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Thread ID: 18588 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2005-06-09
2005-06-09 01:47 | User Profile
[MAYBE THEY SHOULD TRY REPENTING OF THEIR FREE-WILL HERESY...] United Methodists seek to move beyond past of segregation, boost declining membership
GREG GARRISON News staff writer
[COLOR=DarkRed]United Methodist Bishop William Willimon led a walk to the steps of one of the denomination's former landmark churches on Monday for a service to repent of racial injustice and to pledge to be more inclusive. [/COLOR] :dung:
Carrying a wooden staff, Willimon stood on the front steps of the former McCoy United Methodist Church, which closed in 1993. Hundreds of delegates to the United Methodist North Alabama Conference, which concludes a three-day meeting today at Birmingham-Southern College, walked from the campus across the street to the old McCoy for the service.
They recited a prayer of confession that included harsh self-analysis for a denomination that has seen decades of steady decline.
"We hereby repent of our sins as a church. Forgive our self-centered, defensive, cowardly ways," the group recited aloud. "Forgive our willingness to close churches and our unwillingness to risk new churches."
United Methodists are still the second largest denomination in Alabama, after Southern Baptists. But in north Alabama, they have declined from 178,118 at the end of 1983 to 155,683 at the end of 2004, an average loss of more than 1,000 members a year. In 2004, net membership fell 2,179, according to a statistical report that will be issued at the conference today.
"I think this is a turning point," said Willimon, who became bishop for north Alabama United Methodists last year.
"It's a powerful gesture," said the Rev. Lawton Higgs, who was the last pastor of McCoy, 1984-93.
United Methodist U.S. membership has dropped from 10.9 million in 1968 to about 8.2 million now. Other mainline Protestant denominations have also experienced severe membership loss during the period.
"We're not unusual," Willimon said. "Mainline Protestantism is aging. The population's changing."
In Birmingham in recent decades, dozens of predominantly white United Methodist churches have closed as neighborhoods surrounding them became predominantly black. The former McCoy campus now houses an older adult day care program and adult education programs.
At McCoy, efforts were made to reach out to the increasingly black neighborhood, but the dwindling, elderly white congregation had limited success.
One problem has been the role that United Methodist churches played in defending the power structure that enforced segregation in Birmingham. Former city police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, who once ordered fire hoses turned on black protesters in the streets of Birmingham, was a member of Walker Memorial Methodist, one of the churches that closed in recent decades.
`We have not arrived':
During the 1960s, racist groups met in the basement of McCoy Methodist and the church employed security guards to prevent blacks from attempting to attend services, Higgs said.
"We've got a lot of history," Willimon said. "There are a lot of ethnic minorities that may not trust United Methodists."
The Rev. Sara Cameron, a black staff member at Methodist headquarters, said that at times McCoy and other United Methodist churches in Birmingham preached a "compromised Gospel" and a "racist understanding" of Christianity.
"We have not arrived," Cameron said. "We really need African-Americans starting churches. That's not been done well here."
She's not sure what it will take to attract more black worshippers to United Methodist churches. "That is the question we're asking."
Willimon announced a national search for a staff person to oversee such projects. "It takes skills maybe we've shown we don't have," Willimon said.
Cameron said Willimon is moving in the right direction. "I think he took a bold step."
Monday's service of repentance could lay the foundation for facing the past and creating a brighter future for the church, Willimon said. "We're here to ask God for a fresh boost of boldness.
"We've got a lot of problems," he said, "but we believe Jesus Christ is able to work miracles, and that's what we're praying for."
E-mail: [email]ggarrison@bhamnews.com[/email]
[url]http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1118136003146600.xml&coll=2&thispage=1[/url]
:wallbash:
2005-06-09 03:55 | User Profile
I always thought the United Methodists epitimized the mainstream liberal Protestant denomination. I'm surprised you pay attention to them.