Friday, September 16, 2016

Three complaints come to resolution in The United Methodist Church from Reconciling Ministries Network in Chicago, Illinois, United States "A wave of resolutions in The UMC" for Thursday, 15 September 2016

 Three complaints come to resolution in The United Methodist Church from Reconciling Ministries Network in Chicago, Illinois, United States "A wave of resolutions in The UMC" for Thursday, 15 September 2016
In just the last few weeks, the complaints filed against Rev. Val Rosenquist, Rev. Anna Blaedel, and Rev. Mike Tupper have all been dismissed or brought to an end through a "just resolution." We celebrate the continued ministry of each of these pastors even as we continue to call for justice, transparency, and an end to complaints filed against LGBTQ people and our allies.
Read more info about each case and make sure to check out our summer Katalyst linked below, now available online, featuring everything you need to know about General Conference and how we're moving forward.
Rev. Anna Blaedel
After Bishop Trimble dismissed the complaint filed against them for being "a self-avowed practicing homosexual," Rev. Blaedel called United Methodists to action against all forms of injustice in the church saying, "Silent acquiescence to injustice is unfaithful and sinful."
Read more about the dismissal and the call to action here.
After complaint dismissed, Rev. Blaedel calls United Methodists to action by Rev. Anna Blaedel
On Wednesday, Aug 31st, Rev. Anna Blaedel was notified by Bishop Julius Trimble that the complaint filed against them after coming out during Annual Conference season has been dismissed. Rev. Blaedel shares the following words in response with all who have supported them:
I am feeling grateful. Yes, to Bishop Trimble, but much, much more so to all who are extending support, solidarity, love, care, prayer, and advocacy to me, and to all the other LGBTQ people out there, and to all who are fighting the good and faithful fight for intersectional justice and liberation from all the intersecting forms of oppression.
I am grateful for all the kin and ecclesia incarnating gospel and love: Fight the power. Join the movement(s). Rise up. Shut it down. Be revolutionary love.
I am grateful for Rev. Tyler Schwaller, who has accompanied me in this process, and who is brilliant and bold and beloved and funny as hell, with whom I can laugh and cry and rage and pray and sing. Whose company I cherish and with whom I feel an unshakable sense of covenant and connection. Blessed be this queer kinship, and collaboration.
I am feeling relieved from the burden of this draining process, and from some though not all of the unknowns and fears it has brought front and center. I am feeling moved and inspired and encouraged by all the people who are paying attention in new ways, speaking up in new ways, leaning into discomfort in new ways, seeking justice in new ways, refusing to acquiesce in new ways.
And…I am feeling complicated feelings of lingering frustration, anger, and fear. The United Methodist Church is still unwilling to acknowledge or account for the harm done to LGBTQ people through discriminatory, damning policies and practices that prohibit and punish us. The status quo remains unacceptable, and folks have been accepting it for far too long, with devastating and cumulative effects. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words continue to call and lure and haunt: “nonviolence direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”
Is The UMC really confronting the issue of it’s own LGBTQ oppression?
Is The UMC really confronting systemic racism? sexism? misogyny? xenophobia?
If you are inclined to answer a resounding “Yes,” then you’re seeing and experiencing things that I’m not.
But. And. I do feel and experience and know a sense of movement and momentum for justice that is manifest in but not contained to seeking queer liberation within The UMC. I encounter the Divine reflected in and through all the gorgeous justice activism and advocacy folk are doing: from the standing rock sioux tribe protesting the pipeline to the movement for black lives collectivities and collaborations to the 30-iowa city community teach-in coming up.
Restorative justice asks: who has been harmed? what should be done, and by whom, to make things right? Please dive deep, and reflect on these questions with me, according to your own contexts and commitments, your own privileges and marginalities. Justice is not yet restored. Not within The UMC, nor within this country, nor within our entangled, endangered planetary life together.
Silent acquiescence to injustice is unfaithful and sinful.
My commitments in this complaint process have been: to tell the truth; to bear witness to the systemic oppression and harm being inflicted on lgbtq people by the policies and practices of The UMC; and to confront the complicity of all who are continuing this harm through ongoing allegiance to these policies and practices.
This work–for me personally, and for us collectively–is nowhere near complete. And, i’ve felt convicted to take every soapbox and spotlight available to remind LGBTQ kin that y’all are beautiful, beloved, holy delight. That anything or anyone that says otherwise is incompatible with christian teaching, and incompatible with all that is good and right and holy and true within any religious tradition’s teachings. And, that justice is always, always, always intersectional, and there can be no queer justice without racial justice without immigration justice without economic justice without gender justice with out ecological justice. Period. The end. Liberation is connective. So is oppression.
So, fight the powers and principalities that wield death and destruction: white supremacy. islamophobia. (trans)misogyny. heterosexism. anti-semitism. nationalism. All the manifestations of xenophobia that are, inherently, incompatible with christian teaching and with justice and with love-in-action.
So, thank you to all y’all who deserve to be named and recognized individually. Today, I am returning to words I wrote for a speech for UI’s rainbow graduation in May, given the day after the#calledout letter was published, right as General Conference was beginning. I need to keep remembering these things.
