Reconciling Ministries Network Convocation

I attended the RMN Convo October 13-15, 2023. Here are my notes of the worship services, plenary sessions, and workshops I attended. This was my 8th convo. I’ve attended each one since 2007. This one was held at First United Methodist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the 40th anniversary year – RMN began in 1984. The worship services, plenary sessions, and some of the workshops were livestreamed and recorded. The videos will be on the RMN YouTube channel. The first session on Friday morning was a bible study by Rev. Juan Carlos Heuertas, of First-Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, NE. He said we need to develop a new relationship with scripture. We should not idolize scripture, something people do a lot. We also domesticate and silence the text. We should engage in the text. It is sacred because through our engagement we find life, we learn how to be better, and be a more loving and just family. Jesus, in his first time in Nazareth as an adult (Luke 4:18-19), described what we should be doing. That text says: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news too the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” But this is always a problem for the church. To do what Jesus is asking means asking and listening to what the community needs. Gathering as a whole body allows us to care for others outside. One year their neighbors said their greatest need was relief from medical debt. So they raised money for that. The next year the community said the greatest need was mental health. So they concentrated on that. During the morning worship the preacher was Rev. Angie Cox, an out queer clergy at Livingston United Methodist Church in Columbus, OH. Her next step in ordination has been deferred several times. While growing up and because she is lesbian she heard a message of conditional love from a vengeful god who insisted in perfection. Since then she has learned to let go of the harm and replace it with love and grace, that God loved even her. She reminded us that we, each of us, are enough. Welcoming LGBTQ people is only part of the story. There are other welcomes we need to extend – to all those people we are taught not to love. Heuertas led a workshop on decolonizing the church. We must decolonize because ignoring the effects of colonialism inhibits liberation. Colonial actions are violent. They are done to subdue. The past fights to remain the same. Marginalized communities are split into segments and each one is convinced the other segments are its enemy. Much of the effort to colonize comes from the instruction that humans are to have “dominion” over creation. But the Hebrew word had a different meaning. Constantine, Caesar in Rome, made his personal religion into the state religion. Which means after that when the Roman army went out it did its conquering in the name of Jesus. We call the time after Columbus the Age of Discovery. That includes the Pope. In his Doctrine of Discovery, he used othering language to give permission to enslave those who were not Christian. Then there is the Protestant work ethic that laments land that isn’t being used enough. Today’s youth think that with a foundation like that the church can’t be redeemed. Heuertas listed the three parts of colonization. First is supremacy, primarily of race and gender. Supremacy created structures so that it remains supreme and shapes future colonizers. Second is displacement, including literal, and includes genocide. This goes all the way back to the Israelites and the Promised Land. In modern times the displacement is marketed as a way to “make communities better.” There are also much more subtle messages such as “affordable” housing that isn’t. The third part is commodification, or making creation into a commodity to be bought and sold to maximize profits. An early commodity was land, which we buy and sell, but indigenous people understood to belong to all of them. We’re at the point where we’ve commodified education and health care. All three parts of colonization are still deeply at work. Decolonization will take lots of work and the unity of marginalized people. Some more thoughts: Supremacy is the default. So don’t buy into it. Do we confirm or denigrate another person’s dignity? Think about power structures – who is in the room? Listen to the members and the neighbors. We are called to repair the effects of colonization. Yes, that is hard. And note “repair” is a part of the word “reparations.” We must resist the urge to displace neighbors. Heuertas said his church needs more parking. But getting more land for parking means displacing those in adjacent properties. Also, what does the right to shelter look like? Housing is a commodified version of shelter. We need a new way to think about shelter and perhaps we can be a hub of discussion about it. We have made capitalism sacrosanct. So let’s discuss it. How are we a part of the problem? Yes, we should educate our young to not be colonizers. Alas, they will have different prejudices. How can we be better at keeping the Sabbath, to have an actual pause in our labors? While we’re at it we must recognize keeping a Sabbath is a privileged practice because the poor cannot. Some suggestions for resources: • MFSA put out a series of videos titled “Stealing the Earth.” • Read the text of that Doctrine of Discovery to see how Christianity was turned into a colonizer. • Don’t read anything written by white dudes for a year. Read books and stories written by women, queer people, people of color, and people of other cultures. Rev. Steve Harper led another workshop in which he talked about his transformation from a religion professor at a conservative college to an LGBTQ ally. His website is oboedire.com where he has a great number of resources for the journey towards becoming an LGBTQ ally. Two of