“Man on Fire”, PBS 10 p.m. EST Dec. 17; PBS.org, Beginning December 18th
“The strip center mall where (United Methodist Minister) Reverend Charles Moore chose to end his life is as large as a football field and as lonely as prairie, the cracked gray asphalt dotted with weeds, shards of glass, and crushed Copenhagen cans.” (“Man on Fire”, Michael Hall, Texas Monthly, December 2014)
Sam Hodges of United Methodist News Service has written an article about the PBS,film “Man on Fire” that prompts me to say with emphasis that every clergy person and lay member of the United Methodist Church and every American concerned about racial and LGBTQ+ justice, should view the film. It chronicles how the self-immolation death of Rev. Charles Moore was caused by his anguish, anger, and anxiety from the racism and the heterosexism of the United Methodist Church.
Charles Moore was involved in and influenced by the Ecumenical Institute. This group of clergy and lay people was led by Joe Mathews, the brother of Bishop James Mathews. Bishop Mathews appointed me as a 34-year-old District Superintendent in the New England United Methodist Conference as its first black DS. Because I, too, was involved in and influenced by the Ecumenical Institute, I feel an affinity with Charles Moore.
The word I remember best from EI was “intentionality.” It meant that persons who claim faith do that best by being intentional about our thoughts, scholarship, meditation, risk-taking actions, and our believing. Charles Moore’s self-immolation was an act of intentionality, difficult to explain. I choose to believe it was rooted in part in the racist history of the United Methodist Church itself.
The UMC was created in 1968 by the merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. One of the terms of the merger was the elimination of the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction and its incorporation into geographical jurisdictions. Our black caucus, Black Methodists for Church Renewal, was formed to challenge the UMC not to believe that the merger of the Central Jurisdiction created a post-racial denomination where racism was eliminated. I knew then that, consciously or unconsciously, we who are black in predominantly white denominations sought to make white folks feel “comfortable” with our presence. We did this by not being honest about our history and experiences of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-black bigotry.
We believed then that the “new” UMC would become an ecclesiastical model for the USA and the world, if it embraced the “truth-telling and living” of its black laypeople, pastors, district superintendents, and bishops. We foolishly thought the UMC was secure enough, unlike the USA, to affirm a faith based in scriptural interpretation that corrected the anti-black misrepresentation of “Noah’s curse” and acknowledged the white privilege that produced pictures of a white Jesus. Instead we got continued systemic abuse of black persons and community.
But in 1972, rather than finding faith-based ways to heal the fear of blacks, a sickness I called “Negrophobia,” the United Methodist Church substituted a sickness called Homophobia. Although racism was and is, “America’s original sin,” unacknowledged heterosexism became the major sin of the United Methodist Church in its abuse and rejection of LGBTQ+ people.
Racism and heterosexism were the sins that weighed so heavily on Charles Moore’s mind and heart that he felt compelled to sacrifice himself. How might the United Methodist Church respond to why and how Rev. Moore died? I think it is significant the film is being shown during the Advent/Christmas Season when we look both backward and forward to what shapes our future.
I hope that viewing the film “Man on Fire” will prod the United Methodist Church to reflect upon and respond not only to the harm it inflicts upon persons because of who they are, but also upon the millions of persons like Charles Moore, who are allies and advocates of those whom it harms. The violent, self-imposed physical death of Charles Moore deepens the spiritual deaths of those of us who cannot understand why the inclusive Love embedded in Jesus hasn’t been the major influence on those who make legislative decisions of the denomination.
The Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell of Asbury Park, N.J., is a retired clergy member of the Mountain Sky (formerly Rocky Mountain) Annual Conference.