Reconciling Ministries Network

Reconciliation and Love's Definition

By Peter L. DeGroote

Jesus’ Prime Directive of loving God and others points us toward reconciliation. Standing in our way is the hopeless jumble of definitions for love that include emotional infatuation, pious devotion to prayer, and much in between.

At the heart of the problem is our theological fracturing of love’s meaning by use of three of Greek philosophy’s several categories:  

• Agape: The self-sacrificing love of God or Jesus.
• Philios: Arising out of freindship of men, particularly through shared military and work experinece.
• Eros: Having to to with the sensual and sexual.

These categories often lead to wacky conclusions. Three of the more obvious examples:

• We can think love is central to romance and sex even when those relationships can be filled with aggression, manipulation, and a sense of conquest.
• We can think that our works of charity define us as loving people while we ignore the structure of human relationships that cause poverty, homelessness, and hunger.
• We can sing If We Only Had Love while meaning "if only everyone thought the way I am thinking."

As for the Bible:

• Hebrew Scripture defines God’s steadfast love largely in terms of God’s activity; human love has to do with either following the rules of God or in acts social justice and personal mercy.  
• The Apostle Paul provided some characteristics of the loving personality, such as patience and kindness and the lack of arrogance, boasting, and resentments. While pointing to underlying principles, they do not define love. Also, in one of his more mystical moments Paul observed that while everything else passes away, love never ends. Eternal dimensions are difficult to define and measure (See 1 Corinthians 3).
• Jesus’ conceived of love within a matrix of human motives and values that frame all relationships, a matrix that inextricably tied our relationship with God to our relationships with each other. (John Wesley said it this way: Don’t tell me you love God if I can’t see it in the way you treat others.)

Instead of an objective definition, Jesus told us to take action that would result in our discovery of what he was talking about. Not only did he build the front porch to a household of reconciliation, he handed us the keys to the front door, to a reconciling way of life.  

Those keys included forgiveness, turning the other cheek and praying for our enemies, to name only a few.

The prayer for enemies is particularly revealing when coupled with the instruction to love our enemies, a revelation that God does not share our feelings about our enemies. We are pushed along to grasp that loving God means to join God’s expectation and hope for all humanity. Living in harmony (love) with God seems to mean living in harmony with others, with all of God’s creation. This is called reconciliation.

As I explore Jesus’ instructions, the word “love” increasingly falls by the wayside. Its definitions are so broad as to become meaningless. Harmony with God and others, harmony with God and God’s creation becomes useful. Accepting the understanding that God has the same hope for others as God has for me, I increasingly say, honors God by honoring others and respects God by respecting others.

There is much to explore. 

 

Rejection/Reception

By Rev.Gilbert H. Caldwell

Mark 7:25-29: "A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he was saying to her, 'Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' But she answered and said to Him, 'Yes Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children's crumbs.' And he said to her, 'Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.'

This is the text of a sermon preached by Shaundra Cunningham, the winner of the first prize at this year's Billings Preaching Prize Competition at Harvard Divinity School.* She entitled the sermon "Remember Your Daughters," and in the sermon she asks these questions: "How do you respond when Jesus acts like a jackass? How do you react when the one who is supposedly without sin shows a stunning reprehensible side?"
 
I was so startled by her words that I had to read on. Ms. Cunningham says; "The Matthean account of this story is even more explicit. In Matthew 15:24, Jesus says, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' Jesus didn't want to be bothered in the first place, but now the woman finally has his attention and can make her petition. Jesus shows his ugly side.  He calls this woman a dog!'"
 
Ms. Cunningham then says; "When Jesus calls her a dog, the first words out of her mouth are: 'Yes, Lord.' Even though Jesus tried to dismiss her, she couldn't let his temperament offset her mission. The woman knew what and who she came for" (her daughter).
 
Some may be so offended by this depiction of Jesus that they cannot find meaning in the sermon intent of Ms.Cunningham. The sentence in the sermon that "spoke" with special power to me is this: "The problem this woman faces is common to each of us - that is, rejection. How do we handle our rejections, and not just any rejection, but rejection from the lips of Jesus?"
 
