A letter to Martin Luther King Jr.
ATLANTA (UMNS) — Retired United Methodist Bishop Woodie W. White reflects on the national conversation on race in his annual "birthday letter" to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The deaths of a number of unarmed black youth at the hands of police point to a deep racial divide even as the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of the act that guaranteed the right to vote for black American citizens, he writes.
A Letter to Martin Luther King Jr.
Dear Martin:
I begin this letter mindful of the events that took place in our nation 50 years ago, events that changed the United States.
As you and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference accelerated the challenge to the discriminatory practices prohibiting black people from registering and voting in several Southern states, a special campaign was launched in Alabama.
A march from Selma to Montgomery was planned. At the end, the demonstrators were to present the governor with a list of practices encountered by black citizens of the state. Hundreds gathered on Sunday, March 7, 1965.
State officials had determined the march would not occur and banned the planned demonstration.
As the marchers began to move across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they were met by a sizable police presence on the bridge. Some of the police were on horses. When the peaceful marchers refused to disband, they were attacked by the police, beaten and trampled by horses. Mass hysteria erupted. Wounded and bloody, the nonviolent, peaceful protesters were turned back.
Millions witnessed the brutal attacks on television and in newspaper photos. So vicious were they that the day became known as Bloody Sunday. The nation was horrified to see peaceful citizens so brutalized as they sought to be granted the right to vote in their own country.
Only days later, Martin, you called for a second march. This time thousands responded. Celebrities, church leaders, pastors and ordinary citizens gathered — and the march was fully racially integrated. It ended on the steps of the Capitol in Montgomery, with leaders presenting their concerns, grievances and demands.
Five months later, in August, what is commonly called the Voting Rights Act was law. Congress passed the 1965 Civil Rights Act because of the bold leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson. For the first time, black citizens anywhere in America had the right to register and the right to vote protected against intimidation, unfair and discriminatory regulations, fear of reprisals or violence.
Imagine, Martin, it was only 50 years ago, that the most basic right of a democracy, the right to vote, was guaranteed to black American citizens! Only 50 years ago!
In a few months, thousands of us will again gather at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We will remember those who led the way, some even giving their lives, that we might today exercise the right to cast a ballot freely.
Sadly, we will do so in the face of new threats to that right, as many state legislatures enact laws to make it more difficult for citizens to exercise that right.
The struggle continues.
Martin, we are again reminded of the deep racial divide in America. The deaths of a number of unarmed black youth and men at the hands of police have drawn national attention. Those who died in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Cleveland; and Ferguson, Mo., were males in their teens. Two of the deaths — one in Ferguson and the other in Staten Island, N.Y. – went before a grand jury. Neither resulted in an indictment against the police involved. The failures to indict have resulted in thousands demonstrating in major cities across the nation. There is general outrage and anger in the black community and beyond.
Is America again to have two societies, one black (or non-white), and one white, separate and unequal? And composed, as many hold, of two justice systems, one for white citizens and one for non-white citizens?
Is there the belief that black life is not as valued in our nation as white life? Indeed, a new slogan has emerged: "Black Lives Matter."
A national conversation on race is emerging. With it is coming the revelation that white and black citizens view race dramatically differently. Even in these two widely known incidents of unarmed black young men meeting death as the result of police action, a significant number of white citizens conclude the deaths were clearly the fault of the black men, while black citizens believe they were caused by an underlying racism that views white and black people differently. White life is valued more than black.
Perhaps, Martin, that is still what is at the heart of the great racial divide in America. Still, it appears, the matter of one's worth as a human being is finally about the color of one's skin — not the content of one's character, morality, ability or competence. Indeed, there seems no correlation between scoring a winning touchdown or basket, or between one's abilities, political positions or party and one's determined ultimate worth as a human being. Could it be that in the minds and hearts of so many, skin color determines worth and value?
We continue to face a lot of work in this nation on the issue of race. At times, we appear to move backward and forward simultaneously. The truth is, Martin, the events of the last 50 years are evidence of how far we have come on our journey to become "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." But, the last 50 days are evidence as well of how far we have yet to go!
But, I still believe, Martin.
We shall overcome!
Woodie
EDITOR'S NOTE: Each year, retired United Methodist Bishop Woodie W. White writes a "birthday letter" to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. White, now bishop-in-residence at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, was the first general secretary of the General Commission on Religion and Race.
Bishop White reads his 2015 letter to MLK
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Each January, retired United Methodist Bishop Woodie White pens a letter to his friend and fellow civil rights leader, the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., about the state of race relations and racial justice in America. This year his letter spans events from Selma to Ferguson.
Bishop White was an active leader in the civil rights struggle in the U.S. and he continues to teach and work for racial justice. White was the first general secretary of the General Commission on Religion and Race. He is currently the Bishop in Residence at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.
This video comes to us courtesy of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.
ASBURY PARK, N.J. (UMNS) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that we can transform evil into good. God enables us to do that. But we first have to acknowledge the evil before we, through God, can transform it, writes the Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell, a veteran of the U.S. civil rights movement whose grandfather was born into slavery. For the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race, he also put together a viewing guide for the movie "Selma."
Turning racial nightmares into dreams
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that we can transform evil into good. God enables us to do that.
King had good biblical basis for this belief. Joseph in Genesis 50:19 says to the brothers who sold him into slavery, “You planned something bad for me, but God produced something good from it.”
As with Joseph’s brothers, we first have to acknowledge the evil before we, through God, can transform it.
We in the United States tend to avoid recognizing the nightmare realities of our racism. We too often will talk as though the legacy of nearly 250 years of North American race-based slavery is long past and not relevant to this country today. But it’s not as distant from today as some might think.
My grandfather, J. Edward Caldwell, was born into bondage on April 15, 1863, on the Caldwell Plantation in North Carolina. Caldwell was not the name of his slave father, but in keeping with the custom, he was named with the last name of the plantation owner.
I share this because I have realized the history of slavery and racial segregation does not have the meaning for most people that it has for me. My son, Dale, believes that one of the reasons we in the United States have so much of the tension and debate on matters of race is that we do not seek to “walk in the shoes” of those whose history and experience is different from our own.
Personal experience
Here is part of my own experience with racism.
Years ago, I became pastor of two white-membership churches in Massachusetts. I became their first African-American pastor. Before my wife, Grace, and I arrived, one family let their friends in the church know that they were leaving the congregation because they did not want a black clergyman as their pastor.
My one visit to them was one of my most difficult visits as a clergyman. But I wanted to explore with them what was it in their history/experience that caused them to leave the church before I arrived? They had never, particularly with someone who was black, explored the influences that made them do what they did. Although they never returned to the congregation while I was there, I heard through the grapevine that my visit and our conversation caused them to engage in introspection they had not done before.
When I read of “Islamic terrorism,” I think of the “Christian terrorism” of the Ku Klux Klan. They paraded with their burning crosses, sung their hymns and invited people to view the lynchings of blacks. I have in my possession pictures of adults and children gathered to watch the proceedings.
I think of those four little black girls who in September 1963, following the March on Washington that August, were killed in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. I wish that there had been a national outpouring of people of all colors and creeds, carrying signs that said, “I am those four little black girls.”
It is not to minimize the recent terrorism in France or Nigeria by remembering other acts of terrorism, much closer to home. Rather, daring to acknowledge the similarities of human injustice, whenever and wherever it takes place, is to move us to King's dream of worldwide community.
Valuing all lives
In the current worldwide community, black and white individuals have encountered very different experiences in church, with law enforcement and across much of American life.
Since the death of Michael Brown, you’ve seen protesters carry signs that say “Black Lives Matters.” The assassination of two New York police officers in December prompted signs that say “Police Lives Matter.”
I contend and believe you do as well that, “Black Lives Matter; Police Lives Matter; All Lives Matter.”
Part of valuing all lives is recognizing the experiences that shape them.
My hope in 2015 is that each of us in The United Methodist Church will dare to speak and share our truth, knowing that truth-telling by some people is viewed by others as being divisive, because they do not take the time to understand what experiences and influences shaped the truths of people different from themselves.
I will be speaking this Sunday at Second Baptist Church in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and on the holiday that honors King at United Methodist-related Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. In both places, my theme will be: “Martin Luther King transformed racial nightmares into racial dreams, and so must we.”
“A true revolution of value will cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies,” is what Martin Luther King writes in his last book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”
One reality of living for as long as I have is to possess within my being memories of our nation’s racial past: the nightmares as well as the dreams that supplanted those nightmares.
Maya Angelou has written words that I have found empowering and comforting:
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with
your hatefulness, But still like air I'll rise ...
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dreams and the hopes of the slave.
I rise, I rise, I rise.
Caldwell is a retired elder and member of the Rocky Mountain Conference. A member of the board of the African-American Methodist Heritage Center, he lives in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
News media contact: Heather Hahn at newsdesk@umcom.org or (615) 742-5470
A GUIDE TO VIEWING THE MOVIE SELMA
By The Rev. Gillbert H. Caldwell
It would be helpful to view the film "Selma" not with chips on our shoulders or a wish to revise the history that is being depicted in the film, but rather with the purpose of engaging in meaningful, vital conversations, which is best done with open hearts and open minds. The following insights and questions can help guide discussions.
- The Selma to Montgomery March took place in 1965. When viewing the film and engaging in conversations with others, please note that in 1963 two Methodist bishops, along with other white clergy, posted a newspaper statement asking Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to leave Birmingham to allow them to resolve their racial issues. Dr.King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was his response to those members of the clergy.
- In 1965, The United Methodist Church was segregated; ie. the Central Jurisdiction. The General Commission on Religion and Race was instrumental in responding to the resistance to racial integration in the denomination in a multiplicity of ways that are worth remembering. Brown's Chapel African Methodist Church (AME) in Selma was an important meeting place and worship center for the March. It is helpful to remember that the AME and AME Zion--historically black denominations--were formed in response to the racial insensitivity/racism of The United Methodist Church. A discussion about the movie "Selma" by United Methodists would be enriched by remembering, not denying or revising, the debates in Methodism over slavery and the owning of slaves that resulted in the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in the 1800s.
- "Selma" not only offers historical significance, but it has contemporary significance as well. This is a moment in our national history when the police abuse of black men and boys, too often leading in their deaths, is front-and-center. The police violence of "Bloody Sunday," which is depicted in the film, is linked by many of us to today's police violence. It is important to remember that previous generations of blacks, as well as some who are younger, remember through experience or awareness of history, the state-sponsored violence against blacks. Some members of our communities do not understand why many of us who are black, as well as our allies, have respond to the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner not as isolated events, but as reminders of past violence against blacks.
