The Bishop’s Tale

Bishop V. Gene Robinson

He could have stayed home. And some say he should have. But Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire (who grew up as a Kentucky Disciple) chose to travel to the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, to make a point: that gays are part of the Anglican Communion, and won’t be wished away or locked back in the closet.

Robinson was told by the Anglican Communion not to come, and he’s not ‘officially’ participating. Instead, he decided to go to Canterbury and make himself available to those who want to meet him in person. Even if they oppose his election as bishop on grounds that he’s openly gay and in a long-term relationship (his partner is traveling with him too).

To be fair, the Anglican Communion asked Robinson’s most vocal opponents, who are threatening a split, to stay home too.

Robinson will be available in the conference’s exhibit hall to meet with people (perhaps as sad a commentary on his exclusion as anything: i.e. “Come See the Real Live Gay Bishop!!”) He’s been invited to preach before and after the conference, and will be traveling in Scotland afterwards.

On Sunday, he was preaching at a church in Putney, England, when the service was interrupted by a man waving a motorcycle helmet and shouting “Repent!” and “Heretic!” Robinson writes about this experience in his blog, Canterbury Tales from the Fringe. He is also doing a video blog from Lambeth called The Gene Pool.

Yesterday he attended a screening of For the Bible Tells Me So, Daniel Karslake’s documentary (reviewed by DisciplesWorld, log-in required) that includes interviews with Robinson, his family, and other glbt persons and their families in the wider church.  Disciples minister Steve Kindle, founder of Clergy United for the Equality of Homosexuals, is also featured in the film.

DisciplesWorld writer named editor of United Church News

Rev. Gregg Brekke

DisciplesWorld contributing writer Gregg Brekke will soon be the new editor of United Church News, the bi-monthly newspaper of the United Church of Christ, and news director for the denomination’s website. Gregg is currently the pastor of Nexus UCC in Fairfield, OH.

Some of his work for DisciplesWorld includes feature articles and photos on the lives of homeless families and on migrant workers who are rebuilding New Orleans, and news articles on Blue Theology, a new congregation in Kentucky ministering to those recovering from addiction, Cool People Care, and the upcoming Sessions conference for Disciples men. Gregg’s photography is also featured in the documentary “Beyond Borders: Faith and Action in the Arizona Desert.”

We will miss Gregg but look forward to collaborating with him in his new role, which begins Sept. 2. Congratulations Gregg!

Bill Moyers: “It was oil, all along”

Anybody surprised at the latest news from Iraq? Not the civilian or troop casualties, but the no-bid contracts being handed to oil companies.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship sum it up in their blog posting, “It was oil, all along.”

How much will the American people, and the church, put up with before we are lulled awake from our comfy, cozy nap to take action? How much will we compromise as Big Oil twists the gas-price thumbscrews, and other corporations follow suit, blaming it on oil prices?

Off-shore drilling? Sure, go ahead!

ANWAR? Have at it!

The environment? Fuggedaboudit. We’ve got Animal Planet and the National Geographic channels on cable, plus air conditioning and no mosquitos.

The lives of young American men and women in uniform? Just another form of cheap labor, I guess. The grunt work for Exxon-Mobil, BP, and others, outsourced to the Armed Forces.

Sorry to sound angry and discouraged. Maybe I shouldn’t have read the Book of Habakkuk this morning.

Former GMP reflects on “two holidays and a resolution”

Probably the most divisive and difficult resolutions to come before the 2007 General Assembly was the one dealing with the Iraq war. In the scant minutes alloted for debate time, Disciples spoke passionately from the red and green microphones, before and against. Resolution 0728 narrowly passed, and many people walked away disappointed, frustrated, and angry.

Former General Minister William Chris Hobgood revisits the resolution, as well as larger questions of war, peace, and the role of the church, in a post on the CENTERpiece blog, which is maintained by several Disciples advocacy groups.

It’s possible that Disciples’ decision-making bodies could do away with Sense-of-the-Assembly resolutions in the near future (of course, this would ultimately come before the General Assembly for a vote). And it doesn’t include ALL resolutions - we would still have items for reflection and research and other types of business items. But the Sense-of-the-Assembly resolutions are the ones that allow the church to “speak prophetically,” some say. Others think 12 minutes of debate followed by a yes/no vote creates a ‘win/lose’ situation and that we don’t do justice to the issue or to our relationship with each other by approaching difficult issues this way.

