Reconciling Ministries Network

Fear

By Egeria

Today I shared a meal with two UMC preachers who are trying to navigate riptides of fear within their congregations. They had disagreed with each other about voting for the "All Means All" amendment, and they both disagree with me about what I see as a positive roll for Reconciling United Methodists advocating for full inclusion of LGBTQ persons. Both have welcomed gay and lesbian couples and baptized their children; both hear from members who fear this will lead to lots of gay couples joining (Read that as "too many.") Our meal was a first effort to discuss our visions of local churches and the global UMC in a small, friendly, but disagreeing group.

What came up repeatedly was the fear that some congregants feel toward people who are different: immigrants, ex-offenders, LGBT, students, poor people, people of other races, people wearing rainbow stoles. Some members might acknowledge that churches must care for such people but say "I can't talk to them" or "I won't feel at home here if there are too many of them."  These two pastors wanted to address the fears expressed by these members. At the same time, both pastors held a vision of the church as being for all people, with a message that is needed just as much by people who see themselves as the in crowd as by those who want to hear a clear welcome.

Now, this sort of fear can work in the other direction too. I have felt out of place in groups where everyone appeared to be considerably more prosperous than I am. I have been the only white woman at some black church services, where the other worshipers have been extremely gracious; but I have also heard from a black friend whom I first met in such a situation that she had felt suspicious toward me at first. At the RMN Convocation a non-Methodist gay activist asked his gay friends "What are all these straight people doing here?"

We have been told "Fear not." How do we do that?

A Memoir on the Day Hate Crime Legislation was Signed

By Peter L. DeGroote

I am sitting in an office at Foundry United Methodist Church. Six blocks down the road, President Obama is signing legislation adding sexual orientation and gender identity to our hate crimes laws. It has been 30 years since passage of the original hate crimes law (1979) and 13 years since the last failed attempt at amendment. (This amendments includes protection based on gender and for those with disabilities and adds resources to help local governments investigate hate crimes.)

The original law came as part of the civil rights tide that washed over this country during the 60’s and 70’s. That was when we began to understand our oppression was also a denial of our civil rights.

People began to come out. The public reaction often seemed like a game of whack-a-mole. Whenever someone decided to live a more authentic life by being honest about his or her sexual identity there were many around ready to knock them back into silence and conformity. That included family and police. Law enforcement was an openly hostile institution just as capable of rendering violence as others.

I joined Foundry in 1980, a year after passage of the original hate crimes legislation. During the early years of that decade little footprints were painted on the sidewalks of the DuPont Circle neighborhood in which Foundry is located. They marked the spot where gay men had been physically attacked and, in a few cases, murdered.

The violence had a profound impact on the entire neighborhood. It is one reason Foundry is a Reconciling Congregation and why most of the nearby churches have an open and welcoming attitude toward LGBT folks. Being a witness to violence, or knowing someone who has been beaten or killed, or realizing that such an act occurred just down the street calls up human capacities of compassion as well as questions about what it is we mean by justice.

During this time some of us who were members of Foundry began a bible study program that, after several years, launched a congregational discussion that ultimately led to Foundry’s becoming a Reconciling Congregation. Later, as clergy I had the privilege of being appointed to Foundry for a couple of years, one of which included the 10-year anniversary of the passage of the Reconciling resolution.

By then discussions had gone much further. The language of gay/lesbian was gone. The initials had grown to LGBTI. The term sexual preference, suggesting that we make a choice in our affectional ties/attractions was finally abandoned. In its place was sexual orientation. Gender identity emerged as term describing personal characteristics that many of us had to learn about—and many of us are still learning.

Along with all of those developments was emergence of the clear understanding that those tools by which we were being oppressed had to do with civil rights. In addition to hate crimes protection, we seek rights to military service, protection from discrimination in housing and employment, and marriage equality.

Civil rights are the product of the civil society, os which the church is only a member. The UM Church, claims it is committed to upholding the civil rights of all people to include LGBT people. We’ll get the civil rights, then we’ll see what the church does.  