The rejection that many of us wrestle with at this moment is rejection by the followers of Jesus. This summer the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America received rather than rejected those whom so many have kept "outside of the gate." My prayer and hope is...........
 
* From the Summer 2009 edition of Harvard Divinity Today, volume 5, number 2
 
Gil Caldwell

Open Hearts? Open Doors? Open Minds? Open Table?

By Justin White

Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Be imitators of Christ’s love. Give yourself up to God’s love. Put away bitterness. Put away wrath. Put away slander. Take on kindness. Take on gentle heartedness. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.  Love. Love. Love.

These are the words that we hear in Ephesians 4:31-5:2. In the debate over radical inclusion of LGBT persons in the church, it seems that God’s love is sometimes absent. This absence of love can often times be seen on both sides of the issue. Those who oppose full inclusion use scripture for tactics of exclusion and casting out. Those who support full inclusion and affirm LGBTQ persons get mad, slander the  other side, hold grudges, etc.  Yes, there is hurt.  Yes, there is pain.  But this hurt and pain manifests itself on both sides of the issue. This hurt and pain is evident as we have seen screaming matches break out in some of our annual conferences. We have seen one side attack the other, and we have seen the other side attack right back.  There is fear, not love.  There is hurt, not wholeness.  There is brokenness, not unity. Even in my home conference in Mississippi, there are meetings still going on about the testimony of a lesbian couple that spoke in a worship service at annual conference.  That was two months ago! Yet the fear, the hurt, and the brokenness is deep.  It is very, very deep.  To overcome this brokenness, I feel that we as a United church need to come to the Lord’s table. All of us: LGBTQ persons, straight persons, persons of different ethnicities, persons who are liberal, persons who are conservative, persons who struggle with addictions, persons who are rich, persons who are poor. ALL PERSONS.  We need to come and partake in the broken body of our Lord and we need to love each other in spite of our differences. 

The hard thing is, I don’t want to come to the table with those who are reacting out of their own fears and insecurities as they approach the issue of inclusion.  I don’t want to come to the table with those who compare homosexuality with devil worship.  I do not want to come to the table with those who seek to cast out “the other” from our church.  However, it is because I do not want to come to the table with these persons, that I must.  We are called to put away bitterness.  We are called to put away wrath.  We are called to imitate God’s love and live as Christ lived and love as Christ loved. Yes, we are called to be prophetic; however, we have to be prophetic in love, and I fear that I am often times prophetic in a self righteous, liberal way. That is not reconciliation. What I fear though, is that the table is not always open for those who are LGBTQ.  It is a conundrum.  How can we have an open table?  If the table is not a United Methodist table, or a politically charged table, but the Lord’s table, an open table for all, then there should be room at the table for us all.

In my mind, I envision an open table that resembles the table that we see in Rent, the musical, as they sing about Bohemia.  It is a radically open table, and it is beautiful.  No, they are not perfect, but they are all there in spite of their imperfections. I really believe that if we all would extend grace to each other and approach the table with love, grace, compassion, and mercy, the United Methodist Church would be transformed by the Triune God’s grace.  My prayer is that we as United Methodists would listen to each other, love each other, imitate Christ, come to the table together, and allow ourselves to be transformed into a people who truly love as Christ loved and live as Christ lived. It will not be easy, but perhaps it will be beautiful and perhaps we will all find ourselves in communion at the Table of our Lord. 

If we do not remember our history...

By Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell

Slavery served to separate Methodists into separate denominations. When these separated denominations united, they did so by separating and segregating most black Methodists into the Central Jurisdiction. Some felt, and some still feel, that Scripture prohibits women from being ordained and serving as church pastors. 

In 1954, when the Supreme Court declared that the practice of "separate but equal schools" was invalid, some churches established racially segregated academies that in some places were responsible for closing the public schools.

Karen Armstrong writes; "Fundamentalists have turned the mythos of their religion into logos either by insisting that their dogmas are scientifically true, or by transforming their complex mythology into a streamlined ideology" (The Battle for GOD, A History of Fundamentalism).

What is it about the inclusion of those who have been excluded that causes some persons to believe that the God who visited/visits humanity in the person of Jesus Christ needs them to be "gate-keepers" in order to keep some people away from God?  The "gate-keepers" of the past have wasted so much of God's good time and have made it impossible for some of the excluded to come inside the gate and be for them what they have not been able to be for themselves.

