Still Small Voices

by Rachel Harvey, deaconess
Crossposted at the RMN Blog.

There was a moment yesterday during the trial that I thought we’d lost. Rev. Amy DeLong had already been on the stand, modeling grace and integrity in the midst of indecent and violent questioning. The moment we all knew was coming arrived. The council for the church asked, “Does your relationship involve genital contact?” Due to a judicial council decision, the answer to this question determines if a person is a “self-avowed practicing homosexual.” All eyes were on Amy as she kept her head high and in the face of an oppressive institution said, “There is no way when you are trying to do me harm that I am going to share with you the intimate details of our lives.”

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I was shocked. Not shocked at Amy’s response, but shocked in the next half hour that the church was not permitted to bully Amy into a posture where she’d throw herself under the bus. Shocked that we could and would win. After Amy, the second witness Carrie was called to the stand.

My attitude had shifted when Carrie, of Carrie and Carolyn the lesbian couple whose holy union Amy officiated, took the stand. Carrie began her testimony by sharing why they contacted Amy. They had been turned down by two other pastors to officiate their ceremony. She shared details about the service and why they, a lesbian couple, sought out a pastor for their service. Then Rev. Scott Campbell, Amy’s council, asked a question I expected to hear come from the council for the church – Did Amy have a larger agenda than the blessing of the union? And then Carrie’s unexpected answer broke through the silence, “Yes.”

She blew it, I thought, but then Carrie’s still small voice broken through the fear I’d guarded since the beginning of the trial. “Yes,” she said, “it was about fairness and treating everybody the same.” In one sentence, Carrie broke through the wall of fear I had created to protect myself during this trial. In one sentence, she pulled me from scarcity to God’s abundant love. In one simple sentence, she reminded me that we all have a larger agenda – embodying the gospel of our brother Jesus.

Yesterday, Amy was found not guilty of being a “self avowed practicing homosexual” and guilty of performing a holy union. This morning, as the trial court begins discerning a punishment for the charge against Amy, I pray my 13 sisters and brothers listen deeply for the still small voices that have and continue to call for justice over, through and beyond fear.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination. ~Maya Angelou

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Rachel is a United Methodist Deaconess appointed to serve as the Associate Executive Director of RMN. Prior to joining RMN in August 2009, Rachel worked for 2 years as a mission specialist with The Advance at the General Board of Global Ministries. As a mission specialist she focused on youth and young adults and created the B1 campaign. From 2004-2006 Rachel was as a US-2 missionary serving as the director of CoffeeLoft.org, a Reconciling campus ministry at The University of South Dakota. Rachel has also worked with Response, a magazine of the United Methodist Women and The Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, United Methodist (SPSA) in New York City.


For more information about Rev. Amy DeLong's trial, check out
"The Trial of the Rev. Amy DeLong Sends Clear Message to UMC" by MFSA, RMN, and Affirmation Coalition Coordinator Rev. Steve Clunn,
the RMN blog,
and the Love on Trial website.

My Brother's Keeper: People of Faith Confront Hate Crimes

On November 20, 150 people gathered at Grace United Methodist Church, 125 W 104th Street, New York City, for a hate crimes symposium to confront what it means and what it would look like to commit ourselves to the work of ending hate violence. The symposium, called My Brother's Keeper: People of faith confront hate crimes, was sponsored by the Conference Board of Church and Society, the NYAC Immigration Task Force, the NY chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, Methodists in New Directions, the Conference Commission on Race and Religion and the Conference Committee on the Status and Role of Women. The following are reflections on this event.

My Brother's Keeper by Shannon Sullivan

The symposium was so beautifully woven together with lecture, worship, discussion, and art. We began with worship, opening with a song whose lyrics were "I am not forgotten; God knows my name"--- a powerful reminder of that communion of saints for whom we gathered today to stand up against the violence that makes people "forgotten."

For there are indeed so many who are pushed into forgotten-ness. Dr. J. Terry Todd, Drew professor and member of the keynote panel "How is the Hate Sponsored in Church and Society? How is the Hate Countered?" along with doctoral biblical studies student Rosario Quinones and civil rights lawyer Fred Brewington moderated by Dr. Traci West, spoke about the three periods of anti-immigrant fervor in the USA, weaving political cartoons from the 1880s with pictures from Tea Party rallies to reveal how the same rhetoric gets repeated again and again. And though he began by focusing on immigration, he reminded us that it is not coincidental that the rise of the Klu Klux Klan coincided with the period of anti-immigrant fervor from 1880-1924.

He ended his part of the lecture with the 1972 adoption of what has become known as the United Methodist Church's incompatibility clause: "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Originally, the Committee on Christian Social Concerns wrote a sentence to declare acceptance of people of all sexual identities, recognizing everyone's sacred worth, but on the floor the language was changed to "incompatible." Fred Brewington said during his part of the panel that the incompatibility clause turns the bible into a weapon. And that, we began to see, is hate speech.

The day really centered around showing us of the intersectionality of anti-immigrant, racially-based, and homophobic hate crimes, as you can see from the keynote panel. The literature also reminded us about those hate crimes against Muslims in the city this year, though it was not covered as much throughout the day. There was a theatrical performance brought to us by the Teatro Experimental Yerbabruja out of Long Island, that spoke to us of the real-life events of the murder of Marcelo Lucero, thus documenting how hate crimes happen. Here, we kept hearing the words so prevalent today in our own anti-immigrant fervor: "It's not about race, it's about rule of law." And we kept seeing the bodies of immigrants broken and bruised alongside these words, proving how empty those words really are.