Now, as a retired pastor, I am once more sitting here in the DuPont Circle neighborhood, in an office at Foundry, assisting in an interim way, only for a few weeks. On this fateful day I should celebrate but I feel strangely quiet. Maybe that will change tomorrow evening when we all go down the road just a little to Asbury United Methodist Church where DC clergy in support of the proposed marriage equality law in Washington have called us to join in Soulful Voices for Marriage Equality—a Faith Celebration.

The beat goes on! 

Open Letter to Bishop Wandabula About Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Dear Bishop Wandabula,

Warm greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to you in view of the Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009 that proposes death penalty for homosexuals.  I am requesting for your voice and position on this matter. I know you are respectable and influential religious leader in Uganda. You are also doing a tremendous job for the expansion of the gospel of Christ not only in Uganda but the entire East Africa Annual Conference. I have heard some of your preaching about social justice, peace, non-discrimination and reconciliation. I wish these adjectives could also apply to wonderful LGBTI persons in your loving country, Uganda.

As the influential bishop of the East Africa annual conference you cannot look on and watch your own parliament of Uganda enact harsh laws against homosexuals who are also the children of God. I am begging you in the name of God to advise your government to stop this inhumane bill from becoming law.

This bill will make life unbearable for LGBTI persons in Uganda who are our brothers, sisters, friends and flock. You are aware God’s love does not discriminate against anyone on the basis of sexual orientation.

It would be interesting to know from your perspectives on the following questions;

1. Do you support the discrimination, segregation, stigmatization, repression and the killing of homosexuals as a solution to homosexuality in Uganda?
2. Do you support the Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009 that proposes death penalty for homosexuals?
3. What is the position of East Africa Annual Conference on the Ugandan Anti-homosexuality bill 2009?
4. What do you propose for the LGBTI allies who “promote homosexuality” in Uganda and the larger East Africa Annual Conference (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Southern Sudan)?

I wish you could influence other influential Christian leaders in Uganda using your central office about the negative implications of this bill.

Thank you for your possible timely intervention to help our suffering brothers and sisters in Uganda.

Peace and Justice,

Rev.John Makokha,
Other Sheep Country Coordinator-Kenya/Riruta UMC Minister

October 11, 2009: A Message for the Church

By Peter L. DeGroote

I didn’t need Time magazine to know that the National March for Equality on September 11, 2009 was a youth movement.

Time estimated 200,000 participants. A veteran of earlier gay rights marches, my estimate was a little higher. I also estimated that 80% of the people were under age 35. Of that total, roughly 80% were under 30. Of that total, roughly 50% were under 25. Whatever the exact numbers, young people were in an overwhelming majority.

The March demonstrated once again how communications technology has altered the task of organizing for political and social causes. There was a time when the young had to work their way into the structures of the established leadership organizations before coming into their own. That is no longer true.

To Illustrate: Originally the national organizations representing LGBT folks were less than enthusiastic about the March only to come around as it gained momentum. Also, it was reported that the cost for the March was one-fifth of the cost of the last big national gay rights march and that does not count the additional savings realized as a result of not involving the staffs and mailing lists of the national organizations. Unlike earlier generations, these young folks did not need the existing organizations to control of their program, increase their influence, and finance their movement. Instead, they employed the Internet and many of its social networking tools. 

The Message: The March for Equality on October 11, 2009 clearly demonstrated that those established institutions purporting to be leaders need to do some catching up if they are to be relevant to young folks.

This conclusion is not restricted to secular organizations. In most churches young people are already an overwhelming minority. Attitudes toward LGBT people differ as you go down the generations. Many straight young folks today have grown up with openly LGBT friends and are likely to say that “if you don’t want my friends you don’t want me.”

LGBT folks no longer stand alone and that influence has altered the agenda. The once rather timid call for inclusion has been transformed into a robust demand for the civil rights of all, including LGBT folks. The rights most demanded during the March were for service in the military, equal treatment under the law by way of hate crimes legislation, and same-sex marriage. (Interestingly, the Discipline of the UM Church does support the civil rights of all, including LGBT people.) 

The competitive disadvantage faced by most churches for the interest of young people is represented by the photo below from the website www.FaithInAmerica.com. During the march there were some banners of support from religious groups. However, it was difficult to look anywhere without seeing the posters you can see below calling to End the Harm from Religious-based Bigotry and Prejudice.

