Tag: United Methodist church
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Where Will You Stand?
It was on the day of my Ordination in 2012, that Rev. Joe Dipaolo presented me with a Book of Discipline from 1956. That deeply personal gift was significant because it was the first year that the Book of Discipline removed the ban on ordination for women. Joe presented it to me as a sign…
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A Call to Repentance from Anti-Blackness & Gaslighting for the UMC
“They were asking for it,” I imagine at least one of those officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge said, as they rode off with the blood of John Lewis and Amelia Boynton on their bully clubs. They were asking for it. They wanted the club. They wanted the fist. They wanted the teargas. It is…
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The UMC in 2020: God Overrules Our Rules
(On January 1, 2020 legislation went into effect that had passed by 53% at the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in February of 2019. This legislation – if obeyed – seeks to impose harsh penalties on those who stand with the LGBTQIA+ community, and drive LGBTIQIA+ clergy, like myself, out of the church.) “It is…
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You can play with me
“You can play with me,” a little voice said to me from the other side of the slide. It was my first day at a new school, and when recess came, I had fled to conceal myself under the big metal slide on the far edge of the playground. Turning my head, I looked up…
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What are you fighting for?
Riding my bike along the narrow inches of shoulder between the paved road and the deep ditch, I struggled not to fall in the water, and thought about the children I was told had walked these same treacherous trails to come to church. It was about a decade ago, and I was in my first…
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When the hand that held you holds the stone
“I miss my dad,” I thought looking down at the creamed chipped beef on the plate in front of me in the Thunderbird Cafeteria outside of Canyon de Chelly. The last time I had seen my father, he was looking down over the railing into the entryway of the Dome in St. Louis where I…
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Grief on the Margins of UMC General Conference
Amidst the concentric circles that sat within The Dome in St. Louis this week, it was the outer ring that leaves my heart hurting most as I walk away. We gathered for this Special Session of General Conference to discuss human sexuality and bring to a conclusion the battle that had raged in the church…
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When Celibacy Conflicts With Faithfulness
Most young clergywomen are familiar with the predictable conversation that takes place when people encounter us for the first time in the wild. Scrunching up their face in puzzlement at my clergy collar, the woman cutting my hair, or the man ringing up my groceries will almost inevitably ask, “So can you get married?” In…
Hannah Adair Bonner 