A Call for Antiracist Commitments by Indiana United Methodists

Date: August 17, 2020 

Dear Friends,

At the August 15^th session of the Indiana Annual Conference the following motion was referred for consideration: “In preparing the 2021 budget for the Indiana Annual Conference, the Conference Finance and Administration Commission will set aside 10% of future program ministry budget(s) for antiracism work.”

 Rationale: We have reached a kairos moment in the life our nation and church.  Ours is a time of opportunity, transformation, and an occasion to clearly and directly address the enduring racism that besets our nation, state and church.  In truth, racism is embedded in all of our systems: education, medicine, commerce, housing, law enforcement and, most tragically, even the church. 

 This motion to aside a tithe of conference program budget for antiracism efforts is an opportunity for United Methodists to lead in this critical work.  It would demonstrate again our witness to racial justice through positive and constructive actions. We would thereby demonstrate our commitment to follow the Christ who welcomes all without reservation. Sadly, more than the vestiges of racism survive in our body.  Racism continues to reshape our practices, our ministries and our structures.  By wide majorities our members live and worship in racial enclaves. Membership reports, programming and attendance records since the beginning of the United Methodist Church in 1972 offer abundant evidence of our failure to extend our denomination’s welcome very far beyond that of being a church primarily focused on ministry with and for Whites.  At the same time the racial and ethnic diversity of our state has greatly expanded while our percentages of persons from differing racial groups remains small.

 This is an evangelistic and missional dilemma – and an opportunity.  If Indiana’s youth see our church at all, there is scant evidence that Indiana United Methodism is modeled upon the beloved community of Jesus, where all are welcome.  Antiracist commitments are seldom displayed, whether in camping, leadership initiatives, or church development programs.  It is painful to ask the question, Where do we invest our dollars and our lives in specific and clear ways that confront the sin of racism in our society and in our own church?  Persons of Color now make up more than sixteen percent of Indiana’s population, while our membership percentages of non-white persons is somewhere between three to five percent.

 Tragically, it has taken the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Abery, Elijah McClain, Sandra Bland, Tony McDade, Christian Cooper, Treyvon Martin, Eric Garner, and dozens of others, to awaken our nation to the profound violence and daily bigotry against African Americans.  These murders, and dozens of others, are the most dramatic examples of the ways an acceptance of racism contributes to a societal assault on human decency.  Indiana United Methodists have been far too passive.  This is not a time to claim neutrality or blame some other forces for our tribal and de facto segregated lives.  It is not sufficient to simply claim to be “non-racist.”  This is a moment of gospel opportunity.  This is, potentially, our Kairos moment, when the United Methodist Church in Indiana, can be true to the best of our history, our Evangelical theology, and our better angels.  This is our time to act in bold, antiracist ways. 

 Fifty years ago, James Baldwin wrote “I will flatly say that the bulk of this country’s white population impresses me, and has so impressed me for a very long time, as being beyond any conceivable hope of moral rehabilitation.  They have been white, if I may so put it, too long.” (New York Times, February 2, 1969)

 Robert P. Smith’s book “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” published only this summer, draws on Baldwin’s perception.  Smith’s research is both a deeply disturbing and helpful resource for Christians who seek to take the next steps in confronting the sin of racism.  While much of this research is based on Smith’s own Southern Baptist background, there are ample illustrations for United Methodists and other mainline folks.  Clear evidence of our racist complicity and our deeply embedded racist-worlds-taken-for-granted behaviors is provided.  Fortunately, there are also examples offered of the ways congregations and judicatories have moved from simply talking about racism to taking specific steps to act in constructive and restorative ways to repair what has been broken and reach out in life giving ways.

 This motion, offered and referred on August 15, is a call for the Indiana United Methodist Church to give witness and take responsibility for the damage done to all parties, Blacks (along with other “minorities”) and damage to Whites as well, for too long.  It will require more than preaching to change prejudiced attitudes or attending workshops on inclusion and diversity.  It will require more than a few token examples of racially integrated vacation church schools or charity work with the poor. 

 Antiracism work will involve structural changes, new partnerships and a stepping away from the paternalism that has shaped many of our ministries.  This is a time for seeing the remarkable gifts and resources brought by persons of color already within our churches and in the neighborhoods and communities surrounding them.  It is an opportunity to establish a new template for the long-term health of our congregations and conference that is marked by including new persons and groups.  Such renewal work will require decades of effort and resources.  It will be, however, a key investment in a stronger and healthier future for the church.

