Recommended Reading: AI Is Into the White Savior Complex

One of the more public-facing uses of AI (artificial intelligence) is in creating images. There are several websites that will allow you to enter prompts and receive back AI-generated pictures. These images are created by computers based on patterns detected in an existing trove of images on the internet.

As reported in this NPR article, researcher Arsenii Alenichev decided to test AI image generation on an issue related to global health. While existing images of white, Western doctors treating black, African children abound, Alenichev wanted to see if he could get AI to generate the opposite: images of black, African doctors treating white, Western children. In short, he couldn't.

Although Alenichev's results were not intended to be scientific, they do point to two important findings that are relevant to Christian mission:

1. These results show how prevalent the white savior trope is. There are so many existing images of wealthy, white, Westerners helping poor, black, Africans (and others who are not wealthy, white, Westerners) that imagining the reverse is nigh impossible, even for extremely powerful computers. But if we (humans) can only imagine help and mission flowing in one way (from wealthy, white Westerners to others), it is impossible to create reciprocal mission relationships that are based on mutuality. We are locked into patterns where wealthy, white Westerners are givers and everyone else, especially poor, black Africans, are receivers. There is no mutuality possible in such a scenario. We need to expand our missional imaginations.

2. While artificial intelligence has a wide range of potentially beneficial applications, it cannot overcome the human biases that shape the world as it is. Because artificial intelligence operates by assimilating content from the internet (and elsewhere) and detecting patterns in that content, it is constrained by the pre-existing biases and prejudices that are part of existing content. That content is overwhelmingly made by Westerners and thus reflects the national, social, racial, economic, and other biases common on the West. Computers might save us from some things, but they won't save us from the biases in our hearts. We will need to continue to rely on the Holy Spirit to carry out that work.

UM & Global 10th Anniversary Stats: Contributors

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

This blog is sponsored by the Association of Methodist Professors of Mission (formerly United Methodist Professors of Mission). At the AMPM meeting two weeks ago, I (David) offered an update on the blog, as I usually do at those meetings.

This update, however, was a special one, as it is now just over 10 years since the blog launched. Therefore, I took the opportunity to compile some special statistics to share with the AMPM, which I also want to share with you, the readers of this blog. I will share statistics and reflections about contributors in this piece and additional statistics in a future piece.

Contributors

Since its start on March 3, 2013, UM & Global has functioned on a three-stranded model of content contribution. It features pieces written by David W. Scott as blogmaster, pieces written by other contributors (AMPM members and beyond), and "Recommended Reading" (or similar) pieces with links and short rationales for reading whatever is linked to. You can see how those three strands of content have varied over the years here:

From all these sources, UM & Global has published 1217 articles so far from 116 authors from 24 countries!

Just over half of authors have come from the United States (reflecting the blog's home within a US academic group), with several authors also coming from Germany, Argentina, the Philippines, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, and the DRC.

Just over half of the authors were white, either white Americans or white Europeans. About 1/6 were Asian or Asian-American, 1/6 were Black African or African-American, and 1/8 were Latin American or US Hispanic. These are, of course, overly broad categories. Moreover, total authorship does not reflect the full diversity of the global church. It is, however, significantly more diverse than its sponsoring body.

2/3rds of contributors have been men, with the remaining 1/3 women. Again, this is less than the parity to which the church and academy should strive, but significantly more gender balanced than the AMPM.

Since not all contributors have written the same number of blogs, with white, American, men contributing more pieces per author, and since I as a white, American, man write the largest number of pieces, the content on this site is less well-balanced than the contributor pool as a whole.

Again, high quality theological reflection depends on contributions from a multitude of perspectives, and the content on UM & Global has not given space, and certainly not equal space, to all possible perspectives, and this representation (or lack thereof) matters.

There are many ways to norm what the distribution of content on the blog should be. Is the comparison point global church membership? US professors in general? US missiology professors in particular? Relative to global church membership, women are underrepresented, Europeans are overrepresented, and Africans are underrepresented. Relative to US professors as a whole, women are underrepresented but racial/ethnic minorities are a larger percentage of blog authors than US professors. I am not familiar with data on the composition of missiologists, but based on my personal sense of the American Society of Missiology, relative to that group, UM & Global authors have been at least equally female and more likely to be racial and ethnic minorities in the United States or to come from outside the United States.

If there's a consolation for me as the editor in these numbers, it's that the blog has gotten better and more representative over its run. When I last compiled such number in fall 2014, the blog contributors were 3/4 men, 71% American, and 61% white. The increase in contributors who are women, not from the United States, and people of color has been the result of conscious and often extensive effort to invite contributions from these groups.

That's the takeaway I'd like to end with. It's easy to get white American men to write stuff about the church. They do it all the time. It takes more work to identify and cultivate alternative voices. But this is critical work that all in church leadership need to be engaged in.

