Our Movement Forward Preamble
>>>We envision a vibrant church living the Gospel and uncompromising on Jesus’ love ethic of full inclusion and affirmation.
>>>We proclaim the full liberation of Persons of Color + Queer + Trans (PoC+Q+T) People in The United Methodist Church.
>>>We pursue an intersectional and anti-colonial framework to social justice and the dismantling of white supremacy, cisgender-heteronormativity, and patriarchy. We declare that there can be no compromising of full inclusion in any way.
We are Easter people, and during these Great Fifty Days we are committed to God’s liberated future. We have experienced the death of a denomination that was crucified by the special General Conference. United Methodism as we once knew it is dead. Bathed in tears yet soaked in grace, for weeks we wondered and waited in the in-between space of Holy Saturday. Still we clung to our faith that Resurrection comes and life bursts forth again and again.
Today we rejoice, because the spirit of resurrection is upon us as we anticipate Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is moving, illumining our hearts, and revealing a new expression of Methodism. It is to this fresh, dynamic expression that we are called. We must do ourselves what neither the Judicial Council, nor Council of Bishops, nor any part of the institution would do: We declare the full liberation of PoC+Q+T Christians as the only way forward.
The Holy Spirit has been unleashed, and we are no longer captive to unjust systems in our denomination that oppress and crucify marginalized bodies. Time and again, these systems fail to live out the rules of the Wesleyan way. In fact, they have repeatedly broken the first rule to do no harm. This betrayal of Methodism catalyzes the unraveling of the UMC. As the connection crumbles, we no longer settle for crumbs.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be compromised. Jesus of Nazareth—the poor, brown itinerant preacher of first-century, Roman-occupied Palestine—embodied unconditional love and radical solidarity with the marginalized. His public ministry manifested Isaiah’s prophetic commitment to the poor, broken-hearted, and oppressed. Standing in this tradition, we declare the “year of the Liberator’s favor”: the emergent church celebrates, and not merely tolerates, PoC+Q+T people as beloved of God.
PoC+Q+T persons are created in the imago dei, the image of a loving God who declared the creation “good.” PoC+Q+T Christians are God’s good gifts to the Church. There can be no concession of any kind to those who oppose the full inclusion of PoC+Q+T Christians in the life of The United Methodist Church.
The greatest threat to queer liberation is centrism, not conservatism. Though not a separatist or anarchist, Jesus certainly was a radical—not a mainstream centrist. He demanded of his followers significant sacrifice (Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-30). Moderation is the process that conditions the marginalized to capitulate to the status quo and be content with crumbs. “Our great stumbling block” is the moderate who is more devoted to “church unity” than to justice (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”). As an emerging expression of church, faithful to the revelation of the church triumphant, we spit such lukewarm visions of moderation out of our mouths (Revelation 3:16).
As liberationists—those who strive for collective liberation of PoC+Q+T—we reject gradualism and incrementalism. We declare “progressive” as an inadequate descriptor for this moment. Progress is relative; liberation is an absolute. Mere progress participates in gradualism that whispers: “Be content that things are better today than yesterday.”
To be PoC+Q+T—and to be in radical solidarity—is to be non-conforming and non-complicit with injustice. We claim queerness primarily as an evangelical, ethical — and not only a sexual — orientation. Queer is a relationship to the status quo that rejects the spiritual and moral normalization of harm to the most socially vulnerable people in our church and society. Queer Christian liberation nurtures global relationships of environmental justice, human flourishing, and dignity for those systematically denied it.
Queerness is rooted deeply in the biblical witness of the non-complicit, non-conforming, non-conventional, and non-compromising Jesus of Nazareth. To Queer is to overturn the tables of wrongdoing, just as an enraged Jesus confronted usury and toppled the tables of the loan sharks. As Wesleyan Christians, we pursue the queer Christian endeavor of spreading “scriptural holiness throughout the land.”
Our primary commitment, as baptized Christians, is to the fullness of the Gospel and liberative change, and not to denominational preservation. While we do not rejoice in schism, we will not sacrifice PoC+Q+T people on the idolatrous altar of “church unity.” Emerging expressions of Methodism cannot start with coalitions that preserve and institutionalize oppression under the guise of “conscience,” “big tent Methodism,” “contextual ministry,” “religious freedom,” and “tolerance of all viewpoints.” We need something entirely new.
Guided by the Holy Spirit, we seek to create an expression of Methodism that is Christ-full and centers PoC+Q+T voices and their lived experiences in a vibrant, emergent Church where full access and inclusion with regard to membership, leadership, ordination, and sacred unions is the mandate, not the exception.
During this season of uncertainty, we recognize the tension in our midst. There is great urgency to clearly define our shared commitments and vision. It is long past time for the church to embody its baptismal vows to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. We are called to learn from the ancestral wisdom of our past so that we can move forward, discerning and creating a new, revitalized movement and church.
Yes, we envision a vibrant church committed to the gospel and uncompromising on Jesus’s love ethic of full inclusion. We are liberationists who intentionally center PoC+T+Q voices and experiences. We actively resist white supremacy, heterosexism, sexism, patriarchy, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, colonialism, classism, and establishmentism. We choose not to support the institution of the Empire.
We have decided to follow Christ to/in the margins—and we’re not turning back.