 In earlier conversations, I have been appropriately reminded that Bishop Trimble does not need our counsel, advice or wisdom in matters regarding racism so much as he needs us to put action behind our words of hoped for racial reconciliation.  I do not claim to be an expert so much as a long-time observer and a follower of Jesus; I am one who is captured by the hope of the gospel.  Do I think such a change in the budget is easy or likely?  No, and probably not.  Even so, I believe a tithe toward antiracism ministries is essential to matching what we say with what we do – and to sustain United Methodism’s witness in the future.

How might this be done?  There are dozens of ways our pastors and lay leaders can, and I believe would, respond to this call.  Many more ways  than we can imagine.  Attached is a page of “possibilities” that briefly offer ideas for positive antiracism work in Indiana. Prayers for you and with you as you contemplate how best to respond to this time that calls for our repentance and action.

Sincerely,

Philip A. Amerson

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Ten Examples of Potential INUMC Antiracist Activities

There are dozens of ways Indiana United Methodists can act in antiracist ways.  These could begin to repair damage done over the decades by racial violence and brokenness.  Such actions might be mixed and matched together through study, travel, outreach, witness, etc.  A tithe from our conference program budget might:

1)     Reestablish the work of a Commission on Religion and Race in the Annual Conference with funding for such work for the next decade.

2)     Join with our United Methodist Hospitals and other health services in direct, hands-on and prayer-supported, engagement to address the high rates of infant mortality in Indiana.  This is something that is particularly a problem in our minority communities.

3)     Offer annual updates and workshops on the racial makeup of our congregations and populations in each county in a district.  This would offer new insights for persons who mistakenly believe there is “no diversity in our community.”  Several counties have seen significant increases in Hispanic and other non-white populations in the last decade; still many in our churches seem not to be aware.

4)     Provide resources for at least two annual gatherings of persons of color in the conference, pastors and laity.  Mostly they would get to know one another.  Another goal could be to monitor conference actions; or another goal might be to design “learning journeys” with white clergy and laity where they could spend time in prayer, reflection, learning and planning for the future, together.

5)     Review and update existing conference programs, in consultation with African American, Hispanic and Asian educators to offer more racially sensitive and appropriate approaches to strengthening our education, outreach and evangelism.  Persons like the Rev. Vanessa Allen-Brown or Mr. De’Amon Harges and Ms. Seana Murphy of The Learning Tree in Indianapolis would offer valuable assistance.

6)     Encourage every congregation in the conference to establish a partnership with another congregation or group of persons from a different racial or cultural background. This might include regular ways to fellowship and worship with Indiana AME, AMEZ and CME congregations.  One can imagine how remarkable such gatherings these might be if guest lecturers shared insights regarding antiracism options.

7)     Read, study and travel with others.  For example, read the books by Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy) and Robert P. Smith (White Too Long) and take a trip to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama  Or, read Jim Madison’s book on the Klan in Indiana and visit one of the sites, perhaps with a video or face-to-face conversation with Professor Madison.

8)     Join the Community Remembrance Project sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative to offer witness at each of the seven known lynching sites in Indiana.  These are recorded at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and a part of the Community Remembrance Project that seeks to set a Historical Marker at each site.  There is also a gathering of the soil near each site to be placed on display along with the victim’s names at the museum.  Wouldn’t it be “GOOD NEWS” to report that it was the UMC in Indiana that saw memorials placed and services of repentance held in each of location of a lynching.

9)     Identify places where racism has damaged our witness (such as the troubled cross racial appointment at Old North Church in Evansville in 1985 or the closing of City Methodist Church in Gary) and/or locations where we once had a congregation of color that is now vacated.  Hire persons to document these stories and/or share with the conference materials that are already available giving preference to researchers who are persons of color.  Work with pastors in these settings to hold gatherings of repentance and reconciliation.

10)  Ask the Indiana United Methodist Historical Society to research and publish a fuller account of the connections between Indiana Methodism and the Ku-Klux Klan, especially in the early 1920s.  (In his 1994 United Methodism in Indiana, John J. Baughman wrote: “Particularly awkward was some local Methodist support for the infamous Ku Klux Klan in Indiana in the 1920s. Even now this is a no-no subject within the denominational history.”) Knowing this history, painful as it may be, can lead to honest acts of repentance and restoration.  It is likely that several of our congregations could benefit from an honest knowledge such a history.