Look for the debate to heat up in the coming months as Disciples leaders move this toward a possible 2009 General Assembly resolution.

Conversation on race, anyone?

You may have heard that the United Church of Christ has invited its pastors, members, other Christians, and the nation to participate in a ’sacred conversation on race.’ This was announced about a month ago, in the middle of the whole Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama thing. Part of the deal is that ministers will be kicking off the conversation this Sunday by preaching on the subject of race.

We’ll be posting an article on DisciplesWorld’s website tomorrow about the UCC and their hopes for this conversation.

Meanwhile, I came across an interesting blog post from Dennis Sanders, an African-American Disciples pastor in Minneapolis. Frankly, Dennis says well what I (and maybe others) are thinking: let’s have a ‘real’ conversation on race.

Maybe Dennis and I are just feeling more than a little post-liberal crankiness these days (hey, he didnt’call his blog “Oscar the Pastor” for no reason), but it seems like all our conversations about race are short, because they seem to be aimed at identifying systems (and people) that are racist. Not that that is bad…but does it really lead to change? What if we had a different kind of conversation, as Dennis suggests? One where people could just speak their minds.

As a white person, I know that I participate in racism. I know that I can’t always see it and I want to help eliminate it. But white guilt is a dead-end street and I gave up living there a long time ago. [Note: there's a great book called The Heart of Racial Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil and Rick Richardson which, as a step toward reconciliation, calls for renouncing our false identities, including the "hip white person" identity.]

Now this may seem to contradict some things I’ve said/written in the past, but in my mind it doesn’t. I wish more white people understood more about black liberation theology, but the fact is, most have never heard of it. And most have never participated in anti-racism training. And probably never will. But a real conversation on race, the one we keep on not having in public but having all over the place in private or semi-private, in email and on blogs but NEVER in the church, is the one where whites are allowed to say something like “Jeremiah Wright makes me mad,” without someone looking at them like they’re an unenlightened jack***.  And black people need to be able to say what they need to say too. The conversation might be heated, but it need not devolve into death threats. People do need to be able to be real.

And that’s what I LIKE about Jeremiah Wright, and why I don’t find him offensive. It’s not just that I’ve read James Cone. It’s that at least Wright, for all his brashness, is speaking honestly what he believes (even if many people don’t agree).

My son, who is 18, tells me these conversations we ‘old folks’ (i.e. mostly well-meaning liberal Boomers and X-ers) are having about race are irrelevant to his generation. He agrees that racism exists (as do I, don’t get me wrong) and that it is still a problem. The difference is that his peers talk about race in a different (and possibly more authentic) way. Maybe he’s right.

Wright’s theology “not new or radical”

Some of you may be tired of the whole Jeremiah Wright thing, but I’d be remiss not to let readers know about a great article that puts Rev. Wright’s preaching and remarks into their context, and then explains that context extremely well.

Salon.com’s Sarah Posner interviewed Dr. Jonathan L. Walton, assistant professor of religious studies at UC-Riverside. It’s an excellent interview.

Walton points out, among other things:

1. Black Liberation Theology has been around since the 1960s and can be found in the curriculum of the leading seminaries in the U.S.

2. While Wright and Martin Luther King are two different people, MLK had his own “God damn America” moment toward the end of his career. Walton also says that the sermon he was schedule to preach on the Sunday after he was assassinated was titled “Why American may go to hell.”

3. While Wright’s statements about HIV/AIDS may not be true, they can be seen as shorthand for frustration with the government’s lack of truthfulness on the Tuskegee experiments, Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, etc.

Posner’s interview with Walton takes “black liberation theology” out of quotation marks [as it's been used in the press, as if it's something made up, as in "this so-called 'black liberation theology'"]. If you’re still puzzled and angered by Wright, but open to learning something new, this article will help.

“Vintage Wright”

We were fortunate to have one of our writers, Beckie Supiano, in attendance yesterday to cover Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s speech/Q&A at the National Press Club. Beckie’s article is posted on the DisciplesWorld website today.

Dr. Delores Carpenter, who was also there, called it “vintage Wright.” Like him or not, you’ve got to respect him for just going there and being himself, which it sounds like he did.

I haven’t had a chance to talk with Beckie yet, but I’m interested in hearing what her impressions were. Not just of Wright, but of the kinds of questions journalists asked him. From some of the reports I’ve read, it almost seems like they’ve got their collective minds made up about Wright. But we’ll see what Beckie thinks.

