A vote of confidence
Voting for the Jurisdictional Conference delegates and the Jurisdictional Conference reserve delegates was completed yesterday, and when it was all over, five more MIND-endorsed candidates had been elected. (As reported yesterday, the General Conference delegate seats were filled on Thursday, with MIND candidates taking all four lay seats and two of the clergy seats, including the head of the delegation.)
Vicki Flippin was elected the first JC clergy delegate, followed by Kun Sam Cho and Sara Thompson Tweedy. (Milca Plaud was the fourth and final JC clergy delegate elected.) Among the reserve delegates was Paul Fleck, the head of MIND’s legal team. With Sara’s election, the conference has for the first time ever included an out queer clergy person in its slate. It is also the first time ever that more than one LGBTQ delegate has been elected.
Laity elected Roena Littlejohn and Ximena Varas to Jurisdictional Conference, both endorsed by MIND, followed by Ross Williams and Rashid Warner. With Roena’s and Ximena’s election, we succeeded in electing all the lay candidates that MIND had endorsed. Among the reserve delegates were also two other MIND supporters and Covenant of Conscience signers, Steve Allen and Derek Miller.
“An act of love that cast out my fear”
Yesterday Frank Schaefer became the latest Methodist outlaw to grace the stage of the annual MIND lunch, where Beth Stroud, Greg Dell, Amy DeLong and Bishop Talbert have all spoken. In his talk he relayed, simply and powerfully, the personal journey he has been on. He described the pervasive and corrosive fear that he had always lived under since finding out his son was gay, a fear multiplied many time over once he was charged for officiating at his son’s wedding, and a fear that he recognized time and again in so many others. He talked movingly about the trial, where he likened his actions to those of the Good Samaritan. His son was he injured man, laying bloodied on the side of the road, wounded by the church in its condemnation of who he is. Frank had a choice to stay ritually clean, obey the Discipline and cross the road, or tend to injured, his own son. This is what he told the jury, which then found him guilty anyway. The next day, as he prepared for his last remarks to the jury before the sentencing, he prayed and expressed his fear to God. If he lost his job, how would he care for his family? And then he considered Jesus’s life and death, “a real class act,” as he put it yesterday. Jesus sacrificed much more than a job or a career for love, and suddenly the loss of his livelihood no longer seemed such a high price to pay for faithfulness. “I knew what I needed to do,” he told us.
When he returned to the courtroom, he told the jury: “I must continue to speak for my brothers and sisters who are LGBT in this world and especially in the United Methodist Church. We have to stop treating them as second class Christians. We have to stop harming beloved children of God. We have to reach out to them and treat them as Jesus would have treated them. That’s going to be my message.” And then he took out a rainbow stole and put it on and continued, “I would like to put this rainbow stole on me as a sign that I will make a covenant from this day forth never to be silent again.” Relating these words to the MIND lunch and once again putting on the stole as he said them, Frank brought the house to its feet. And when the lunch was over, people came up to MIND leaders and asked to sign the Covenant of Conscience.
Armband witness at ordination
The ordination service will take place at 10am today, and once again MIND activists will be handing out armbands to clergy and visitors alike, asking them to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people. The armbands are blue to symbolize tears: tears of joy as we celebrate with those being ordained, and tears of sorrow as we mourn with those who are also called by God but rejected by the church. Especially if you are a clergy member, please join us and make this faithful witness as powerful as possible.