The blood of those impacted by the hate is, like Abel's, crying out from the ground. We must move, as we prayed at the end of the symposium, to compassion, action, and justice to repent from this sin of fear.

You can Read the full reflection here at You'll Never Guess What the Heathens Did Today

Becoming More Fully You by Kristi Soutar

Then it was back to the sanctuary for a performance of "What Killed Marcelo Lucero?", a play written by a Long Islander about this hate crime against a Hispanic immigrant which resulted in the man's death in 2008. It was a very powerful play. I was particularly struck at the end when the cast members walked through the sanctuary with the coffin, which had painted upon it not just the American or Ecuadorian flag but flags from all different nations. I found myself wondering exactly how many immigrants from each of those countries had suffered hate crimes and abuse in our country. It was a very sobering moment.

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So here I share with you something that I was pondering during this event. Some background here is that I have already been pondering exactly what is God's nature, who does God accept into the family, and what are the conditions, if any?

I wrote in my journal that day "How do we understand God? Is God this one that has been constructed throughout history? Or is God beyond this understanding and actually open, accepting AS YOU ARE, and God's goal is making you more fully you rather than more fully what the church says you should be? I mean, who decides what it looks like to become "more like God"? Isn't the picture we've been taught one that is in line with a mainline, patriarchal, white understanding of who God is and what God desires?"

I think the part that I want others to take with them and ruminate upon is the part that I want to continue to consider: what if God's goal for us is not for us to become more like this static idea of a "good Christian" but for us to become more fully ourselves? Who constructs the picture of "good Christian"? Do we truly believe that this idea of "good Christian" is constructed by God? I'm not convinced of this. I see a history of the church, especially in America, pushing people to become normalized into the mainstream culture of Christianity. Throughout our history, we see the church telling people how they have to look and act and think in order to be accepted. I'm not sure God cares about these things as much as the church does. What would it look like if we simply sought God and strove to be more fully the people we actually are? What if, instead of seeking to be more like the church wants us to be, we strive to understand who God has created us to be and strive toward that fully realized self? If we can understand God as not only accepting us as we are but also desiring to make us better and more fully functioning versions of ourselves, maybe we can open the church doors a little wider to let in those unlike us. If we can believe that God creates diversity (of thought, appearance, and lifestyle) and wants that diversity to become more fully realized, maybe we can let those who differ from our own idea of God into the family. If we can understand God in this way, perhaps at the very least we can open our ears to hear what someone with whom we disagree thinks.

I have to admit, I rather like this idea of God over the one in which I am expected to conform to a certain set of standards and appearances that may or may not fit the person I actually am. I have trouble with the idea that God created me the way I am simply to make me different. I know some of you will say to me, "The old is gone, the new is come!" (II Corinthians 5:17), and I'm not particularly throwing this verse out. I know many of us feel that we are better now than we were before coming to faith in God. What I'm saying is that sometimes we are told we have to change fundamental parts of the person we are deep inside in order to become real and good Christians. Maybe, in fact, God wants to tune and hone those fundamental parts of ourselves and more fully integrate them into our personhood, making them useful, even integral, to our lives in Christ. I think that "the old" here refers to destructive ways that damage the person God created us to be. "The new," on the other hand, would be a version of ourselves that is fully who we are, able to fly with the wings we've had inside us all along.

You can read the full reflection here at Musings and Ramblings

To educate yourself more about hate crimes and what people of faith need to be doing to confront them, visit the Center for Preventing Hate and join the conversation on the My Brother's Keeper Facebook page.

Kristi Soutar is an MDiv student at Drew Theological School. You can follow her blog at Musings and Ramblings. Shannon Sullivan is also an MDiv student at Drew. She blogs at You'll Never Guess What the Heathens Did Today.

Catch 22 of New Leadership

At the 2008 General Conference Reconciling Ministries Network and Methodist Federation for Social Action hosted the first ever young adult day. This space brought young people to speak, rally and proclaim to the church that what we want most of all is empowerment and equality for all God’s people. These young United Methodists demonstrated passion, faithfulness, idealism, and raw unbridled hope that could nourish a soul for a lifetime. Speaking with wisdom beyond their years about the call of God on their lives, they boldly declared that the change we seek has already come, because it is alive and vibrant in this new generation.

At informal youth gatherings I have heard another message as well: Being a young voice in the church can be isolating and lonely. The world tells you that people are not willing for change or new ideas. Our systems and structures at times crush the passion and vision of our young leaders. If we are to create the inclusion we desire—and be on the cutting edge of what we know our church can be—we must empower new and varied voices.

We all have a lot to learn from each other. The passion and the energy that young people have may need a direction, a task, or an outlet. We cannot just tell young people they are leaders. We have to do the work of empowerment, skill training, and mentoring while being open to new ideas and energy. Leadership development takes time, energy, and resources, and we have to be willing to prioritize it to honor new leadership.

We must remember that God told Jeremiah, “Do not say ‘I am only a youth.’” Each of us is more than our age or race or gender identity or sexual orientation or social class. We are a children of God called to do great things. All new leaders of any age or identity need guidance, instruction and support to make their dreams into a reality. As a movement, groups like MFSA (Methodist Federation for Social Action) and RMN (Reconciling Ministries Network) have the ability to nurture new voices and support young leaders. Those that have new vision need the skills and experience of those who have come before to create the change they wish to see.

Rachel Birkhan-Rommelfanger is a second-year student at Wesley Theological Seminary in DC and former Chair of the United Methodist Student Movement. She spends much of her time advocating within the church around LGBTQ equality, anti-racism, and young people's ministries. She currently serves on the General Commission on Religion of Race, Division on Ministries with Young People and the Reconciling Ministries Network Board of Directors.