Thank you for that post, Joe. I found it moving and helpful.
I wasn't intending to suggest we should have kicked the matter into the long
grass. My concern was for the essentially good people in our congregations who
may find it hard to cope with what may seem like drastic change. As I write
that, I am aware that there are others who feel that change has been far too
long in coming.
This discussion has made me think and helped me examine my own position, and I
would not now write in the way I did when I sent my first post. I pray for the
grace to be able to help others whose view of Conference's decisions may be
more influenced by the headlines than the facts.
John Barnett
On 24 June 2021 at 10:57 "jn.adams" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John writes - Why go for a vote that will inevitably divide us, when we
might have been able to find a middle way?
The current situation has been exactly that since the 80s. We have been
divided all these years and It hasn't been cost free for the huge numbers
who are LGBTQ+ their families and friends. I understand completely the
points MET put forward because I was a card carrying member of EA and HEADWAY
the forerunner of MET for many many years and hold still an evangelical zeal
. But the middle way was a promise that we would journey together - perhaps
it wasn’t that for some and it’s hard not to think some never wanted
inclusion or equality and saw lgbt people as a problem to be tolerated but
never cherished.
Constantly saying let’s kick this into the long grass is desperately
hurtful. We have talked about this prayed about it and I pray listened to
others for decades - if we haven’t that probably means we have not engaged
because we didn’t want to.
The idea that only liberal unbiblical lgbt people want change in this
area is nonsense- the parents / grandparents / friends Who have learned to
love their child’s / grandchild’s / friends sexuality and understand it was
never a choice have moved so many on. The experience of lgbt ministers being
loving faithful biblically sound pastors has changed minds too. And it has
been such a slow and lifetime long journey.
Just as people had to learn god was leading on slavery or child labour or
women in leadership the road has been rocky and many have struggled to accept
the spirit is at work, yet the evidence of the spirit working seems so
obvious to me. So many churches and synods across our nation have understood
that god is at work. It’s not just been a sudden lurch to unbelief.
What I am unsure people realise I think is how LGBTQ+ people are made to
feel and I wish we would think of these when we say we can push this down
into the long grass and wait it out. I like many I’m our churches and
communities was told I was unacceptable to God, a mistake that proves sin is
at work. And much much worse.
The ridiculous gay conversion nonsense used on me and countless others
caused life long mental damage to us and those we love. If I pray that your
ethnicity be changed by God to Jewish before god could love you, or asian
or black and that only then would you be acceptable to your church your
friends and your God I would be condemning you to a life of deep despair
sadness and futility, suicide even, or pushing you out of church as many have
been .
And it would be completely insane and impossible . Sexuality isn’t a
choice anymore than ethnicity. If it was who would choose this hate riddled
path?.
The beating I received to drive the devil out happened at the instance
of a Methodist minister and I married a woman because he said that would
confirm and indeed make the cure. After almost 25 years marriage my ex wife
was left scarred and deeply damaged by that ridiculous policy as have I and
our children, and only after many suicide attempts did I escape and finally
realise that what I have preached to others actually applied to me, that I
too was fearfully and wonderfully made. That God didn’t hate me. It wasn’t
loving or kind or necessary and we should be ashamed as a Church that
happened and indeed still happens. Ashamed of the hurt we have caused. Yet
many of us think it should continue.
We have lived with a middle ground that has oppressed people like me and
left us damaged and hurt by church district and Connexion who think it is
acceptable to allow churches ministers and circuits and indeed Connexional
office holders to treat me like scum that pollutes the whole. I was told
homophobia is acceptable just like racism and sexism. Utter rubbish. We need
to be Christ like once again and start challenging unChristian behaviour -
not sexuality but hatred and prejudice .
People don’t have to get on with me but they don’t get to abuse me
anymore than they can a woman or a black or Asian minister. Yet they do and
we pretend it is acceptable.
Yet No one needs to leave - we hold contradictory positions on so many
things that do not destroy our fellowship; war, pacifism, abortion, sex
outside marriage, cohabitation, divorce, Palestine, the place of other
faiths, hell, heaven, the role of women, politics, taxation etc. There are
Methodists who still won’t receive HC from a woman or a black person. I am
astounded and repulsed by that and want to scream that we allow it. There are
still places where a woman cannot be stationed where a black minister cannot
be stationed, where I cannot. We accept that though I wish we would grow and
understand how horrible such things are. That they are against the spirit not
just of liberal laws but the spirit of Jesus.
I still cannot understand why my sexuality is such a stumbling block or
why it would cause people to break fellowship. I didn’t leave when I was told
if I walked into a church everyone would leave because of my sin polluting
the church. Or when I saw the racism exisited in the church. So many lgbt
people and their friends and allies have stayed for decades waiting for the
conversation and understanding. We are still here, serving faithfully. And
hoping that god and the church will stand with us.
The MET document worries me on many points BUT these are part of my
Methodist family, and more important they are family in Christ and I won’t
walk away from them or break fellowship . These are members of churches I
grew in the faith in and are people I have served and served with. And i
would be denying the faith Jesus called me to have if I didn’t love them and
see the, as family. Which is I guess why I am hurting so much reading posts
that threaten resignations I just don’t understand because I will not walk
away or give up, I will continue to stay and continue to know that my calling
and my church are worthy of my commitment and presence. God never called any
of us to live in Holy huddles or enclaves separate from the rest of the world
rejecting those we don’t think are our enough . That is not the Methodist or
the Jesus way.
No GILUU doesn’t require anyone church or individual to act against their
views but does ask that we respect one another. Paul Smith is a wonderful
example of the journey I think we have made as a denomination over the last
decades in our church , proof I think that the spirit is at work.
Joe
On 24 Jun 2021, 09:39 +0100, methmins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, wrote:
> > Why go for a vote that will inevitably divide us, when we
might have been able to find a middle way?
>