In case you need to remember, too: You are loved. You are not alone. You can do hard things. We need each other. Follow joy. May it be so.
#CalledOut
#NoMoreCrumbs
#NoJusticeNoPeace
#ItsTime
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Rev. Anna Blaedel
Anna is a campus minister, phd student in theology, and queer UM discontent, whose spiritual practices include the sacrament of brunch, sharing silence with strangers and beloveds, waking up before dawn, walking in the woods, and riding the subway.
-------
Rev. Val Rosenquist
A complaint was filed against Rev. Rosenquist earlier this year after officiating the marriage of John Romano and Jim Wilborne, members of her congregation in Charlotte, North Carolina. The complaint has been resolved, though details were kept confidential.
Read more about the complaint here.
Charlotte pastor who married same-sex couple will keep job, avoid church trial BY TIM FUNK, tfunk@charlotteobserver.com
The April 23, 2016 wedding of John Romano and Jim Wilborne at First United Methodist Church of Charlotte, Courtesy of Reconciling Ministries NetworkA United Methodist pastor in Charlotte will not face a church trial or lose her job for officiating at the same-sex wedding in April of two members of her church in uptown.
The Rev. Val Rosenquist married John Romano and Jim Wilborne, who became the first same-sex couple in North Carolina to be wed – at least publicly – in a United Methodist church.
The Rev Val Rosenquist, pastor of First United Methodist Church in uptown Charlotte. Tim Funk
Days after the wedding, several complaints were filed against Rosenquist with Bishop Larry Goodpaster, then the leader of the denomination’s Western North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church, which includes Charlotte. The complainants alleged that Rosenquist of First United Methodist Church of Charlotte had violated the denomination’s Book of Discipline.
On Tuesday, the conference announced that a “just resolution” of the case involving Rosenquist had been reached.
But it is uncertain what that resolution involves. That’s because Rosenquist, Bishop Goodpaster and Counsel for the Church to whom the complaints had been referred agreed to keep the details confidential. And the resolution will remain sealed until at least 2018, when The United Methodist Church could convene a special General Conference to act on future recommendations relating to same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy.
Currently, the denomination’s Book of Discipline states that ceremonies that celebrate same-sex unions “shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” Clergy who violate it can lose their jobs, face a church trial, even lose their clergy credentials.
On April 23, Rosenquist and retired Bishop Melvin Talbert, who lives in Nashville, officiated at the wedding of Romano and Wilborne at First United Methodist, long a gay-welcoming church where the couple are active members.
Coles said Goodpaster initiated what United Methodists call a “supervisory response.” He met with Rosenquist and the “multiple” complainants and tried to reach a “just resolution.” That’s defined by the church as “one that focuses on repairing any harm to people and communities, achieving real accountability by making things right so far as possible and bringing healing to all parties.”
Initial efforts to reach a resolution failed, Coles said, triggering a possible church trial. But Goodpaster, Rosenquist and Counsel for the Church did reach a resolution agreement on August 30 – the same week as Bishop Goodpaster’s long-planned retirement.
As part of the resolution, Coles said, Rosenquist, Goodpaster and Counsel for the Church agreed to seal the contents from the public pending any action by a future General Conference on the language relating to gays and lesbians and same-sex marriage in the Book of Discipline.
In May, delegates to the denomination’s last General Conference in Portland, Ore., hotly debated those issues. But in the end, they voted to approve a suggestion offered by a majority of their bishops to defer the discussion until a “Commission on a Way Forward” can be formed to study it and make recommendations. A special General Conference could be called for that purpose in 2018, Coles said.
In cases such as Rosenquist’s, Coles said, “our goal is to get a resolution, not go to trial. We achieved that.”
One of the complainants, Ron Wood, a member of Sharon United Methodist Church in Shelby, said he and the others who filed complaints against Rosenquist do not know what the resolution involves. He said he was under the impression they would be told about any penalties or repercussions.
“Even though I’m not happy (about not being told) ... the resolution that was reached is allowed for in the current Book of Discipline.”
Rosenquist declined to comment Tuesday, but Coles confirmed that she “will continue to serve as pastor at First United Methodist Church.”
Bishop Goodpaster was succeeded last week by Bishop Paul Leeland, who formerly headed the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church.
An earlier online version of this story incorrectly reported that the complainants in the case had been part of the agreement to keep confidential the details in the “just resolution.”[Tim Funk: 704-358-5703, @timfunk]
Rev. Mike Tupper
Rev. Tupper co-officiated with eight other clergy the wedding of Rev. Benjamin David Hutchison and his partner Monty in the summer of 2015. Rev. Tupper originally sought a church trial in order to bring to light the full weight of the harm being perpetuated by our discriminatory policies in The UMC. Read the resolution details here.
Read more about the complaint process here.
Summer Katalyst is now available online
Do you want a hot off the press copy of Katalyst, the print magazine of Reconciling Ministries Network, to be delivered directly to your home? All individuals who have become a Reconciling United Methodist within the past two years or given a donation to the work of RMN within the past two years receive a copy of each Katalyst magazine. Make a contribution now to ensure you'll receive our next issue coming out later this fall.
Chicago, Illinois 60602, United States
-------
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)