Katalyst RECONCILING MINISTRIES NETWORK
WINTER 2016
Faith & Public Witness The life and witness of Christ calls on us to offer our lives in service to one another and to all of Creation. The work of Love in the world depends on our commitment to seeking an end to injustices in all avenues of our society. Meet some of the United Methodists who are serving God by advocating for change within the church and beyond. 1
Matt Berryman Executive Director Reconciling Ministries Network
What we can’t help but There was a time when I did not know about gratitude as a way of life. I was raised with the privileges of a middle-class white Christian background and afforded the benefits of being male in a patriarchal society. In spite of my identity as a gay man and the oppression I endured as a result, I was taught to expect life to deliver itself to me. I was raised to control, to expect, to work for, and to attain. As long as I followed a few simple steps, life would follow according to my plan.
And, for a while, life did deliver. I won’t chronicle the story of my “fall,” but it was soul- reaching, overwhelming, comprehensive, and demoralizing. Many folks who are recovering from addiction refer to similar experiences as “bottomingout”—when there is no one to turn to but God. It is a place of hopelessness and helplessness. In my experience, it was precisely in the failure of life as I had expected it to materialize, its failure to deliver, my failure in controlling it, and the despair of that reality that became the Good Friday from which my Easter Sunday could spring.
Do
You celebrate at the sight of goodness, truth, and beauty and you feel sadness when injustice, oppression, and inequity govern the lives of human beings. You hurt when others hurt and your heart sings when people are raised to new life. Because of your strangely warmed and warming heart, it is not enough to merely feel sad, but you are compelled to take action and to work in community to change systems that function to hurt, to oppress, and to deny life.
As Christians, as United Methodists, we are those whose hearts have been “strangely warmed,” and our gratitude flows I need God and God needs me. I into public life because we hear don’t know how God got to you, the gospel not only as a message is getting to you, or will get to for me, but a message for us all. you, but if you’re anything like me, the gratitude in your heart As followers of Jesus, we do God’s for a new life, a new relationship work in the world using our with God, peace in your heart, power and privilege to better and true healing has changed the lives of others who face the way you see the world, injustice and oppression. We other people, and your role do this because we are grateful. in it as a person of deep faith. 2
Rev. Kim Sorrells
Not in Jesus’ Name “...Thy Kindom come, thy will be done - on Earth as it is in Heaven...” These words of the Lord’s prayer are ones we utter every week during worship, though for many of us it took some time to learn to live into them. When I was younger I believed that the Christian life was all about being “super spiritual” and living a good, clean, respectable life. It was all about me and my own personal holiness. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to realize that so much of my call as a person of faith is to do the work of transforming the world around me- to bring about God’s Kingdom of Justice and Inclusion on Earth as it is in heaven. At its core, that is what the work RMN does is all aboutbuilding a church and a society that reflects the Kingdom of God. While most people think about policy changes in LGBTQ
ordination and same-sex marriage when they think of RMN, the work of RMN is broader than that. The work of RMN is about building a world where LGBTQ people are safe and able to live free from discrimination - not just in the church but also in their employment, housing, healthcare, and even access to public bathrooms. For this reason, I am excited to start work with RMN in Georgia through the new “Not in Jesus’ Name” campaign not just in the church but also in their employment, housing, healthcare, and even access to public bathrooms. As a transgender pastor, and one who deeply loves and calls Georgia home, I long to live in a place where all are free to live and thrive. I consider myself a fierce defender of religious