Resource: AME's Christianity in Context lessons

Context is one of the most basic concepts in missiology: that an individual or group's social, political, economic, and cultural surroundings impact their understanding and practice of the Christian faith. The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church has put out a resource called "Christianity in Context." Featuring Rev. Dr. Courtney Bryant, the multimedia educational resource is designed for black Christians, but non-black Christians who want to learn more about the context of their black sisters and brothers can engage with it too. The lessons invite the faithful to grapple with some important concepts related to mission, such as context, justice, solidarity, action, and the relationship between culture and the presentation of the gospel. They do this even if they do not use the term "mission" directly. For more, see the intro video below.

James M. Lawson, Jr. - Civil Rights Leader and Missionary

In honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, we are republishing a short biography of one of his collaborators - Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr. The biography is excerpted from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968 (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), 206. It first appeared online as part of the Methodist Mission Bicentennial project.

Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1928, one of nine children of a U.S. Methodist pastor and a Jamaican mother. He took much of his attitude toward others from his mother, who did not believe in violence. Lawson grew up in Massillon, Ohio, where he became a good student in predominantly white schools.

He entered Methodist-related Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, where he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and became interested in the nonviolent methods of Mahatma Gandhi. He must A. J. Muste, the executive secretary of FOR, and others in the pacifist movement, including James Farmer, Bayard Rustin, and Glenn Smiley.

Although he initially registered for the draft, he became a conscientious objector at the time of the Korean War and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Baldwin-Wallace refused to grant his degree because of his prison sentence. Entering prison in April 1951, he served until May 1952, when he was paroled. He returned to college to obtain his degree, then became a short-term missionary of The Methodist Church to Nagpur, India, where he was an instructor at a Presbyterian school, Hislop College. Lawson was surprised to find that some Western missionaries did not like Gandhi and considered him a troublemaker. But Lawson considered that Gandhi had exemplified Jesus’ teaching of love.

Lawson returned to the U.S. in 1956, did postgraduate work at the Oberlin Graduate School, and also received a degree from Boston University. He met Martin Luther King, Jr., who urged him to find a way to serve in the South. Lawson accepted an invitation from FOR to develop nonviolent methods for African-American students in Nashville, Tennessee. In the fall of 1959, he began voluntary training workshops for college students there, and shortly after the Greensboro sit-ins, Nashville students started sit-ins on February 13, 1960. In the ensuing months, students continued to protest, and the lunch counters were desegregated, but not before Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt and jailed.

Lawson participated with King and others in the civil rights protests throughout the 1960s. He was a founding member of Black Methodists for Church Renewal in 1968. In 1974, he was appointed pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, where he served for many years. He served the denomination as a member of its agencies and continued to articulate concerns for justice in the U.S. and peace abroad. In October 1996, he received the distinguished alumnus award from Vanderbilt University, despite never having received a degree there.

2021 Year in Review

As 2021 draws to a close, here are some of the most read themes and stories from UM & Global over the course of the past year:

1. Questions about General Conference
Out of everything that UM & Global published this last year, stories about what might happen with General Conference proved to be among the most popular to readers, from (correctly) predicting in January 2021 that the pandemic would prohibit holding General Conference in 2021 to analyzing the aborted May 8 virtual General Conference to reviewing how the pandemic and travel might impact the currently scheduled General Conference in 2022.

2. Analysis of UMC politics and current events
Readers have also turned to this site for thoughtful analysis of the internal conflicts and struggles of the UMC, especially from an international angle. That has included everything from historical background on current conflicts in the UMC in Nigeria to identifying the current issues of contention within the UMC to analysis of the strategic choices facing those seeking to launch the Global Methodist Church.

3. Understanding church decline
This blog has also spent a good deal of time seeking to understand various forms of decline in The United Methodist Church--from the "hollowing out" of the church to institutional decline to the connection between US membership decline and the rhetoric of the global church, and readers have found those explorations interesting.

4. Grappling with emotional impact
Conflicts in the church and in society, combined with the impacts of the on-going pandemic, have taken an emotional toll on people, and so pieces on grief in the church and pastors considering leaving the ministry have also appealed to readership.

5. Confronting racism
Amid conflict in the church and problems in the world, good ministry still goes on. This blog has tried to highlight over the past year the ways in which the church is (or should be) engaged in confronting the sin of racism. In that vein, John Oda's piece on why Asian Americans should speak out about racism has been one of the most read posts of 2021.

At this point, there is no particular reason to assume that the topics that will be of most interest to readers in 2022 will be any different, but if the past several years have taught us anything, it is that there are always surprises in store.

