- Last Updated: Friday, 03 May 2019 02:17
- Published: Monday, 11 February 2019 21:10
Author's Introdution: I, as a now 85 year old African American former “Footsoldier” in the Civil Rights Movement, rejoice when my brothers and sisters from my “African Motherland”, dare to speak truth to power. If truth be told, since 1972, the UMC obsession with homosexuality has sidelined mission and ministry to confront and transform USA and World, anti-black racism. There are similarities between Negrophobia and Homophibia that the UMC must address. May the February/Black History Month General Conference, determine this is THE Way Forward! Gil Caldwell
Have we been blind to a coup taking place in the UMC?
February 7th (16 days to the February 23rd opening of the “Very Special General Conference”)
“Women’s Theology, liberation theology, third world theology, theologies of human rights, their primary accent is on man’s ideas and problems, instead of God’s truth.” - Rev. Charles Keysor, founder of GOOD NEWS, July 1966. Quoted in “The Real UMC Crisis: Loss of U.S. Political Power to the Growing Church in Africa”, UM Insight, Rev. Lloyd Nyarota, an African minister in the United Church of Canada.
“To them (Traditionalists), Africans, are only good as pawns to get their votes so they can achieve their grand plan, which is to dissolve our Church. They hastily crafted a new plan they would use as a smoke screen to hoodwink African votes into dissolving the denomination using homosexuality.”
We have seen how white Christian evangelicals in the USA have used abortion as a smokescreen to gain power. They have made the unborn more sacred than the born. And, they have set aside their loudly proclaimed “Biblical values” in order to identify with the occupant of the White House and the power of the presidency.
Nyarota suggests more of a power grab by our Traditionalist brother and sisters than I suspected. A plain spoken colleague of mine has said that, “If you can convince folk God dictated the Bible rather than inspired it, then you no longer need the God who dictated it. ‘Christian teaching’ can exclude whomever, because God is no longer present to interfere: God is dead.” The prejudicial use of the Bible to suppress blacks, women, and now lgbtqi persons and same sex couples, demeans, diminishes, and distorts God, Jesus, and the Bible.
I remember well my preacher father and his Central Jurisdiction clergy colleagues saying something like this: “God is not dead. I spoke to God this morning, and I know God heard me.” God must weep as the UMC since 1972, has allowed some of our brothers and sisters to “use” DNA bias against homosexuality, to harm the ministry of the UMC. Using Scripture to justify this bias has been an “abomination”. The anti-black misinterpretation of “Noah’s Curse/Mark of Cain” to suppress blacks in Africa, the USA and the world, was a forerunner to today’s efforts to suppress homosexuals. “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
Liberation Theology is writ large and present in the Bible. If God is abstract and impersonal, God is not concerned about the particularities of my being. But, thank God for James Cone and Gayraud Wilmore, and Black Liberation Theology. John Wesley is not particular enough to sustain me amidst the un-named White Theology of the UMC. But Black Liberation Theology and the Liberation Theologies of other sub groups, enables and empowers us to know God hears, identifies, cares and embraces us, even as some who call themselves followers of Jesus, reject us.
May those who follow Jesus, be visible among the delegates to General Conference. May they “Stay Woke” and resist those who seek to accomplish a coup d’etat.
Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell
retired clergy member of the Mountain Sky Conference,Western Jurisdiction
Asbury Park, New Jersey
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