
Protest Outside General Conference
“Where do we go from here… Chaos or Community?” appears on the sign held by the Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell by the entrance to the plenary for the 1968 Uniting Conference in Dallas. The phrase is the title of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final book, and a reminder of the church's ongoing call to confront racism. Photo courtesy of Archives and History.
A United Methodist Insight Exclusive
The Rev. Charlie Baber in his article, "Wesley Bros: Chaos or Community"? writes "...holding signs quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., buried just two weeks before." I am pictured in a UMNS photo holding a sign on which is written the title of Martin Luther King's last book: "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?"
As I stood at one of the entrance doors to the 1968 Dallas General Conference, holding that sign, I did not imagine that the 1972 General Conference would create the "chaos" it did by passing discriminating legislation that condemned same-gender loving persons. My thoughts:
Many of us in 1968 prayed and hoped that a UMC "birthed" two weeks after the burial of Martin Luther King Jr. would be a Church that in word and deed, would become a leading "Racial Justice Church." Sadly, the language and legislation passed by the 1972 General Conference replaced discrimination against blacks with discrimination against same gender loving persons.
We thought that a denomination that through its actions had declared Bible-based discrimination against blacks and women was biblical misinterpretation, would not "weaponize" the Bible in response to "...the practice of homosexuality." We were wrong. Same-gender loving persons became the recipients of UMC discrimination, replacing blacks and women.
The subjective creation of "Christian teaching" to justify discrimination of any kind, demeans, diminishes, and distorts the inclusivity of Jesus and the biblical message. The black theologian Howard Thurman was dean of Marsh Chapel when I was a student at Boston University School of Theology. He told us how, as he read the Bible to his grandmother, she would say, "Don't read the place in the Bible where it says, 'Slaves be obedient to your masters.' That is the text the slavemasters tell the preachers to use when they preach to the slaves."
I am sure his grandmother’s words informed Thurman's writing of his book, "Jesus and the Disinherited." Martin Luther King Jr. cherished this book, and traveled with it. My brothers and sisters who continue to be proponents of our current UMC discriminatory language and legislation seem not to understand that they link Bible to bias, as those who used the Bible to justify their bias toward women and blacks. "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
May the Commission on A Way Forward and the Council of Bishops as they craft their proposal for the 2019 General Conference remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Who would have thought that in the 21st century, The United Methodist Church would transfer the injustices done to blacks and women in the past, to injustice toward same-gender loving persons today, and use the Bible to do it?
My preacher father was at the 1939 "Unification Conference" that used the Bible to justify the creation of the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction. He was saddened by the decision. I led the New England Conference delegation to the 1972 General Conference and voted against the anti-homosexuality, discriminatory language and legislation. My father from heaven, and hopefully I still on earth, will watch as the 2019 General Conference acts. May it decide that no longer will The United Methodist Church "use" the Bible to justify discrimination of any kind.
The Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell, a retired clergy member of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference, describes himself as “a Civil Rights Movement 'foot soldier' who was present at the March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, Selma to Montgomery March, and the Poor People's Campaign." He lives in Asbury Park, NJ.