Drew University Theological School
Drew Theological School Responds to UMC Judicial Council.
29 April 2017
Dear Bishops, Members of the Judicial Council, and Members of the Commission on a Way Forward,
As the faculty and staff of Drew University Theological School, we write pained and in grief because of the recent rulings of the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church. This statement is a response to those actions that bring into question the validity of the consecration to the episcopacy of our alumna, Bishop Karen Oliveto, and threatens the effective and faithful ministries of LGBTQI clergy and candidates in the UMC, including many of our students, alumni, and faculty.
We recognize that the United Methodist Church has wrestled deeply for decades with matters of inclusivity with regard to marriage and ordination of other than self-avowed, practicing heterosexual people, and that we hold different understandings of human sexuality and orientation. We read scripture differently. We see God powerfully at work in the world in differing ways. Yet, we are bound together by our profound faith in Christ and our conviction that the grace and mercy he taught still has the power to heal and restore a broken world and a broken Church. So, especially now, we speak out on behalf of those in the United Methodist Church who fear for their status and influence as church members, candidates for ordained ministry, clergy, and as episcopal leaders, celebrating their ministries and their divinely given sexual identities and orientations.
Our Church has been at difficult crossroads throughout its history. It was not that long ago, 1968 for example, that a sizable contingent within our Church strongly advocated for the continuation of the jurisdictional system–created in 1939 to formalize white supremacy in the Church–so that regions would have certain autonomy and “protection” to make their own decisions, in that case to secure racial hierarchies and prejudices. Yet today many in those regions that insisted on jurisdictional autonomy question the legitimacy of the Western Jurisdiction to elect the person they most believed the Holy Spirit was prompting them to select as their next episcopal leader—an Elder in good standing, with a proven track record of faithful, effective leadership, and the senior pastor of one of our most thriving congregations. The irony is not lost on us. We commend the Judicial Council for recognizing these restraints by preserving the right of the Western Jurisdiction to freely nominate, elect, and assign their bishops.
Yet, we believe that the Council’s decision that may subject Bishop Oliveto’s consecration to further review, and that expands the impact to other LGBTQI sisters and brothers now equally at risk of review, is not a sign of the revolutionary love and mercy that was revealed in Jesus Christ. Instead, it seeks to extinguish that love and mercy. We are reminded of that powerful moment in the early 19th century when Jarena Lee went to Bishop Richard Allen of the AME Church to ask him to license her to preach. Bishop Allen told Lee no, that the Book of Discipline “did not call for women preachers.” In response, Lee prophesied, “O how careful ought we to be, lest through our by-laws of church government and discipline, we bring into disrepute even the word of life.”
It is difficult to appreciate or even conceive of a judiciary process that leaves the United Methodist denomination in such a precipitous position and brings into disrepute “the word of life.” As the Drew University Theological School community, we stand in unity with a United Methodist Church that values God’s people in the many ways that we all contribute to the missional and evangelical aspirations of the Church, and to the wellbeing of the Church and the world. We long for the United Methodist Church to be one in which all of its candidates for ministry, clergy, and episcopal leaders are assessed not in terms of sexual orientation and its expressions, but by whether they, as John Wesley implored, love God and stand with the ones who have no one else: the lonely, the brokenhearted, the impoverished, the voiceless, the imprisoned, the widows, the children.
We believe that this denomination, if we will return to our Wesleyan roots, can and will be a place where all people encounter the love and transformative grace of God. Scripture clearly teaches us that God’s ways are wonderfully mysterious and that God’s mission is passionately and effectively advanced by those who sacrificially and faithfully respond to the call of God on their lives. Establishment leaders were regularly surprised, even appalled, by those God used to advance the cause of love and grace. Yet that never seemed to deter God, and it should not deter us.
At Drew we celebrate the ministry of our alumna, Bishop Oliveto, all our students, faculty, and alumni threatened by the actions of the Judicial Council, and all LGBTQI clergy, candidates, and allies who are concerned for their future ministry and service in the Church. We will not tire in our advocacy and prayers on their behalf and on behalf of our beloved Church. Instead, we take this moment to recommit ourselves to them, to the love and mercy of God in the world, and to call the Church to greater faithfulness and justice as together we proclaim “the word of life.”
