A Note by Dr. Kevin Graham
Written on March 13, 2019
My name is Kevin Graham, and I have been a supporter of the Urban Abbey in one way or another since its earliest days. Although I am a member of another congregation, Omaha First UMC, I contribute financially to Urban Abbey and I attend the 5:30 pm worship service when I can.
The 2019 Special General Conference of the United Methodist Church recently adopted the Traditionalist Plan to reshape the UMC Book of Discipline by reaffirming the exclusionary stance of the global church toward the full participation of LGBTQ+ persons in the ministries of the church and by increasing the penalties that clergy and bishops face for trying to include everyone. Since the end of the Special General Conference, I have been trying to process a stew of emotions I feel about this action of the denomination that I joined in 1997.
Part of me is angry. I am angry because when I became a United Methodist in 1997, I promised to accept the freedom and power that God gives me to resist evil, injustice, and oppression. I see the effort of the global church to maintain and reinforce the exclusion of people from full participation in the ministries of the church based on who they are and whom they love as evil, unjust, and oppressive, and therefore as contradictory to our membership vows as United Methodists.
Part of me is amused. I am amused because in 1997-1998, First UMC went through the sort of identity crisis that grips the global church now. When our lead pastor performed a holy union ceremony for a same-sex couple, the Nebraska Annual Conference of the UMC charged him with violating the UMC Book of Discipline and suspended him from active ministry. When his suspension ended, the conference extended his suspension without justification. After a church trial acquitted him of violating the UMC Book of Discipline, our congregation split, with over half our members departing. Months later, the conference reassigned our pastor to another congregation elsewhere in the state, despite his acquittal.
Soon thereafter, a national campaign to write prohibitions on same-sex marriage into state constitutions chose Nebraska as a test case. Deep-pocketed conservative donors from around the country used the negative reaction to the same-sex union ceremony at First UMC to build a successful campaign to write Initiative 416 into the Nebraska State Constitution.
Through all of this, the remaining members of First UMC felt isolated within our congregation, our conference, our denomination, and our nation. During our lead pastor’s suspension, the pro-inclusion group within the membership of our church could not include the pastoral leadership of the congregation in meetings about how to live out our mission as a welcoming and inclusive congregation under the circumstances. Our worship services were picketed regularly by anti-gay hate groups. We felt precious little support from across the denomination and the country.
So, I am amused when the pro-exclusion forces in the global church try to intimidate me into abandoning the United Methodist Church by simply reaffirming the existing exclusive language in the UMC Book of Discipline, making the language more precise, and stiffening the penalties for violating it. The part of me that is amused thinks, “Is that all you’ve got? Sharpened language and stiffened penalties? We still have our clergy. Our congregation is unified in support of a mission of inclusive and loving ministry to the world. Congregations all over the Great Plains UMC Annual Conference and all over the United States are exploring joining us in the UMC Reconciling Ministries Network. We are unified, we are powerful, and we are not alone. I thought you were going to do something to us. I thought you were going to hurt us. Is that really all you’ve got?”
But part of me is also pained. I am pained to see LGBTQ+ friends of mine who feel unable to don a rainbow stole and take their regular places in the choir of my congregation because our denomination says that people who love as they love are unwelcome. I am pained to hear LGBTQ+ candidates for United Methodist ordained ministry reconsidering their candidacy because of the expressed intention of the global church to exclude them from ordained ministry. I recognize that I would probably feel less amusement and more pain if I were gay rather than straight. I am still processing what I think about that.
This stew of emotions is still boiling inside me. I don’t feel the same way about the hurtful actions of our global church this week as I did last week. I don’t expect to feel the same way next week as I do this week. But I know that God is not finished with us yet. It helps me to recall the grounding Scripture that my son Daniel chose to read when he was confirmed as an adult member of First UMC in 2017:
“For surely I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah 29.11)
I still believe in God’s promise of a future with hope. I believe we will experience it together.
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