wfn.org | United Methodists continue 'repentance' actions

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Feb. 12, 2003  News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212)870-38037New York
10-31-71B{071}

By United Methodist News Service

In 2000, United Methodists officially pledged to follow a path toward racial
healing when the denomination's top legislative body, General Conference,
adopted the "Act of Repentance for Racism."

Now, as the 2004 General Conference draws near, the United Methodist
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, which sponsored
the Act of Repentance, is encouraging the denomination's annual (regional)
conferences to continue to respond to that call through both study and
worship.

The two major action items from the Act of Repentance are the call for local
congregations to engage in study sessions using the commission's study guide,
Steps Toward Wholeness: Learning and Repentance, and for each annual
conference to hold a liturgical act of repentance.

Actual participation by conferences "varies from those who have done
practically nothing to those who are taking it very seriously," according to
Ruth Daugherty, a former commission member who is serving as a consultant for
the project.

By the end of 2002, 31 annual conferences already had held an Act of
Repentance worship service. Another 29 have scheduled such services for their
yearly gatherings this spring and summer, and at least two are planning
services for 2004. Only two conferences have not yet indicated when they will
have the service, Daugherty said.

"Some of the conferences have really been astounding in their plans," she
added. The New England Conference, for example, will present a policy
statement at its annual conference in June "which would give steps for
various organizations and groupings in the conference to continue work for
reconciliation," she said.

Anne Marshall, an executive with the Commission on Christian Unity, said she
encourages conferences and local churches to use the study guide before
having the worship service when possible.

The purpose of the study guide is to both acknowledge how church structures
have perpetuated racism and to learn to build bridges of trust and
understanding among people of various cultures. Ideally, groups of six to 12
people each meet for six sessions for study and discussion. The end result is
to make "a commitment to continue the journey toward wholeness" and determine
what actions can facilitate that goal.

The 2000 resolution, "Act of Repentance for Racism," points out that the
United Methodist Church and its predecessors "have perpetuated the sin of
racism" for years and need to make amends for that institutionalized racism,
particularly against African Americans.

It was racism, for example, that drove African Americans from Methodist
churches as long ago as 1787 and led them to form the African Methodist
Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal
denominations. Even those who stayed were segregated further through the
establishment of the Central Jurisdiction in 1939, a non-geographic
jurisdiction that was abolished in 1968.

Many conferences have featured speakers from the historic black denominations
as part of their liturgical act of repentance for racism. In the Desert
Southwest Conference, for example, the Rev. Benjamin Thomas, pastor of Tanner
Chapel AME Church in Phoenix, dared everyone present to "take this evening
beyond this room." The Northwest Texas and Florida conferences also featured
the history of American Methodism and of African-American members in their
worship services.

In North Alabama, Bishop Robert Fannin told the Act of Repentance worship
participants how the event's planning team, meeting in the conference center
cabinet room, had noticed that none of the African-American Central
Jurisdiction bishops were included among the pictures of bishops who had
served in the conference. Since then, pictures of four of those bishops have
been added to the room.

During the service itself, video accounts of the racist past of both Alabama
and the United Methodist Church were shown; testimonies were given by
African-American church members; and strips of sackcloth were draped over the
shoulders of participants.

Information about resources for the Acts of Repentance for Racism is
available online at www.gccuic-umc.org or by calling the commission office at
(212) 749-3553.

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United Methodist News Service
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