The use of the word “faith” is significant. This March for Equality was framed as a call to live out our faith in the proposition that all people are created equal. That principle is in complete harmony with the teachings of Jesus. Who in their right minds would suggest that the church should not support that principle? Unfortunately, young people are hearing too many church folks willing to do just that. 

The message for churches is the same: The March for Equality on October 11, 2009 clearly demonstrated that those established institutions purporting to be leaders need to do some catching up if they are to be relevant to young folks. 
 

The "gay agenda"

By Joey Heath

Since the march on DC I have been watching the coverage the weekend got. The hate-crimes bill is also set to pass Congress and so after ten years of struggle it will become law. I keep seeing a phrase pop up here and there around the conservatives view of the weekend. I keep hearing the word gay agenda. I know I have written on this before and so have many others. In some ways I feel like I'm beating a dead horse by saying “What gay agenda???” but here are my thoughts on the subject.

I have heard it said that the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) rights movement is not a civil rights movement and that is really just some “gay agenda” to get special rights. People claim that no one is oppressing LGBTQ people so this must not be about civil rights. I heard it recently said that no one is forcing LGBTQ people to sit at the back of the bus or to go to segregated schools. They are right in saying this. The oppression that LGBTQ people are facing is different from that of the 1960's civil rights movement but that does not make the LGBTQ oppression any less real. The truth is that LGBTQ oppression is alive and well and preventing countless numbers of individuals from living the dream that so many dream of as small children.

So here is the real gay agenda, the real reason we struggle for equal rights. Are you ready?

It's about not having to hide the fact that the person we go home to after a long day of work is a person of the same gender, hiding this because we fear losing our jobs by being fired or forced to resign. It is about having protection from losing that house we go home to simply because our landlord doesn't want to rent to LGBTQ people. It's about being able to start a family with kids that may not be biologically ours but we will provide the much needed love and care just as if they were. It's about not having to fear walking down the street with our loved ones for fear of personal injury. It's about being able to officially declare our love for one another and have it recognized in the same way our heterosexual counterparts are recognized for their love. It's about not having to watch every move we make in public life for fear of the backlash of people finding out about our private lives. It is about being able to serve and protect the country and values we hold dear. It is about being able to openly move through society as the people we really are. I guess you could say it is simply about being seen and treated as an equal.

So there you have it. That is the infamous “gay agenda”. Now that we all know what is going on, how are we going to move forward? Are we going to work for hope or hate? It's your choice. I choose hope and a world where no one needs to live in fear. Now it's your turn to choose.

Regional LGBTI Conference Held in Nairobi

By Rev. John Makokha

There 2^nd Regional Changing Faces Changing Spaces Conference was held in a Nairobi hotel on 28-30, September, 2009. Both local and international LGBTI and sex worker activists participated in the conference. The conference was organized by UHAI-Eashri.

The participants were drawn from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. The donor community was also represented.

The participants noted that there was need for more support for LGBTI issues because of oppression from governments and religious fundamentalists. They recognized the stress, frustrations and strain placed on LGBTI and sex worker activists in East Africa.

One activist said, “We need to understand the strategy that is being used to slow us down, to drag us, and control us.” The community needs to provide space for discussion on issues of sexuality so as to influence the community to think differently.

On the spread of HIV/AIDS among the LGBTI, it was noted that just giving people condoms and lubricants does not influence people’s sexual behavior. The LGBTI face challenges of affordability, confidentiality and quality health care due to poverty, ignorance and scorning by healthcare providers. Prevention of HIV/AIDS requires a holistic approach. LGBTI need serious affirmative action in terms of holistic health care.

The participants discussed the importance of LGBTI engaging in other issues of national importance such as substance and drug abuse, sexual violence, peace and justice.

There was need for capacity building of staff in terms of inductions so that workers can understand their core business.  The participants underscored the role of networking, information sharing and coalition building in addressing LGBTI projects.

It was noted that LGBTI need psychosocial support due to homophobia and transphobia.

