wfn.org | Board celebrates, says 'sorry' for its own history

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Oct. 10, 2000    News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202)
546-8722·Washington  10-31-34-71B  {460}

NOTE: This report is a sidebar to UMNS story #459.

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - An unusual litany was used when members of the United
Methodist Board of Church and Society gathered in the Simpson Chapel of the
denomination's building on Capitol Hill Oct. 7.

Before touring the refurbished building and walking around the U.S. Capitol
grounds on a crisp fall morning, board members joined in "A Litany of
Remembrance and Repentance," written for the occasion by staff executive
Jaydee Hanson.

Failures for which the board asked forgiveness included the fact that the
United Methodist Building was segregated for the first 35 years of its
existence and that it was many years before women became executives at the
board.

The litany celebrated the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s preaching in the
same chapel and his use of an office in the building as his base in
Washington. Also praised were the marches for women's rights that were
planned in the building.

"We repent of the years during which we did no work with Native Americans
despite their being one of the most impoverished groups in America," the
litany leader said. That was followed by acknowledgment that the "Longest
March" of Native Americans ended at the building and that the participants
were invited to stay. The board members also celebrated that the agency was
the first in the church to have a top staff executive who is Native American
- the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, a member of the Seneca nation.

Regret was expressed that one reason the building was put on Capitol Hill
was to fight the ascendance of Catholic immigrants. "We celebrate that the
United Methodist Building has become an ecumenical center, and that today
Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Muslims work together in coalitions based
in this building."

The litany also acknowledged past failures to model ecological practices,
and board members celebrated recycling and energy efficiencies effected by
the building's recent renovation. 

"We repent that we have too often followed customs and laws that we knew
were wrong," the leader said. "Keep us from inaction out of fear of
conflict. Help us use this building and this board to bring the light of
Jesus Christ to all the world."
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United Methodist News Service
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