My Comics
Gen’l Confluence Cometh, Page 9
In real time, it is the last day of The Postponed General Conference of 2020, happening in 2024. So much has happened in legislation, over and over again unshackling and unbinding The United Methodist Church from its painful past. Through this series of Wesley Bros Comics, I am processing with you and satirizing our processes, with my own emotions all OVER the place. I was able to be present in Charlotte through Wednesday, where the denomination made national headlines when we reversed the ban on “practicing” gay clergy. I have followed the livestream for most of the conference, as we successfully created a regional structure intended to allow for greater missional impact that makes sense for the different cultural contexts we experience around the world. I intend to write several more pages in this series processing some of the major changes, as well as a hopeful epilogue pursuing the most important question of the day, “Now what?”
But for today’s comic, I needed to acknowledge, poke some fun at, and also hopefully offer a redemptive arc for the story of HIDE-RA, (the Harmony In Doctrinal Exclusion – Renewal Association), introduced early in this series. It was no secret that those leading the charge of disaffiliation intentionally left delegates who did not yet leave the denomination, but who plan to leave, in the hope that they might be able to sway elections to keep the disaffiliation process open. I make no complaints about that, and I don’t accuse them of dirty politics here. It’s all politics, and that’s actually kind of a smart plan on their part, if you ask me. What I do push back against is the language I read in their newsletters, and especially that I hear from them on the floor of General Conference, a narrative that has been told from the beginning of this denomination, and is at the core of the new denomination that splintered off of us. It’s a narrative that we are all capable of, so my intention is not to point the finger away from myself and only at “them.” But it is a narrative that defines ones own identity by who is excluded, a narrative of persecution when those we exclude are welcomed to the table. It is so easy for any of us to become the pharisees, who walk away from the movement because we can’t abide who Jesus has brought along with him.
In today’s comic, I have intentionally put the words of belonging in the mouth of William Phillip Otterbein (as Batman), who famously recognized what was in common and declared, “We are brothers.” My belonging at the table of Christ as a gay clergy has finally been recognized by the church, and in that recognition, many have decided that they do not wish to stay at a table where someone like me belongs. And yet, I will continue to hold on to the hope that Body of Christ is larger than our denominations and our divisions. So many “people like me” have had to walk away because we weren’t welcome, because the church has deeply wounded us. We were not given a choice of belonging in the first place. We were waiting for even the crumbs to fall from the church’s table. That is not the same thing as leaving because “people like me” were finally, fully welcome. It’s just not the same.
I hope you’ll tune in for the remaining pages in the series here! And I hope you find time today to breathe, to rest, to give thanks that God’s love is wide enough, and be still…