- Years ago, white journalist John Howard Griffin chemically darkened his skin in order to experience the response to blackness by many non-black Americans. His book, "Black Like Me" describes his experience: would that every person who is not black seek to walk in the shoes of blacks.
- Those of us who are black would be helped if we allowed the film to help us imagine what it is to be a white advocate in the black justice journey. Unitarian Minister James Reeb was called a "white nigger" during the beating that led to his death. And, at the end of the film, we are reminded of the killing of Viola Liuzzo, a white mother, who was killed as she drove persons to their homes from the March. My son, Dale G. Caldwell has written a book, "Intelligent Influence" that suggests on matters of race and all of our human experiences, greater understanding is achieved if we explore what were the influences in our lives that are responsible for what we think, say, and do. And, in asking others, what were the influences in their lives. We have not spent enough time in prayer, reflection, study, and introspection to understand what we do and do not do in response to race. The Apostle Paul's "good that I do, and do not" might be a helpful text as we discuss "Selma."
- Finally, viewing and discussing "Selma" is about race and much more than race. It is the "much more" that people of faith bring to the table on any issue that makes us unique. I frequently paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr in the statement: "Most of the evil is not done by evil people, but by good people who do not know that on some issues they/we are not good." Why or how have people of faith as well as people who rejoice in democracy allowed race, which is a social construct, to demean, diminish, and divide us in this country and around the world? What does this say about our biblical interpretation, theology, and Christology? What does this say about the foundation principles of equality, equal access, and justice? The film "Selma" could enable United Methodists as well as others to have an authentic, "what's it all about?" moment. We are more often recognizing that historic, cultural, and institutional racism--unchecked--has justified other inequities in our nation that affect and harm persons, regardless of their race and ethnicity. An appraisal of the educational and economic life in our nation reveals that it is not just blacks, but others as well, who are victimized by the idea and practice that some persons are "more equal than others."
I suggest and hope that a viewing and discussion of "Selma" will enable all of us to consider my paraphrase of those oft-quoted words of Martin Nieomoller; "When they came for the Jews (and others) I did not speak up because I was not a Jew or one of the others. But then when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up."
My paraphrase shaped by "Selma" is: "When they came for the blacks, I did not speak up because I was not black. And, for those who are black, I did not speak up because I thought 'the way to get along is to go along.' But, when they came for me, I realized that my silence about the plight of blacks, opened the door for me to be oppressed and I am not black. Or, I am a black person who thought that distancing myself from the black struggle would allow me to escape the struggle."
I have come by to tell you today, that "Selma" is about more than race and Selma. It is about how faith-based and justice-focused human beings can turn the nation upside down so that it will be right side up, not just for some of us, but for all of us! Is that not what Luke 4 means, when Jesus reads, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me"?
The Rev. Gillbert H. Caldwell is a retired United Methodist pastor. Rev. Caldwell was active in the Massachusetts unit of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and participated in the civil rights movement throughout the nation. Rev. Caldwell shared his experience in Selma in the post Selma: More Than a Movie.
MONROVIA, Liberia (UMNS) — Well before Ebola began ravaging their country, elderly Liberians were feeling vulnerable because of changing family structures. "Then came Ebola. It wiped out entire families, but in some cases, it carried away the primary breadwinners, leaving many vulnerable persons, primarily orphans and the elderly, who struggle to find a single meal for the day," said Moses B. Kiadii, a member of a coalition of advocates for the elderly. Nyamah Dunbar reports.
Ebola adds to struggles of Liberian elderly
Well before Ebola began ravaging their country, elderly Liberians were feeling vulnerable because of changing family structures.
“Our people used to live together – mother, father, children and grandchildren. But the cost of living, combined with the demands on professional schedules, has changed all of this,” said Moses B. Kiadii, a member of the Coalition of Caregivers and Advocates for the Elderly (COCAEL) in Liberia.
Kiadii added: “Then came Ebola. It wiped out entire families, but in some cases, it carried away the primary bread winners, leaving many vulnerable persons, primarily orphans and the elderly, who struggle to find a single meal for the day.”
The United Methodist Church in Liberia has a long record of responding to the needs of the elderly, having started a Ministry to the Aging program in 2005.
The Rev. Anna S. Kpaan, who heads the program, said her grandmother’s love instilled in her an appreciation for older people.
“My grandmother raised me. Although my mother was also living with us, the protection, nurturing and upbringing was from my grandmother,” Kpaan said. “As a result, whenever I am with an elderly person, I feel that I am their daughter. There is so much blessing and wisdom [to be gathered] from caring for the elderly.”
HOW TO GIVE
To support the Ministry to the Aging, please contact the Rev. Anna S. Kpaanannakpaan52@yahoo.com and the Rev. Jerry N. Kandea jnkandea90@yahoo.com.
In addition, support can be sent through the Advance No. 3020646 at the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, noted as specifically for the Ministry to the Aging.
Donations to the project can also be madeonline through the Advance.
Loaves and fishes
When I joined Kpaan and her staff and volunteers for a food distribution, I learned that, like Jesus, she frequently has to make meager rations feed multitudes. They had 10 bags of rice, 50 pounds each, to distribute to a crowd of about 130 persons – the majority of whom were old. The crowd also included people with disabilities. Instead of the blessing of five loaves and two fish, I watched as Kpaan and her team provided Ebola education to the crowd seated on the bare hot pavement outside the conference office. She and her volunteers divided the rice to provide about five cups for each person in the crowd, which seemed to keep growing.
One recipient, 80-year-old Pa Ben Daway, said this rice ration helps sustain him, particularly as Ebola has made economic times tougher. Pa is the abbreviation of Papa – a title and term of endearment used for all elder males in this society.
Unlike many elderly who have lost children or been abandoned by family, Daway lives with his three daughters, but none of them has been able to find formal or consistent employment. So when the Ministry to the Aging is distributing food, he leaves home by 5 a.m. to walk about three miles to the conference office, usually arriving right before food distribution begins around 9 a.m.
“With these 5 cups [of rice], I can eat it small-small [little by little] to stretch it out over nearly a week,” he said. “At my age, I cannot work and no one would hire me. If we [the elderly] cannot access these services, it would mean severe suffering and sometimes death from hunger by some of our friends.”
A few other private faith-based initiatives normally would give out food to the elderly and persons with disabilities, but most suspended operations during the height of the Ebola crisis. The United Methodist Church is one of the few organizations – if not the only one – providing services for the elderly within the Sinkor area of Monrovia.
Pa Ben Daway, age 80, walks
three miles to receive his
allotment of rice. Photo by
Nyamah Dunbar, UMNS.
Ebola’s impact on ministry
Kpaan and her associate, the Rev. Jerry Kandea, report that the Ebola crisis had had an even greater effect on a program sustained primarily through private donations.
“The National Task Force established by the government for Ebola does not address any geriatric or elderly concerns,” saids Kandea.
Help from Operation Classroom in Indiana and the Holston Conference in the United States, local donations through the nonprofit group Christian Aid Mission, and private and church donations through the Advance have kept this program going.
But Kpaan knows the program needs to do more, in part because government can’t be expected to meet all the needs.
Liberia is only now seriously trying to implement a social security policy, but the vast majority of the aged will not get it. And there are no health care coverage systems in place, like Medicare or Medicaid.
Thus Kpaan has joined forces with a few other religious based-civil society groups and churches to form COCAEL, with the goal of addressing the needs of the elderly and the marginalized.
Challenge and blessing
COCAEL’s primary objectives are joint advocacy and lobbying with government entities and private society to introduce the concerns for the aging population within national plans and budgets. The organization also hopes to expand its reach in services to provide counseling for elderly who have been abandoned or lack family and to place them within homes with host families who would be able to care for them, with ongoing support from COCAEL and supporting partners.
The group would also like to establish livelihood programs for elderly who can still work. That would let them generate income to support themselves, as well as provide funds for the feeding program. For now, it remains a daily challenge and a blessing – as I am reminded by Kpaan – to be able to serve those perceived as the least within our society.
Dunbar, founder of Sankofa Inc. Agribusiness and former program manager in Africa for United Methodist Committee on Relief, is based in Liberia.
News media contact: Vicki Brown, news editor, newsdesk@umcom.org or 615-742-5469.
ORLANDO, Fla. (UMNS) — Walt Disney World finds a variety of ways to make its guests feel welcome. In a column shared by the Florida Conference, the Rev. Rich Birch, a New Jersey pastor, describes what churches can learn about hospitality and growth from the popular tourist destination.
Walt Disney World innovations for your church
By Rich Birch
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of taking a bunch of family vacations at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I love it … partly because it’s such a fun place to visit and partly because I find leadership lessons everywhere I look. My family recently spent a week at WDW and it got me thinking about how it’s changed over the years and what those changes can teach me as I lead at my church. Disney is a big organization attempting to stay on the cutting edge of impacting culture. Here are a few of their changes that jumped out at me:
Personalized Technology // In 2013, Disney rolled out a series of products under the banner of MyMagic+. This technology personalizes your vacation experience. You can book your ride times from home, before you even leave for vacation. A few of the newer rides create automatic digital souvenirs, which blend music, professional video and images of you on the ride. It’s reported that Disney has spent $1 billion to provide this sort of personalization to its guests.
- How are you leveraging data to make a better experience for people? What if we celebrated people’s birthdays and anniversaries as they arrived at our services each week? What if we generated name tags for people with a scan of their license plates as they pulled into our parking lots?
More Intimate Experiences // Disney recently finished the Magic Kingdom’s largest expansion in its history, with a completely redone Fantasyland. In the middle of many great new attractions is Enchanted Tales with Belle. It’s an almost 30-minute small group experience where you are face to face with Belle from Beauty and Beast while kids re-enact the story. Don’t miss this … Disney could have invested in a new show, ride or theater experience … but they chose to structure an incredibly intimate time where families interact directly with the story.
- Growing churches need to fight the urge to move people into larger and larger crowds. How can you break your ministry into smaller communities to give intimate growth experiences? Where is the “mid-sized” community being developed at your church … between the large gatherings and small groups?
