Dear United Methodist Church (from Jacy Grannis)

Dear UMC, I was raised by a very religious, evangelical, single mother. One of her great fears which she voiced to my brother and I on multiple occasions was that we would grow up homosexual due to some lack of male influence in our lives. She saw the gay bogeyman everywhere in popular culture; and while it is safe to say I found...excessive...her concern that there might be gay musicians in the classical music I was listening to, I came away from high school thinking that homosexuality was at best not very good and probably pretty deviant.

But then, in college, I actually met people who openly identified as homosexual. And it was clear that I had to rethink what I'd accepted. I very quickly saw that these people were...people. They weren't any better, or any worse, than any of the other college students I met. They studied the same, they relaxed the same, there was no peddling of homosexual hedonism--the only "homosexual agenda" was to try to educate their fellow students that they were just people, people who didn't want vitriol and hate and bigotry directed their way any more than any human would want those things directed their way. I realized that when "gay" was abstract, when I didn't really know any "gay" people, it was easy to accept the demonization, but when it became concrete, when there were faces attached to those labels, I simply could not justify holding those hateful views about these people, about my friends. Now, I'd love to be able to say I immediately and fully realized the error of my ways and became an advocate for fighting bigotry and homophobia, but that wouldn't be true. It took me time to fully shed my prejudice, but I knew in my heart that it was the right thing, that I could never justify to my heart believing any differently about my homosexual friends than my straight.

I suspect there are people in the UMC who also know that this bigotry is wrong, but who hold on to it because they believe it is tied in to loving their God. And that, quite frankly, is the fault of the United Methodist Church. Not uniquely, of course, many groups of Christians also help to perpetuate that bigotry and hatred, but while we can't set those houses in order, we can look at our own. The UMC is absolutely to be faulted for continuing to perpetuate a hateful doctrine which holds that homosexual actions is incompatible with Christianity.

And what makes that so truly hateful is that when you actually know people who are homosexual, you realize it's not something they're choosing, it's a fundamental part of who they are. So in saying that homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity, it's really saying that homosexuals themselves are incompatible with Christianity. I'm sure there are those in the UMC who would be fine if the result of that doctrine is that the GLBT members of the UMC all decide to go ahead and leave, go to some other denomination which is "less biblical" and "isn't really Christian". But the problem with that is that just as you're never going to pray the gay out of existing members, even if they all leave, as long as the members of the UMC continue to have children, those children will continue to grow up having all the different varieties of human sexuality. Which means it's not just about bigotry and hate directed at adult members of the church, but about bigotry and hate directed at the most vulnerable members of the church.

We can do better. I'd really like to believe that the UMC does not stand with the delegate who compared homosexuality to bestiality on the floor of the General Conference last week. I'd really like to believe that the UMC rejects that hate. But the failure of the General Conference to even agree to say there are potentially valid arguments on both sides, that we agree to disagree...that sends a clear message that the UMC is standing for exclusion and bigotry towards its own members. It's tragic, it's appalling, and in the aftermath I wrote my pastor that it's difficult to see why any decent person would want to remain a part of such a church. I still wonder that a bit, but when it comes down to it, I don't have to attend church on Sunday with the many members of the UMC who voted for hate, I get to attend church at our wonderful local church with a bunch of wonderful, friendly people who make it the most welcoming church home I have ever known.

My home church is great, and while that's wonderful, that's not enough. I want my church, its members, and GLBT people everywhere to be able to look at the UMC as a model for God's Love, for the acceptance which Jesus practiced. I said earlier that I suspect there are other members in the UMC who also want that but who believe the UMC when it says that homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity. And I'd like to say a few words to them that I've adapted from a little debate I had online in the aftermath of the General Conference. It didn't sway the gentleman I was debating with, but I hope it helps someone else, that it gives them that other way of looking at Christ and the Bible to move forward in their own personal battle to fight their own prejudices:

I think a major problem with The Church is a reluctance to really take the New Covenant to its logical conclusion. We look at the words of Jesus, at the two commands which fulfill *all* the prophets and the Law, and we say "yeah, yeah, that's wonderful...but that's kind of simple, we want more rules!" And so we refer back to the Old Testament, look at the Law, find bits of it which we decide to canonicalize; but there's really nothing in what Jesus taught which justifies doing that.

There are but two commands, to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, whole soul, whole mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself. Those are so much more difficult to keep than any number of Mosaic or Pauline rules...and maybe that's why we take such comfort in using those other rules as proxies for the two we're actually supposed to follow. But if you just focus on those two commands, how foolish is it to look at your neighbor, who also loves God, and to set yourself in judgment over whether the committed, loving relationship he or she wants to have is pleasing to God or not. How foolish, how prideful, and how utterly unrelated to keeping the commands Jesus gave us.

Defining morality *is* difficult. There are rules. Two of them. The difficult part of defining morality is using our God-given reason to judge how we should behave, while always looking back to those two rules as our first principles. If you can't defend a rule from first principle...something isn't right. Appealing to Moses or Paul doesn't make it better, it leads you further from Grace, from the New Covenant, and from Jesus.

Fortunately, we don't have to start from scratch in defining morality. There are moral rules, Jesus gave them both. All other "rules" need to be compatible with those two, including the many rules which Paul and the other writers of the Bible lay out. We must us our reason and discernment when reading those other rules to determine which are compatible with the Great Commandment, and which are not.

 Defining our morality as resting on the foundation of the Great Commandment doesn't mean we can do anything we want as long as it's from “loooove baaaby!” People lie, steal, cheat, kidnap, and even kill motivated by "love", but not by a love which they extend to every neighbor. You can't do whatever you want because you did it out of love. However, you *can* judge what you do based on how it is loving towards everyone.

In the end, it comes down to this: I know, in my heart of hearts, that when two consenting adults love each other, it is not loving of me towards them to tell them that their love is wrong. I don't believe their love is harming them or anyone else, and I believe that it's a beautiful thing when any human finds that in life, that person they love who loves them back. I'd say that we can agree to disagree, but that isn't apparently very UMC, we're not allowed to even agree that we disagree. I am fully at peace with saying that their love is Godly, that it is compatible with being in right relationship with Jesus, and that it is not in any way incompatible with being a good Christian or a moral human. I think it's sad that people are so threatened by it, that there are so many other evils in the world which are unquestionably wrong, so much suffering, death, and destruction, and it's unfortunate that we can't even agree to disagree about something so trivial to unite against so many truly terrible things.

Sincerely,
Jacy Grannis

(Jacy and his wife, Charity, are members of Northaven Church)

If you are a Northaven member/friend who would like to share your feelings about General Conference, email or write to Eric or Mindy in the church office.