them are his notes for this session. And his general list of LGBTQ related resources. He told us he is here to witness to his own change of mind, not to argue. He ordered his presentation through an outline based on the book Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. Many things in life follow order – disorder – reorder. This is similar to 2 Corinthians 5:17 that says the old passes away, the new shall come. Order is what works. It is maintained as long as it keeps working. His earliest memories are of the church. It was basic to forming who he is and he was surrounded by others like himself. He went to seminary, then taught at a seminary. He followed the principle of the time and that place that towards LGBTQ people he should be “welcoming, but not affirming.” And for 66 years that worked just fine. Then it didn’t. He was pushed into disorder. What had worked stopped working and he reached a system failure. This was during Lent of 2014. He was using the Book of Common Prayer as his guide through the season. One passage was “Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions.” That prompted him to apply the Biblical process of “Ask, seek, knock.” He invested in relationships with LGBTQ people, one gay man in particular. He also studied a lot – see his resources. In particular a large part of his resources follow the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, the four major ways John Wesley said we are to understand our faith. These ways are Scripture, Tradition, Reason (both theology and science), and Experience. This came from the Anglican trilateral of Scripture, Tradition, Reason. Wesley added the Experience component after his experience at Aldersgate where he said he heart was “strangely warmed.” That led him to reorder, a new understanding. Yes, many in his seminary and conservative friends backed away. He now has new friends in the reconciling movement. Harper added two thoughts about the current church situation. The big issue in the church is over biblical interpretation. How we interpret the Bible guides how we treat it and each other. As for the big round of congregation disaffiliation he believes the effort is led by clergy. If the laity were making the decision disaffiliation wouldn’t be happening. [I’ve since seen a story of significant numbers of lay members leaving when a disaffiliation vote fails.] I attended a session where several of the people who started the reconciling movement in 1984 or were involved in the early years shared their stories. I didn’t record them. A plenary session introduced us to some of the caucuses that are a part of our broad coalition. This was done through a panel that introduced us to some of the leaders. They represented caucuses for Black, Hispanic, Native, Puerto Rican, and Asian people. Six caucuses were represented in this session though there are many more. Some of them have been around for quite a while. They began to be recognized by the denomination in the mid 1990s. We are in coalition with these groups because we all want the same thing – the removal of harmful language from the Book of Discipline. We also want the removal of the actual harm, recognizing the harm probably won’t end when the language is removed. Each person on stage introduced themselves and said a bit of what their caucus does and who it is for. With them was the director of the General Committee on Religion and Race who, for the first time, is a gay man. The general message of these leaders is the denomination isn’t informed enough of ethnic issues before General Conference. Multicultural is too often assimilation, and it loses context. The Native leader used her time to talk about the residential boarding schools that tried to assimilate Native children. The effect was these children had love ripped from them. When they became adults they didn’t know how to love their children. She advocated returning the remains of their children, the ones who didn’t survive the boarding schools, so they can heal. Rev. Luther Young spoke at the evening plenary session. He is a minister in the Disciples of Christ Church and serves as a moderator of the Disciples LGBRQ+ Alliance. He talked about what the Black church has in common with LGBTQ+ Christians. During the years of slavery Black people created their own religious spaces that didn’t need to conform to the dominant culture. An example is the AME Zion church. They created their own traditions, taking traditions from many other denominations. They wanted tradition, not stagnation. They wanted a Christianity that allowed them their freedom. But what they took was still wrapped up in patriarchy. Women were not satisfied with the status quo. They took hold of their own power. There were LGBT people through the Black church, but were never named. There was an issue of being both queer and black. None of the Black denominations have queer ministries. Queer members of Black churches saw themselves as Black before queer. They were not interested in a queer church because most of those are white. Such a church might affirm their queerness but not their blackness. Yes, there are churches that are both Black and queer, but they’re only in big cities. The struggles of the Black church and queer church are connected. Both have a goal of inclusion of all, a diversity in the community. But the goal isn’t simply diversity. A church must face the questions: Why would I want to come to your church? Why is diversity good? Who benefits? Does it just make the white people feel good? The goal isn’t just to make other people (Black, queer, other ethnic groups) welcome. The goal is to be ready for when they show up. Be the church people want to come to. Do we already have a gender neutral bathroom? Are the power structures already inclusive and has patriarchy and colonization been rooted out? We want to get to the place of not