Other Sheep Kenya was represented by Rev.John Makokha (one of the panelists on Holistic health care for LGBTI), Anne Baraza and Peter Wanyama.

 

A Month of Sundays

By Rev. David Weekley

It has only been a month of Sundays since I attended Reconciling Ministries' Convocation,"Justice and Joy". It was an inspirational and literal mountain-top experience. I am thankful to every person who made this event possible. Just to be there, in community, was more than enough. To be honored by receiving the "Voice in the Wilderness" award for telling my story as a transgender clergy was an incredible honor. Returning home from this peak experience has been something like a rollercoaster.

A most vivid memory of mine is an amusement park rollercoaster. It was the corkscrew variety and climbed very high before the first steep drop. Strapped into my seat with a padded harness, I could barely move, but I could distinctly hear the 'click', 'click' of the drive-system moving us closer and closer to the pinnacle. Although I knew it was impossible I did utter a prayer to be removed from that ride. Then we were over the top and on our way. I closed my eyes a lot, and held on; there was nothing else to do. I admit, there have been moments, whole days in fact, when life felt exactly like those initial moments on that rollercoast. Like the rollercoaster ride, there was no getting off once I got on. These last four weeks have carried me, my family, and my community into a new space. This part of the journey is just beginning.

Like the rollercoaster, after the initial terror, sharing my story has been and remains an amazing experience. It is still so new I can barely express myself yet in words. But there is one wonderful result so far in this new part of the story. Over this month of Sundays, from the morning I first shared my transgender identity with my congregation I have received emails, letters, cards and other affirmations, prayer-support, and encouragement from all over the United States, and world. Most inspiring and joyful for me are the number of persons contacting me sharing their stories and sharing hope. In one situation a mother who watched the CBS interview wrote to tell me she was stuggling with her young-adult child's transition, but had found new understanding and resources from the interview. Hours later I received an email from that adult child, telling me their mother had changed her attitude and had some fears dispelled from that brief segment. To date I have received more than three hundred emails and cards. I have been able to refer many people to resources in their communities. These contacts displace any rollercoaster fears with deep gratitude and joy. All of these blessings, and it has only been a month of Sundays!   

An "Open" Letter to an African American Congresswoman, now dead, whom some thought was Lesbian

Dear ____________________,

 
You mesmerized the nation with your distinguished and significant service as a member of Congress. The precision of your articulation, the courage you exhibited to "swim against the stream" and your many accomplishments, caused friend and foe to give tribute to you. One of the newspapers that carried your obituary spoke of your 30 year relationship with your female partner/companion. Yet, one of your biographers has suggested that there is no conclusive evidence that you were same gender loving.
 
Sunday, October 11 in Washington, DC, "National Coming Out Day" will be celebrated by many LGBT persons, same gender couples and their allies. I have wondered if you were still alive, and in Washington as a Congressperson, whether you would join the celebration?
 
I marvel at so many of my many friends in church and society who for many reasons have chosen to "pass" as heterosexual. The outer and inner pressures upon them, I know, are more enormous than I could imagine. I use the term "pass", because you Congresswoman _______as an African American know that this is the common term used to describe black persons who because of their physical characteristics are able to blend in with the white population. There are persons in my famiy who have done this and I must admit their doing this caused some stress and strain in our relationships. While I, during the Civil Rights Movement was a "foot soldier" involved in protests, marches and getting arrested in the cause of racial justice, they had some reservations about identifying with me because of their fear of being "outed", racially. My physical appearance and my activism, made them uncomfortable whenever I was with them. Their fear was that one of their white friends would look at me with them, and then add 2 and 2 to make 4.
 
Congresswoman ______________, I wish that you had been able to "come out" openly when you were alive. The City Council in Washington is on the verge of enacting legislation that makes possible same sex marriage, yet, there is opposition from some African American clergy and others. You during your life, transcended all of the negative stereotypes that many persons in society as well as the church use to demean LGBT persons and same gender couples. If you had been able to be open about your sexual identity, some of the fear tactics that are being used today that are unworthy of those who claim Christ as Lord, Liberator and Savior, would be revealed as what they are; "full of sound and fury signifiying nothing".
 