freedom and expression. However, it saddens me to see people using the guise of religion to promote discrimination. Religious freedom is under no threat, however, overly broad religious exemption legislation poses a major threat to LGBTQ people who already face significant discrimination. Through this campaign we, as people of faith in Georgia, will be able to speak out against anti-LGBTQ legislation while also affirming the fundamental right of religious liberty. We will work with other local and national LGBTQ rights groups to let it be known that we do not support LGBTQ discriminationnot in Jesus’ Name. If you are a Georgian, I want and need your help! E-mail me at kim@rmnetwork.org
Rev. Kim Sorells, Georgia Field Organizer Rev. Kim Sorrells joins us at RMN as Georgia Field Organizer after serving as Minister for Spiritual Formation and Youth at Saint Mark UMC in Atlanta, GA. Kim is a graduate of Candler School of Theology (Emory University) and Berry College, and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Prior to Saint Mark, they have served as a hospital chaplain and worked in homeless services through their time in Americorps. Kim has special interest in using spirituality and contemplative practices to equip us with the inner peace to be justice makers in the world. Kim is also a Registered Yoga Teacher and draws on this and other spiritual traditions to inform their ministry. 3
HB2 In North Carolina DISENFRANCHISING AND MARGINALIZING THE MOST VULNERABLE Rev. Liam Hooper I sit with this scripture amid my chattering thoughts these days. The words call my attention, quiet down in the midst of work or conversation, but linger and return. I reflect. Turn them over. Seeking, mostly in the dark hours, some sense of what they mean in practice. I live in North Carolina. These days, that simple sentence almost
Photo Credit: Helen Ryde
explains a cry for justice. Here, under the yoke of HB 2, other legalistic oppression and blatant racism, we strain to live, fully, as persons occupying land in community. Justice is essential to such human endeavor. And certainly, hear, from us, the cry for justice has been long wept and wailed aloud, whispered through dry crackling voices,
shouted, sung, and chanted. Seemingly unheard by others, it reverberates in our skulls. Rattles our teeth. Sounding out, again, in the beating of our broken hearts. In rhythmic collective voice, it rises above the deflecting din of military boot-steps and prattling, avoidant officials. But this passage is not about a cry for justice; it is an instruction to pursue it. I hear it, even as our leaders spout words reminiscent of Isaiah (30:10): prophecy not to us of true things, right things, speak to us of smooth things. Truth is, smooth things are deathdealing. Literally. Spiritually. Wesley knew this: do no harm, he taught. In that, he included avoiding “softness and needless self-indulgence.” Smooth things? Perhaps. As people of faith, accepting a call to transform the church to transform the world, what does it mean to hear and practice God’s instruction to pursue justice so that we may live? What might it mean for us to step out of the smooth path, and step with holy intention, into the rough, gritty places where a just light barely flickers? These questions sit heavy beside me, as again, the dark hours return. 4
Life in North Carolina, under the strain of House Bill 2, reflects the extreme tensions growing throughout our country between diversity-phobic, status quo conservatism and movements toward a more egalitarian society, particularly, at the intersections of LGBTQ justice concerns. All of us, especially gender-diverse folks, live in a palpable yet subdued fear for safety and a general anxiety about the future made worse by a thriving white supremacy. HB2 is about more than legalized gender oppression--as bad as that is--it is one in a host of symptoms pointing to a deeply dangerous socio-political disease that favors the elite, opulent minority by disenfranchising and marginalizing the most vulnerable among us.
Rev. Liam Hooper Reconciling Ministries Network is delighted to have Rev. Liam Hooper join our team in the newly created role of Transgender Community Organizer. Executive Director, Matt Berryman, describes the importance of this new role by saying, “All too often, welcoming movements have fallen short of true inclusion by marginalizing our trans and Gender expansive siblings. RMN wants to change that. Hiring Liam signals our commitment to centering transgender ministry and advocacy in the core of our organizational priorities.�
Transgender Organizer liam@rmnetwork.org 5
Isaiah 1:17
Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the abandoned, plead for the widow.