needing to bless the poor because we would have dismantled the system that keeps people poor. We want to be willing to risk our privilege to help others. We should be about people, not laws. So get to work, this convocation is only a pit stop. The first session on Saturday was a Bible study led by Steve Harper and Bishop Karen Oliveto, also known as the Asbury Professor and the Lesbian Bishop. Asbury is a very conservative seminary. They talked about what to do when you’re down to ten members – which is where the disciples were after the death of Judas and while Thomas was AWOL. First recognize the grief, loss, and trauma of what we thought the church was. Care for the casualties. The “nones” (those that answer “None” to the question What Religion?”) are telling us what is wrong with the church. They are also grieving the loss. But this is a chance to show Jesus in a new light, something many of us have spent a long time waiting for. This time (between many disaffiliations and another General Conference) is a time of active waiting, to be present for what is to come. It is a combination of what is and what is to be. We can’t go back and seems we aren’t moving forward. At this time we claim Acts 2: 42-47, when the disciples, now apostles, attended to the business of maintaining the community. We can talk about love, the means of grace, and the means to deliver both. We should talk about how to treat each other. But we have much infighting. Our joy is their Kryptonite. Oliveto mentioned she saw people around a Brony convention. Brony culture takes its name from “Bro” and “pony” – as in the My Little Pony toys and TV series. The “Bro” part means they are indeed men and boys who are fans of the show. Oliveto said she was struck how kindly and respectfully the men treated each other and the boys around them. There are, of course, online articles about Bronies. In the morning worship service the sermon was by Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey, a professor of Constructive Theology. It was a rousing sermon, but I didn’t take notes. I was quite delighted with the lyrics of the song after communion. The song is “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen and the words bring a chill when I read them again. Here is a sample: The door is always open Your picture's on my wall Everyone's a little broken And everyone belongs Yeah everyone belongs I want a house with a crowded table And a place by the fire for everyone Let us take on the world while we're young and able And bring us back together when the day is done And bring us back together when the day is done A false prophet will flatter and proclaim their demons. A true prophet will be persecuted. If God is for us the church can’t continue to be against us. The following plenary session discussed RMN and General Conference. There will be three GCs in the next five years, ‘24, ‘26, and ‘28. The changes we want to see happen at GC in 2024 are not a foregone conclusion. The current delegates are much more inclusive, but with so many disaffiliations there will be fewer of them representing the US. That means a higher proportion of conservative African delegates. RMN, with limited resources, will concentrate on three major priorities. The first is to remove the harmful language from the Book of Discipline. The second is to approve regional structures. The third is to approve revised social principles. We are aware that getting rid of the harmful language will not get rid of the harm. There is still a lot of work to change the church. But we are a movement that doesn’t wait for permission. For example, we now have a gay married man as pastor in the Southeast Jurisdiction. Many who worked against us have left, but there is still louts of work to do. We (RMN) must keep applying pressure. We must talk to the GC delegates and work in the coalition. Because the regionalization proposal requires a constitution change, which requires Annual Conference approval, we must also talk to our own church delegates. And that means local churches need to be a part of the reconciling movement. We are a part of an organization. Doing the work together is better than doing it as isolated churches. We need to keep gathering and investing in the organization and doing its work. Does my local church know that I’m in RMN? I may need to change hearts in my own church. I attended a workshop discussing the revised Social Principles put on by Neal Christie. These revisions were ready in 2019 for the 2020 General Conference that didn’t happen. Christie is a co-convener of the Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC) a group of fourteen national caucuses. He is also a US team member of the Chrismas Covenant. The Social Principles are a tradition in the denomination to speak to the issues of the day. They began in 1908 as a Social Creed. The first version was mostly about labor as in opposition to child labor and sweatshop labor. The Creed has been updated only twice. Some congregations display parts of the Creed. Starting in 2004 there was an effort to update the Social Creed. This was driven by UM churches outside the US. The new creed was adopted in 2016. It was also adopted by the Council of Churches. In 1968, when the denomination was formed, Social Principles were proposed. This was shortly before Martin Luther King was assassinated. They were adopted by General Conference in 1972. In 2012 an effort to revise the Social Principles was begun. Again, the effort was driven by churches outside the US. The SP were considered too US centric. In addition to making them world wide there was also an effort to make them more succinct and give them a theological foundation and global relevance. In 2016 the team began writing. The process was global from the start. There were listening session around the world. Conservatives also observed and participated