At a recent conference, retired United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert expressed his willingness to participate in same-sex weddings.
The event was the Lake Junaluska Multicultural Conference 2012: Creating a Church for All People. Directed by the Kaleidoscope Institute, the meeting was November 29 – December 1 at the retreat center of United Methodism’s Southeast Jurisdiction, which was listed as a host. The Multicultural Conference opened with a Native American smudging ceremony that called for a cleansing from the “Great Spirit.”
Two United Methodist bishops spoke. Retired Bishop Linda Lee shared first. While she had been embroiled in the Amy DeLong same sex union trial as Wisconsin’s bishop, she will become Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary’s bishop-in-residence this coming March. To the Lake Junaluska audience, she enthused, “For you to meet together is to raise up humankind to a higher level.” She set out to combat institutional racism, which she described as “one of the most devastating and all-pervading problems of our time.” “Unhealthy and unholy relationships between people groups and cultures bring injustice throughout the world,” she instructed. Lee exposited on how Christ’s teachings profoundly disagree with any kind of racism. She concluded, “God loves you just the way you are…before you were born and loves you because He did not make any mistakes.”
Lee then moved from personal attitude changes to substantial institutional ones. She cited extra-denominational race caucuses and the General Commission on Religion and Race as “gifts to our church” and key to United Methodist multiculturalism. Nevertheless, the demographics of the UMC in the United States upset Lee: “Although our constitution is great, our membership is not.” She bemoaned that most US members are white women while most leaders are white men. “A Eurocentric ethos still dominates at our official meetings and corporate worship,” she complained. She also reserved much suspicion toward Roberts’ Rules of Order, favoring consensus models and more informal parliamentary proceedings that did not favor “white male domination.” “People of color have told me they don’t feel fully included,” she revealed, “Presence does not mean participation.”
The retired bishop also asserted that America is “a nation built on racism.” The Founding Fathers compromised on the issue of involuntary servitude and became “the colonialist power themselves.” Thankfully, Americans have progressed beyond “their experienced way of being…as white, property-holding men.” The former Wisconsin overseer advised, “It’s important to rise up against experiences of the past…and calling upon all the strength and power that has made you what you are today and move forward with it.” She did qualify that reform needs to be accomplished within the bounds of the Book of Discipline.
Retired Bishop Melvin Talbert pursued a more radical tone in his closing sermon. After offering a short musing on Micah 6:6-8 and the Golden Rule, Talbert soon condemned “such vitriolic and racist attacks on our President, Barack Obama.” (The bishop did praise the UMC General Board of Church and Society for its support for Obamacare). He also declaimed the “audacity” of calling Latino immigrants “alien.” He informed his fellow United Methodists, “We aren’t going to be changing the world without changing ourselves first.” These supposed instances of racism are the logical result of “becoming deeply embedded in the culture.”
According to Talbert, homophobia is one of the most glaring of these errors facing United Methodists. He declared the “incompatibility with Christian teaching” clause against active homosexuality in the Book of Discipline to be a “valley” in the UMC’s story. He urged, “The church will not survive if it does not adapt and change to the changing multicultural and multiracial landscape.” He referenced the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, in which all attempts to overturn the traditional teachings on sex and marriage failed by sizable margins. Talbert nevertheless remains hopeful in the pansexual cause, since “God has already settled this matter.”
Talbert then quoted his own speech to the “Love Your Neighbor Coalition” in Tampa. In that concluding meeting, he called for “ecclesiastical disobedience,” especially from the clergy. “Stop implementing immoral and unjust laws against those who want to do good and minister to and with all people, regardless of sexual orientation,” he exclaimed. He then confessed to the Lake Junaluska audience, “I’m not going to put a shingle out…[but] if I’m asked to participate in a GLBT wedding, I plan to do it.” Talbert proclaimed, “In the name of Jesus, I declare to you to take authority!” Moreover, he reasoned, “I know that you all have a dual allegiance to God and your church…I don’t think I have to tell you which of the two takes precedence.”
Although the conference itself was marketed as a training ground for even-handed dialogue and remained quite therapeutic in the table group dialogues, Talbert’s call for ecclesiastical rebellion met approving nods and quiet expressions of awe from most of his hearers. Time will tell if he will convince active clergy to trespass their covenantal vows or if he will be but a plaintive voice in the wilderness.
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