This 40th anniversary of Woodstock brings to mind Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."  Would not God be served if those who claim that they exclude "in the name of God," asked and answered for themselves the questions that are asked in the song; "How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free? How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowin'in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind."

Pouncing Pessimism by Pondering Pathfinding

By Leland Spencer

At the end of June, I moved from Cincinnati, OH, to Athens, GA, to begin work on a PhD. As those who know me well would expect, my first few days in the new place were fraught with confusion any time I had to leave home and go somewhere. I found myself getting lost over and over again. Finally, I decided to do something I should have done long ago: buy a GPS unit. This little device has improved my quality of life significantly.

Even with the GPS, I'm not perfect, but I have discovered that the GPS is very patient with me. In fact, if I miss a turn (e.g., when it tells me to turn left but I'm in the right lane and can't get over in time), the GPS is never judgmental. Instead, it simply recalculates a new route based on my current position. Let me say that a different way: If I don't go the direction I should the first time, my GPS gives me another chance to get it right. It doesn't tell me I'm going the wrong way, but it does tell me how to go the right way.

I think the Reconciling movement is called to the same kind of work in the life of the church. Our goal is to point the church in the right direction on issues related to inclusiveness and respect for human dignity and diversity. Too often on this blog and elsewhere, I find myself pointing out that the church is going the wrong direction instead of offering a more uplifting word of encouragement about what the right direction is. After all, there is much to celebrate about the ministry of the United Methodist Church around this planet.

I want to share a few ways in which the United Methodist Church is going in the right direction. Every week, in at least a few United Methodist Churches around the world:

    * visitors are welcomed,
    * teams travel to prisons to share their faith,
    * community meals are shared,
    * people encounter and embrace the message that God loves and forgives them,
    * children and adults learn new Bible stories,
    * pastors invite all who are present to partake at an open table,
    * money is raised for mission work,
    * and ________________ (fill in the blank with something happening near you!).

The list could go on and on, but my point is that in many ways, United Methodist Churches get it right. In so many ways, we are going the right direction. I hope this movement will continue to invite the church to turn toward full inclusion so that everyone has a chance to be a part of all the things the church does well.

From Ingoring to Illustrating

by Peter L. DeGroote

At first, I ignored a UM pastor’s blog raising questions about women in ministry. Then, I saw it as an illustration of some basic biblical understandings that reconciling people need to think about.

First, a summary of the posting:

• On the premise that controversy is the only way he can get dialogue on his blog, the pastor asks if women should be in ministry  (See August 6, 2009 posting on http://raymcd.blogspot.com/).

• He cites three passages of scripture: 1Corinthians 14:33-35, Galatians 3:26-29 and Matthew 28:26-29.

• He concludes: “These are three Scriptures used for either side of the debate. Are there others? What do you think? Is there a difference between being on a pastoral staff and being a lead pastor? Should there be any restrictions?”

• Comments are diverse. A common opinion is that women should not be lead pastors.

• The pastor’s response to comments includes a complaint that all but one commentator failed to give a reason for their opinion; the one asserting the position of the UM Church was found insufficient. He also notes that he has not yet shared his own opinion. 

Second, how does this posting illustrate important insights about biblical study that reconciling people need to think about?

• The presentation of three different quotes that represent divergent opinions clearly illustrates that we can usually find a proof text in scripture that supports our own views. 

• It also illustrates how reliance on scriptural lists reduces the Bible to a cookbook from which we can select a recipe of our own choosing. In the debate on ordaining women, people threw biblical passages at each other. Likewise, lists of biblical quotes were used to justify as well as oppose slavery. LGBT folks are well aware of the technique: we find lists of biblical passages thrown at us and we collect our own to throw back (other battles have been or are being fought with these lists). 

• Further, it brings to mind how very often we have to turn to other sources to resolve our conflicts in applying Jesus’ primary directive. An illustration of this was John Wesley’s turning to developments in 18th Century philosophy to oppose slavery. 

• In summary, we discover that we can make opposing lists only because the Bible reflects different points of view—that is why we can make the lists. 

