Racial and Ethnic Clergywomen’s Consultation—A “New Economy,” New Immigration Laws, New Bishops, and New Theology

on January 15, 2008

Expecting encouragement for their role as minority women in ministry, roughly 300 United Methodist clergywomen gathered in Los Angeles January 3-5 for the Racial and Ethnic Clergywomen’s Consultation. While the attendees gave much discussion to the special challenges that these United Methodist clergy face, the conference repeatedly strayed outside the bounds of this purpose.


Dr. Julianne Malveaux addresses conference participants at the Friday evening banquet

Nominating episcopal candidates, liberalizing immigration laws, and creating a “new economy” were all issues addressed by the conferences attendees and speakers. Mary Ann Moman, the Associate General Secretary of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s Division of Ordained Ministry, welcomed participants. She stated that, in keeping with the event’s theme, participants would be “exploring what it means to rise from our common ground.” Moman expressed her hope that from the consultation “there may be a voice and witness … a word for the church.” This consultation was only the second event of its type, with the previous gathering of ethnic minority clergywomen having occurred more than 25 years ago in March 1982. Dr. Julianne Malveaux, the recently inaugurated president of Bennett College, addressed the Friday evening banquet. A controversial figure, Malveaux’s past commentary on the public sphere has included calling the United States of America a “terrorist nation” (on Sean Hannity’s radio show, July 11, 2005), calling George W. Bush an “evil” and “arrogant” “terrorist,” and wishing publicly that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “dies early like many black men do” because she felt he was a “reprehensible” person (during an interview on PBS’s “To the Contrary,” November 4, 1994). Perhaps because Malveaux belongs mostly to the spheres of political and economic commentary and higher education, she said little about the situation of racial and ethnic clergywomen. Instead she delivered a message that would seem to preclude finding any “common ground” from which to “rise.”

Malveaux declared, “We’ve got to think about a brand new economy, an economy that deals with principles of economic justice.” She deplored  negative socio-economic trends such as a five percent unemployment rate (which she seemed to regard as unusually high), the high cost of oil, and predatory lending practices, which she called “the civil rights issue of the 21st century.”

Malveux pointed to “distribution” and “access” as the key indicators of the “economic justice” she sought. “Who owns the oil? Who owns the ore?” she asked rhetorically. Clarifying the direction of her questions, she stated, “In other words, we’re dealing with issues of distribution.” Malveaux did not specify how she would redistribute those means of production to improve “economic justice.” She only complained that in current political discourse “no one is saying the stuff we need to say about distribution.” The listener might wonder whether “socialism” was the unspoken word she wanted to hear.


Clergywomen participate in the introductory worship service by donning traditional clothing from various cultures.

“Fear is a [result] of wrong…” postulated the Bennett College president. “We have organized our economy in a way [that causes]… fear.” But Malveaux lamented that few showed the engagement and activism her changes would require. To her enthusiastic audience, she predicted, “We won’t have a new economy until we get attitudes.” Malveaux echoed past rhetoric about America’s misdeeds, stating, “This country has done horrible things internationally.” She also decried “the shortsightedness of our nation” and emphasized the importance of talking “about access to healthcare.”

While Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Desert Southwest Annual Conference spoke more about the experiences of minority clergywomen, her remarks also strayed from the pastoral to the political at times. Speaking of the current national debate about immigration, Carcaño stated, “We have turned our immigrant brothers and sisters into virtual slaves to our consumerism and greed.” She questioned, “How long do we allow immigrants to live in bondage?… How long do we live in the bondage of our complicit sin?” Though it was unclear how the bishop would have the immigration laws changed, she reassured her audience, “We can overcome the inhumane and cruel immigration situation of this country.”

Carcaño also discussed her own experiences as a woman from a racial minority background. She told participants, “We stand on holy ground, on the legacy we have received” from women who “believed God can free us from the shameful … limitations of the church.”


From left to Right, Bishops Linda Lee of the Wisconsin Annual Conference, Bishop Beverly Shamana of the California-Nevada Annual Conference, Bishop Mary Ann Swenson of the California-Pacific Annual Conference, and Bishop Violet Fisher of the Western and North Central New York Annual Conferences applaud during opening worship.

Outside of plenaries, conference participants met for lunches that were organized according to racial distinctions (Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American) and held jurisdictional meetings. The women of each jurisdiction discussed whom they might nominate as new bishops.

Worship services included liturgies that, for the most part, accurately represented Christian teaching and doctrine. The exception was one liturgy that introduced the closing worship session. Women repeated the liturgy’s claims that:

We are the women who refused to keep silent.
We are the ones who claimed our power.
We named ourselves, we shaped our times.
We spoke the words of life.

Deviating from Scripture, the liturgy claimed that God banished Eve from the garden merely because she “reached after wisdom.” Likewise, it had Jesus’ disciple Martha complain that she was “consigned to the kitchen” because she “recognized Jesus and named him the Christ … [and] believed in his power over death.”

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