My prayer is that the National Coming Out Day event, will find a way to acknowledge persons now dead, who during their lifetimes could not express openly, the totality of who they were. Those who gather in Washington, will for many of us be giving a posthumous tribute to you Congresswoman __________. You were a source of profound inspiration to me and so many.
 
Gil Caldwell

Reconciling Tools: Prayer for Enemies

By Peter L. DeGroote

To you who are listening I say, love your enemies. If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that? After all, even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what merit is there is that? After all, even sinners do as much” (Gospel of Jesus 7:2-4)*

It is a bit troubling to discover that Jesus did not share the common view that God agrees with our opinion of others.  Instead, he invited us to pray about joining in God’s high expectations and hope for all humanity .

It remains a revolutionary idea. Our traditional social and political arrangements reflect tribal loyalties based on our instincts for self-preservation. They provide us with a safe “home base” to explore our world. Jesus called us to replace those tribal loyalties with a more universal loyalty that finds a “home base” in honoring and respecting (loving) all of God’s creation. (See Reconciliation and Love's Definition).  

Jesus’ call for this new loyalty offers a far more likely foundation for human self-preservation than the tribal loyalties we usually rely on. Unfortunately, both biblical tradition and history are full of examples that illustrate a broad unwillingness to respond to Jesus’ call. A few examples: Both Hebrew scripture and significant portions of the New Testament model hostility and even hatred toward enemies. When the church burned heretics it was identifying enemies while using fear to assure at least outward loyalty to its tribal ways. In 1961 Fidel Castro declared that continued loyalty to the Cuban revolution required an enemy. Contemporary political campaigns are often based on describing its opponents as enemies and targeting them with falsehoods and partial truths. Likewise, we can hear church leaders propagate an “us versus them” world view as a tool for creating loyalty to their group and personal leadership. Many LGBT people have experienced the negative consequences of that strategy.

The danger in being someone’s enemy is in returning the favor by accepting their enmity and labeling them as our own enemy. In a real world sense that dynamic is probably inescapable but the danger is in responding in kind. When that happens we give the enemy the power to define who we are and set the rules of our relationships. (More in a later posting.)

The instruction to pray for our enemies has often been understood as a prayer that somehow God would intervene in their values, world view, and behavior so that they would come to accept our perspectives and be more like us. The arrogance of that notion is the assumption that we have “the right way;” that we understand God’s views; or that we have the sole understanding of how creation is supposed to work—the implication being that all other views are wrong.

Over the years I have come to understand that praying for our enemies is less about them than it is about me. Jesus’ Prime Directive is to love or honor and respect all that God has created. To pray for an enemy is to seek insight and understanding sufficient to honor that person’s creation. (Perhaps meditation is a better contemporary word than prayer.)

Any increased insight or understanding does not compel me to agree with such a person, only that I come to understand.  Once understood, what do I do about it? Everyone will agree that it is a struggle. Likewise, we cannot focus only on understanding our enemy. We have biases, prejudices, and structures in our world view that have to be examined in relation to our own spiritual health and willingness to honor and respect others. Jesus’ teachings also include strategies to pursue those objectives.

Obviously, there is much more to live and talk out. This is not a solitary adventure. Your comments are welcome.

*The Gospel of Jesus. Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar. Santa Rosa, CA, Polebridge Press, 1999.

Things Change

The big Methodist church in the Southern city where I grew up taught me a lot. There I helped make dolls to send to African children at Dr. Albert Schweitzer's clinic along the Congo. I learned that a woman who was part of a Mixed Marriage (her husband was Catholic) could be a great Sunday School teacher. I learned that our senior pastor did not have to be charming or a great speaker if the church needed him to be a good manager.

I was a teenager there when the congregation was struggling, less gracefully than it should have, to embrace racial integration. There were comments among my parents' Sunday School friends such as "why can't THEY go to the [black] church down the street; we even help to support that church?" Years later my mother mentioned with delight the new black preacher in "her" pulpit.

And today I heard from my sister, who still lives and worships where I grew up, that communion had been served by a lesbian couple. Good for them. Good for Methodists.