SEEK Podcast: Transcript of Interview with Steve Clunn

Listen to the SEEK Podcast Interview.

Interview Questions for Steve Clunn

By Cynthia B. Astle

Introduction: I will introduce you and give a brief explanation of the Love Your Neighbor Coalition.

  1. Tell us more about the Love Your Neighbor Coalition and how you came to be its coordinator.
  • The original Common Witness Coalition of MFSA, Affirmation and RMN was created in the events leading up to the 1996 General Conference in 1996 and as the United Methodist Church tried to figure out how to meet in Denver with Colorado’s anti-homosexuality propositions being debated. In those days, we were a coalition pushing back against the increasing discrimination against Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgendered United Methodists that was being slowly embedded into Book of Discipline.
  • Those same three partners of the Common Witness Coalition decided to secure a grant in 2010 through the ARCUS Foundation, to help expand the membership and scope of the coalition.  I was hired as a result, to grow the coalition and help us move toward focusing on the intersectionality of social issues that the United Methodist Church seems either unwilling or unable to address with a sense of grace and social holiness.  I started as Coalition-Coordinator in January of 2011.  By GC 2012, we had taken on the name of The Love Your Neighbor Coalition, theologically grounded in the Great Commandment passages of scripture and we had grown to 6 coalition partners: The original three of MFSA, Affirmation & RMN, were joined by BMCR, NFAAUM & NAIC.
  1. Who makes up LYNC?  Since GC 2012, we have begun calling ourselves, in good UMC fashion, by our anachronistic name LYNC.  We have been growing as a coalition rapidly since then as well.  We are now a body of 13 partner organizations:  The previous six that I have mentioned have been joined by:

Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA);

Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and

Queer Concerns;

Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN);

Black Methodists for Church Renewal (BMCR);

National Federation of Asian American United Methodists (NFAAUM);

Native American International Caucus of United Methodists (NAIC);

  • United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities; and,
  • Pacific Islanders Caucus of United Methodists (PINCUM);
  • MARCHA: Metodistas Asociados Representando la Causa de los Hispano-

Americanos;

  • Western Methodist Justice Movement (WMJM).
  • Love Prevails;
  • Fossil Free UMC;
  • Methodists In New Directions (MIND);
  1. How did those who believe in gender equality around human sexuality find common cause with other groups such as the racial-ethnic coalitions?

The principals of Intersectionality.Trusting in the understanding that none of us live one issue lives and power structures have a tendency to divide people based on singular parts of their lives: gender & gender expression, race, physical ability, sexual orientation, nationality, and so on.The reason for these divisions is usually an attempt to marginalize one group or segment from being a part of the power structure, or decision makers within an institution.It’s a way of maintaining the have’s and have nots within an institution that allows the have’s to continue to control the very life and direction of the institution.In a Religious institution, this can have even greater harmful impacts on the marginalized.When people allow that much unjust living to go on in within an institution that has at its core, the values and beliefs that make up a person’s identity, self-awareness, and self-worth: the potential for doing incredible harm through marginalization can become personally and even socially catastrophic.

