Free Methodist Conversations

THE BIBLICAL STORY IS A MIGRATION STORY

June 28, 2018 By

Scripture is inspired for all people in all places in all times calling us to a higher response than this world even knows. Here Rev. Julia Matallana-Freedman, who in 2018 received her Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity and was ordained Elder in the Free Methodist Church in Southern California, provides a thoughtful guidance to which each of us are called by God to respond as the church – the called-out-ones.

Rev. Matallana-Freedman

June 2018

So much about our faith as North American Christians is discursive. Ultimately the words we use and the interpretive choices we make matter because our actions unfurl alongside our discursive choices. The Christian ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas, frames it this way:

“The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We Serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.” (Resident Aliens, 39).

We know there are many FM leaders across the nation already actively involved in refugee ministries and initiatives. This post embodies our striving for the centering of this ongoing work and to lift up the stories of FM Churches on the borderlands and in the trenches of this ongoing moral corruption. This reflection is searching for the increase of unlikely voices coupled with divine creativity to do God’s work faithfully.

ROMANS 13 and ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS

June 23, 2018 By dwayman

SUBMITTING TO AUTHORITY

By Bishop David Kendall – June 2018

Over the weekend, the United States Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, cited the Apostle Paul as a form of support for our government’s draconian “no tolerance” policy that separates children from their parents should the parents illegally enter the U.S. Aside from the unjust practice of punishing innocent children for alleged crimes of their parents, Romans 13 has been woefully misappropriated to justify what is arguably the opposite of Paul’s intent in this celebrated chapter. That is my focus in what follows.

[Since this will be longer than a more typical post here are the conclusions which I draw. First, Romans 13 cannot be used legitimately to support any particular governmental policy or program, at any time. Second, nor should it be read as a command for Jesus-followers to support the government regardless of its policies. Third, it is a reminder that government, as such, is good but not absolute; and that leaders are accountable and will answer to God, if to no one else. And, fourth, followers of Jesus have a mission to accomplish with or without the assistance of government, and they are the people called and equipped to demonstrate the good that all governments seek as they give themselves to love. Read on to see why I make such conclusions.]

Before observing what the Apostle Paul says in this highly celebrated text on the Christian’s duty to governing authorities,

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

LIVED EXPERIENCE of FEMALE FREE METHODIST PASTORS

April 5, 2018 By

The Study Commission on Doctrine commissioned the creation of this film in order to allow all of us to experience the struggles of female pastors. Though each of the many women who shepherd our churches, including the five pastors in this film, would gladly give moving stories of God’s grace within their ministries, the fact is that it is difficult for our women. Just as in other professions where women experience bias due to the curse of patriarchy explained in Genesis 3:16, this same result of the fall permeates the very church God intended to be His instrument of healing the effects of sin.

Free Methodists have clearly established our conviction that in the church there is no distinction between male and female and that both are gifted to shepherd the church, we have found that we need to speak to the heart as well as the mind. When in the late 1800’s our founder, B.T. Roberts wrote the book on Ordaining Women (also in Spanish) and gave a clear explanation looking at Scripture, Tradition and Reason, he sadly found that the church was not ready to follow his leadership. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that the church he founded joined him in this vision given by God and began ordaining women. But now in the 21st century we still make it hard on the women God has called. Perhaps we do it in more subtle ways now such that we do not forbid them from being ordained,

RACE

DIVERSITY IS NOT A FRINGE ISSUE – Bryan Loritts Interview

April 4, 2018 By dwayman

The description of the church in the books of Acts and Revelation both make it clear that the present and future church is diverse in culture, tribe and language. However, this diversity requires the intentional leadership of pastors and denominational leaders. In this discussion with Bryan Loritts we enter into a profound discussion that can assist all of us in this work. The article describes him: “Bryan Loritts, whose work as a pastor, nonprofit leader, author and consultant focuses on encouraging multiethnic and multicultural church organization and worship. Loritts serves as senior pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship, a multiethnic congregation in Silicon Valley. Before his move to California, he served as pastor for preaching and mission at Trinity Grace Church in New York City, and as the lead pastor for Fellowship Memphis church in Memphis, Tennessee. Loritts is also president of the Kainos Movement, an organization dedicated to making multiethnic church the new normal.”