in the listening session. Many sections are new – there hadn’t been a section on human trafficking. The revised Social Principles were ready for adoption in 2020. The new document is teachable from the pulpit and in small group studies. They are to be used in personal and pastoral care. The text is online and in several languages. While regions of the church can’t revise the Social Principles they can add their own supplemental material and context. A couple of the changes: War is no longer incompatible with Christian teaching. There is a section on polygamy with the intent of reducing harm (in some cultures the children of second and third wives don’t have rights). I attended a workshop on creating a narrative for inclusion in the UMC. It was led by Rev. David Meredith, a gay pastor, and Rev. Molly Vetter, a pastor at Westwood UMC in Los Angeles, and a LGBTQ ally. We were given time to create and share our own narrative. Such a narrative is a testimony of deep conviction that we must include others. It confronts the unknown. A narrative consists of a story of self, a story of us, and a story of now. It is to draw others into deeper relationship for work towards liberation. We should have these stories in our pockets to share with the people around us. The story of now is important because we as a denomination have done harm, in contrast to John Wesley’s simple rule of “Do no harm.” The theme of this convo is Onward to Perfection and that means always expanding our understanding of love. We have the possibility of a new start after disaffiliation. We have been reading scripture wrong. It is a story of liberation and love. We have allowed faulty interpretation of seven verses to become a stumbling block to the Gospel. Here is a draft of what I might say in my own narrative. As I was growing up and well into my 40s the United Methodist churches I attended did not mention homosexuality. The topic was not discussed and if there were LGBTQ people around I did not know it. My own homosexuality stayed hidden. Then I attended my first RMN Convocation in 2007. What had been hidden was out front and celebrated. The feeling was overwhelming and I saw what hiding did to me. That prompted me to try to get my own congregation to be more welcoming and part of a wider movement. That didn’t go well and I left that church ten years ago. We must act now in our own congregation and in the denomination at the next General Conference because the society thinks we’re backward. That was proclaimed publicly after the 2019 GC that affirmed and added to the harms against LGBTQ people. The harm that is directed to our LGBTQ children drives our youth away. There is harm to the denomination in the denial of pastoral talent. We can be part of combating the rising tide of homophobia. The Saturday afternoon plenary session discussed RMN’s regionalization priority at General Conference. In the early years RMN had to support delegates under the radar. Now we can do it openly. We need all three priorities. They don’t compete. They do allow the denomination to maintain the global connection. In the other areas of the world the United Methodist Church can adapt the Book of Discipline to its specific needs. The denomination in the US cannot. The constitution was set up so the US could colonize Africa. But now Africa can enforce their ideas on us, colonizing in reverse. Currently, this leads to strange things like the worldwide church voting on US pension rules. It also means the worldwide church also has control of US ordination standards and how the US churches treat LGBTQ pastors and members. The proposal to create regionalization is in response to the 2019 GC. It is part of the effort to decolonize the church. It is a set of eight amendments to the denomination constitution. It was to be voted on in 2020 and is ready for the 2024 GC. If it passes it will go to the various Annual Conferences for ratification. Two-thirds must ratify. The proposal is called the Christmas Covenant and a detailed description is here. The webpage (on legislation) describes the covenant’s vision, guiding principles, and values. The guiding principles include that we are all children of God. To that is added the African concept of Ubuntu, based on interdependence and community of life, and the Filipino concept of Bayanihan, the idea of community spirit and cooperation to achieve community goals and help those in need. There is also an emphasis on human dignity and human rights. The values include respect for contextual ministry (not doing so is colonialism), connectional relationships rooted in mission, and legislative equality in regions of the church. Nothing in this proposal is specifically LGBTQ. It does give regions a way to set their own policies on LGBTQ members and pastors. If this does not pass, we could face more reverse colonialism. The US membership is shrinking. I heard people talking about the percent of churches disaffiliating in various Annual Conferences. So many have left in Texas that its five ACs may be consolidated into two. The UMC in the Congo region in Africa has about three million members, about the size of two US jurisdictions. So though we might eliminate harmful language in the Book of Discipline in the 2024 General Conference it could be reimposed by Africa in a future GC. After the plenary session was a service to honor Bishop Melvin Talbert. He had died on August 3 of this year and had done a lot for LGBTQ equality within the denomination. He often told the story of sharing a jail cell with Martin Luther King. He spoke out for LGBTQ includsion at both the 2008 and 2012 GCs and in 2012 called the denomination to biblical obedience when the Bible was in conflict with the rules of the Book of Discipline. He called on fellow bishops to ignore church law and officiate at same-gender weddings. In 2013 he did just that and complaints were brought against him, though later dropped. He also served on the RMN board. In the evening was a concert by the Gay Men’s Chorus and the Women’s Chorus, both of Charlotte. The Sunday morning was held with the congregation of First United Methodist of Charlotte. Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth gave the sermon. He is the second gay bishop in the denomination. It was a great sermon, though I took few notes. A couple things I wrote down: Why be a star when we can be a constellation? Live the faith, not the debate. Orthodoxy is not God. Liberalism is not God. I attended a workshop on how to talk across the political spectrum hosted by Nick Mundwiller, who is nonbinary. Conservatives are good at organizing and training each other. Progressives aren’t nearly as good. Each of us has some power and can talk to someone with just a bit more power than we do. As for tactics: Get up from a table that is no longer loving. The ban on “talking politics,” such as after saying a Fox News talking point, is politics, especially if the other person isn’t allowed to respond. Beware of the inauthentic question, seeming to ask for information. Beware of diversion tactics. Debate is not a loving style of talking. Debate is political and is about wining. Dialogue is good, it’s about learning, and maybe redirecting the relationship. Work to connect to the true issue – for example, a gun advocate is worried about safety and so is a person working for gun bans. An internal bias is not conscious and is learned. An example is a woman holding her purse more tightly when a Black man passes. One can reply, “I think you might have a bias. Don’t make this about classification.” When external this is a prejudice, such as a store clerk following a Black man through the store. There are also systemic biases, the –isms. These are held up by the power of the institution. When talking to others only use it when discussing power. More tactics: Rephrase what you hear, perhaps with a brutal phrasing. Ask to understand, not to frame a response. Lead by example – if you get frustrated they will too. Hold yourself accountable to your statements and ideals and admit when wrong. Share what has shifted in yourself. Be honest about the goals of the conversation. Explain why you’re uncomfortable. If you believe it, live it. Keep empathy in mind. No one is a villain. We’re all trying to do our best. Part of systemic bias is the political party’s related issues. Suggest a next step, such as media or book by a marginalized author or about a marginalized community. When things go bad… Acknowledge it – I see you’re upset. Reframe the moment by perhaps saying I’m also upset. Move on. Show concern by repeating why we are talking. If there is yelling, stop. If the language has turned into an attack, stop. If the other person looks like they are about to be physically aggressive, stop. If your heart is being hurt, stop. If you feel you are becoming riled up, stop. Know your limits and maintain them. Your feelings are valid as are theirs, though you are not responsible for their feelings. Take care of yourself. Separating is OK. My last workshop was building a reconciling community in your hometown, put on by Jennifer Von Essen. Many communities affiliated with RMN are churches, where the congregation as a whole votes to be part of the movement. There are also communities (perhaps a Bible study or Sunday School class) within a church when the whole congregation isn’t ready. There are also communities outside the church. Jennifer created the last type and did it in Gwinnett County, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta. Since it started with the RMN connection there was no vote to join. One doesn’t need a certain number of people to begin. Or seasoned leaders. Or have planned programs. Or funding. One does need a safe space. It is always the right time to begin. Their most popular events were social gatherings at restaurants. They asked each restaurant to be a safe space such as honoring their pronouns and to stop disrespectful behavior from other patrons. They gave these places a decal to display. They also met at a library (many have meeting rooms that residents can use) and a park. They worked with reconciling churches of other denominations to hold a clothes closet for transgender kids, so they could avoid going into gendered stores. The went to both pride and regular events and were told just being there was a comfort. They went to PFLAG and said we’re not competing. They had a website, a Facebook page, and Instagram presence to be a comfort to young people. They sometimes watched movies. One was the movie “1946, The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” about the making of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. This was the first translation that used the word “homosexuality.” Later, translators realized that word was not correct. But by then their phrase had been copied many times, to the detriment of LGBTQ people. I checked online and saw the movie is still in the festival circuit (no Detroit dates listed) and not available to stream. I also saw the title of an article that says the movie declaring a mistranslation makes no difference. They also talked about books, such as “UnClobber, Rethinking our misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality” by Colby Martin. Because money is involved they were sponsored by a church to use their non profit status. That way they didn’t need to go through the hassle of getting non profit approval. But beyond money they didn’t need church backing. There was a final plenary session that announced the livestreams of the worship service, plenary sessions, and some workshops will be posted online. Leaders also encouraged us to share the experience of Convo (what I’m doing with this report) and to engage with the people around me.