Rev. Alka Lyall
Where My Faith Calls Me “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” “The People United, Will Never be Defeated!” “Fight For 15” “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Corporate Greed’s Gotta go!” I have stood in several protests in the last 15 months and chanted these and many more slogans as we have demonstrated outside businesses, offices and even on the streets of Chicago but if you had asked me to join in such protests about 4 years ago, my answer would have been a quick no, until one day, when I asked myself, Why not? Why shouldn’t I stand in solidarity with those protesting against the injustices in our
system- whether state or local or within institutions? Isn’t that what Jesus calls us to do? Isn’t this what Jesus did! Jesus was always found standing in the margins with those who were hungry and thirsty and sick and being treated unfairly. Jesus was always standing in between people and power and always chose love over law. Some might argue that Jesus wasn’t standing and chanting outside businesses or offices, but I have encountered Jesus entering spaces that were dangerous for him to enter, speaking with people he had no business talking to and arguing with authorities, all the time. Jesus
was a community organizer and a social activist who died fighting for justice. He always questioned unfair rules and never adhered to laws that were unjust. “Fight for 15” is about fair wages. Moral Mondays Illinois are about getting our state government to stop taxing the poor, or cutting their services, to make up for the budget deficit. My participation in Immigration rallies has been about the much-needed reform in our Immigration system. As a person of faith and as a pastor to the people, I find it hard to sit peacefully in my office while people around me are hurting and struggling and 6
Paulo Freire
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Pedagogy of Indignation
“I must stand where my faith calls me to stand- even if it means standing in an intersection, disrupting life as usual, bringing the injustice to public awareness and desire justice.” dying. I cannot read the Bible and not obey the commands it contains. I cannot be a Christian if I fail to practice my baptismal covenant. I must stand where my faith calls me to standeven if it means standing in an intersection, disrupting life as usual, bringing the injustice to public awareness and desire justice. Success may be possible when more people stand united. Isaiah proclaimed that he was anointed to bring good news to the poor. Micah announced that God requires us to seek justice and love mercy. Jesus said that when we do something for others, we do it for God. Then who am I to think otherwise? I, alongside many others, am continuing to do what Isaiah and Micah and Jesus started a long time ago and what many have given their lives for. So like Bishop 7
Talbert says, “If I am wrong, so be it, but I’d rather be wrong standing on the side of love and justice.”
Rev. Alka Lyall is a life-long Methodist. Alka grew up in India and came to the United States in 1996 as a seminary student. Alka is an ordained elder from the Northern Illinois Conference and has been in pastoral ministry since 2000. She is currently the pastor of Broadway UMC in Chicago IL. She serves on the Board of RMN and the General Commission on Religion and Race and is involved in several justice-related ministries within the church and in the community.
If I am not in the world simply to adapt to it, but rather transform it, and if it is not possible to change the world without a certain dream or vision for it, I must make use of every possibility there is not only to speak about my utopia, but also to engage in practices consistent with it.”
United Methodists In the Trenches Around the nation, we have United Methodists engaged in their communities doing Reconciling work that extends beyond the walls of the church. They recognize that the Gospel lives within our advocacy and actions within the intersections of religious freedom policy, economic injustice, reparative therapy, and more. As disciples of Christ, we are called to not only aid those who live in the margins but also stalwartly oppose injustice where we encounter it. These are a few remarkable examples of people within the connection truly being the hands and feet of God in the world. Rev. Laura Young in Columbus, OH shares about why she chose to participate in a counter protest at the Franklin Graham prayer rally.
Taylor Gould in Chicago, IL on why she was arrested at a Moral Monday action protesting economic injustice in Illinois.
Public witness is a critical part of my calling; a faithful response to that call requires standing in solidarity against injustice, exemplified by the policies and candidates promoted by Franklin Graham Jr. and his followers. Religious freedom laws are being skewed to mean religious discrimination. It is the responsibility of every Christian to stand up against laws that do harm, particularly those that limit the bodily autonomy of women and civil rights of LGBTQ individuals, and leave out the very ones that Jesus included, primarily children and the poor. We stand against Graham’s messages of exclusion because Jesus is the ultimate example of radical inclusion.
I chose to be a witness of faith at public protests because I cannot stay silent in situations of injustice. As a person of faith, I am given certain privileges of safety and voice that I feel called to use to advocate for all of God’s creation; especially those that do not have that voice.
