On Sunday, April 27, Northern Illinois Bishop Hee-Soo Jung helped lead a pro-homosexuality worship service for United Methodists in Fort Worth for the 2008 General Conference. Retired bishops Calvin McConnell, Susan Morrison, Sharon Rader, as well as active Pacific Northwest Bishop Robert Hoshibata, attended the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN)-sponsored service.
There, the liturgical theme, reiterated on the vestments of those presiding, was “One,” because, as music director John Thornburg declared, “We are one family tree; that means we can leave no one out.” The “Call to Worship” liturgy invited all who “are married, not married, or share your life in a holy union . . . gay or lesbian . . . bisexual or transgender” and proclaimed that “All are welcome here! All means all!” The processional hymn by Mary Louise Bringle, entitled “The Love That Goes Unspoken,” rejoiced that , “The love that goes unspoken/ that fears would force to hide/ still blooms in closet spaces/ too strong to be denied… In Christ, the love unspoken/ now dares to speak its name.” (Full text may be found on the General Conference weblog on the IRD website.)
Rev. Don Guest of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church alluded to Archbishop Tutu’s call to “constantly appeal to the heart of the Gospel,” because “the heart of the Gospel has no place for heterosexism . . . any form of rejection of anybody has no place with the heart of the Gospel.” In contrast to current prohibitions, Guest announced, “the Board of Ministry cannot decide whether you are a minister of the Gospel, [and] pastors cannot tell you that you are a member of the church,” because “God has already accepted you. . . . Stop reading the Discipline so much!”
Rejecting the norms of the nuclear family, Guest protested that “The problem in America is that when we think of family we think of Wally and Ward and June and Beaver [of ‘Leave it to Beaver’].” He also remarked that “Class warfare is here and the poor are losing . . . Being the pimp for corporate society is not what God wants; God wants the system to change.”
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