Meeting during the week of November 1-7, the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church was able to respond immediately to the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America. The bishops were open about their enthusiasm for the new president during their morning worship service on November 5th, 2008, some of them shouting “Yes, we can!,” an Obama campaign slogan.
Singing “My Lord, What a Morning,” and “Morning has Broken,” for that morning’s occasion, and adding what is often called the “Black National Anthem” or “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to the order of worship, the bishops rejoiced at Obama’s election. Tears and smiles were present on the faces of both bishops and staff during the hymn.
German bishop Rosemary Wenner, congratulated Americans, saying, “You people had the courage to elect the first African American president, and that’s wonderful. And people in Germany congratulate you.”
Pausing for the council to conclude its applause at this remark, she cautioned, “However, we know that the struggle against racism continues globally.”
Throughout the week, bishops talked of bearing witness to “the hope within.” While retired Bishop William B. Grove noted that so often he feels that “the center cannot hold” in the words of Irish poet William Butler Yeats, and while we “find that the glaciers melting…children in Zimbabwe are starving… the heavenly mountains of Appalachia [being] blasted to hell [by mining]… and the Iraq War” continues there is yet hope for him. “What a gift to be here together when an age ended and a new age began. That is the hope that is in me,” said Grove. For those who might question his conflation of politics and religion, the bishop added, “This isn’t about politics. This is about gospel.”
Bishop Linda Lee of the Wisconsin Annual Conference led the prayer before communion, where she thanked God for “the privilege of this day, standing on the precipice of a new age. We give You thanksgiving for the way the people of this country have spoken.” After the service ended, Lee spoke as the chair of the Council of Bishops’ Anti-Racism Task Force, and she reminded the bishops that in the face of racism “Obama says that we have a chance to change! We invite you to think about what that means… try to receive the change that we have a chance to make right now!”
Following the announcements, bishops exclaimed the Obama campaign slogan “Yes we can!”
The following day, the exultation continued. Bishop Hee-Soo Jung of the Chicago Episcopal Area declared, “The part of the faith that I had in America which was lost has now been restored.” He recalled that, growing up in Korea and then coming to the United States, “We believed in what America meant to the world.” However, he said, “My faith in America began to crack as I learned, noticed and experienced racism and other kinds of injustice all around me, and it was shaken when the war in Iraq started, and it was crushed when I found out that my government practiced and legitimized torture.”
But following the election, Jung said, “I believe in America again.” He further explained, “When I see so many people on tv with tears of jubilation in different parts, I hear them saying in their hearts, ‘Yes, we believe in America again!’ Indeed, hope was renewed. That’s the reason for the hope I have in me.” He quoted the statement that has become a common expression, uttered by rapper Jay-Z and others, saying that “Rosa Parks sat down so that Martin could walk; Martin walked so that Obama could run; because Obama ran, all our children can fly.”
“Who made a difference in this generation?” Jung asked. “The so-called post-race and post-gender generations made a difference.” Giving new meaning to the scripture, Jung quoted, “As Isaiah 46 says, ‘a child will lead us to the land of shalom.’” He closed his comments by echoing and modifying the Obama campaign slogan to attribute the election result to providential intervention, shouting, “Yes, God can!”
Before the election results, the bishops prepared an official letter congratulating the yet to be determined President-Elect, and rquested a meeting with him once he takes office. A Bible, signed by the bishops, will be sent with the letter to president-elect Obama, which is a tradition for the bishops and new presidents. On Wednesday, they added a small sentence, expressing their hope that God “will be with you as you shoulder the mantle of presidential leadership as the first African American.”
Among their other business, the bishops discussed in executive session how to respond to retired Bishops Susan Morrison and Jesse DeWitt’s participation in an October ordination of a lesbian minister for the Church within a Church movement. While no official censure was given by the Council of bishops, Bishop Scott Jones of Kansas observed that an amendment he proposed to the official statement on the event would help “explain why our bishops might have taken part” in the ordination, because “our bishops take part in [ordinations] of other denominations all the time.”
The response prepared by the bishops acknowledges that an ordination of a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” did take place, and reiterates that “The United Methodist Church is clear that it does not ordain self-avowed practicing homosexuals (United Methodist Book of Discipline, paragraph 304.3).” It continues:
This “ordination” has no effect within the United Methodist Church and was not approved by any annual conference, or by any Board of Ordained Ministry, or by any cabinet.
Ordinations are ecclesial actions. We believe these ordinations belong to the Church within a Church and therefore have no official status within our denomination and will not qualify individuals for appointment within the UMC.
While the ordination “was not approved by any annual conference, or by any Board of Ordained Ministry, or by any cabinet,” it was approved in person by Bishops Morrison and DeWitt, and by letter by retired Bishops Judith Craig and Leontine Kelly. The council did not acknowledge its members’ role in that service.
Bishop Mary Ann Swenson of the California-Pacific annual conference drew upon the theme for the bishops’ meeting, “Stumbling in the Light,” as she gave her testimony. She said that she gets “glimpses of the light” through “persons where I can say ‘you are the light, let your light shine.’” Those persons, she said, “kindle a light within me, that Quaker light that we have come to know.”
She commented about some light-filled persons, “I see them in my own community [in California]… I weep at the wall [along the U.S.-Mexican border] that separates us; that goes up and gets stronger. God sees and yearns simply for people to journey across the land [as illegal immigrants] and share.” Lauding the pastors in her conference “who go to the wall and stand,” she mentioned one in particular named John. “John serves communion [across the border fence]. The border patrol has said it is no longer legal to pass bread through the fence. He is going to keep passing bread,” she said.
Bishop Timothy Whitaker of the Florida Annual Conference spoke about the new “In Defense of Creation II” document that a designated Council of Bishops task force is preparing. The first “In Defense of Creation” in the 1980’s condemned U.S. nuclear deterrence and anti-missile defenses. While the first draft of Part II should be presented at the spring 2009 Council of Bishops meeting, they have not yet found a writer for the project, and are exploring new title options for it. “Our focus is extreme poverty, and environmental degradation in a time of climate change, and nuclear proliferation,” Whitaker described.
The bishop said the council has developed “a contract with the General Board of Church and Society” to work on the project, and that a woman named Pat Harper was hired in August to be the manager for it. The bishops are looking to find a writer who “is of a younger generation, [and] is knowledgeable” of Wesleyan teachings. Bishop Warner Brown of California-Nevada responded to the committee’s presentation with his hope that the document “will be fruits for movement and change that will genuinely affect the behavior [of United Methodists].”
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