Reflections on the Day The United Methodist Church Came Into the 21st Century

Welcome, members of The United Methodist Church (UMC), who, this day, May 1st, 2024, joined the 21st century, affirming the presence and welcoming those of us who are LGBTQIA2S+ people to be ordained, to serve churches, to marry, and to officiate at other weddings of same sex couples. Heck, you can now even use funds from within the UMC to pursue funding programs that assist people who are LGBTQIA2S+ in being and becoming more of the body of Christ through the practices of Methodism. Imagine: You can now focus on other issues that are facing Christendom! Hunger. Poverty. Peace-making programs. Gun control. Global climate. Houselessness. You name it. Praise God.

Here’s a link to the news: https://religionnews.com/2024/05/01/united-methodists-strike-down-ban-on-ordination-of-gay-clergy/ 

This day was, indeed, a long way in coming. 1972 is when that horrible language was published as part of your Constitution. Richard Nixon was President. HIV/AIDS was not yet an issue. 

I’ve been part of this ongoing, decades old-struggle in the UMC in various venues and parts of work, even as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). My first go-round was when I was on the faculty of Duke University’s Divinity School. There were many professors who held strong at Duke against LGBTQIA2S+ people, and never saw the hope of ordination of LGBTQIA2S+ people in the UMC. As a closeted gay man when I was first appointed to the faculty, then denied tenure because I am gay (they would say it was because my fifth book was not up to Duke standards, which is the most subjective way to deny someone tenure), I knew their hate-filled and prejudicial opinions well. Especially when I was new on the faculty, and they didn’t know I was gay, I was part of the small “circle of power” among the faculty, who would talk in the mail room, closing the door,  against the ordination of LGBTQIA2S+ people in the UMC, let alone on Duke faculty. Venomous hate that grew among these people towards LGBTQIA2S+ was well known by those in the Divinity School and around the University.

I then worked as the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Coordinator for the OR-ID UMC Annual Conference, based in Portland, OR. While my job had that title, I was initially hired to be a travel agent for one of the many conferences they sponsored, drawing people from around the world, to talk about LGBTQIA2S+ ordination and same sex marriage. We had people from the African continent, Europe, the Philippines, and the states huddled together for a few days at Collins Retreat Center. After a large conference, no one really knew what to do with me. So, as long as I had funds for travel and programming, I traveled and worked with Reconciling Congregations and non-Reconciling UMC churches, pastors and members, in talking about the place and presence of LGBTQIA2S+ people in the OR-ID UMC Conference until funds ran out from the Collins Foundation, which funded my job. I was often the first openly gay person many saw in the pulpit. I met those who were welcoming of LGBTQIA2S+ people, those who had questions, and those who were, again, hostile. Every week I received hate emails, usually anonymous, from UMC members and the like who did not like my position, or me, because I was now an out gay man and pastor. And yes, I met a good share of closeted clergy and members of UMC churches who wouldn’t dream of being out of their self-made closets, with scraps of material given to them by society and the church.

Personally, my former partner was a candidate in the UMC for elders’ orders. He was and is an honorable man. As a gay man, he could not play the ongoing game of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that many played within the UMC, even in the NC and Western NC Conference of the UMC. And he was promised that he could be made an associate pastor for another closeted, “don’t ask, don’t tell” gay senior pastor, with a District Superintendent who was also closeted. Wink-wink, nod-nod. Shhhhh. So many closeted UMC clergy and parishioners, living by “don’t ask, don’t tell.”  Those who were out and open as part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community in the UMC had charges quickly brought against them, and were usually exiled from the UMC if they didn’t promise to be celibate. Usually, those who were threatened with being outed or exiled simply dropped their elders’ orders and took on a new ministry in other non-profits, other denominations, and other educational pursuits. Some considered taking their lives. Still others simply left church all together and joined a yoga studio, joined a gay mens’ chorus, joined a kick-ball team, or joined a Buddhist temple. The need to be part of a community is part and parcel of being human. May this injury to so many people be a part of the lamentation and confession in the new days of the UMC, as it must in other Protestant denominations.

When the PCUSA finally changed our constitution in 2011, allowing for the ordination of LGBTQIA2S+ people, and later same sex weddings, the ELCA, the Episcopalians, the UCC, the Disciples of Christ, the UU, the Moravians, and others welcomed us to the party of equality, telling us that the party was about over, and that we would have to clean up the messy celebration residue. Ha! Dear UMC, the party is still not over! Welcome to the party! Hopeful prayers were answered in the positive this week in your denomination. Thanks be to God. We were all praying with you from the outside looking in. We know that the politics of any institutionalized mainline denomination meant that there could’ve been shenanigans involved in thwarting the will of the people of the UMC. Goodness and perseverance won the day. Welcome to the other side of the “rainbow"...and turn the lights out after our Catholic and Southern Baptist kith and kin make it over the rainbow bridge, please and thank you.

May it be so.