In part the conversation says:

For the average pastor, a cultural dynamic like that feels intractable. How do you begin to shape a more equitable culture in line with the values of multiethnicity?

It really starts with awareness.

I wrote an article for the Global Leadership Summit some months ago, titled “’White Is Not a Four-Letter Word.” I take issue with the demonization of “white” for sport. But I believe, after spending decades in this line of work, that our white brothers and sisters do not consciously think in terms of whiteness.

RACE

SUNKEN PLACE THEOLOGY by Delonte Gholston

March 7, 2018 By dwayman

Pastor and theologian Delonte Gholston has written an insightful theological and social commentary in Relevant titled: GET OUT CONTAINS A THEOLOGICAL LESSON THAT IS EASY TO MISS. After noting that the first Black writer to win an Oscar for Best Screenplay and that he created a whole new genre of film being called the “social suspense thriller”, Gholston applies the insights to the church.

In part he says:

A SUNKEN-PLACE THEOLOGY

What does a Jordan Peele suspense thriller have to do with the Church or Christian theology? Well, the reality is that black folk in America are eerily familiar with what I call “sunken-place theology.” As Dr. Curtis Steven Wilder makes painfully clear in his book Ebony And Ivy, the American Church, along with elite colleges and universities, was chief among those who trafficked not only in the kidnapping and commodification of black bodies but also in the development of a theology of black bondage.

We saw new reports recently that our founding father George Washington, who had his very own pew at Christ Church in historic Alexandria, Virginia, (once the largest center of human trafficking in America) quite literally had the teeth of black enslaved people in his mouth. While there is no lack of documentation of how so-called Christians in America quite literally kidnapped and sold black bodies, the Church must still reckon with its theology of black exploitation and the ways in which it continues to manifest itself today.

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

IMPLICIT GENDER BIASES IN BUSINESS

February 10, 2018 By dwayman

In an article exploring implicit gender bias, the Harvard Business Review explored the reality of this in the business world: The article explains:

“Last year, Harvard Business Review investigated a company where women comprise only 20% of senior roles. Their goal was to find out whether differences in gender behavior explained promotion disparities. The researchers perused communication exchanges and data coming from sociometric badges that recorded interactions between employees. They hypothesized that explicit preferences such as women having fewer mentors or less facetime with managers would account for discrepancies. But as they analyzed their data, they found men and women’s work patterns and performances were indistinguishable. And yet women weren’t advancing whereas men were. What gives?

It comes down to implicit biases, the researchers concluded, which are our unconscious tendencies to favor one thing over another. Often, these mental shortcuts are morally neutral, like linking “doctor” and “nurse” and “hospital.” But connect “doctor” to “he” and “nurse” to “she,” and these associations become loaded, and can, as others have observed, have oppressive consequences.

This reality helps explain why most organizations struggle to close gender gaps: It’s not enough for women to compete and show they’re capable. Implicit attitudes must change, too. But how? Here’s where to begin:

Know what gender bias looks like

A preeminent legal scholar identifies two prominent forms of workplace bias against women:

First,

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

SECOND GENERATION GENDER BIAS

February 2, 2018 By dwayman

When prejudice moves into the second generation, it becomes more subtle and in many ways more powerful. Stephanie Dyrness Lobdell is a Nazarene pastor who writes a thoughtful and important article revealing this to us.

“In generations past, it was easy to identify explicit structures and policies that hindered women from obtaining and succeeding in pastoral roles, but in many cases, those overt barriers have been eliminated. Even so, the number of female pastors hasn’t shifted much. According to Hartford Institute for Religion Research, only 12 percent of congregations in the United States have female lead pastors, and, in evangelical churches, that number drops to 9 percent. If so many barriers have been eliminated, why haven’t the number of women and men in lead pastorates and denominational leadership positions equalized?