We also take this moment to invite further dialogue with those who may disagree with us. Let us truly be an Acts 15 church that comes together to engage our differences honestly, in love and respect, united by our mission to manifest the radical love and transformative mercy of God in the world.
Respectfully and prayerfully,
The President, Deans, Faculty, and Staff of Drew University Theological School
MaryAnn Baenninger
President of the University
Javier A. Viera
Dean of the Theological School
Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Tanya Linn Bennett
Associate Dean for Vocation and Formation
Chris Boesel
Associate Professor of Christian Theology
Katherine Brown
Director, Theological School Center for Language and Learning
Robert S. Corrington
Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Philosophical Theology
Morris L. Davis
Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Wesleyan/Methodist Studies
Heather Murray Elkins
Frederick Watson Hannan Professor of Worship, Preaching and the Arts
Danna Nolan Fewell
John Fletcher Hurst Professor of Hebrew Bible
Kimberleigh Jordan
Director of Craig Chapel
Laurel Kearns
Associate Professor of the Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies
Catherine Keller
George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology
Susan Kendall
Director of Doctoral Studies
Hyo-Dong Lee
Associate Professor of Comparative Theology
Annie Lockhart-Gilroy
Assistant Professor of Christian Education
Jesse Mann
Theological Librarian
Mark A. Miller
Associate Professor of Church Music and Composer-in-Residence
Stephen D. Moore
Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies
Kevin Newburg
Assistant Professor in the History of Christianity
Kenneth Ngwa
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible
Elias Ortega-Aponte
Assistant Professor of Latino/a Religions and Cultural Studies
Kate M. Ott
Assistant Professor of Christian Social Ethics
Arthur Pressley
Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
Carl Savage
Associate Professor of Biblical Archaeology
Gary V. Simpson
Associate Professor of Homiletics
Angella M. Pak Son
Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
Althea Spencer-Miller
Assistant Professor of New Testament
- Terry Todd
Associate Professor of American Religious Studies
Traci C. West
James W. Pearsall Professor of Christian Ethics and African American Studies
Nancy Lynne Westfield
Associate Professor of Religious Education
- · · ·
Drew Theological School Responds to UMC Judicial Council.
Announcements
29 April 2017
Dear Bishops, Members of the Judicial Council, and Members of the Commission on a Way Forward,
As the faculty and staff of Drew University Theological School, we write pained and in grief because of the recent rulings of the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church. This statement is a response to those actions that bring into question the validity of the consecration to the episcopacy of our alumna, Bishop Karen Oliveto, and threatens the effective and faithful ministries of LGBTQI clergy and candidates in the UMC, including many of our students, alumni, and faculty.
We recognize that the United Methodist Church has wrestled deeply for decades with matters of inclusivity with regard to marriage and ordination of other than self-avowed, practicing heterosexual people, and that we hold different understandings of human sexuality and orientation. We read scripture differently. We see God powerfully at work in the world in differing ways. Yet, we are bound together by our profound faith in Christ and our conviction that the grace and mercy he taught still has the power to heal and restore a broken world and a broken Church. So, especially now, we speak out on behalf of those in the United Methodist Church who fear for their status and influence as church members, candidates for ordained ministry, clergy, and as episcopal leaders, celebrating their ministries and their divinely given sexual identities and orientations.
Our Church has been at difficult crossroads throughout its history. It was not that long ago, 1968 for example, that a sizable contingent within our Church strongly advocated for the continuation of the jurisdictional system–created in 1939 to formalize white supremacy in the Church–so that regions would have certain autonomy and “protection” to make their own decisions, in that case to secure racial hierarchies and prejudices. Yet today many in those regions that insisted on jurisdictional autonomy question the legitimacy of the Western Jurisdiction to elect the person they most believed the Holy Spirit was prompting them to select as their next episcopal leader—an Elder in good standing, with a proven track record of faithful, effective leadership, and the senior pastor of one of our most thriving congregations. The irony is not lost on us. We commend the Judicial Council for recognizing these restraints by preserving the right of the Western Jurisdiction to freely nominate, elect, and assign their bishops.