Global and Local Expansion // I asked a long-time “cast member” at Disney World when the slowest time of the year is now. He commented that Disney has done a lot of global advertising to draw in guests from around the world, so there really isn’t a slow time of year due to varying vacation schedules. At the same time, WDW just opened a massive parking garage called Disney Springs as part of a new expansion project targeted at Central Florida residents and people vacationing at other Orlando attractions.
- How is your church reaching out to “hard to acquire” first-time guests and more readily available “low-hanging fruit”? What’s a series of Sunday services that you could do to draw in a different demographic than you normally reach? (I love what The Meeting House is doing with some daring new ground in its series entitled ISIS, Islam, and Jesus … a great example of trying something new!) Who is the core community your church is perfectly tuned to reach? How can you reach more of those folks? (Have you heard of First Baptist Church at The Villages in Florida? This church is unashamedly reaching retired folks … check it out!)
Increased Re-Rideability // Disney changes some of its rides so they are different every time you ride them. The Star Tours ride at Hollywood Studios has 54 potential variations in the story line. The Toy Story Mania ride is essentially a 3D video game that you travel through … begging guests to ride it again to increase their scores. The new Test Track ride at Epcot allows guests to design their own futuristic car and then see how it performs … again implicitly inviting guests to come back and tweak their designs. These changes are a far cry from the “It’s a Small World” generation of rides where guests experienced the same thing for decades.
- Are you offering variety in your experiences so that people have a sense of anticipation when they come to your church? What is the balance between offering a repeatable experience that you can do with excellence and fresh experiences that keep people engaged? How are you adding elements of surprise and delight into what your church does to keep people interested and coming back?
The Experience Before the Experience // Let’s be honest … a big part of a Disney World vacation is standing in line and waiting for something to happen. It’s a pretty ingenious business model really! I’ve noticed that throughout the park Disney attempts to make these “waiting” experiences as elegant and entertaining as possible. At the classic Haunted Mansion there are a bunch of new interactive elements designed to entertain and delight guests before they enter the ride. The queue for the brand new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride includes games and all kinds of fun stuff to do while you wait for your turn on the train. Even the Pinocchio Village Haus restaurant has menus with really cool animations to look like they are built by a cuckoo clock maker! All of these small sub-experiences help you enjoy the experience before the experience … whether that’s a $100 million roller coaster or a $10 chicken burger!
- Where do people “wait” at your church? How can you add to those experiences to make them great? Can you get a volunteer to stand with folks as they check in their kids … maybe handing the kids treats or stickers? What happens before your service as people arrive? Could you do something in the foyer to welcome people and build anticipation?
Courtesy Rich Birch www.unseminary.com. The opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Florida Conference. Photo courtesy Bigstock.
Churches offer alternative to payday lendersRICHMOND, Va. (UMNS) — The Washington Post reports on Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church's Jubilee Assistance Fund, which parishioners are using as an alternative to high-interest commercial lending.
Nina McCarthy, shown in the sanctuary of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Richmond, was able to secure a loan from the church to repair her car as an alternative means of borrowing. The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, a vocal critic of the commercial lending industry, calls Virginia the “East Coast capital of predatory lending.”
Every month for about three years, Nina McCarthy followed the same routine after payday. She’d go into a Check Into Cash near her home in the Richmond area, and pay off an open-end loan for $700 or $800 – and then she’d take out a new one for the same amount, never accumulating interest in the process.
Then McCarthy’s overtime hours at work were cut. With rent, a car payment and a 3-year-old granddaughter to feed, McCarthy didn’t have $700 for Check Into Cash. McCarthy made a partial payment, but interest piled up rapidly, at a rate she recalls was 24.9 percent a month, or a nearly 300 percent annualized rate.
McCarthy estimated that she paid more than $1,100 on the bill in the first three-quarters of 2014, including payments that Check Into Cash began collecting directly out of her bank account. Then in September, she had a stroke. She closed her bank account and hasn’t made any payments since. When she went back to the Check Into Cash store on Friday, an employee directed her to the collection line that has taken over her account. McCarthy was told she still owes nearly $650 on the line of credit and doesn’t know when she’ll be able to pay it off.
“I wish I would have never took it out,” McCarthy said. “I wish I would have asked questions, read the paperwork more thoroughly, and just didn’t feel so desperate.”
About a year and a half ago, McCarthy took out another, different kind of loan. She went to her pastor, Rodney Hunter, at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Richmond. Hunter helped her borrow $700 so she could make a dent in paying off her mounting credit card debt, then about $8,000.
Here’s how it worked: McCarthy’s church offered funds as collateral so that she could qualify for a loan through the Virginia United Methodist Credit Union. McCarthy agreed to repay the loan at an annualized interest rate of about 6 percent – meaning monthly payments of $25 for about 2 1/2 years, drawn right out of her bank account.
McCarthy is one month behind on the church loan, but she’s confident she’ll catch up this month. “I’m real grateful for it,” she said.
The program is called the Jubilee Assistance Fund. In 7 1/2 years, it has helped parishioners of the United Methodist Church secure 14 loans – from $500 to $8,800 – according to Carol Mathis, chief executive of the credit union.
Similar initiatives run by faith-based organizations across the country are shifting the way churches approach charity. These programs offer parishioners an alternative to commercial lending agencies, which often charge triple-digit annualized interest rates.
Unlike commercial lenders or even other nonprofit alternatives, these church-backed programs offer near-zero interest rates – a model, proponents say, that helps struggling borrowers get back on their feet.
Small-dollar lenders
Most Virginians like McCarthy can take out several types of commercial small-dollar loans: among them, a payday loan secured against a borrower’s paycheck, a title loan typically secured against a car, or an open-end loan establishing a line of credit. The loans are usually for several hundred dollars and often require payments every two or four weeks. Borrowers typically need no more than a checking account and a steady source of income to qualify. This makes the loans particularly attractive for people with poor credit who would not qualify through a bank or credit union.
Regulation of the small-dollar lending industry varies widely by state. State laws capping interest rates have effectively driven payday lenders out of many jurisdictions, including Maryland and the District. But with looser regulations in places such as Virginia, these storefronts line the streets in low-income neighborhoods.
In this patchwork regulatory landscape, Virginia has become something of a destination for mid-Atlantic residents in search of fast cash. Virginia has 20 licensed payday lending companies and 28 licensed motor vehicle title lending companies, some with dozens of locations across the state. And then there are open-end loan lenders, which are effectively unregulated and difficult to count.
The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, a vocal industry critic, calls Virginia the “East Coast capital of predatory lending.”
Other critics often point to the passage of a 2011 law that allowed car-title lenders in Virginia to offer loans to out-of-state drivers, a legislative victory for the industry. Since then, the number of motor vehicle title lender licensees there has doubled.
Even efforts to regulate the small-dollar loan industry in Virginia have helped it grow in unexpected ways. When restrictions were tightened in 2008 on payday loans issued in Virginia, some lenders left altogether. Others, such as Check Into Cash, simply stopped offering payday loans and focused instead on unregulated products, such as the open-end loan that McCarthy took out.
While the commercial lending industry frames its products as a solution for hard-working American families in a tough spot, critics say these loans prey on the poor and the vulnerable. A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report found that more than 80 percent of payday loans are rolled over or followed by a subsequent loan within two weeks, and that 15 percent of new loans lead to a sequence of at least 10 loans.
‘A place of desperation’
People who turn to small-dollar lenders tend to have one thing in common: desperation. They find themselves in situations such as the one that led McCarthy to Check Into Cash.
On a cold morning in late fall 2010, McCarthy was on the highway in Richmond driving home from an overnight shift. The exclamation point on the dashboard lit up, her engine cut off, and her steering wheel went stiff.
At a shop, the mechanic gave her the damage: It would cost more than $600 to fix the engine.
McCarthy couldn’t afford the bill, but she couldn’t afford not to get her car fixed either. She needed it to get to her job at a group home for girls, where she earned $14.42 an hour for 40 hours a week – with 10 to 20 hours of overtime if she was lucky. And her family was relying on her, too. Her teenage daughter needed rides to volleyball and basketball practices and games, and her 22-year-old son was looking for work and had no car of his own.
McCarthy had few options. She was already burdened with credit card debt, and had no active credit cards. She never even considered going to a bank. That left her with the only source of cash she could think of: Check Into Cash’s $800 line of credit.
“I couldn’t see any other way to do it,” McCarthy said. “And I think that’s what happens when a person gets into a place of desperation. We really don’t think logically.”
Jabo Covert, senior vice president for government affairs at Check Into Cash, had some advice for McCarthy. He said customers who are unhappy with their contracts can always go back into the store to restructure their loans.
“If she can’t make her payments, we want to make it work for her,” Covert said. McCarthy said she didn’t know about this option.
Covert acknowledged that open-end loans are not right for all customers. But “we find it to be a very fairly priced product for the amount of time and the amount of money,” he said.
Covert said that in 2014, there were 19 complaints logged by Check Into Cash customers in Virginia, all of which were resolved in the customer’s favor.
Nina McCarthy secured a loan from Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Richmond to repair her car. Here, McCarthy holds the keys to her vehicle, a 2007 Mazda.
Some borrowers manage small-dollar loan products without accumulating debt. Loletha Smith, a retired compliance officer who lives in Richmond, took out nearly 10 payday loans from Advance America over several years. She generally took out the loans as a paycheck advance, and never for more than $300. She even took out several payday loans after receiving a Jubilee Assistance Fund loan of $1,000 for a significant car repair, also financed with the help of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church.
“It could be a good thing, if people are informed and honest with themselves and their relationship to what they can afford to do,” Smith said. “For me, it was like, once I knew what I had to pay, it was like my list of bills.”
Even some in the faith community say the commercial lending industry has its benefits.
Bill Cheeks is president of ABBA Associates, a Powder Springs, Ga.-based consulting firm that offers financial literacy counseling and seminars and often works with churches. He thinks there are problems with the payday lending industry and has encouraged payday lenders “to do a better job helping consumers, so you don’t get them into the cycle of debt.”
Yet, he said, the borrowers he counsels far more frequently complain about credit reporting agencies than payday lenders. He says these commercial lenders can provide important short-term financial assistance for people not served by banks.
“There is a place for the payday lending group,” Cheeks said. “We just have to teach people – you borrow the money, pay it back.”
A ‘biblical mandate’
But for some, the support of a church can offer a better solution than the commercial lending industry.
In 2010, pipes beneath Dina Giese’s property burst, backing up into the basement and leaving her and her husband with a nearly $4,000 bill. Until they found a way to pay for the repairs, they couldn’t drain water. For several days, they did dishes in a tub in the sink and showered at her father’s house nearby.