The big debate in what I’ve read outside the religious press seems to be “What should Obama do?”  Salon.com compiled an article from its staff today along those lines. I usually respect Salon’s approach but most of their staff reports just struck me as off-point. The question of what Obama should do is not the right one, in my opinion. Wright is his own man. As is Obama. One’s a preacher, the other, a politician. 

The best suggestions I heard from Salon’s staff were that Obama, with all eyes on him now, needs to stop this train-wreck-in-the-making and remind people of what’s going on while we’re all uncritically following this non-crisis: war, poverty, food crisis, destruction of the earth…stuff like that. 

By the way, Beckie said only a couple of journalists stuck around for the REST of the day’s events which included a teach-in at Shiloh Baptist Church, and a worship service. The whole event, including the National Press Club breakfast, was part of a two-day symposium on the prophetic witness of the African American Church, sponsored by the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference.  Yeah, I know, they had deadlines to meet and stories to file. Too bad though - they might have learned that there’s more to this whole “prophetic witness” thing than they can contain inside a set of quotation marks.

Brings to mind a great line from another prophet, Bob Dylan: “I’ll know my song well, before I start singin’…”

As the rest of the song goes, “…it’s a hard rain’s gonna fall.” 

Herrmann wins SPJ award for environmental article

Just found out this morning that Angela Herrmann of Disciples Home Missions won an award from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for her DisciplesWorld article, “Eating away at the environment” (April 2007) (login required).  Congrats, Angie!

Miscellaneous props

Lots happening in the world of Disciples these days. First off, one of our writers, Lisa Barnett, is graduating in a few weeks from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Lisa is a Disciples M.Div. student and recently won several awards given by the faculty and her peers. She will do well wherever she goes from here. Lisa was part of our General Assembly news staff in ‘07 and has covered the Stalcup Lectures at Brite for us this year, among other things.

Next up, young adult Disciples have been making the news lately. Beau Underwood was interviewed by the Associated Press for this article on young religious voters. [Thanks, Adam Frieberg, for allowing us to use this photo of Beau in a t-shirt that complements the headline!]

Pastors Stacy Spencer and Greg Diaz were also in the news last week. The Commercial Appeal in Memphis did an excellent article about building relationships between Hispanic and black churches.

Finally, DisciplesWorld won 7 awards at the Associated Church Press conference last week in Dallas, including a runner-up award in the Best Denominational Magazine category. I mention this not so much to brag, as to say “thanks” to all those who supported the magazine through a tough financial year in 2007. Without advertisers, subscribers, donors, and readers, we would not be able to do the work that we do. It is a privelege to represent Disciples and an honor to tell your stories.

UPDATE 4/29/08: Lisa Barnett’s awards were the Colby D. Hall Award, and the Student Pastoral Ministry Award. She graduates on May 10.   RW

Wright and King

Bob Cornwall, on his “Ponderings on a Faith Journey” blog http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com/, makes some interesting observations about the whole Jeremiah Wright controversy. While checking those out though, I started reading through some really interesting stuff he posted regarding the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, on April 4.

Bob includes a link to King’s “Mountaintop” speech and excerpts a piece by Michael Eric Dyson in the LA Times as reminders that King’s calls for justice became stronger and less palatable to many in the years since his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. By 1968, he was losing popularity for his willingness to take on the Vietnam War, among other reasons, and he may have been losing hope that the nation could really make racial progress.

Since his death, as Dyson points out in his recent Time Magazine piece called ”The Burdens of Martyrdom,” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1726040,00.html) remembrances of King tend to portray him more like he was in the early 1960s, in the “I Have a Dream” days.  Bob compiles examples of some of King’s rhetoric toward the end of his life, which sounds not all that far off from Jeremiah Wright’s.  All of this is not to disparage King, but to point out how much our collective memory has forgotten. 

Improved race relations are a great thing, but we have a long way to go and we don’t have to “whitewash” history to achieve them.

Speaking of race relations, the United Church of Christ is calling for a new national dialogue on race. (http://www.disciplesworld.com/newsArticle.html?wsnID=13237 )

Wherefore art thou, Disciples of Christ? Per my last post, now WOULD be an appropriate time for the leaders of the UCC’s partner denomination to step up. Perhaps they will.

Editor’s note: an apology for including the links in this post. WordPress switched its blog interface and it’s not allowing me to link the usual way.