  • Even institutions that proclaim love, hope and goodness for all people, can end up doing harmful, evil and spiritually damaging things to one another.
  • To answer your question more simply, our coalition partners are bound together by our mission:
  • Which is to assure The United Methodist Church is fully open to the presence, love and grace of God offered to all people.
  • You see, LYNC is simply asking that our UMC remain faithful to our Wesleyan heritage of embracing both personal and social holiness as equal partners in our life-long journey of mission and ministry in Jesus' name.
  1. Does the Love Your Neighbor Coalition support splitting The United Methodist Church, as some have alleged?
  • Absolutely not!  We’ve had a statement called “A Vision for The United Methodist Church,” posted on our website (www.lyncoalition.org) since August that speaks directly to this concern.  It categorically states that we false unity based on forced conformity that seeks to perpetuate harm being done to United Methodist brothers and sisters through condemnation and/or marginalization is both unchristian and unwesleyan.  But it also states that the use of schism, or splitting of the church, to settle disagreements of faithfulness is extortive and is just as unchristian and unwesleyan as false unity. 
  • The issue isn’t about right belief and who gets to say what that is… Jesus took those issues on against the Pharisees of his day.  The real issue is God’s call to live faithfully and justly in a way that makes us all an outward expression of the love, grace and justice of God to a hurting and divided world.  Right belief advocates have always ultimately always created situations that lead to more harm than creating situations that reflect Just love. I personally believe it’s because of our humanness and how that distorts us into applying selective literalism and fundamentalist beliefs that close us off from the Holy Spirit and the presence of God in our lives.  In other words, it becomes more about being right than being faithful; more about proving you’re right by controlling what others are permitted to believe, than being faithful by offering the world and especially those hurt by the world, the just love that God wants to be offered to all.
  • So now, we have those advocating for schism or splitting the church, based on the idea of right belief and if they can’t control the beliefs of others, than they should just be allowed to leave and oh yeah, take all of the resources that the denomination has graciously made available to them in the past with them.  Leaving behind of course, any debts still remaining.  But this gets into the complexities of denominational debt, unfunded pension liabilities and more.
  1. Is the "Biblical Obedience" movement – wherein United Methodist clergy are willing to defy the Discipline to perform now-legal same-sex marriages – have any relation to LYNC?
  • Yes, LYNC and its partners support full inclusion and equality in the life and ministry of the UMC.  That includes ordination and the ability of clergy to determine who is faithfully prepared to get married.
  • However, your question is so myopic in its nature.  A broader and better question, in my book, would be how does the “Biblical Obedience” movement connect with the multi-faceted nature of LYNC?  That type of question would open us up to discussions around intersectionality and how controlling clergy around who and how they can show pastoral care in the context of the community and congregation of people they serve is a severe and unjust burden on the role and nature of the clergy person in performing their responsibility of living out their ordination vows.
  • We could also then talk about how pastors with disabilities are, in many Annual Conferences, are never given the opportunity to follow their calling because the cabinet “doesn’t know where they could appoint them.”
  • We could also talk about our ongoing problems with cross-cultural appointments and the continued disparities that exist between how women are appointed as opposed to their male colleagues.
  • We could spend hours talking about resources and financial disparities within our denomination and how they are impacted by privilege, race, prejudice, marginalization and so on…
  • You see, Biblical Obedience isn’t just about same-gender marriage.  It’s about realizing that if the church is going to be an example of Biblical and Spiritual life in the world, that isn’t seen as a hypocritical joke, it needs to be obedient to the big principals and picture of the Scriptures, not selectively cherry pick scriptures that justify personal privileges or prejudices.  That’s what is at the heart of the Biblical Obedience movement.
  1. Gender-equality advocates have been sharply criticized in the past for disrupting General Conference. This year, marshals have been given extra instruction on how to "maintain the integrity" of the delegates area. Does LYNC plan any disruptions for this year?
  • Sorry, LYNC is not just a gender-equality advocate. Although we do advocate for gender-equality, equity between men and women, which is what gender equality means.  Or do you mean gender expression equality, or human sexuality equality?
  • Sorry, I believe what you’re trying to ask, and I would appreciate it if you would ask it directly without attempts to pigeon-hole LYNC into being a single issue organization.  We’ve got the Renew and Renewal selective-literalists for that.
  • I believe you want to know if we are planning to disrupt GC 2016 in Portland.
  • First-off, we never come to General Conference with the intent of disrupting the work of the church.  So no, we are not planning to disrupt General Conference and we prayerfully hope that we aren’t moved to do so while there.
  • That being said, we will prepare our volunteers and partners for all eventualities for GC 2016.  LYNC is first and foremost a group of faithful United Methodists who advocate for peaceful, empathetic resistance around the multiple concerns that we bring to our denomination. We do also hold our denomination at these types of gatherings to a standard of “doing no harm” to our fellow United Methodists and their right to be respected and heard within the context of their denomination.
  • Both the presiders and delegates of General Conference have rules and the authority to stop spiritually violent language in the committees and on the floor of General Conference.  I hope and pray that they have the awareness and will to use them to address these issues when they arise.  That would go far in keeping the observers from feeling like they need to draw attention to acts of harm by a denomination that proclaims “open hearts, open minds and open doors.”
  1. What are your hopes and fears for this General Conference?
  • I hope that the spirit of God moves across the people of the United Methodist Church and that together, we begin to get to work on Christ’s behalf in a hurting and divided world.
  • My fear is that those gathered will continue to mirror the world with our divisions, accusations and continue to dismantle and render our United Methodist Church to be a dying denomination with no real moral relevance in the world nor the lives of our members.