Methodists call for full inclusion

United Methodists of color call for a fully inclusive church

The United Methodist General Conference, held last spring in Cleveland, took actions viewed by many as a large step backward in the move toward a fully inclusive church.

One response to the attitudes of exclusion that were evident there -- as they have been in the Presbyterian Church as well -- was this statement issued by United Methodists of Color.

We share it here with gratitude to this courageous group, which sees that exclusion of any group is an affront to all groups that struggle against exclusion. And that even more, it is an affront to our God whose love is radically and graciously inclusive.

Statement of United Methodists of Color For A Fully Inclusive Church

We are United Methodist men and women, who love God and know that we are loved by God. We are United Methodists who celebrate the God-given gifts of our ethnicity, our gender, and our sexuality. We are United Methodists who not only acknowledge the historic racism of the church, but also the subtler present day forms of racism and division in our midst. We know this to be true, for we have experienced it as people of color in the church we love. Indeed, our love for the promise of the church has placed us on the forefront of moving the United Methodist Church to a more inclusive place. We are people who have experienced the biblical story of the anawim, "those who have been silenced." Our struggle has been to claim our voice and to transform the church we love into a place where the silenced are heard. We affirm that it has been through this struggle, when the church has lived out the gospel of love and inclusion, that the realm of God's justice has been made manifest.

We remember all too well those voices who said racism was not present in the church. We remember those voices who wielded scripture as a support for division and inequality. We remember the voices who pled patience to inequality by claiming that justice was gradual. We remember the time when silence in the presence of racism was the church's greatest sin.

As persons of color and diverse ethnic backgrounds, we can never forget our long history of struggling to not be erased by a beloved church where silence and spiritual dismemberment were theologically institutionalized. Scripture is the Word of Life, but we intuitively know the history of its use as the Word of Death, to support the sins of colonialism, slavery, racism, and sexism.

We all know Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people. Seen or unseen, they are vital members of our communities. For many of us, they have been our invisible neighbors, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, cherished members in the community of life. Indeed, we recognize that throughout history, our church and our communities have benefited from the gifts of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender people. But in return for their gifts, we have given these brothers and sisters silence or scorn. When they have asked for their name and acknowledgement of their place as worthy members in the family of God, they have been answered with continued overt or subtle forms of spiritual and physical violence.

We can not and will not deny that we recognize in the experiences of our Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender brothers and sisters the resonance of our own journeys as people of color in the church. We see the truth in the words of Coretta Scott King when she says that the struggles for inclusion of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people are part of the "continuing justice movement" for which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life, a movement that "thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion."

We are called to bear witness to the need for our beloved church to do good by its Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender brothers and sisters. Remembering the voices that told us to be silent or passive, to give up our culture and history in order to be accepted by the dominant white society and church, we reject the idea that Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender people need to reshape themselves or be "cured" in order to fit in to the dominant heterosexual society and church. Our own experience of silence and erasure has taught us that abandoning identity is spiritual violence.

Remembering the voices who have told us to wait on justice, we dispute the notion that issues of race and nationality are so overwhelming that to fight for another issue of injustice is to water down the movement. For the storehouses of God's justice do not run low, and we must recognize the interconnectedness of all forms of oppression if we are ever to achieve the Kindom. The realm of God is at hand.

We acknowledge that there may be differences of opinion among us, but this does not require that we wait on justice.

We will not wait on racism.

We will not wait on sexism.

We will not wait on neo-colonialism.

We will not wait on heterosexism.

Inaction is impossible. For in the current climate, where difference is often answered with death, the church is either an instrument of peace, or an instrument of violence. The United Methodist Church must act boldly to end further injury to the Body of Christ.

In the spirit of Justice that has historically called us to move towards wholeness, we prayerfully call the church to accountability.

A note from the WebWeaver:

This statement carries the signatures of over 40 United Methodist ministers and lay people, each of whom identifies himself or herself as African American, Cuban-American, Japanese-American, Filipina-American, Korean-American, Hispanic, and so on.

For the complete list of signers, go to http://www.olg.com/mfsa/PofCol.html