Yet, we believe that the Council’s decision that may subject Bishop Oliveto’s consecration to further review, and that expands the impact to other LGBTQI sisters and brothers now equally at risk of review, is not a sign of the revolutionary love and mercy that was revealed in Jesus Christ. Instead, it seeks to extinguish that love and mercy. We are reminded of that powerful moment in the early 19th century when Jarena Lee went to Bishop Richard Allen of the AME Church to ask him to license her to preach. Bishop Allen told Lee no, that the Book of Discipline “did not call for women preachers.” In response, Lee prophesied, “O how careful ought we to be, lest through our by-laws of church government and discipline, we bring into disrepute even the word of life.”
It is difficult to appreciate or even conceive of a judiciary process that leaves the United Methodist denomination in such a precipitous position and brings into disrepute “the word of life.” As the Drew University Theological School community, we stand in unity with a United Methodist Church that values God’s people in the many ways that we all contribute to the missional and evangelical aspirations of the Church, and to the wellbeing of the Church and the world. We long for the United Methodist Church to be one in which all of its candidates for ministry, clergy, and episcopal leaders are assessed not in terms of sexual orientation and its expressions, but by whether they, as John Wesley implored, love God and stand with the ones who have no one else: the lonely, the brokenhearted, the impoverished, the voiceless, the imprisoned, the widows, the children.
We believe that this denomination, if we will return to our Wesleyan roots, can and will be a place where all people encounter the love and transformative grace of God. Scripture clearly teaches us that God’s ways are wonderfully mysterious and that God’s mission is passionately and effectively advanced by those who sacrificially and faithfully respond to the call of God on their lives. Establishment leaders were regularly surprised, even appalled, by those God used to advance the cause of love and grace. Yet that never seemed to deter God, and it should not deter us.
At Drew we celebrate the ministry of our alumna, Bishop Oliveto, all our students, faculty, and alumni threatened by the actions of the Judicial Council, and all LGBTQI clergy, candidates, and allies who are concerned for their future ministry and service in the Church. We will not tire in our advocacy and prayers on their behalf and on behalf of our beloved Church. Instead, we take this moment to recommit ourselves to them, to the love and mercy of God in the world, and to call the Church to greater faithfulness and justice as together we proclaim “the word of life.”
We also take this moment to invite further dialogue with those who may disagree with us. Let us truly be an Acts 15 church that comes together to engage our differences honestly, in love and respect, united by our mission to manifest the radical love and transformative mercy of God in the world.
Respectfully and prayerfully,
The President, Deans, Faculty, and Staff of Drew University Theological School
MaryAnn Baenninger
President of the University
Javier A. Viera
Dean of the Theological School
Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Tanya Linn Bennett
Associate Dean for Vocation and Formation
Chris Boesel
Associate Professor of Christian Theology
Katherine Brown
Director, Theological School Center for Language and Learning
Robert S. Corrington
Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Philosophical Theology
Morris L. Davis
Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Wesleyan/Methodist Studies
Heather Murray Elkins
Frederick Watson Hannan Professor of Worship, Preaching and the Arts
Danna Nolan Fewell
John Fletcher Hurst Professor of Hebrew Bible
Kimberleigh Jordan
Director of Craig Chapel
Laurel Kearns
Associate Professor of the Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies
Catherine Keller
George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology
Susan Kendall
Director of Doctoral Studies
Hyo-Dong Lee
Associate Professor of Comparative Theology
Annie Lockhart-Gilroy
Assistant Professor of Christian Education
Jesse Mann
Theological Librarian
Mark A. Miller
Associate Professor of Church Music and Composer-in-Residence
Stephen D. Moore
Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies
Kevin Newburg
Assistant Professor in the History of Christianity
Kenneth Ngwa
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible
Elias Ortega-Aponte
Assistant Professor of Latino/a Religions and Cultural Studies
Kate M. Ott
Assistant Professor of Christian Social Ethics
Arthur Pressley
Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
Carl Savage
Associate Professor of Biblical Archaeology
Gary V. Simpson
Associate Professor of Homiletics
Angella M. Pak Son
Associate Professor of Psychology and Religion
Althea Spencer-Miller
Assistant Professor of New Testament
- Terry Todd
Associate Professor of American Religious Studies
Traci C. West
James W. Pearsall Professor of Christian Ethics and African American Studies
Nancy Lynne Westfield
Associate Professor of Religious Education
- · ·