Biblical analysis isn’t easy if we are to seek out spiritual insights and honor those who wrote and assembled the text. In particular, each book must be examined from the perspective of the community out of which it came, that community’s social context, the author's theological perspectives, the literary disciplines of the time, and other such considerations.  It is not an exercise in destroying truth, but in discovering truth in a particular time and place, honoring those discoveries, and determining how they might apply to us in our time and place, both personally and communally. It is a challenge.  

Many of us were raised with the idea that the Bible is the unquestioned and unquestionable Word of God. Recognizing its internal diversity leads us to discover the Bible as a spiritual sourcebook rather than a rulebook, one that invites us to enter into a diverse spiritual world of ideas and practices. We are drawn into discussions both ancient and current, helping us to find our way to meaning for both ourselves and our communities.

An Open Letter to Renee Sappington and Connie Campbell

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I have just read my RMN Blog, "God's Love Is Without Limits" that was posted today. I clicked on "testimony of two women" that was mentioned in the blog and I saw, heard and "met" for the first time, Renee Sappington and Connie Campbell, the Lesbian couple who spoke openly of their experience of God's love for them as persons and as a couple.

They proclaimed this love, even as many United Methodists--some who heard them at the Mississippi Conference, and others--felt they should not "go public" with their relationship and understandings of God's love because the Book of Discipline does not condone such love.

There are many "good" United Methodist Christians who believe their testimony was inappropriate in a worship setting because our Book of Discipline declares that they and their relationship are "incompatible with Christian teaching."  I ask that these United Methodists prayerfully reflect on their understandings of God's love and their embrace of the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is possible to do this, even as the language in the Book of Discipline remains the same. 

Many of us, for reasons race and gender have had in the past, found it necessary to prayerfully understand that despite the declaration of Discipline language that because of our race and/or gender, we were less equal, God's love and the teaching of Jesus Christ "trumped" the Discipline.

Years ago, the Grammy award-winning jazz singer Dianne Reeves sang at a benefit in a church where I was serving as pastor.  There were grumblings by some of the church members before and during the early stages of her concert. They did not believe that a singer of jazz should sing in a church sanctuary. However, after singing a few of the songs that had gained her world-wide popularity, Ms. Reeves sang a song that was her faith testimony.  As she began to sing the words, "I Just Want to Testify," I could see that the body language and the expressions on the faces of some of those who did not want her to sing had changed. They identified with her testimony because her testimony was no different from theirs.

Renee Sappington and Connie Campbell "testified" at a session of the Mississippi Conference! Who could dare, "in the name of God," invalidate the legitimacy and power of their testimony? I believe that prayer, and a response to the transforming power of God revealed in prayer, will always transcend the legislative actions of any United Methodist General Conference.  I, and thousands--yea, millions of others--are witnesses to this. Hallelujah! - Alleluia!

Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell

God's Love is Without Limits

Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell

It seems that over and over again, "happenings" within the United Methodist Church nudge me to re-read the writings of those who are not United Methodists. The negative response to the testimony of two women in a worship service at an Annual Conference session has provoked some negative responses that are of deep concern. We claim that we believe the love of God is all-encompassing, but then some say, "How dare two women who are in a committed relationship to each other testify in a worship service to their experience of the love of God?"

I re-read these words that I had first read ten years ago.

The once unchallenged moral authority of the church has been devastated by its defenses of slavery, apartheid, and segregation, by its persecution of heretics, by its opposition to the emancipation of women, and by its hostility to gay and lesbian people.

The church that will live in the present and survive into the future will not be about the task of propagandizing its people...It will see the Christian life as a journey that is ongoing, a journey the goal of which is the undefined mystery of God, and in the pursuit of that goal no boundaries on the human spirit will be admissible

From The Bishop's Voice, Selected Essays 1979-1999, John Shelby Spong, 1999.

When will we who know that God loves us despite much that is us, stop seeking to restrict others who also know that God loves them? The love of God that I have experienced is so overwhelming that I do not believe God needs any of us to restrict others from expressing the love of God that they have known and know. God's love is without limits. What better place to express that love if not in a worship service?

What Is Our Next Best Step?