Giese and her husband were already struggling to make ends meet. They made about $32,000 a year and worked to keep up with their monthly mortgage payments. What’s more, they had poor credit at the time and couldn’t qualify for a loan through a credit union. Giese went into a motor vehicle title loan dealer but was flabbergasted by how high the rates were.
Then she turned to her church, Lakeside United Methodist Church, where she works part time as a custodian in addition to her two other jobs. Her pastor helped her take out a loan through the Jubilee Assistance Fund for a little more than $3,000 at an annual interest rate of about 6 percent. (Giese and her husband paid off the rest of the bill with the help of a gift from a friend). Giese and her husband paid off the loan in about a year, or less than half the time she’d agreed to make payments.
Giese said she is deeply grateful for the program. She doesn’t know what would have happened to her finances had she been left to take out a car-title loan. “It’s astronomical what they want you to pay back,” Giese said.
Participants in the Jubilee Assistance Fund say it has done much to help. If only it and others like it could be scaled up to serve communities broader than that of a handful of congregations, they say, they could become a serious alternative to the commercial lending industry. Church-run lending programs exist in pockets across the country and are most seriously organized in places such as Wisconsin, Texas, Missouri and Louisiana.
Hunter, the pastor at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church who helped McCarthy and Smith finance their loans, said churches are uniquely positioned and obligated to aid people facing financial crises.
“This is what the church should do,” Hunter said. “There’s a moral piece, I think, the church should care for the least in society. This is what I think the biblical mandate is.”
Charles Swadley, the recently retired pastor of Lakeside United Methodist Church who helped Giese, said the program challenges typical perceptions of a church’s role. While churches have long given money to financially struggling parishioners, the concept of offering them low-interest loans that they must pay back is less ingrained, he said.
“When you give money, you’re not necessarily teaching them how to use the money – you’re responding to the crisis,” Swadley said. “And what we’ve got to do is teach, which is the harder goal.”
A chaplain in hiking boots
DAMASCUS, Virginia (UMNS) — At an age when many people kick back in retirement, Dave Smith went on his own "Wild"-like adventure, hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. Though not a pastor, Smith served as the Holston Conference's chaplain on the trail, offering counsel and friendship to fellow hikers.
Listening for God on the Appalachian Trail
Dave Smith is not a pastor but he does believe that people seeking God don’t always do it in churches. Smith himself was feeling lost when he stumbled onto the Appalachian Trail, but his experience there helped him find his faith again, and led him to offer counseling to other hikers as a chaplain for The United Methodist Church. He took us along to the place where so many find spiritual rest.
Script:
(Locator: near Damascus, Virginia)
"God speaks to you in a lot of different ways, the trees and the streams that flow by. If you listen, you can hear God.”
Seventy-year-old Dave Smith has done a lot of listening in these woods. In 2014, Smith hiked the 2200-mile Appalachian Trail as a chaplain for the Holston Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Seventy-year-old Dave Smith has done a lot of listening in these woods. In 2014, Smith hiked the 2200-mile Appalachian Trail as a chaplain for the Holston Conference of The United Methodist Church.
Dave Smith: “You end up sharing things with people that back home in real life you’d probably never share with somebody.”
Smith is not a pastor, but he became a chaplain after finding healing in these great woods. It was a walk that changed the course of his life.
David Smith: “My 3-year-old grandson was diagnosed with pediatric cancer and it just happened to occur on my birthday in 2007. The initial diagnosis was that the he was gonna be fine. Unfortunately, in about five months his heart stopped and we lost Walker. I blamed God. And I became angry with God. I became very depressed. And my faith was tested. My day consisted of getting up in the morning and just aimlessly driving all day. One day, purely by accident, I found myself at a trailhead in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. During that walk I must have talked to 50 or more people. And when I got back to my car and started leaving there that day, I realized I feel the best today that I had felt in 5, 6 months. So I kept coming back and God and I got reconciled with each other. And I continued to hike.”
On the trail, everyone has a nickname, Smith’s is Shortstop, from the first hiking club he joined early on.
Dave Smith: “I was not in shape. I was not in condition to be out walking in the woods. I kept saying, ‘Folks, I gotta take a short break here.’ So after a while, a few hikes, I think they kind of got aggravated by all my short breaks. And so, after a period of time they started calling me ‘Shortstop.’ And it has stuck.”
Each year, two to three million people cross paths here.
Dave Smith: “We all become a family. You become acquainted and become friends very quick.”
Many tackle the trail in stages over months or years. A through hike is uniquely challenging…14 states…Georgia to Maine…covering 2182 miles.
A trail chaplain can offer a listening ear.
Dave Smith: “Had one young man on the trail, his question was: ‘What do you say is really important in life?’ What a great opportunity to share the importance of having a strong faith foundation in your life.”
Smith has met travelers as young as 5 and as golden as 80 hiking the full trail. Many are trying to find their footing in life.
Dave Smith: “I’m not here to force my beliefs on anybody. But I’m here to share if the opportunity presents itself.”
Smith says as a chaplain, he prayed to connect with people on life journeys.
Dave Smith: “I saw God’s hand in bringing folks to me and those folks coming and sharing their stories with me.”
Shortstop hopes his fellow travelers along the Appalachian Trail found that peace and direction they were seeking for the road ahead through life.
Dave Smith: “It’s not the end of the trail that marks the end of my hike. It’s the lives that get touched along the way and where those lives go next year and the year after and the year after that. That’s what’s really going to determine how successful this hike was.”
Tag:
The first time Dave Smith hiked the trail, he raised money for pediatric cancer research in memory of his grandson, Walker. The walk in 2014 was in support of a Holston Conference fund to keep a United Methodist trail chaplain on the Appalachian Trail. The Holston Conference spiritually supports the Appalachian Trail Chaplain program but all money is raised from individuals who share a love of hiking and a commitment to taking The United Methodist Church outside the walls.
Dave Smith is a member of Cokesbury United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
This story was first posted on January 9, 2015.
Media contact is Fran Walsh, at 615-742-5458.
Media contact is Fran Walsh, at 615-742-5458.
MANILA, Philippines (UMNS — A United Methodist layman will be among 10 religious leaders and peace advocates from various denominations meeting with Pope Francis during his visit to the Philippines. Gladys P. Mangiduyos reports.
United Methodist layman to meet Pope Francis
A United Methodist layman will be among 10 religious leaders and peace advocates from various denominations meeting with Pope Francis during his visit here.
Retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno, long an advocate of just governance, will be part of a short meeting with the Catholic pontiff on Jan. 18.
“I am excited to see and hear Pope Francis,” Puno said in a statement about the meeting. “I sincerely believe that Pope Francis is a servant leader who can really contribute to the mitigation of the worsening problems of the world.”
The pope is visiting the Philippines from Jan. 15-19. The trip also includes a meeting with survivors of Typhoon Haiyan. Haiyan, known as Yolanda in the Philippines, was a Category 5 storm that killed more than 6,000 people in 2013.
Puno is a proponent of governance characterized by transparency, accountability and integrity, a position supported by the Social Principles of The United Methodist Church.
In a speech last year, the retired justice highlighted the “seeming deluge of global problems cascading in the Philippines.” Those problems include global climate change, resulting in stronger typhoons; the extreme grinding poverty of the Filipino people; migration to foreign countries, which results in a brain drain; and unrelenting graft and corruption, he said.
Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno
2006 file photo, UMNS.
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Concern for the marginalized
Puno believes the pope “has a good grip” on such issues and thinks his deep concern for the marginalized is key. “He is a pope who can goad us to goodness, for he lives Christ’s teachings and follows His call, especially the call to look for the overlooked,” he said.
"I am sure Pope Francis will be happier if our response to his call as a sower of God’s words is less by preparing for his physical comfort but more by preparing our hearts and cultivating minds to assure that God’s words will not keep falling on barren grounds," Puno said.
The Rev. Carlos Reyes, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Interreligious Dialogue of the Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines, said in a report that the 10 religious leaders would have an audience with the Pope that will last about 10 to 15 minutes.
Monsignor Marvin Mejia said different religions and faiths are close to the pope’s heart.
“Interreligious dialogue is an important dimension of his papacy [and] even before he became pope, he was already engaging in interreligious dialogue. So it is part of the visit,” said Mejia, secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
*Mangiduyos is a deaconess in the United Methodist Philippines Central Conference and a professor at Wesleyan University-Philippines in Cabanatuan City.
News media contact: Vicki Brown, news editor, newsdesk@umcom.org or 615-742-5469.
DURHAM, N.C. (UMNS) — Duke University has reconsidered a previously announced plan to present a traditional Muslim call-to-prayer from the Duke Chapel bell tower, campus officials said Thursday. Duke Nixes Plan to Use Chapel Tower for Muslim Prayer Call
Days after announcing that a Muslim call to prayer would echo from its historic chapel tower, Duke University changed course Thursday following a flurry of calls and emails objecting to the plan.
Instead, Muslims will gather for their call to prayer in a grassy area near the 210-foot gothic tower before heading into a room in Duke Chapel for their weekly prayer service. The university had previously said a moderately amplified call to prayer would be read by members of the Muslim Students Association from the tower for about three minutes each Friday.
Michael Schoenfeld, Duke's vice president for public affairs and government relations, said it would be up to the students if they want to use some sort of amplification.
The original plan drew the ire of evangelist Franklin Graham, who urged Duke alumni to withhold support because of violence against Christians that he attributed to Muslims. Schoenfeld said emails and calls came from alumni and others in the community.
"There was considerable traffic and conversation and even a little bit of confusion, both within the campus and certainly outside, about what Duke was doing," Schoenfeld said. "The purposes and goals and even the facts had been so mischaracterized as to turn it into a divisive situation, not a unifying situation."
He also said there were concerns about safety and security, but he declined to elaborate on whether any specific threats had been received.
Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, wrote later in the day that the university made the right decision to cancel the plan to use the tower. However, Schoenfeld said the reversal was not due to Graham's opposition.
Shalini Subbarao, 19, a sophomore from St. Louis, said she was disappointed with the school's reversal as she walked past the chapel.
"I thought it was really progressive. It showed our openness to other religions," she said of the original plan.
The campus was mostly business as usual on Thursday afternoon, with students leaving classes, waiting for a cross-campus bus or heading to evening meetings. Several said they were not familiar with the issue, while others' reactions were mixed.
