#StandWithGLIDE
Please note: To our beloved GLIDE community of supporters near and far, please sign the petition asking the United Methodist Church to support GLIDE.
Dear Bishop Carcaño
On behalf of the GLIDE Legacy Committee and the thousands of young people throughout the San Francisco area who have chosen GLIDE Memorial as their place of worship and action, we are writing to express our dismay, sadness and deep regret for your recent decision to remove GLIDE’s two beloved associate pastors with no plans to replace them.
Glide UMC
Glide Memorial UMC is located in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Photo courtesy of California-Nevada Annual Conference.
In no uncertain terms you have made it clear that there is a rift between the United Methodist Church (UMC) and GLIDE at this time. We hope that the UMC will not hold hostage the important work of GLIDE, nor the devoted congregation, while you work through your challenges. While we are not aware of all that has transpired between GLIDE and UMC, we are eager to work collaboratively towards the best solution for the people that GLIDE serves.
The Legacy Committee is the next generation of GLIDE, working to help expand their more than 80-year legacy as a spiritual home and refuge for the people of San Francisco. We are made up of young professionals who strive to engage, inspire and educate other young people within the San Francisco Bay Area through GLIDE’s mission of unconditional love, compassion and social justice. Some of us are Methodists. Some of us are not.
But for each one of us, GLIDE has been a kind of mentor. It has shaped our sense of the world. It has shaped our sense of what it means to be connected to humanity. Of what it means to be compassionate. And for many of us, it has shaped our sense of what it truly means to be a Christian.
While we discovered GLIDE in various ways, what unites us is the inspiring message and mission of GLIDE. Of their work for social justice and equality for all. Of unending compassion. And a commitment to serve people at the very margins — the places other religious institutions, including many churches within the UMC — often do not go.
We acknowledge with regret how Superintendent Rev. Staci Current was treated at Sunday Celebrations upon announcement that the UMC was reassigning our beloved Reverend Theon Johnson and Angela Brown. The congregation was sad, scared, confused and uncertain. While these reactions seemed to surprise Rev. Current, they came as no surprise to us. We also regret deeply the UMC’s decision to deliver their announcement in such an abrupt and dismissive manner to the congregation. It has caused unnecessary turmoil and pain for GLIDE’s most devoted followers. While that was the clear outcome, we hope that was not your goal.
It is worth remembering that it was Methodist leader John Wesley who coined the important phrase “agree to disagree.” Or, more accurately, “Let us agree to disagree, but in the meantime let us holdfast to the essentials,” reminding us that we may hold on to our convictions while remaining in connection with those with whom we disagree. We encourage you to remember that in spite of the many challenges and disagreements over the last 50 years, GLIDE has served the essentials of the Christian faith.
We have noted with encouragement the UMC’s Rethink Church campaign which calls us to see our church “not solely as a building in which we worship, but as a conduit into our communities through which we may live out our faith by touching people’s lives.” While this concept may be new for the United Methodist Church, for GLIDE, Rethinking Church began more than 50 years ago. The GLIDE Legacy Committee stands ready to help you advance Rethink Church.
We noted with regret your statement to the GLIDE Board of Directors that while the work of the church is “important”, having a “functioning United Methodist Church is what is of the ‘utmost importance.’” We disagree with both the premise and the argument: First, we reject the premise that the work of GLIDE stands in the way of the UMC. For more than five decades, GLIDE has led the way. As a result, they have helped create a more progressive, more tolerant and more loving United Methodist Church with impacts felt globally; yet there is still work to be done. Second, we reject your argument that it is of “utmost importance” to have a functioning UMC. We believe that what is of utmost importance is the mission, the work, and the beloved message that stems from Methodism and from GLIDE. When the religious institution finds itself at odds with the spiritual movement, it is the spiritual movement that must prevail. We remember this.
While a symbolic Cross may not be present, and Communion does not take place, GLIDE is a church of practical divinity and genuine Christianity and in this way we believe it is a true beacon of the Methodist form of Christianity.
On a more practical note, while GLIDE’s relationship between the Foundation and Church may be “dysfunctional” in the eyes of some members of United Methodist Church, we believe it is important to remember that it prevails as an incredible joint venture that does transformational work in and for the people of San Francisco, together, every day. The work of the GLIDE Church and the Foundation is implausible for most other churches and social organizations. We encourage you to spend a day at GLIDE sometime soon –talking not with the Board but with the people in our streets and in our church, whose last place of refuge is GLIDE. While the symbol of the Cross may not be present at GLIDE, we believe the spirit is.
Perhaps you were justified in your decision to remove GLIDE’s pastoral team. We are not privy to the reasons for your decision. And perhaps GLIDE has some dysfunctions they must overcome, as you not so subtly suggested on Sunday. We do not know. But we do know that any dysfunction you proclaim does not seep in to its cherished Sunday celebrations nor in to the deep, meaningful work of GLIDE in the community. What we do know is that disagreement is not the same as dysfunction.
Whatever the challenge, we encourage you to stay true to the decree so eagerly proclaimed by the United Methodist Church: Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, as long as ever you can.
We can think of no Church or organization working harder to embody the spirt of this message. It is in this spirit that we urge you and the United Methodist Church to reconsider and reverse the decision to indefinitely strip GLIDE of a pastoral team.
We encourage you, Bishop Carcaño, and the United Methodist Church to continue to support and uplift GLIDE. Work through the disagreements. And please know that regardless of your decision, we stand with GLIDE.
Sincerely,
Emily Cohen, GLIDE Legacy Committee Co-Chair
Mary Wyatt, GLIDE Legacy Committee Co-Chair
Brittnay Tobin
Christopher Dowd
Kevin Pong
Kiyana Merritt
KJ Frimpong
Lucy Bartlett
Margaret Lucas
Mia White
Moses Ike
Nicole Foley
Paloma Figueroa
Samuel Bauman
Sarah Stroe
This post is reprinted with permission of Ms. Cohen, who published it first on Medium.com