Western Bias
The Rev. Feliciano Santos Cao, a delegate from the California-Nevada Conference, addresses the Western Jurisdiction during its first day of plenary Nov. 2 in Salt Lake City. He is the chair of the jurisdiction’s Inter-Ethnic Coordinating Committee that works with the jurisdiction’s ethnic caucuses. He praised a closed-door session among delegates for clearing the air among delegates and addressing the sins of racism, colonialism, sexism and homophobia. The day after, he led a prayer for the plenary in response to the session. (Photo by Miya Kim, California-Pacific Conference)
Well, the Western Jurisdictional Conference of The United Methodist Church is now behind us, but we didn't get through it without some lumps and bumps.
The worst of those obstacles for me came on Thursday afternoon, the second day of the Conference. The presiding bishop asked the delegates to authorize a special closed session during which only delegates, reserve delegates, and indispensable support personnel were permitted to remain in the room, meaning, most significantly, the exclusion of members of the press, along with other observers.
The call for closed sessions is always distasteful to me, because my theology and social foundational orientation urge me to believe that the Church is always better served by openness and as wide a distribution of information as is possible. But the thing that was distressful to me in this one is that during the closed session it was repeatedly said that there were malicious and hurtful things being said in the nature of rumor about some of the candidates for election to be bishops. The comments were said to be racist, sexist, and homophobic.
I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the accusations, but I have absolutely no way whatsoever independently to verify their accuracy, either, since we were not told who started or spread the rumors, who was the victim of the rumors, or what the specific content was of the rumors. And to top off that veil of secrecy, all of us as a body and individually were charged to confess and repent of our guilt and sin.
Now, mind you, I willfully acknowledge my sinful nature and participate regularly in the Church's historic confession of such guilt. But when it comes to confession to specific wrong doing, I'm totally at a loss meaningfully to participate when I don't have a clue whether or not I'm being accused of offending somebody, who it is I've offended, what it was I've supposedly done, when it happened, what the context was, and where it happened.
I was very much mindful of what happened in China at the hands of the Red Guard during the horrific Cultural Revolution when we were haunted by pictures of crowds of the Red Guards standing over other people forced to cower in the dirt while the Red Guards demanded they confess and be self critical without ever presenting any evidence that the one being subject to the process was guilty of any offense.
Without knowledge of who was injured and what the injury was there is no opportunity for restitution and reconciliation. And that, my friends, is the whole reason for confession and repentance. Otherwise, it's just like taking a bath.
Lonnie Brooks
Lonnie Brooks
Lonnie D. Brooks is a member of St. John UMC in Anchorage, Alaska; an avid fisherman; and a longtime leader in The United Methodist Church at local, regional and international levels. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author.