By Adrienne Trevathan

Last weekend was very painful for many of my friends in my extended Native American community.  Last Thursday through Sunday, we held a camp for Native youth called “Tipi Camp” in Dixon, IL.

The purpose of the camp was to give Native and non-Native youth a place to share in Native culture and worship.  It was also a chance to enjoy the wilderness, sleep in tipis and be in fellowship together.  The camp started out well enough with kids piling out of the passenger van and running excitedly into the dining hall.  In the first few hours of the camp, however, I noticed that the Native kids were not including the non-Native kids in their conversations and games; they didn’t look like them, talk like them, or act like them.  As I thought about ways to approach the situation, I decided to talk with the other counselors that night to see what to do.  The following day, I left the camp to return to the Chicago area for a wedding, feeling a bit discouraged and curious as to how the kids would interact while I was gone.

About an hour before I was to return the next day, I received a phone call from the main camp director: one of our camp counselors, Robert, had suddenly died while the group was at a powwow.  A million thoughts and feelings rushed through me as I drove into the city to pick up Robert’s wife and drive her to see his body.  After we returned from the hospital, we went immediately to the camp so his wife could meet the kids.  We had a small prayer and story-telling ceremony around the fire in memory of Robert.  As a part of the ceremony, all the kids and adults had to answer the question, “What is my next best step?”  After the service was over, I began to notice the way the kids interacted with each other: the non-Native kids were initiating jokes and laughter with the Native kids, who returned the favor and encouraged them to keep talking.  Standing by the fire that night with the chill of a recent death, I was amazed at how quickly the kids had bonded.  They had realized something bigger than themselves.  They had stepped into something larger than their ethnic or cultural categories.  It went beyond inclusion.  They had reconciled in the face of tragedy.

I am not suggesting that reconciliation comes only through tragedy.  Rather, it seemed to me in that moment that it was only through facing something bigger than themselves that they were able to move past the struggle of acceptance and into relationship.  Their next best step was towards each other.

As a seminary student, I have heard many professors, students and clergy alike talk of “being inclusive.”  The challenge to be “inclusive” seems to fall off the lips of those in favor and those strongly opposed alike.  In The United Methodist Church, inclusion has often been the alleged initiator of uncomfortable conversations that force people to think about their notions of love.

To be frank, I find the word inclusive to be lacking.  I have a similar problem with the cousin of inclusive, diversity.  In my understanding, both inclusion and diversity sound as though they are political maneuvers to be engaged by the powerful despite the powerless.  For example, as a woman, I can look at a traditionally male-led annual conference and know that if they talk of "inclusion," they mean the occasional consideration of having a woman or deacon in their midst.  Likewise, I have been in conversations with groups of people who begin to talk of “diversity” only after they discovered that I am, in fact, Native American, even if I am not from the largest tribe or have the darkest skin color.

Not to belabor the point too much, I have found more strength and power in the word reconciliation.  Reconciliation moves past political maneuvering and towards the depths of relationship.  Reconciliation, rather than being dependent upon the favored majority, implies a change of heart, mind and being.

The “catch” about reconciliation – the qualification with its use – must always be connected to that which is beyond our capabilities.  In Christian theology and spirituality, (what I sometimes term “GodSpeak”) the ultimate purpose of reconciliation is to bring  humanity to God, and God to humanity.  Although there are those who insist being smart enough, clever enough or witty enough will bring one to peace, we must ultimately recognize that it is only by the gracious and merciful love of God that we can be in relationship with each other.  Try as we may, those of us on both sides of the LGBTQ issue don’t stand a chance at relationship with each other unless we realize that we cannot love without realizing that we do so because God loved us first.  Until we are authentic about who we are as created persons in need of something bigger than ourselves, our efforts at conversation across hot-button issues will merely be the maintenance of civility in the face of anemic love.

Reconciliation will also escape us if we continue to use “Us vs. Them” language.  Unfortunately, none of us are excluded from this temptation.  The old adage “We tolerate everything but intolerance” comes to mind.  Put differently, perhaps a good step is to recognize that persons on both side of the LGBTQ argument are seeking to be faithful.  If we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, we may discover that using argumentative language is only a hindrance to what God is trying to move us both towards.   