Rev. Jeanealle Ablola shares her reasons for joining God’s work on the margins.
As a queer brown woman, the way of Empire has left its mark on my body, mind, spirit, and heart by way of colonization and systemic oppression. But I’ve been able to experience decolonization and transformation as a disciple, catching glimpses of the Kindom of God through participating in the struggle for liberation happening outside of church walls, where the Beloved Community is already being built by those who bear the brunt of oppression. Such radical love and hope cannot be contained by a church building or church institution. 8
Rev. Greg Dell’s witness lives on A true champion of the marginalized, Rev. Dell died at the age of 70 on Sunday, October 30th, 2016.
Rev. Dell was known for his adamant commitment to justice and the marginalized throughout his years of ministry and into retirement. He was the first clergyperson to be put on trial in The United Methodist Church for officiating a same-sex wedding while pastoring at Broadway UMC in Chicago, IL in 1998. He was relentlessly committed to LGBTQ equality in the church and society. One of the last protests he attended was advocating for trans rights and protections. The Reconciling movement is deeply indebted to his witness which we carry forward together.
Rev. Becca Girrell in Lebanon, NH on why she advocated for HB-1661 - a bill banning conversion therapy for minors in New Hampshire.
Janine and Dennis Skinner in Phoenix, AZ on why they advocate for LGBTQ justice in Arizona.
Photo Credit: Mike Dubose
Garlinda Burton, deaconess and director, on her work at Nashville Freedom School Partnership.
Photo Credit: Mike Dubose
It was very important to me that there be United Methodist support behind this bill to communicate to the legislators that there’s more than one denomination supporting queer youth. Our Social Principles implore us not to reject or condemn our LGBTQ family members and friends, and psychologists agree that conversion therapy, by rejecting aspects of a person’s core identity, does precisely that. During our witness, legislators responded with both surprise and joy (and some with a little skepticism) to see faith leaders speaking and acting in support of queer youth. 9
The greater “church” has done such incredible harm to our LGBTQ siblings. As followers of Jesus, we simply must change our behavior and model the all encompassing love and welcoming that he stands for. As parents of a lesbian daughter and transgender son we pledge to do all that we can to make sure our children are treated equally and not judged or hated for simply being who they are.
Nashville Freedom Schools are a project related to the Children’s Defense Fund, in which we provide a six-week summer literacy program for more than 200 children of color living in poverty in grades K-8, at no cost to families. I am involved because I believe children need to hear from birth that they are creative, valued, intelligent, beloved and important to their families, faith communities, their neighborhood and world. The poor and children of color are often marginalized and vilified from birth, and I believe the church is in a unique place to counter negative messages with the truth that God loves and values each one of us.
“As someone who spent thirteen years trying to change who I was, I believe that attempts by clinicians, clergy, or others in positions of authority aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity are harmful and dishonoring to who God created them to be. " - Joshua Culbertson
Battling Conversion Therapy Now, more than ever, we must be vigilant about protecting our queer and trans youth from the harms of conversion therapy stemming from the belief and teachings that gender identity or sexual orientations can or should be altereted. For over half a century, there have been claims that sexual orientation and gender identity can be cured through various forms of reparative or conversion therapy. Many youth and adult lives have been taken at worst and harmed at best through these attempts to alter people’s basic identities.
teachings as it continues to suggest that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” as the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. Such theological claims influence families, public policies, and culture at large providing moral grounding for conversion therapy.