Researchers Herminia Ibarra, Robin J. Ely, and Deborah M. Kolb asked the same questions about women in the secular work place, and determined there was undoubtedly something in the water—something that went deeper than the overt barriers of years gone by. They named this experience Second-Generation Gender Bias, concluding that “second-generation bias erects powerful but subtle and often invisible barriers for women that arise from cultural assumptions and organizational structures, practices, and patterns of interaction that inadvertently benefit men while putting women at a disadvantage.”

Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Let’s be clear. We’re not calling out men for evil intent and taking names.

2018

WAR AND PEACE by Chaplain David Thompson

January 24, 2018 By dwayman

This post is from a retired Free Methodist Military Chaplain: Chaplain (CDR) David Thompson, CHC, USNR (Ret.)

Retired Elder/North Central Conference/FMC (USA)

On Sunday our pastor made the statement that our nation has been at war for 93% of our nation’s history since 1776, computing as of 2015 (222 years out of 239 years… so that in our history we had only 21 years of peace). I was astounded with that above-mentioned statement and so I looked it up after church with my friend “Google” (see: https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-the-time-222-out-of-239-years-since-1776/5565946 ). And there it was: The numbers were correct… and most of these wars were wars of choice or conquest rather than wars of deep moral conviction, like the Civil War or WW II…and for the most part, we as people faith went along with all this national warlike activity down through our history…just keeping “praising the Lord and passing the ammunition.” I then came across in The Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine (the Journal of the Navy & Marine Corps) an article written by Navy Captain John Byron, USN (Ret.) in the August 2017 issue entitled “We Have Been at War a Long Time” that speaks to this issue (see: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/we-have-been-war-long-time ). The author leaves hanging the question of “what do you make of all of that? We really are a warlike people just looking at the hard numbers,

RACE

THE LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

January 16, 2018 By dwayman

One of the most powerful statements on the church’s responsibility to work for “justice for all” was written by a Baptist pastor named the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It happened in 1963.

In part he says:

“In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation…

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

IMMIGRATION

WELCOMING THE STRANGER: Faith Communities and Immigration by Alexia Salvatierra

January 7, 2018 By dwayman

In a recent article, Alexia Salvatierra, who is an adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary and an immigration activist, wrote a thorough history of the Biblical and American experience with immigration, the sanctuary movement, and current realities. It is a great resource, but also a call to participate in the care of those who are being harmed. Comparing the modern sanctuary movement with the “Cities of Refuge” and the “Underground Railroad” the call focuses on the center of Free Methodist biblical commitment and our own history of abolitionist action.

In part she writes:

“In the thirty-fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible, the writer lays out a remedy for a social and legal problem. In ancient Israel, the penalty for murder was death, “a life for a life.” Family members of the slain person normally carry out the sentence. However, the writers of Numbers recognized that it would not be fair for accidental killers to receive the same punishment as those who kill intentionally. Raging family members could not be expected to stop midstream and investigate; the community is instructed to create cities of refuge where the accused can be kept safe until they can receive a fair hearing. The cities of refuge are the solution for people who committed a crime and received an unfair penalty.

This ancient remedy is the root of the sanctuary church tradition. Since the fourth century in England, churches have offered protection and shelter to those accused of a crime but who would be likely to be punished unfairly if left unprotected.

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LARRY WALKEMEYER: THE RIVER CHRISTIAN, Multiplying Your Life

DECLARATION “DIGNITAS INFINITA” ON HUMAN DIGNITY

RACIAL CAPITALISM VS. DIVINE ECONOMY: HOW CHRISTIANITY OFFERS A BETTER ANTIRACISM

HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS?

EVANGELICALISM’S FATAL FLAW

THE BIBLICAL STORY IS A MIGRATION STORY

ROMANS 13 and ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS

LIVED EXPERIENCE of FEMALE FREE METHODIST PASTORS

DIVERSITY IS NOT A FRINGE ISSUE – Bryan Loritts Interview

SUNKEN PLACE THEOLOGY by Delonte Gholston

IMPLICIT GENDER BIASES IN BUSINESS

SECOND GENERATION GENDER BIAS

WAR AND PEACE by Chaplain David Thompson

THE LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

WELCOMING THE STRANGER: Faith Communities and Immigration by Alexia Salvatierra

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