to take a stronger and more vocal leadership stance in making sure that the real Gospel of Jesus Christ is heard in our church. Too often it seems that in the interest of reaching out “across the aisle”, you equivocate on issues like the love and care for immigrants, LGBT persons, the personal study of Scripture, and the overall love and dedication for the least among us. It seems that you tiptoe around these issues; you seem afraid to confront them in an honest, Biblically authentic way for fear of offending the richer and more powerful members of our church. I guess the Faux News religious right set just scream too loud for some of us that don’t feel like arguing in church. Preacher, surely you took an oath of some kind to maintain a faithful witness for our Lord, Jesus Christ? Surely your attention to the “other”, — the weak, the helpless, the poor, the outcast trumps making some wealthy, well connected church members happy? So many times when current events beg for a comment regarding the correct Christian response, you tiptoe around and act like doing the right thing is an option, not a witness. Continue reading Letter to Preacher
I know, me neither. In light of these recent tragedies, perhaps it’s time to look at the church’s liability, or at least their culpability in the suicides of teens who feel repressed, hated, and bullied by society and institutions in our society. Consider Jamie Nabozny of Ashland, Wisconsin. A public high school student in the mid 90’s who was bullied, threatened, and terrorized because of his perceived sexuality. School officials knew of the abuse, but said, “Nabozny should expect it if he’s gay.” To make a long story short, he sued, and a Federal Appeals Court finally ruled in his favor, finding that the school district could be held liable for not stopping anti-gay abuse. When the lower court then ruled that the officials were to be held liable, the district quickly settled for a million dollars. So it follows, does the church by its pronounced stand on homosexuality have blood on its hands? There is undoubtedly a United Methodist Church in every community that the bullied and now dead children once lived. In every community where a child committed suicide, that church was a reminder to those kids that they were not equal in the sight of God. Some of those churches are undoubtedly conflicted about that stance, and others are quite happy to remind their community that homosexuality is an abomination in the site of the Lord, “incompatible with Christian teaching,” and is not to be tolerated. Some of us make jokes, others become enraged, and certainly we all cluck our tongues when we discuss the Catholic church’s problems with child abuse: how shameful it is that the institution has actively sheltered the abusers while leading the lambs out to the wolves. Is their error of commission any more grievous than our own errors of omission? How can we continue to ignore the cry for relief from our own discrimination? Outside of the church, the response to the bullying deaths has been notable. The president of the United States proclaimed yesterday that “homosexuality is not a choice.”
15 year old Billy Lucas killed himself in his grandmother’s barn where his mother would find his body, hanging from the rafters. She would later refuse to write an obituary or have a public funeral for him, because “she didn’t want those kids who had hurt him to see him.”  Billy Lucas The provocative sex columnist Dan Savage wrote in his syndicated column
Savage started a website and a YouTube channel called “It Gets Better”, devoted to posting messages from people who want to counsel young people that there is a life and hope beyond the bullies. (Episcopal church bishop Gene Robinson has posted a video.) Some of the videos are incredibly poignant. Savage notes that in real life, gay adults are never allowed to even talk to children about sexuality, so his internet campaign has become an accessible way for teens to get a message of hope and not harm. Continue reading Does the UMC have blood on its hands? From the bully pulpit…?
Recently, this article by Rev. Kent Millard showed up on the UM Portal. Rev. Millard pastors a large Methodist Church in Indianapolis, and his article suggests a “truce” over the issues of LGBT inclusion in the church.
On a social network site, it didn’t take long for the usual suspicions to be raised, and a variety of conclusions about this pastor to be drawn. Probably some sneaky strategy here, some way that the conservative factions had found to lull some moderates into an ill conceived compromise. But these assumptions seem false. With a little googling, it wasn’t hard to find that Millard’s church sponsors a PFLAG group, that their website uses the word “inclusive” a great deal, and that Rev. Millard has participated on at least one publicized round table discussion (the one I saw was sponsored by “Gay Into Straight America”)… and favored full inclusion. His backstory about how he got there seemed like a Grace experience.
Even after discussion about his seeming earnestness, several were dismissive of him, noting that the idea of a “truce” is a false notion. True enough. But I don’t think he was a false pastor, or false in his desire to take us beyond this stalemate. I think it’s an opportunity to engage him. After all, he’s stuck his neck out this far. Neither “side” is going to accept the terms of a truce, (though admittedly, it looks better on paper for conservatives), so why not challenge him to stick his neck out a little further? So why don’t we embrace every ally we can in this struggle? Is there a reason that we cannot think in political terms to achieve the change that we desire? Who are we waiting for, and how long are we willing to wait for someone ELSE to lead? Continue reading Never Missing Opportunities to Miss Opportunities Hear that rumbling? It’s a sound United Methodists have come to expect every four years: the sound of veiled threats by the ultra-right wing of our denomination to split the church, taking the “United” out of “United Methodist.” [...]
Rudy Rasmus, pastor of St. John’s Downtown Church in Houston, posted an interesting entry in his blog which is published on the Houston Chronicle website. He makes reference to President Obama’s call to end the military policy, “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell”. Then he reflects that the church, for all practical purposes, has the same policy.
Pastor Rudy, as he is known, applauds President Obama’s decision, and frames this issue as an act of discrimination. This is significant in several ways. First, there are very few Methodist ministers willing to offer very public pronouncements like this. They are out there, to be sure, but many who are fighting for this issue often find themselves struggling in less public ways, and many find push-back within and outside the local and global church. Second, the black church has historically been very socially conservative on this issue, often it is more of a contentious issue in the black community than in the larger society. They are often very reluctant to equate racial discrimination with sexual identity discrimination. Another predominately black Methodist church in Houston is the Windsor Village Methodist Church. Senior minister Kirbyjon Caldwell famously delivered the prayer for both of George W. Bush’s presidential inaugurations. When Caldwell decided to endorse Barack Obama for president, it came to light that the Windsor Village website linked to the Metatonia Ministries, a movement to “reform gays”. When this became publicized by gay rights activists, Caldwell had the website scrubbed clean of it, and explained that he had not been aware of the association. This could of course suggest that Caldwell is more enamored with fame and publicity than any particular theology. After the WVMC website was scrubbed, the question of gays being allowed to marry in the church or participate in civil unions was put directly to Caldwell. He courageously deflected and explained that he would “need to check with the church”. Continue reading Prominent Black Pastor in Houston Seeks to End “Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell” In the Church |
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