March 28, 2019
Dear Bishop Haller and the
Appointive Cabinet of the Iowa Annual Conference,
Since my
conscious decision to count myself a follower of Jesus some
forty-five years ago, the United Methodist Church had nurtured me and
challenged me to grow in the love I bear toward God and in the love
that God bears toward all of creation through me. Always the prodding
of the church had been for me to love more, to expand the circle of
those whom I love, to love recklessly.
But now the
United Methodist Church warns me insistently, stridently, and
threateningly that some of those whom the Spirit has taught me to
love are not acceptable in God’s eyes and must not be acceptable in
my eyes either. To say that I judge myself to have been betrayed by
my church is a painful understatement.
In the midst
of this great disappointment I appreciate the opportunities that you
have given the clergy and laity of the Annual Conference to gather to
ask questions and speak what is on their mind and heart. “Holy
conferencing” is always in short supply. Thank you for making it
more available in this way.
Unfortunately,
my retirement to New Jersey prevented me from attending these
sessions and from gathering with my clergy and lay colleagues and
friends. So I have chosen to participate in the on-going conversation
by writing a response to your statement of March 14.
I found some
things that you said to be valuable and useful. I appreciate your
statement’s acknowledgment of the harm–past, present, and
future–done to LGBTQIA persons. I appreciate your commitment to
keep us informed as the shape of the General Conference’s actions
becomes clearer and is evaluated by the Judicial Council for its
constitutionality. I appreciate your statement’s recognition that
we need each others prayers.
But your
statement is a troubled text. Your intent to offer a powerfully
unifying statement is undercut by its inner and unacknowledged
contradictions.
Foremost among
these are the evasions around the “great harm [that] has been done
and continues to be done.” “We confess and grieve” is a strong
beginning that promises the bold change of mind, heart, and life that
our tradition calls repentance. But that change is not forthcoming.
It disappears behind the passive voice: you grieve that harm that
“has been done.” What is
this harm? How has
it been done? And, most importantly, who
has done it? If we do not name the harm, if we do not identify how it
happens, if we do not see clearly how we are implicated in the
mechanisms that perpetuate it, how can we possibly address much less
“eradicate” it? You could have led the clergy and laity of the
Iowa Annual Conference in asking and addressing these questions.
Instead, your statement retreated into the fog of the passive voice.
Having
accepted no responsibility for past and present harm, it is not
surprising that your statement moves on to open self-contradiction.
You are “committed to observing the governance of the Book of
Discipline” and at the same time you are “committed to
eradicating any further harm.” Unless you deny that any provisions
of the Book of Discipline are harmful to LGBTQIA folk, there is
simply no way that these statements can both be true. How long can
any of us “go limping with two different opinions”?
How long, for
example, can you dangle charges over a colleague who has been under
complaint for most of the last three years and who has suffered under
an un-acted upon complaint for nearly a year? Here, if ever there
were one, is a chance to “[eradicate] any further harm.” Bishop
Haller, you might do that by dismissing the complaint and taking any
consequences of that dismissal upon your own shoulders rather than
allowing continuing harm to be borne exclusively by one who is both
an elder of the conference and a beloved child of God.
I suspect that
some at least of the faults and evasions of this statement reflect a
specific process, a process that sought to craft a statement that all
of the signatories could agree to. The cabinet, as you suggest, is
diverse in some ways. In terms of gender it is, if I am not mistaken,
the most balanced cabinet in our history. It evidences ethnic
diversity. Doubtless it reflects a diversity of theological
commitments.
Along the most
critical axis, however, it is not at all diverse. It is monolithic.
It is a group of powerful straight folks gathered to talk about
LGBTQIA folk rather than with
them. You could at least have acknowledged this limitation. As it is,
your allusions to diversity only serve to distract from the harmful
reality that some voices were silenced before you even began to
speak.
I have been
taught by the biblical tradition to expect that the voice of God
speaks most clearly through those who have been silenced, those who
have fallen into the gaps, those who are consigned to speak from the
margins. Perhaps these voices were excluded or perhaps I am not as
receptive as I should be. For whatever reason, I did not hear God’s
voice in your statement. That saddens me. I had hoped for better and
I hope for it still. In that hope I remain,
Yours in
Christ,
Rev.
John M. Caldwell, PhD, Elder (retired)
