John Wesley on Bigotry
Several years ago, I happened to be sitting in a class in a United Methodist institution of higher learning, and one of the students of another denomination made a comment that I can’t seem to forget, even though I’d like to. He said, “Those Methodists LIVE for John Wesley… they are crazy about John Wesley… they go all out for John Wesley.”
I didn’t receive it as a compliment.
Every Christian community has its own hero, leader, or spokesperson that they cling to. But, today, I actually wish his statement were true.
This week, I’ve had to witness some parts of our community in ways that alarmingly inform me that we may not be as far as I thought from the contentious 1968 General Conference (and the tumultuous Democratic Convention).
We still nurse, allow, and accommodate bigotry in this denomination. For years it lay dormant, tucked in glorious and beautiful churches, hiding in pulpit robes, teaching in Africa under the cloak of missionary work, and laying around in policies, practices and procedures in church and country.
Since the inception of the Methodist Church in 1939, which started off in a segregated fashion, we’ve struggled with it. We’ve addressed our own racism by creating the General Board of Religion and Race. We’ve addressed our own misogyny by creating the Commission on the Status and Role of Women. We’ve addressed our contribution to social injustice by the creation of the General Board of Church and Society.
It’s a wonder, but should not all of our local churches be stations of Religion and Race, COSROW, and Church and Society (we did have local church versions of these in those days by the way)?
So, now, we encounter a United Methodist Church that we’ve not yet seen. We encounter one that is far more global and, as a result, has far more social, ethnographic and religious norms that are outright atrocious to the Western world. However, the Western world, at least some of it, should know that some of these norms is exactly what it (the West) looked like years before.
Currently, we have cynical (sadly so) groups gathering and scoffing off the LGBTQ concerns as being outside of biblical teaching and contrary to orthodox theology. They are roaming around the church creating “landing pads” for churches whose love has limitations on how far it reaches and whose arrogance serves as a striking barrier to authentic community and wholeness.
Now, we are, many of us who care enough, running after the women, the LGBTQ community and the African American community asking them to hang in there with a church that doesn’t really want them in their polity or practice. We are asking them to continue to be insulted, unwanted and discouraged… but feel free to pay your tithes, come to increase our numbers of average attendance, but just don’t try to get ordained and definitely don’t try to run for the prized seat of all, that of the episcopacy. We’ll baptize you, but we won’t allow you to represent us. We’ll let you in, but we will support a president who speaks down to you, calls you out of your name and allows you to feel like nothing.
This is a shame. It is a crying shame. Yet, it brings us in to what I envision to be one of the greatest Wesleyan revivals and revolutions yet! We survived 1848. We will survive 2019!
In the meantime, I suggest that we all re-read Wesley’s sermon on bigotry. Let me quote a section of it: “What if we see a Papist, an Arian, a Socinian casting out devils? If I did, I could not forbid even him, without convicting myself of bigotry. Yea, if it could be supposed that I should see a Jew, a Deist or a Turk, doing the same, were I to forbid him either directly or indirectly, I should be no better THAN A BIGGOT STILL (emphasis added).”
Please be careful about who you kick out! Be careful about who you exclude. Be careful about unleashing white supremacy under the guise of the gospel. Be careful about referencing yourself as a Wesleyan. One may be a quarter Wesleyan or either a half, but, if you practice, if I practice the work of bigotry, racism, misogyny, and homophobia, we are probably not fully Wesleyan.
This United Methodist Church however should be fully Wesleyan, and we are actually so far from it.
My sarcastic classmate was unfortunately wrong. In so many ways, we have not and are not anything like Wesley. The Wesleyan ordo salutis is not enough. Your personal piety is not enough unless, of course, it is balanced with your social holiness. If you’re going to be Wesleyan, then be Wesleyan and not a counterfeit copy of it.
Well, I guess I’ve said enough. Now, back to the work of soothing those who’ve been harmed by our recent behavior around amendments and exclusions.
Sadly,
The Rev. B. Kevin Smalls, D. Min.
B. Kevin Smalls
Rev. B. Kevin Smalls
The Rev. Dr. Kevin Smalls is pastor at Hope UMC in Southfield, Mich., and a clergy member of the Baltimore-Washington Conference. This blog post is republished with permission from BWC Ruminations, the blog of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.