Calling the Church to Consciousness

By George Pratt, Connectional YPD Parliamentarian

On Sunday, November 29th, a collective of progressive United Methodists founded a new Wesleyan denomination, the Liberation Connexion (LMX), reported by the Religious News Service (RNS). According to the LMX website, the denomination seeks to construct a beloved community in refuting “powers and privileges plaguing Methodism: patriarchy, transphobia, and heteronormativity.” The AME Church is also plagued by sins of hegemony, homophobia, and hypocrisy.

The Church’s position on marriage equality and stance on same-gender love makes the identification and name as a “Social Justice and Liberating Faith” a moniker. In perpetuating a patriarchal model that reinforces white hegemonic masculinity, the Church’s stifling and silencing of Queer identity expressions of its members and clergy not only contradicts the Zion’s claim of embracing humankind as family but also renders it false. If the AME Church genuinely believes All Black Lives Matter, it must abandon heterosexist structures and practices, ensuring its Black liberationist understanding of God is untainted.  

In 2016, the General Conference adopted a “Position Paper on Same-Sex Marriage,” in which the Church maintains its belief that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” qualifying its reasoning “solely on [the] reading and understanding of God’s Word.” 

Biblical texts often cited in advancing same-gender love is abominable and sinful include the narratives of Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah and Ham, the Levite’s concubine, Mosaic law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and the Pauline epistles. These scriptures address rape, male domination, inhospitality, ritual purity, temple prostitution, and pederasty rather than God’s stance on same-gender loving relationships. 

There is no place in the Bible where God or the son-incarnate, Christ, condemn same-gender love, leading one to pose the question, wherein “God’s word” is the Church basing its stance? It appears 61% of AMEs know the answer to this question in accepting same-gender love and 41% favoring same-gender marriage, according to the Pew Research Religion Landscape Study (2014). 

The question then emerges, if majority of the membership possess positive attitudes toward same-gender love, why has the Church of Allen yet to become open and affirming? Considering the denomination’s polity and hierarchical structure, the answer, perhaps, lies in examining who governs it: 20 episcopates, 18 of which are cisgender and cishet presenting men. Herein lies an additional issue: two decades after the first woman was elected and consecrated bishop, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Vashti Murphy McKenzie, only three women have since been elected to the episcopacy in contrast to 16 men. This must change. 

Just as the Church was sinful in prohibiting women from ordination for most of its history, it must repent for oppressing members of the LGBTQIA+ community by allowing its clergy to marry whom they choose, permitting clergy to officiate same-gender marriages, and authorizing such ceremonies in AME facilities.

The “Church of Allen and Lee” (coined by the Rev. Prof. Jennifer Leath, Ph.D.) must continue its rich legacy of liberation. It is past time for the first Black Protestant denomination to pioneer and progress, becoming the first Open and Affirming (ONA) Black Church.  

 Note: Views expressed by the author are personal and do not reflect the official stance of the Connectional YPD.