Ios Kotaogiannis, a 39-year-old doctoral candidate in computer science who is from Greece, said he was glad officials reversed their decision.
"I'm a secular person. I'm not against religion. I think religion is good. But it has its place — inside the chapel," he said.
The chapel is identified by the school as a Christian church but also hosts Hindu services and has been used for Buddhist meditations.
The chapel's associate dean for religious life, Christy Lohr Sapp, said before the plans were canceled that the move showed the school's commitment to religious pluralism. In a column written for The News & Observer of Raleigh, Lohr Sapp acknowledged the headlines generated by violence by extremists in ISIS, Boko Haram and al-Qaida, contrasting it to what's happening on campus.
"Yet, at Duke University, the Muslim community represents a strikingly different face of Islam than is seen on the nightly news: one that is peaceful and prayerful," she wrote.
The private university in Durham, northwest of Raleigh, was founded by Methodists and Quakers, and its divinity school has historically been connected to the United Methodist Church. Duke has nearly 15,000 students, including about 6,500 undergraduates. The school's insignia features the Christian cross and a Latin motto translated as "learning and faith."
The university says more than 700 of its students identify themselves as Muslim. Schoenfeld said Duke was one of the first universities in the country to hire a full-time Muslim imam when the first was named in 2008. Muslim students have been holding prayer services in the basement of the chapel for the past two years.
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Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker and Emery P. Dalesio in Raleigh contributed to this report.
Here are some of the activities ahead for United Methodists across the connection. If you have an item to share, email newsdesk@umcom.org and put Digest in the subject line.
Sunday-Saturday, Jan. 18-24
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity — The Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships, part of the Council of Bishops, urges United Methodists to participate. Resources, including posters, daily Scripture, prayer guides, bulletins, pulpit announcements and prayer cards, are available online from the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute.
You can see more educational opportunities and other upcoming events in the life of the church here.
| NOTE: This is a digest of news features provided by United Methodist Communications for Jan. 12-16. It includes summaries of United Methodist News Service stories and additional briefs from around the United Methodist connection. Full versions of the stories with photographs and related features can be found at umc.org/news.Top Stories Keeping faith with Haiti PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (UMNS — Using photographs from 2010 to 2014, photographer Mike DuBose presents a visual record of how an earthquake changed this small Caribbean nation. The United Methodist Church has worked hand-in-hand with the Methodist Church of Haiti to rebuild churches, schools and homes. Taking a look at Haiti's journey to recovery
On Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010, at 4:53 p.m., a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook apart Haiti’s heart. The epicenter was 16 miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince, killed more than 200,000 and affected 3 million.
Five years later, most of the rubble has been cleared but the aftershocks are still being felt. The United Methodist Church joined hands with the Eglise Méthodiste d'Haïti (Methodist Church of Haiti) in the first terrible days and have worked side by side every day since.
United Methodist Communications photographer Mike DuBose was in Haiti days after the quake, Jan. 22-29, and later in November 2010. He returned in 2013 and 2014.
These photographs are records of how life has changed and how much life still needs to change for the people of Haiti.
Haiti Eye Clinic in Petit-Goâve
A group of 12 missionaries from Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas were working in the village of Petit-Goâve when the clinic collapsed on Jan. 12, 2010. Jean Arnwine, one of the volunteers, died from her injuries. The church has been making medical mission trips to Haiti since 1976 and returned to the rebuilt clinic in 2014 for a re-opening celebration.
 2010: The Rev. Ralph Denizard describes how a massive earthquake destroyed the Haiti Eye Clinic in Petit-Goâve. 2014: Patients wait to be seen at the Haiti Eye Clinic in Petit-Goâve. The clinic is back in operation after being re-dedicated in January 2014.  2010: A pair of eyeglasses lies amid the rubble of the Haiti Eye Clinic in Petit-Goâve. Eyewitnesses
Leonard Jeangille, a translator for the Methodist Church in Haiti, was part of the team with the Highland Park church on that day. He remembers every minute. At 4 p.m., Jeangilles told the team leader the group should be heading back into Port-au-Prince. “(The team leader) told me, ‘No, these people have been waiting all day, and it would be a shame to send them home before we see them.’”
Jean Claude Degazon, a longtime staff member of the Methodist Guest House, who was trapped in the rubble of the eye clinic also remembers every detail of that day. He said that when the eye clinic collapsed, he could only move one arm and hand, the one with his cell phone. He said God kept telling him "you can do something." So he stuck his hand out, and a friend pulled him free. Together, they directed rescue workers to the site to pull out other team members.
 2010: Leonard Jeangilles stands in a doorway that looks out over the Caribbean Sea from the back of the Haiti Eye Clinic in Petit-Goâve in November 2010. 2013: Jean Claude Degazon (left) describes being trapped in the rubble of the eye clinic in Petit-Goave during the earthquake. Degazon rebuilt his home in Port-au-Prince with help from the Haiti Home Assistance Program, a collaborative effort on the part of the Methodist Church of Haiti, UMCOR and United Methodist Volunteers in Mission. His mother, Andrea Bonsoir (center), 80, is among 15 family members who live in the home. 2014: A photograph of United Methodist volunteers Karen Gardner (left) and Jean Arnwine enjoying a light moment between patients, hangs in a place of honor in the waiting room at the Haiti Eye Clinic. Joel Fish, another volunteer from Highland Park, captured the moment prior to the earthquake.  2014: Evelyne Etienne gets a vision exam at the rebuilt Haiti Eye Clinic. A world in ruins
In minutes, ordinary daily life crumbled. Walking around Port-au-Prince felt like walking onto a Hollywood disaster movie set. The National Palace was part of the twisted, surreal landscape. Thousands of people were living outside, under the stars, too afraid to live anywhere that had a roof and walls. Strangers and families pressed together. Sheets, tablecloths, towels as walls and roofs. Some were lucky enough to have mattresses to sleep on, others made do with cardboard or nothing at all.
 2010: United Nations soldiers from Brazil help guard the earthquake-damaged National Palace in Port-au-Prince.  2010: The National Palace lies in ruins in Port-au-Prince.  2010: Residents of Port-au-Prince line up outside the devastated National Palace. 2014: The fence is all that remains of the National Palace in Port-au-Prince. The rubble was removed in 2012 and plans have not been set for its possible replacement.NEW YORK (UMNS) — Five years after the devastating earthquake that left more than 200,000 dead and displaced 1.2 million, United Methodists, together with church and nongovernmental partners, continue to work with Haitian communities toward sustainable development. Linda Bloom has the story. Haiti earthquake: recovery to developmentBy Linda Bloom
When the Rev. J. Denise Honeycutt, head of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, visited Haiti in September, she was impressed by the evidence of new construction in Port-au-Prince.
Just five years ago, on Jan. 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake nearly leveled the capital and left more than 200,000 dead; displaced 1.5 million throughout the island nation and damaged or destroyed some 300,000 buildings.
“There was a sort of feeling of vibrant life and even brightness about the city,” Honeycutt recalled. Still, she could find a few remaining piles of rubble. “It was striking to see a community, a country and a people who were moving forward…and yet this reminder of this earthquake is just around the corner.”
United Methodists — who donated some $45 million to UMCOR for the earthquake response — have participated collectively and individually in relief and recovery efforts for Haiti.
UMCOR’s strategic plan through 2017 is to have a maximum impact on sustainable development in partnership with the Eglise Méthodiste d'Haïti, or the Methodist Church of Haiti. The denomination’s earthquake response has focused on shelter and reconstruction, education, health and hygiene, livelihoods and capacity building.
Many other UMCOR partners have played a significant role in the five-year recovery. “We don’t need to do it on our own,” said Honeycutt. “There are partners out there who do want to be a part of the solution and have expertise that perhaps we might not. Or we can leverage our expertise with their expertise.”
Concerns over housing, jobs
Included in the earthquake's death toll was Jean Arnwine, a United Methodist volunteer, and two executives from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries – the Rev. Sam Dixon, who then led UMCOR, and the Rev. Clinton Rabb, head of Mission Volunteers.
The Rev. Jim Gulley, who was trapped with the men in the wreckage of the Hotel Montana, now serves as the mission agency’s adviser and partner coordinator for the work in Haiti.
Both he and the Rev. Gesner Paul, president of the Methodist Church of Haiti, acknowledged overall concerns about unemployment and inadequate housing.
Paul said he has found the recovery process to be “very slow,” lamenting that more than 70,000 Haitians still live in tents. He believes many nongovernmental organizations “did not reach the targets or goals they were supposed to achieve.”
UMC HAITI RESPONSE
The United Methodist Committee on Relief has posted an online overview of the earthquake response in Haiti, including a timeline of notable events. UMCOR’s Haiti office currently has a staff of about 40 people, the majority of whom are Haitian.
June 1, 2014, marked the launch of UMCOR’s long-term development work in Haiti. An ongoing program is the Haiti Sustainable Integrated Community Development Advance Project, No. 3021657. The Methodist Church of Haiti is the central Haitian partner in the program, which has four main focal areas of work: agriculture, health, microcredit and literacy.
For various reasons, including ownership of property, “there has not been enough housing rebuilt,” Gulley said. “That is the big failing of the whole response of the whole international community.”
An approach taken in last few years to provide rent money and let people find their own housing has helped reduced the numbers of those displaced, he added.
Both Paul and Gulley agree that new jobs are crucial to progress in Haiti. With 60 percent unemployment, Paul said, “most of the people are self-employed. They survive with the little things they can do.”
A recent USA Today story also cited concerns over slow progress on reconstruction and job opportunities and quoted former U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, a United Methodist, who said, "The amount of poor construction and the lack of urban planning is evident."
Successes and challenges
Haiti has always had its challenges and responding to the earthquake was no different, Donna Derr, director of development and humanitarian assistance for Church World Service, pointed out.
“From our perspective, as expected, there were both some real clear successes and there were some things where we clearly felt an impact was made in the moment (without) any long-term results,” she said.
One of the “huge” successes for CWS — made possible by support from UMCOR and others in the ACT Alliance, a network of faith-based relief agencies — is a relocation project for 500 families who had been living on a soccer field in Léogâne, one of many makeshift communities formed around Port-au-Prince after the earthquake
As new housing, water systems and livelihood programs were put in place in their damaged communities of Ganthier and Boen, Haitian church leaders provided “really amazing leadership” to help prioritize the development and relocation process.
“It’s gone just amazingly well,” Derr said. “Many of them (residents) are now income earners who weren’t before, even before the earthquake.”
