School of Theology Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore urged the United Methodist Church to “make space” within its community for those who identify as LGBTQ Friday. Moore published the message ahead of the church’s 2019 General Conference.
A special session of the General Conference is voting on competing plans to either remove or strengthen the church’s current ban on same-sex weddings and the ordination of gay clergy. The conference is located in St. Louis, Missouri, and began Friday and will finish Tuesday.
The final vote will take place Tuesday. A preliminary vote on Monday showed that the plan to maintain the existing LGBTQ policy received nearly 56 percent support.
Moore said that the church’s current language condemns homosexuality and the ordination of open members of the LGBTQ community. This language, she said, has been a part of the church for more than four decades.
“The restrictive language first entered into the Book of Discipline in 1972, and efforts to remove it have been unsuccessful every four years when we’ve had a general conference since then,” Moore said. “In fact, some of the language has become stricter.”
In her message, Moore wrote that exclusion of LGBTQ people from the church leads to isolation in the community and that teachings that promote exclusion of certain groups can have dangerous consequences.
“When a young gay man commits suicide or a lesbian woman is thrown out of her home, something is badly wrong,” Moore wrote. “When a trans person can find no job, no church home, no acceptance anywhere, something is badly wrong.”
Moore wrote that the teachings of the church “bear much responsibility” for these issues.
“Our teachings give a rationale for rejection, hatred, and denying the full dignity of precious children of God,” she wrote. “Whatever happens in this General Conference, the church needs to do justice.”
Walter Fluker, a professor of ethical leadership in STH, said he is hopeful that the church will be able to make room for the LGBTQ community but is aware that making changes in institutions can be difficult.
“I’m hopeful, but it’s a monitored hope,” Fluker said. “It’s a hope that I have to check every now and then because social structures tend to hold fast and can’t easily accommodate to change … and the church is not unlike other institutions when it comes to the change, it’ll take a lot of courage, deep conviction, as Mary Elizabeth suggests, justice and compassion.”
Fluker said change could be made if the church was committed to working toward a future where there is space for differences.
“How do we create space for the other, for the one who is different,” he said, “and to be able to do that in the community that both recognizes and respects different, that embraces and appreciates difference?”
Bryan Stone, associate dean of academic affairs in STH, wrote in an email that while he does not know what the conference’s decision will mean for the church or STH, he believes that justice, inclusion and equity are values intrinsic to the Christian faith.
“I also believe that one of the jobs of a School of Theology in the Methodist tradition is to consistently and thoughtfully ‘queer’ customary readings of scripture,” he wrote, “and to interrogate and challenge theologies and practices that are used to exclude and oppress persons based on race, gender, sexuality, or gender expression.”
Stone wrote that he also hopes that the church will decide to embrace the LGBTQ community.
Nina Castano, a sophomore in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said she thinks that church should be a place where LGBTQ people feel safe.
“Most people often feel safe in their own church, and I don’t think it would be fair for the LGBTQ community to not feel safe in their own church,” Castano said.
Hannah Schweitzer, a sophomore in the College of Communication, said she is glad that the leaders in the School of Theology are trying to make change for the better.
“It makes me really happy because I think of the School of Theology as a leader in the church community,” Schweitzer said, “so the idea that a leader wants to make good change, it seems very hopeful that that could be passed down so that those underneath them could make those changes, as well.”
Mia Cathell contributed reporting.
Viva Dean Moore!
Thank you, Dean Moore.
I am sure that John and Charles Wesley, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and The Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman,..would all disagree,…with Mary E. Moore,…if not turn over in their graves,…with her ‘mindless’ rant,..against the Word of God. She also stated that she would collect memorabilia of the Confederacy,..and suggested that such an effort could keep momentos of the Jefferson Davis’ followers in a museum,..in Florida;…because she was from the South. Her ignorance on the ‘unpardonable sins’ of white racism, and homosexuality as well,..have no place in The U.M.C., anywhere! It is equally damning, of her soul, that she even be dean of B.U.S.T.,..with such ignorance-of-mind! She needs to repent,…and gain some genuine faith, as soon as possible! Thank God,..that the, “sick-in-head” allowance efforts for empowerment failed,…and equally so,….steps should be taken to remove the errant female, Mary Moore!
From this comment, I can only assume that you do not know Dean Moore. She is an excellent scholar, an engaging professor, an excellent dean, and a compassionate human being. She would welcome a robust, but civil, discussion of these issues. Your comments, however, are an unacceptable attack on a deeply faithful person. The Holy Spirit runs deep at BUSTH and Dean Moore responds to that Spirit faithfully in all that she does.
Proud to be at STH!