The basis of such “therapy” is rooted in the belief that there is something inherently sinful about minority sexual orientations and gender identities. The United Methodist Church must take responsibility for contributing to such
“This practice is especially harmful when imposed upon children by parents or church leaders. I am thankful today to be in a place where I know that I am loved and accepted for who I am. I finally realized that God wasn’t ‘fixing’ me
because I wasn’t broken,” said Joshua Culbertson, a United Methodist advocate against conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is only banned in 5 states and the District of Columbia. Encourage your church to look into your local and state policies and consider joining in the work to ban conversion therapy even as we work together to change the policies of The UMC that feed the harmful beliefs behind this dangerous work. Learn more at http:// tinyurl.com/noconversion 10
Our Deep Gratitude Together, we are moving The United Methodist Church forward for the full inclusion of all God’s people. Thank you for all the ways you contribute.
Gifts made in honor of:
Algoma Blvd UMC: Anne Ruark Annette and Kristin Garrison: Katy Tobo Bill & Roxanne Taylor: Martha L. Vaughan Bishop Karen Oliveto: Rev. Ruth Hograbe Bishop Larry Goodpaster: Rev. Dr. Keith Marsden Charlie Stewart: Rev. Anne Stewart Chuck Rice and Randy Fullerton: Jesse J Sowell Dr. Kenneth Hundrieser: Rev. Erika Lemke Hundrieser Filomena Panlilio: Rev. Dr. Noah Reyes Panlilio Karen Oliveto & Robin Ridenour: Alan Pedersen and Carol Edwards Kate Shaffer and Karen Mesko: Ann Shaffer Lauren Austin and Shannon Kluttz: Nancy Austin
Gifts made in memory of:
All God’s children taken by gun violence: Joe Murray Anne Ewing: Lisa N. Chapman David Lyons and Lyn Knudson: Judy Lyons and Doug Knudson Dick Francis: Rev. Jen Stuart, Pam Walker Helen Andrew: Leonard Andrew Henry Schneider: Roxanne and Bill Taylor Jack Watkins: Linda and Keith Wagner
MJ Gallop and Nate Jones: Colby Brown Reconciling Community of First UMC - Santa Barbara: Reconciling Community of First UMC-Santa Barbara Rev. Frank Trotter: Thiha Htwar Rev. John Oda: Jean Hodges Revs. Robert and Rosemary Davis: Rev. Virginia A. Fifield Robin Ridenour, Laura Young, Helen Ryde, Karen Oliveto: Rev. Bonnie Beckonchrist Roxanne and Bill Taylor’s 45th Anniversary: Gail and Ted Smith Steve Gass and Jeff Bright: Randy Clark The RMN Staff: Joy Brown
Jean Eastlake: Darlene & Stephen Birgel, Dennis and Charlene Fowler, Kate Henry, Sandy Londa, Nan Perkins, Carolyn Pharr Salyer, Mary Beth and Ronnie Pinkerton, Donna Hanser, Christine Marshall Joe Santoyo: Richard Bates Katherine Brun: Lynn Skupeko Ray W Hawkins: Pamela Hawkins Rev. Kathy Brun: Mary Brown Rev. Kathy Weston Brun: Glenn Blackmon Richard Gutowski: Steve Hilbun & Rev. Kelly Turney
SUPPORT CHANGE IN THE UMC ONE MONTH AT A TIME Be a part of the work of Reconciling Ministries Network by making a monthly gift. Contact Ted Jackson at 312.448.5310 or go to www.rmnetwork.org/donate and select ‘monthly’ after you enter the amount. We are so grateful for your generous support that sustains this movement! 11
“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Holy One, because you know that in God your labor is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58
123 W. Madison St. Ste 2150 Chicago, IL 60602
RMN welcomes Joey Rodil
Photo Credit: Chicago Theological Seminary
Joey Rodil is a student at Chicago Theological Seminary and will be working as an intern with our team at Reconciling Ministries Network through May 2017. Joey came to RMN because of his interest in working “behind the scenes” of an LGBTQIA faith-based advocacy group. He hopes to contribute to creating an open community where everyone feels welcome to experience God in and through the world. The RMN family is delighted to welcome Joey and his gifts as we continue our work to extend God’s Reconciling love towards all members within The United Methodist Church. Reach Joey at rodil@rmnetwork.org 12