Another success was a program designed specifically for people with disabilities, including those disabled from earthquake-related injuries. Recently, CWS was able to connect their local partner in that program with the U.S. Agency for International Development, she added.
A relocation program in rural Haiti fell short, however. “We saw a huge influx of displaced persons who moved up to the northwest of Haiti with family members in really rural areas where we work on food security programs,” Derr explained. But only about 30 percent stayed permanently, with the rest eventually migrating back to Port-au-Prince.
The many schools operated by the Methodist Church of Haiti remain “the most important thing,” Paul said, but education also “is where we have most of the problems.”
UMCOR just released funds to the Haitian church to help pay the arrears in teacher salaries and Honeycutt agreed that the church needs a sustainable plan for education. “The church is responsible for a number of schools throughout the country,” she noted. “Continuing to pay those teachers’ salaries is an issue they are struggling with even today.”
FINANCIAL COMMITMENTS
As of July 2014, UMCOR had spent and made grant commitments in excess of $32 million. A general breakdown of that spending includes:
Source: UMCOR International Programs Unit
Another priority for the Haitian church is the re-opening of a training center for rural young adults at Vialet in Petit-Goâve Circuit. The center is being revamped in a way that requires less administrative overhead. “It’s a vital ministry in terms of creating community leaders,” Honeycutt said.
A major effort is underway to mobilize resources over the next three months to allow the center to re-open after Easter, Gulley added.
Lessons learned from tsunami
The overwhelming international response after the Haiti earthquake, as with the Indian Ocean tsunami five years earlier, “far outstripped the ability of the country to absorb it,” said Susan Watkins, Haiti Head of Mission for UMCOR.
Improved procedures, regulations and standards have brought some progress, she noted.
“Overall, we expect accelerated development in the coming years based on the lessons learned (and the) partnerships and foundations for working relationships that have been set.”
One lesson that CWS was able to apply from its tsunami experience was to “be aware of what your strengths are as an organization and work from there,” said Maurice A. Bloem, executive vice president.
At the outset of the earthquake response, Derr explained, CWS decided it was not going to engage in areas where the agency did not have an established presence. The only exception was with its people with disabilities program.
UMCOR also followed a strategy in Haiti similar to its tsunami response, said Sharad Aggarwal, director of international programs, by allocating some funds for the emergency response, recovery, and reconstruction phases, while reserving the remainder to support transitional development programs down the road.
“Our emergency response planning had to be sensitive to long-term development needs, given the history of development in Haiti and the role of other humanitarian actors,” he explained. “Fundamental to the Haiti strategy is capacity-building of both staff and local partners.”
Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her athttp://twitter.com/umcscribe or contact her at (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org
DALLAS (UMNS) — Five years after a devastating earthquake, Haiti continues to be a magnet for United Methodist volunteers who speak of the enormous needs there as well as the spiritual return they themselves receive. Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas is among the churches working in Haiti, despite having had a volunteer killed in the earthquake. Sam Hodges has the story. Volunteers still answering the call in Haiti
The earthquake that devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, cast a pall all the way to Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas.
One of three buildings in the church’s medical mission in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, near Port-au-Prince, collapsed in the quake, causing the death of volunteer Jean Arnwine and injuring others.
But the nightmare development didn’t weaken the church’s commitment to Haiti. Last January, the church resumed sending volunteer teams and dedicated a new eye clinic building in Arnwine’s memory.
Among those returning to give eye exams was Karen Gardner, an ophthalmic professional who had been buried in the rubble with Arnwine. Gardner eventually recovered from the deep lacerations and crushed left arm nerve she suffered, and insisted on joining the first team to go back.
“So many people get helped,” Gardner said of the clinic. “Even if it’s just a pair of eyeglasses, that’s huge to them. And it’s not something they take for granted.”
Five years after the earthquake, Haiti continues to be a magnet for United Methodist volunteers who speak of the enormous needs there but also the spiritual return they themselves receive.
Dale Stickel, a retired engineer and member of Faith United Methodist Church in Goshen, Indiana, has made 14 trips before and after the earthquake.
“I go back each year just to get re-grounded in what really is important in our materialistic world, and to enjoy fellowshipping and worshipping,” Stickel said of his work at Faith Academy in Croix des Bouqet, Haiti. “I tell people, `It’s not what we’re going to do for the Haitians. It’s what they’re going to do for us when we work with them.’”
Long-haul commitment
Exactly how many United Methodists have worked in Haiti since the earthquake is unclear, since some operated outside the denomination’sHaiti Response Plan.
But that three-year effort – a collaboration of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, United Methodist Volunteers in Mission and the Eglise Méthodiste d'Haïti (Methodist Church of Haiti) – drew some 450 teams, representing about 4,000 volunteers.
As many as 23 teams a month came at the height of the effort.
“Those folks included teams who had been coming to Haiti for a number of years and also a lot of new people,” said the Rev. Tom Vencuss, who was in Port-au-Prince during the earthquake and lived in Haiti for three years as coordinator of the Haiti Response Plan.
While the new volunteers were drawn by the emergency, some have built relationships with Haitians churches and schools, and joined the ranks of long-term helpers.
“So many of the people who went were just taken by the people, by the land, by the history. It’s become a part of their lives,” Vencuss said.
Typical of congregations with a pre- and post-earthquake presence in Haiti is Horne Memorial United Methodist Church of Clayton, North Carolina. The church has been working in Haiti since the 1980s, and in 2007 opened the Ryan Epps Home for Children. The orphanage near Port-au-Prince is named in memory of a beloved member of the church’s youth group.
The church’s star Haiti volunteer is 84-year-old Helen Little. She first went in June 1986 and has been back at least once every year since, usually making multiple trips as she serves on the orphanage board.
Her 78th visit was last week. Haiti captured her heart from the first.
“I knew that this is where God wanted me to be,” Little said over a crackly phone connection.
Church of the Saviour, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, is another United Methodist congregation with a long history in Haiti. The church works closely with the Cap-Haïtien station of the Methodist Church of Haiti, supporting a school and church in the remote village of Dondon.
The Rev. Erik Marshall, Church of the Saviour’s pastor of global and community outreach, led an eight-person volunteer team there last November and is working to get other East Ohio Conference churches to sponsor churches and schools in and around Cap-Haïtien.
Marshall was a nondenominational missionary in Haiti before he committed to United Methodist ministry.
“There’s a beauty within the people there that’s very difficult to explain,” Marshall said.
VOLUNTEER TEAMS IN HAITI
Many United Methodist volunteer teams participated in earthquake relief and recovery work through the Haiti Response Plan, a three-year partnership of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, United Methodist Volunteers in Mission and the Methodist Church of Haiti (EMH).
Between 2010 and 2013, the work of more than 4,000 volunteers was coordinated through the plan, which has since transitioned to local leadership under Carine Odilus, EMH coordinator for volunteer teams.
The Rev. Gesner Paul, EMH president, said he would like to see an increase in the current number of volunteer teams assisting the Haitian church. “Things are a little bit slow,” he explained. “What we would like to see happening would be to have more teams… so that we could have more work done.”
The majority of volunteer reconstruction projects on the priority list have been completed, said the Rev. Jim Gulley, who has helped coordinate the partnership in Haiti. He acknowledged that “the numbers of teams have slowed down considerably since the end of the Haiti Response Plan.”
As of December, 45 volunteer teams were scheduled from that month through March, according to the church’s VIM newsletter. Plenty of slots were available for February, April and beyond. Those interesting in scheduling a team can contact a jurisdictional UMVIM coordinator or Odilus at umvimhaiti@yahoo.com.
A near death experience
The ongoing commitment to Haiti extends to United Methodist conferences, such as the New York Conference.
Vescuss and his wife, the Rev. Wendy Vescuss, coordinate the conference’s Mountains of Hope for Haiti task force, which supports a clinic, school and church in the small mountain village of Furcy, about 30 miles southeast of Port-au-Prince.
Conference churches come together to provide funds and send volunteer teams to Furcy.
The Florida Conference has a covenant relationship with the Methodist Church of Haiti, and is helping to train local pastors there. The Rev. Pam Carter, wife of Florida Conference Bishop Ken Carter, is a participant in and champion of the work in Haiti.
She first went in 2006 with a team from Providence United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, where her husband was pastor.
“This newborn child almost died of dehydration, and I watched as these medical volunteers rehydrated this infant,” she recalled. “The kid just perked up and lived, and I had this stunned sense of, `What if these medical volunteers hadn’t been there?’”
A legacy of service
If there’s one United Methodist church most associated with the 2010 earthquake, it is Highland Park, whose loss of a volunteer was among the early major news stories in U.S. coverage of the disaster.
The Dallas church, which sits right next to Southern Methodist University, began sending medical teams to Haiti in 1976.
Church leaders say they never considered letting the earthquake end their work. Highland Park continued to underwrite ongoing work at the Petit-Goâve clinic by Haitian physicians and nurses, even as it raised funds and worked on a design for a replacement to the collapsed building.
To lead that effort, the church turned to Susan Brooks and Caroline Hazlett, daughters of the late Dr. Otto Willbanks, who put together the first medical team from the church to visit Haiti.
Brooks and Hazlett had been teenagers then, admiring their father’s work, but not engaged in it. They welcomed the chance, a generation later, to help carry on the legacy.
Hazlett recalled the thrill of being present last January for the opening of the new eye clinic building and the resumption of work by visiting medical teams.
“When you’re seeing the patients, you know you’ve made a difference,” Hazlett said. “That’s all God asks us to do, to touch people where we can.”
Hodges, a United Methodist News Service writer, lives in Dallas. Contact him at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org
Special Coverage: HaitiUSEFUL LINKS
The Jan. 12, 2010, 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti left more than 200,000 dead; displaced 1.5 million and damaged or destroyed some 300,000 buildings. The United Methodist Church was among those who rushed to respond.
Over the years — both collectively and individually — United Methodists have participated in relief efforts and long-term recovery plans focused on sustainable development. Some $45 million in donations to the United Methodist Committee on Relief has supported that response, in partnership with the Methodist Church in Haiti, the Haitian government and community organizations, as well as USAID and various aid groups.
