Challenges for Churches: A Season of Epiphany Message from Dean Moore

Challenges for Churches

We are in the Christian season of Epiphany – a season of special meaning for Christians but with a message at least partially apropos to persons in other faiths. The focus is on spreading light and doing the work of Jesus – the work of love – in the world. To quote Howard Thurman, this is the season when “the work of Christmas begins.” In such a season, churches are challenged to ponder their missions and spiritual-ethical life, even when the earth’s family is reeling from tragedy after tragedy.

The World Is Hurting Too Much for Faith Communities to be Fainthearted

While the School of Theology has been in winter recess, our neighbors and the world have experienced devastation. Earthquakes and aftershocks in Puerto Rico have killed at least one person, injured many others, left thousands homeless, and strained the already strained infrastructures. In the Philippines, 30,000 people have fled their homes in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption with another expected. Fires have swept across much of Australia, destroying animals and habitats in heart-breaking numbers, fueled by the effects of global warming. The United States has walked to the precipice of war with Iran. Five faithful Jews were murdered during Hanukah celebrations in a rabbi’s home in New York City, and the West Freeway Church of Christ in Fort Worth experienced the shooting of two members (one with family connections with one of our students) and the shooter. During the same days, the 2019 statistics are rolling in, marking a continued high rate of police shootings of people of color, with the proportion of African Americans shot being 2.5 times higher than that of whites and with high comparative percentages for Native American and Latinx peoples as well.

The Challenge Is to Live from the Center of Faith

These and other devastations challenge churches and all faith communities to find the center of their mission or purpose and to live courageously into it. This challenge calls for courageous searching of ourselves and reshaping of our visions for a future of genuine hope. This is true for all faith communities, but I will relate it below to the United Methodist Church (UMC) due to questions erupting in the public press. Before I proceed, I want to emphasize strongly that BU School of Theology is committed to support and include all people, to honor their dignity, and to stand unequivocally for justice and compassion. We are not perfect in our efforts, but we will not abandon our commitment. We are also committed to welcome persons in all varieties of Methodist and Wesleyan theological traditions and to welcome persons in the wide range of ecumenically Christian and interfaith traditions, as well as those who are searching or unaligned. These commitments run deep, and they will not change. Our Wesleyan Student Association, for example, has enacted these commitments by voting to be a Reconciling Organization. We do not know what future structures will bring, but our challenge is to live into our deep commitments with ever-increasing efforts to learn together and sow compassion and justice.

The UMC Challenge Is to Find its Best Possible Direction

Some of you have asked me to comment on the latest United Methodist effort to offer an alternative to the “Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation,” which is not yet a full proposal, but which is now being developed into proposed legislation. Only then can the conversation examine details, and only in General Conference will the decisions be made. Until then, the conversations and decisions, remain open. Now is the time for much more conversation in STH, local churches, and other venues.

The two major directions of the Protocol are to provide for a separation of churches that identify as “traditionalist” if those churches so choose and to provide for a United States regional conference within the structures of the UMC. The significance of the regional conference is that the UMC, as a body, would no longer require agreement on all matters in The Book of Discipline; instead, the UMC in the U.S. would have regional flexibility in decision-making, which central conferences outside the US already have. (See details on the Protocol on websites listed at the end of this letter.)

The Protocol was developed by the most representative group of plan-developers thus far, and it is grounded in sustained conversation and mediation. For these reasons, some have named this as the “best next step.” At the same time, some people express a wish that the planners would have represented even more diversity, with more representation from LGBTQIA, African, young, and more wide-ranging ethnic communities. Many also want to ensure that, if such a plan were to be implemented, it would be accompanied by removal of all restrictive language regarding human sexuality and would include other assurances that justice would prevail in the continuing United Methodist Church. The conversations continue.

What must we do?

In the BU School of Theology, our challenge is to keep praying and talking about movements in the UMC, the ecumenical church, the interfaith community, and the larger world. They all affect one another. The challenge further is to open ourselves to the deep conversations we have already begun and to conduct them with the greatest of honesty, compassion, and respect so we all may learn and live into our best selves.

With appreciation for all of you,

Mary Elizabeth

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