Millennial Panel
Speaking to the July 16-18 Uniting Methodists conference are (from left) Stephen Christy, Lauren Manzo, Sinclair Freeman and Angelo Uno. (UM Insight Screencap from YouTube).
DALLAS – Lauren Manza made her views plain: She has no intention of officially joining The United Methodist Church until it fully accepts her as a lesbian woman.
Although she regularly attends worship and participates at Union Fellowship, Ms. Manza told the 250 participants at the July 16-18 Uniting Methodists’ conference that she feels “humiliated” by the way the UMC discusses LGBTQ issues.
Ms. Manza was part of a panel of “millennials” who shared their experiences with the conference. Another panel, “Why We Want to Stay Together,” also featured gay speakers.
Jan Lawrence, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, said she was glad to hear “queer voices from the platform.” One of the criticisms of Uniting Methodists’ first conference last year in Atlanta was the absence of LGBTQ people from presentations. That oversight was quickly remedied when Helen Ryde, RMN coordinator for the Southeastern Jurisdiction, was asked to join one of the on-stage discussions near the close of the 2017 session.
There was no dearth of LGBTQ people among the presenters at this year’s Uniting Methodists’ conference, particularly in light of the impending 2019 General Conference at which a proposal for church unity is expected to include removing the UMC’s official stance declaring homosexuality to be “incompatible” with Christian teaching.
However, human sexuality wasn’t the only factor that drew heightened emotions at the conference. A profound love for United Methodism, especially for its theology of grace, its “open table” practice of Holy Communion, and its efforts to ease suffering in disaster situations, often visibly moved both presenters and listeners.
The Rev. Mike Baughman, pastor of Dallas’ Union Fellowship, said millennials (“many dislike being called that”) ought to be a big concern for United Methodists when considering the One Church plan. Union started five years ago as a coffee house near Southern Methodist University.
“Millennials are the largest demographic group in the United States,” Rev. Baughman said. “They’re larger than the Boomers, and they’re who we’re going to leave the church to.”
He added that according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, some 72 percent of Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2001) support same-sex marriage. The United Methodist Church currently prohibits pastors from performing same-sex marriages and forbids holding same-sex wedding ceremonies in United Methodist churches.
Millennial panel members spoke with emotion about the acceptance they’ve experienced at Union compared with rejection by other churches.
Sinclair Freeman, a gay member of Union, said that “not being your full self is psychologically damaging.”
“For the church to talk to me about taking away my human dignity – you have no right!” he asserted, speaking to the Discipline’s “incompatible” statement. A declared candidate for ordained ministry, Mr. Freeman said that he does “mental sit-ins” whenever confronted with the “incompatible” language. He said he was determined to remain United Methodist because he wasn’t “allowing my God and the church I love to be hijacked.”
Millennial panelist Stephen Christy share] how his participation at Union had taught him how to stay in relationship with people who think differently from him.
“It requires intentionality; you have to give space for dialogue,” said Mr. Christy, who said that when he came to Union he was convinced that homosexual orientation was sinful. “Both sides tend to push ‘others’ out the door. Mike (Baughman) does a lot of audience engagement. It’s possible to have questions with[out] feeling judged or ‘less than’ for thinking differently.”
Mr. Christy said he sees The United Methodist Church as “moving toward greater equality. We’ll get there sooner than we expect.”
The final panel theme, “Why We Want to Stay Together,” summarized many of the topics that had been explored during previous sessions, but the panelists were no less passionate about their devotion to the church.
Molly McEntire, a layperson who serves as missional trainer and volunteer coordinator with the Florida Annual Conference, named relief efforts after Hurricane Irma as one of her reasons for staying in the church. She told of going to a devastated fishing village on an island off Florida’s coast, only to discover a United Methodist emergency response team from Tennessee already there, cutting away fallen trees with chain saws.
“The only other person there was a guy offering free beer,” she said, drawing the audience’s laughter.
Another “Why” panelist, the Rev. Justin Coleman, senior pastor of University UMC in Chapel Hill, N.C., said he believes that staying in the UMC is part of God’s plan “to bring all things together in Christ.” He recommended his essay on the Uniting Methodists’ website, “The Inevitability of Kinship,” as a way of understanding the idea of staying together despite differences.
Attorney Scott Larson, a board member of Union, said United Methodists helped him acknowledge his gay identity. As a Chrysalis counselor he encountered a teen-ager who confided he was struggling with his sexuality, and Larson, who wasn’t out at the time, said he realized that United Methodists could help the teen. Larson also said that experience convinced him that the UMC needs to continue as one church, to help youths struggling with gender identity through places such as church camps and youth groups where they can be affirmed as he was.
The Rev. Edgar Bazan, an elder in the North Texas Conference who specializes in church revitalization, said United Methodism’s “open table” theology moves him to stay in the church. “I don’t want to break up families,” he said. “I’ll always side with grace and extending the table.”
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.