June 17 Election Map
Map by Allen Smith and Scott E. Manning. Used by permission.
The juggernaut of electing centrist and progressive delegates from U.S. annual conferences to the 2020 General Conference has rolled up to a whopping 73 percent, according to the latest data.
Allen Smith, who together with Scott E. Manning has created an election map, posted on Facebook June 17: “Here is an updated map of where things stand so far. Based on numbers from Scott E Manning about 73% of delegates so far have been progressive/centrist … blue means over 60% progressive, red 60% conservative, and purple mixed.”
Oregon-Idaho chooses two LGBTQ delegates
According to Oregon-Idaho Connector newsletter, Jan Nelson, conference lay leader, was once again approved as the lay delegate while the Rev. Wendy Woodworth was selected as the lead delegate for clergy. “Both women are openly gay leaders in the Oregon’s-Idaho Conference based out of Morningside UMC Open Door Ministries in Salem,” the newsletter says.
North Georgia elects centrist/progressive delegation
Facebook users took note of the election of 2020 General and Jurisdictional Conference delegates in North Georgia Annual Conference. Once again, a conference noted for sending conservative delegates to church-wide bodies, opted to choose more centrist and progressive candidates. Several Facebook users commented on longtime conservative leader Joe Kilpatrick’s withdrawal from delegate candidacy, deemed another loss for Traditional Plan forces. The conference has called for prayer and fasting each Thursday beginning July 1 through General Conference 2020 in support of the delegation.
Longtime LGBTQ Leader Leaves UMC
All was not triumphant last week, however, as Dr. Dorothee Benz, a leader among LGBTQ advocates in The United Methodist Church and a co-founder of Methodists in New Directions (MIND), resigned her church membership.
In a letter to Bishop Thomas Bickerton (New York Area) that she posted on Facebook, Dr. Benz said she’s “had it” with the slow pace of LGBTQ inclusion in the UMC. She writes in part:
“I have been a part of the UMC since immigrating with my family to the U.S. in 1968. I abandoned a call to ordained ministry in 1984 when the General Conference first voted to categorically ban queer people from ministry. In place of a life under constant threat and/or constant self-harm by denying my authentic whole self, I 'chose' instead to follow Jesus through a lifetime of social justice organizing. It has been a rich and rewarding life, but 35 years later I still ache every time I see someone in a clerical collar.
“I have dedicated the last 15 years of my life to the struggle to right the immense wrong that the UMC has done to God’s creation with its theological lies and spiritual violence aimed at LGBTQ people. In that time I have come to understand, painfully, that institutional leaders – and I am sorry to say, bishops foremost among them – have valued institutional preservation over Gospel obedience; have treated LGBTQ people as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved’ rather than their own flesh and blood; and have so perverted the ideal of unity as to make it synonymous for queer Methodists with injustice. The UMC values order over justice, ‘a negative peace that is the absence of tension over a positive peace that is the presence of justice.’
“Rather than resolving these problems, the special General Conference in February doubled down on them. The aftermath has been positively horrifying to watch. We have learned nothing, apparently. And now the energy and time and resources of thousands of earnest Methodists is being poured into electing 2020 General Conference delegates and looking, delusionally, at that gathering for hope.
“I can no longer participate in this charade.
“We live in a world in which climate genocide is imminent, where irreversible environmental changes caused by wealthy white first-world capitalists and their governments are threatening millions of the world’s poor. We live in a country where our government is caging children and carrying out a program of ethnic cleansing, while domestic terrorism aimed at non-white and non-Christian people is rising exponentially. I live in a city where social inequality rivals that of the world’s most unequal nations.
“I can no longer put my time and energy into a church obsessed with its own self-interest while injustice around me rises like flood waters. My call to follow Jesus is no longer compatible with my participation in the United Methodist Church.”
J.J. Warren rides the circuit
Meanwhile, J.J. Warren, a new LGBTQ leader who emerged at the 2019 General Conference with his impassioned plea for LGBTQ inclusion, is visiting “thousands of United Methodists already this summer; from the cheese curds of Wisconsin to the mountains of Arizona, the coast of Lake Ontario, and the depth of Illinois,” as he writes in his newsletter The Circuit. Most recently he was a guest preacher at the Mountain Sky Annual Conference in Billings, Mont. See a video of his sermon.
He encourages those working to overturn the Traditional Plan: “Now is the time to be patient–and bold. We must all join together–individuals in small rural churches, churches in hostile conferences, and conferences who have yet to openly denounce the Traditional Plan. We must be patient as plans unfold, and we must also be bold as we reject the denomination's stance. Make statements of inclusion, join Reconciling Ministries Network, and support those LGBTQ+ folks around you.”
Eastern Pennsylvania opts for One Church
Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference voted June 15 to join North Texas and other conferences in aspiring to live and work as a “One Church” conference. Jim McIntire posted on Facebook: "THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that until or when the denomination resolves the divisiveness evident in the 2019 Special Session, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference considers itself a ‘One Church’ Conference in spirit committed to continued support of ministry to, for and with all persons regardless of sexual orientation or gender."
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.