FIVE YEARS: KEEPING FAITH WITH HAITI Volunteers still answering the call in Haiti
Highland Park United Methodist, which lost a volunteer in the 2010 earthquake, is among those returning to serve. Read More
 Haiti earthquake: recovery to development
Five years after a devastating earthquake, United Methodists, together with their church and nongovernmental partners, work with Haitian communities on sustainable projects. Read More
 Taking a look at Haiti’s journey to recovery
Using photographs from 2010-2014, United Methodist News photographer Mike DuBose presents a visual record of how an earthquake changed this small Caribbean nation. Read More
2012-2013: HEALING, REBUILDINGView All Methodists cooperate in Haiti’s recovery
Two years after the devastating earthquake, church partners measure progress toward recovery in many ways.Read More
 Haiti 2013: Bringing light to darkest slum
A friend to Haiti since 2002, now missionary of a Florida church, Seung Don Kim walks with Haiti's children. First story in a series.Read More
 Haiti 2013: Women help women improve lives
From working to ensure healthy moms and babies to funding small growers, Haiti Artisans for Peace makes a difference.Read More
2011: HAITI ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARYView All Worship goes on beside damaged Haitian church
Between the ruins of St. Martin Methodist Church and school, chairs are full. Read More
 Haiti journal: A bond from sharing tragedy
Returning to Haiti, Pam Carter saw a mixture of sadness and joy. Read More
 Quake survivor focuses on Haiti recovery
The Rev. Jim Gulley was trapped for 3 days under the Hotel Montana. The tragedy served to strengthen his resolve to change lives in Haiti. Read More
THE 2010 EARTHQUAKE AND ITS AFTERMATHView All Haiti volunteers already looking to 2012
Space remains for additional volunteer teams this year.Read More
 Volunteer teams aid in Haiti recovery
United Methodists have raised more than $40 million for Haiti.Read More
 Clinton Rabb’s family remembers the music
Mission leader's voice was "a wonderful sound" heard around the world. Read More
MULTIMEDIA Breadfruit flour effort aims to enrich Haiti
Despite obstacles, Hennepin Avenue church in Minneapolis works toward innovative project to provide food and jobs.Read More
 Haiti Quake Survivor: Jim Gulley
The United Methodist aid worker spoke of being buried alive in 2010, and how two of those near him died. Still, the tragedy strengthened his desire to serve Haiti. View
 Church Adopts Haiti
Bronwen and Bill Pope adopted two sons from Haiti. Now their friends at church make clothes for children affected by the earthquake. View
NEW YORK (UMNS) — After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the Rev. James L. Gulley, an agricultural consultant for the United Methodist Committee on Relief, was trapped with his colleagues underneath the rubble of the Hotel Montana for more than two days. In a recent video interview, Gulley speaks about the earthquake recovery, his work and what drives his commitment. 
Women Entrepreneurs  Finding Power in Partnerships
By Laura Wise*
It was a hot day, the air sticky and humid as it typically is in Caribbean countries. Trekking through a large farm with camera gear in tow, being diligent to not step on the farmers’ budding crops; it was 8:00 a.m. and the day was just beginning. The schedule was jam-packed and well planned out. Louis-Marie Bijou, UMCOR Haiti’s community engagement manager, planned this comprehensive project tour for our small U.S.-based communications team. The day was to be spent visiting beneficiaries of the PISANS project (Provision of Integrated Services around New Settlement) in the small town of Cabaret, Haiti; the project is a collaborative effort to rebuild infrastructure and community after the devastating earthquake of 2010.
A testament to the power in partnership, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) formalized a partnership beginning in 2013. Through shared developmental goals, together the organizations have been able to implement an innovative approach to development in this community. The PISANS project, pisans meaning power in Creole, is holistic and layered programing focusing on critical basic needs. Currently in its second year of implementation, the program is changing lives and improving situations daily.
Developing an Ecosystem
In an attempt to relocate a group of earthquake-displaced families, UMCOR partner USAID constructed a 156 unit housing settlement in the Haut Damier, Cabaret, area of the West Department, approximately 15 miles outside of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. While this building project proved to be a concrete step forward in helping many Haitians rebuild their lives, it also created a potentially problematic situation. Attempting to merge a new community with an existing community in an already underserved location could present challenges. UMCOR and USAID agreed that this newly “integrated” community needed adequate resources to serve all its inhabitants.
UMCOR has been the implementing partner of the community engagement initiatives for this new settlement for the past two years. Creating a four-point program to ensure that the merging of communities is as seamless as possible, UMCOR is focused on four programmatic areas within the Cabaret community: 1) water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) 2) education 3) livelihoods, and 4) community engagement relations.
“It’s kind of like an ecosystem,” describes Thodleen Dessources, UMCOR program manager for Haiti. “We have tried to take a systematic approach, looking at all needs of the community and addressing them in a holistic manner. The identified needs and proposed solutions often feed into one another and for better or worse impact one another. These needs, thus cannot be addressed in silos. Let’s take a simple example, you cannot build latrines for households without also teaching families the importance of properly washing their hands after use, thus impacting their quality of life and decreasing the likelihood of gastrointestinal diseases such as cholera. With the PISANS project, we’ve tried hard to create this ecosystem building on the natural correlation between WASH and health.” UMCOR has worked tirelessly to ensure that the project has taken a holistic and integrated approach to the community’s development.
A Sense of Hope
The project, not yet finished, has an estimated goal of completion in June 2014. But, preliminary evidence shows that the project has been successful. Bijou explains the community’s victories. “We have seen many successes in each of our four focus areas. With the WASH program, people have adopted better behaviors regarding how to protect themselves from disease. They now know how to treat [purify] their water. With the education program, teachers have been better trained to provide quality education for the children in the community. In the area of livelihoods, many families are now able to run a business with the financial support and training provided to them from UMCOR. In community engagement, there is now a better harmony between the old and new residents as both communities, now one, are better able to articulate its needs and realize their goals.”
The most significant sign of the project’s success is the potential to expand and replicate this integrated model in another community in a nearby area.
Now, five years later, the physical wounds have begun to heal. The Cabaret community is now better able to support its own basic needs. This is a community in recovery, and in the five years since the earthquake, a new “ecosystem” has been created to address the many needs.
There is a sense of hope among the people explains Bijou. “The families are happy to have social lives again. Living in decent homes in a respectable environment has meant a lot. Most importantly these families have regained the dignity they lost when they were forced to live under tents. The collective community both host and new, are now more independent. They appreciate our efforts, yet don’t want to continuously be helped by humanitarian organizations. They want to hold on to their independence. Through the PISANS project, the community members in Cabaret are finding their power.
Your gift to UMCOR Sustainable Recovery and Development, Advance #3021951, supports communities like this one on the long road to recovery after disaster. One hundred percent of your gift goes to the Advance you designate.
*Laura K. Wise is a mission intern serving as a mission communicator with The General Board of Global Ministries at its New York City headquarters.
Haiti 5 Years Later
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) — The end of the complaint process against retired Bishop Melvin Talbert for officiating at a same-sex union has brought comfort to some United Methodists and consternation to others. What it will likely bring to General Conference is proposed legislation to ensure clergy who perform such unions face penalties. Heather Hahn reports. Ire, joy follow resolution of bishop complaint
The end of the complaint against retired Bishop Melvin Talbert for officiating at a same-sex union has brought comfort to some United Methodists and consternation to others.
What it’s likely to bring to General Conference in 2016 is legislation aimed at making sure clergy who officiate at same-gender unions face penalties.
On Jan. 5, United Methodists learned that Talbert would not face a trial or risk his clergy credentials after he blessed the union of two men in 2013 in defiance of church law. The United Methodist couple, Joe Openshaw and Bobby Prince, were already legally wed in the District of Columbia when they asked Talbert to perform an additional ceremony near their home in Alabama to celebrate their union.
The “just resolution” follows similar conclusions last year to complaints against clergy who officiated at same-gender unions or weddings in Michigan, eastern Pennsylvania and New York.
The Talbert complaint was resolved just months after the denomination’s top court — the Judicial Council — upheld the reinstatement of the Rev. Frank Schaefer as a United Methodist pastor. Schaefer’s trial for officiating at his son’s same-sex wedding had made national headlines in 2013.
The Rev. John Miles II, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Jonesboro, Ark. Photo courtesy of the Arkansas Conference.
The outcomes in these cases have split United Methodists, even within the same family.
“For the evangelical community in The United Methodist Church, it’s very discouraging that something so in-your-face and obviously confrontational is treated in such, what appears to us to be, a cavalier manner,” said the Rev. John P. Miles II, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
The successive resolutions of complaints without consequences have a cumulative effect, he added. “We see this as a cynical misuse of that idea of a just resolution.”
But his sister, the Rev. Rebekah Miles, takes the opposite view. She is professor of ethics and practical theology at Perkins School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
She said the resolution of the complaint against Talbert comes as “a relief.”
She noted Talbert’s history in the U.S. civil rights movement. After an arrest for trying to eat at a restaurant designated solely for whites, Talbert spent three days and nights in the same jail cell as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Imagine the media uproar if we had had a full-blown trial,” she said. “Imagine the photos of an 80-year-old, African-American bishop, a veteran of the civil rights struggles, as he faces a trial for officiating at a same-sex marriage. It looks worse than putting Santa Claus on trial.”
Preparing for General Conference
Like many in the denomination they serve, the Miles siblings have differing ideas about church teachings regarding homosexuality but share a love for each other and their denomination. They have even roomed together as delegates at General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly.
But with another General Conference fast approaching, advocates of varied perspectives are already gearing up to bring legislation that, if passed, would change the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s law book.
The Book of Discipline has stated since 1972 that all people are of sacred worth, but “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
For just as long, United Methodists have debated that stance. General Conference, which meets every four years, has consistently voted to keep the language and over the years has expanded on restrictions against gay clergy and same-gender unions.
Church law bans United Methodist clergy from performing and churches from hosting “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions.” But the Book of Discipline also has given large leeway in the processing of complaints against clergy involved in such unions.
At the same time, some clergy increasingly have been willing to publicly defy the prohibitions, particularly as more states legalize same-gender civil marriage. The response to such violations has varied across the United States.
The Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, vice president and general manager of Good News, an unofficial United Methodist advocacy group that supports the Discipline’s language, said “the lack of accountability for bishops and pastors shows that our church’s connection is broken.”
“Evangelicals will redouble our efforts to establish clearer and more effective systems of accountability within the church, so that we are operating out of a common theology, mission and vision,” he added.
Specifically, he said he is working on legislative proposals that, if approved, would:
Some of the legislation will come from Good News, some from other groups or informal coalitions that Lambrecht is assisting.