As finite beings in a world larger than any of us can understand or articulate, we all have fears.  Fear cannot be assigned only to one particular group of people, lest those who are oppressed become oppressors themselves.  We all have the capacity to move toward reconciliation, but the first step must be toward our Creator.

As the poet John Donne wrote in the well-known classic Meditation XVII, “Every man’s death diminishes me.”  As I think about Robert’s brief time with us at Tipi Camp and in the lives of those youth, I recall stories that were told around the fire about his willingness to serve and believe in the power of humility.  Although I mourn his physical death as a loss to this world and our Native community, I am also faced with the astonishing reality of my own choices.

If we kill a gift in another human being based on a category to which we have assigned them…if we fail to know the joy and love of another because we have not taken the time to get to know them…if we cause the death of someone’s only hope, simply because of their “difference,” we diminish not only ourselves, but we diminish who God created them to be, and who God created us to be together.  We diminish our only hope at reconciliation.  

It is naïve to assume that we will never have differences of opinion or conviction, but perhaps there is something for us to consider as we seek to move towards reconciliation together: What is our next best step? What is your next best step?

The "Doors" of the Episcopal Church are opening while some would close the "Doors" of the United Methodist Church

By Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell

"Confessing Our Faith Together" is the name of the document that United Methodists and Episcopalians are working on together. The document will guide the efforts to establish "communion" between the two denominations through legislation at the 2012 United Methodist General Conference.

It appears that regardless of the current state of conversations between the two denominations, the Episcopal Church is being faith-driven to become authentically inclusive while the United Methodist Church is being fear-driven to become more exclusive.

The recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church enacted legislation that affirms the right of same gender loving persons to participate and hold leadership positions at every level of the Episcopal Church. While early and premature, reports from the voting on 23 re-structuring amendments indicate that many United Methodist Conferences defeated them.

In an expression of concern about the premature announcements of the voting that will not be official until the Winter/Spring of 2010, Bishop Gregory Palmer--President of the Council of Bishops of the UMC-- issued a statement that ended with these words: "However the amendments go, our mission is unchanging."

What is the mission of the United Methodist Churcn? It seems that whatever that mission is, it is fear-driven by those who write and speak of a pro-homosexuality lobby that they believe is seeking to "take over" the United Methodist Church. They boast that the apparent defeat of the amendments, particularly Amendment 1 that would declare "faith in Jesus Christ" as the only litmus test for membership in the United Methodist Church, would be a sign of "victory" for their version of "the mission of the United Methodist Church."

Some "Caldwell Commentary:" I believe the Spirit at work within me compels me to offer these words. There are more similarities between the actions of some of my brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church and those on the political scene who are called "Birthers" and "Tea Bag Party Devotees" who describe our President as an "Undocumented Alien," and declared that a gorilla that escaped from a Columbia, South Carolina Zoo as a "harmless ancestor of Michelle Obama," than I believed was possible! I am discouraged as I read the words and observe the actions of some who demean in personal ways President and Mrs. Obama and those in the United Methodist Church who demean LGBT persons and same gender loving couples.

My prayer is that some of my gifted colleagues in the United Methodist Church, many of them long-time friends, will now understand that their silence in the presence of those who would deny LGBT persons who profess "faith in Jesus Christ," equal access and participation in the denomination, have given over leadership to those who link their bias to the Bible, and have given them legitimacy in their efforts to "make small and narrow" the denomination that we love.

Linda Bloom of United Methodist News Service wrote an article on May 17, 2007 about the exploration of a new relationship between the United Methodist and Episcopal Churches.  She began her article with these words: "United Methodists and Episcopalians have a new way to know each other."  May the United Methodist Church begin to "know" and replicate the Christ-driven openness of the Episcopal Church, rather than continue to close its doors, hearts and minds to some of God's people. The fear-mongers who once frightened faithful Christians to fear the complete inclusion of black people in the Methodist/United Methodist Church are being replicated by those today who use fear to frighten United Methodists so that they will participate in the exclusion of LGBT persons from the Church. The racial fear-mongers lost.  So, too, will today's fear-mongers.

Gil Caldwell*
Asbury Park, New Jersey