Meanwhile, Reconciling Ministries Network, an unofficial United Methodist group that advocates for greater inclusion of LGBTQ members in the life of the church, is also making preparations for General Conference. The initials stand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning.
“We’ll be there with pro-LGBTQ legislation and to help resist any anti-LGBTQ legislation,” said Matt Berryman, the group’s executive director. He added that his group also plans to oppose any change to church law that moves from “restorative justice to retributive justice.”
He acknowledged that at this point, removing the Book of Discipline’s prohibitions against openly gay clergy and same-sex unions seems unlikely. “But we do want to be witness to love over law,” Berryman said.
In recent years, The United Methodist Church’s membership in the U.S. has declined while growing in Africa. That means a greater percentage of General Conference delegates will come from Africa, where delegates have historically supported the church’s current stance. In most of the 18 African countries that could send General Conference delegates, homosexual acts are criminalized.
Berryman said his group’s church membership has grown by nearly 20 percent in the past year and a half. Some of that growth is coming in the southern United States, historically the most resistant to changing the church’s stance.
“The church is moving,” he said. “(Bishop Talbert) did not go on trial for performing a gay wedding. That would not have happened five years ago. …We can’t wait to see where we’ll be in 2016.”
What’s happening in the pews
Even as advocates and church leaders prepare for the legislative assembly, many United Methodists in the pew don’t know much about the complaint against Talbert or its resolution.
The Rev. Rebekah Miles. Photo courtesy of Miles.
In many churches, both Miles siblings attested, you will find churchgoers who disagree about homosexuality worshipping side by side.
“As long as we don’t change the Discipline, I don’t think our folks will be upset,” the Rev. John Miles said of his congregation in Arkansas.
But he also added that his church has gay families. “As long as this stuff doesn’t blow up, we seem to manage to get along OK together. There is no doubt there is a strong majority in my church that supports traditional marriage. But we have people who support marriage equality.”
His sister noted that a handful of people in at her church, First United Methodist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, are talking about the resolution of the Talbert complaint.
“But if there were a trial, it would be front-page news all over the country and everybody would be talking about it,” she said. Noting polls that show growing public acceptance of same-sex marriage in the United States, she said such a trial would be an anti-growth strategy.
Openshaw, whose union Talbert blessed, was gratified by the conclusion of the complaint. He said he expects some will leave if General Conference changes the Book of Discipline’s language and some will leave if nothing changes.
“I don’t think that schism is inevitable.”
Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
NEW YORK (UMNS) — The month before the deadly attacks on a Paris magazine office and a Jewish market, a small group of United Methodist and Muslim young adults in Norway discovered they had more in common than they realized. Now, they would like to continue the dialogue. Linda Bloom has the story. |
Promoting interreligious dialogue after Paris attacks
The month before the deadly attacks on a Paris magazine office and a Jewish market, a small group of United Methodist and Muslim young adults in Norway discovered they had more in common than they realized.
Interaction with representatives of the Tauheed Mosque in Oslo was a key part of the first United Methodist Ecumenical and Interreligious Training event in Europe.
Sheikh Mahmoud, the mosque’s leader, and United Methodist Bishop Christian Alsted of the Baltic and Nordic Area began by stressing the need for interreligious dialogue, for a peaceful society and respect for all.
Then, two young leaders from both faith traditions — Shaheer Ghulam Nabi and the Rev. Frøydis Grinna — spoke about their experience of being a religious minority in a society where secularism is on the rise. Eventually, all participants had a chance to talk together.
The Rev. Stephen J. Sidorak Jr., who helped organize the training and lectured at the event, noted later that some of the young people had more in common with their Muslim counterparts than with secular friends when it came to faith issues.
Sidorak , top executive for the Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious Relations of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, said he was heartened by “the feeling there’s hope for a younger generation to get together interreligiously.” Building interreligious relations, he added, is one of the main ingredients for a healthy society.
Condemn violence, encourage dialogue
Reaction from faith groups was swift after the Jan. 7 attacks in Paris that claimed 17 victims and prompted massive rallies of solidarity in support of free speech and tolerance in France and elsewhere.
The United Methodist presence in France is very small. In 2005, congregations became part of the Switzerland-France-North Africa Conference of the denomination’s Central Conference of Central and Southern Europe.
The Union de l'Eglise Evangélique Méthodiste en France posted statements on the church’s website from various faith groups condemning the attacks and has followed the issue on its Twitter feed. The Protestant Federation of France, of which United Methodists are a part, called for its members to participate in the Jan. 11 marches and rallies.
The Rev. Ivan Abrahams, a South African who serves as top executive of the World Methodist Council, called for a “fresh commitment” to work for a just peace after the attacks. “This violence serves as an affront to freedom, human rights and the security of all people,” he said.
Promoting interreligious dialogue is an important role of the World Council of Churches, whose officials met Jan. 13 in Geneva with Secretary General Faisal Bin Muammar and other officials from the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue.
“Through my work I have seen and felt how the vast majority of human beings everywhere are against all the crimes perpetrated in the name of religion,” Muammar said during the meeting. “Therefore, I am a strong believer in dialogue and in building bridges.”
Participants in a WCC communications forum Jan. 12 in the Geneva Ecumenical Center used the Paris attacks as a starting point to reflect on freedom of expression, religious values and the role of churches on those issues.
While participants unanimously condemned the violence, they had a diversity of opinions about freedom of expression in cases where it enflamed interreligious tensions, demonized or stereotyped religious traditions, or conveyed fears of others, the WCC reported.
Religious minorities in secular society
The dialogue started in Norway is expected to continue.
Karl Anders Ellingsen, a communicator and editor for The United Methodist Church in Norway, said in an email that he had spoken with several participants from the December training after the attacks in Paris.
“We all agree that this only strengthens our resolve to carry on this path of dialogue and meetings that we have taken the first steps on,” he wrote. “For us, it deepens our understanding of Muslims and their life in our society, making it easier to interact in a positive and respectful way.”
Ellingsen noted that Mahmoud, the mosque leader, “took a firm position” in the local media condemning the attacks and killings in the name of Islam in Paris. But Mahmoud also pointed out that cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed are painful and offensive to all Muslims.
The past history of discrimination against Norwegian Methodists in a dominant Lutheran society helps the church relate to the lack of voice for Muslims in Norway’s society today, Ellingsen said. “It is a good base for understanding and mutual respect.”
Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her athttp://twitter.com/umcscribe or contact her at (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org
| The National Council of Churches joins the world in expressing outrage upon the news of the killings of the 12 employees of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. We condemn the killings, along with any ideology that seeks to silence voices of comment and criticism, especially with the use of extremist violence fueled by political ideology or misguided religious zeal. We also defend the rights of those who critique even that which is deemed sacred and untouchable to others, even as we ask that this critique always take place in a spirit of charity because of the inherent sensitivities. | At the same time, we fear that this defense of free expression may feed anti-Muslim sentiment and bring further division between Christians and Muslims. We are also aware that this same defense of free expression may be further misinterpreted by extremists as being against Islam itself. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, as we speak out against this act of senseless violence and its perpetrators, we join with Muslims across the globe who are also horrified by this evil. | “Around the world, millions of Muslims have struggled against oppression in their own societies in order to obtain the very rights that the Paris attackers have attempted to silence,” said NCC President and General Secretary James Winkler. “These freedoms are treasured by people of faith everywhere, except by those who follow politically motivated ideologies that seek to violently to stifle them and sow seeds of fear.” | NCC Associate General Secretary for interfaith relations Tony Kireopoulos said, “Freedom of expression is one of the cornerstones of a democratic society, and we condemn, not only the attack on the victims of the violence, but the attack on this fundamental right.” He added: “Likewise, freedom of religion is another cornerstone of a democratic society. Therefore we also stand against those who would use this occasion to avenge this attack by perpetrating violence against Muslims in our own communities. We’ve seen it before, we do not want to see it again.” | The National Council of Churches is a partner with the Shoulder-to-Shoulder campaign, an effort to resist Islamophobia. We also co-sponsor the National Muslim-Christian Initiative, an ongoing dialogue between Muslim and Christians. | “Tragedies like these, and the unfortunate aftermath that usually follows, underscores the importance of efforts like the ongoing Muslim-Christian Dialogue,” said NCC Chair Roy Medley. “We are always pleased to work with our dialogue partners, people who show forth the true nature of faith.” | One of our dialogue partners and a co-convener of the dialogue, Naeem Baig of the Islamic Circle of North America and the Moderator of Religions for Peace USA, said in response to the killings: “All of the world’s religions are founded on messages of peace and condemn violence. What makes this attack particularly egregious is its attempt to threaten the fundamental human right of freedom of speech.” | The National Council of Churches is proud to join with a multitude of voices calling people worldwide to stand together and use this attack as an opportunity to engage in dialogue and peacemaking. | Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's 37 member communions -- from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace churches -- include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation. | NCC News contact: Steven D. Martin: 202.412.4323 or steven.martin@nationalcouncilofchurches.us | The World Methodist Council Condemns Attack on Charlie Hebdo
The World Methodist Council strongly condemns the attack on the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Wednesday. In a statement General Secretary Ivan Abrahams said:
“Two days after the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the world remains in shock of the senseless and wanton violence that occurred. This violence serves as an affront to freedom, human rights and the security of all people . The World Methodist Council is strongly opposed any form of violence and the use of religion to justify it. During this time of soul-searching and grief, I ask that we pray for those injured as well as for the families of those senselessly gunned down. Furthermore, I ask that we make a fresh commitment to work for the realization of just peace in 2015. ”
| Duke Announces Change to Friday’s Call-to-Prayer | ARTICLE | Duke University has reconsidered a previously announced plan to present a traditional Muslim call-to-prayer from the Duke Chapel bell tower, campus officials said Thursday. | The call to prayer, or “adhan,” which announces the start of a weekly jummah prayer service that has been held in the Chapel basement for the past several years, will not come from the bell tower on Friday as announced earlier. | “Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. “However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.” | Jummah prayers have taken place in the basement of Duke Chapel for many years, and start with the traditional call to prayer chant. Members of the Muslim community will now gather for the call-to-prayer chant on the quadrangle outside the Chapel, a site of frequent interfaith programs and activities, before moving to its regular location for prayers. More than 700 of Duke’s 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students identify as Muslim. | “Our Muslim community enriches the university in countless ways,” said Schoenfeld. “We welcome the active expression of their faith tradition, and all others, in ways that are meaningful and visible.” |
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