Recommended Reading: Kirsteen Kim on Racism Awareness in Mission

While this blog does not frequently recommend academic articles, Kirsteen Kim's recent article "Racism Awareness in Mission: Touchstone or Cultural Blind Spot?" published in the October issue of the International Bulletin of Mission Research, raises some important questions about the field of missiology. Kim begins by reflecting, "The heightened awareness of race, racialization, and racism in 2020 furnishes the context for asking why these issues are not more prominent in mission and missiology." She argues, "I will show that, although on the one hand, sensitivity to culture and context in postwar and postcolonial missiology has encouraged diversity, interculturality, and movements for greater equity, and so mitigated what we now call 'racism,' on the other hand, ... attention to 'culture' and 'context' may also obscure racism in mission and missiology" and therefore "racism awareness should be integral to mission education and that antiracism should characterize mission practice." Given the current cultural landscape of the United States, this article is highly recommended reading for US missionaries and missiologists. For those without access to the written article, much of the same ground is covered in Kim's 2020 Louis J. Luzbetak Lecture at Catholic Theological Union.

Recommended Reading: Lovett Weems on Demographic Changes and the Mission of the Church

 Lovett H. Weems, Jr. of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership recently published a piece entitled, "What Might the 2020 Census Mean for Churches?" In it, he examines what transformations in the nation's demographics, especially around race and age, mean for the mission of the church in terms of evangelism and church growth. Weems writes that these demographic changes should "upend the working assumptions of most congregations about the future of their churches." This is especially true for predominantly white churches (and, one might add, denominations). He notes bluntly, "There is no future for predominantly white congregations that cannot reach the growing people-of-color population." Yet, he also warns that these demographic transitions have the potential to bring forth white racism, a "blatant disregard for Christlike values [that] will make a mockery of our witness unless it is countered by churches that exemplify love of God and love of neighbor without reservation."

Recommended Reading: Global Missions in Black Methodism

The African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion (AME Zion) publishes a quarterly magazine about mission, both domestic and foreign, call The Missionary Seer. Last year, the issue for the fourth quarter covered "Global Missions in Black Methodism," providing an overview of the mission work of the AME Zion, African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), and Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME). For those interested in Black involvement in mission, comparative Methodist missiology, and the ways in which race and mission intersect, this issue is a helpful resource. In addition to being available through the AME Zion directly, past editions of the magazine are available in some libraries.

Plan Now: Anti-Racism, Environmental Justice Webinars This Week

This week brings two webinars on topics covered by this blog:

On Tuesday, August 24th at 8pm EDT, the Asian American Language Ministry Plan of Global Ministries, the New Federation of Asian American United Methodists, and Church and Society will jointly host the next “Raise Up Your Voice Against Racism” webinar on “Racism and the Criminal Justice System.” Rev. John Oda of the Asian American Language Ministry Plan describes the import of these webinars in a piece entitled "Hate is the other pandemic." Rev. Oda also wrote a piece for UM & Global earlier this year on a related topic: "Why Asian American Should Speak Out about Racism." For more information about the webinar, contact Oda at joda (at) umcmission.org.

On Thursday, August 26th at 7pm EDT, Church and Society will host a webinar entitled "Environmental Justice Day: A Just and Equitable Vision for Creation Care." A four-member panel will "equip attendees to deepen their perspective on Environmental Justice that centers equity and justice and raises awareness on the importance of honoring the past, present, and future of the Environmental Justice movement." To register for the webinar, visit this link.

Recommended Reading: Black-ish Missiology

It is not often that this site recommends academic articles, especially ones that are behind paywalls. However, those interested in missiology are strongly encouraged to read Dwight A Radcliff Jr.'s article "Black-ish Missiology: A Critique of Mission Studies and Appeal for Inclusion in the United States Context," if they have not already done so. The article appeared in last June's issue of Mission Studies.

In a strong indictment of the field of missiology, Radcliff, who is himself Black, explores the ways in which African American Black scholars and Black thinking are marginalized within US missiology, leaving a field that is black-ish: "something that purports to be Black (African American), but upon close inspection may not be authentic to, or representative of, the culture."

Radcliff identifies two driving forces behind the marginalization of African Americans within missiology. The first is an "internal structuring and epistemology" that pays little attention to African American concerns and has little room for African American intellectual methodologies.

The second is the failure of the discipline to engage with a large catalogue of scholarly writings by Black scholars that could be considered within missiology, given their focus, but are not. I discussed this second reason in my UM & Global piece "Why Are There So Few Black Missiologists?" and I am grateful to receive confirmation of what was for me a hypothesis, and grateful to have Radcliff's analysis as a Black man that is able to see things that I as a White man cannot.

Radcliff does not think missiology as a field is irredeemably marked by racism, nor do I. Radcliff gives three helpful guide points for developing an authentically Black missiology. The work of constructing such a missiology must be done by Black African Americans. But those from the dominant White culture in the United States, such as me, and those from other backgrounds may profitably ask themselves how they may support such an effort, both in structural ways through positions and funding and through the habits of scholarship, by listening, reading, and engaging with Black missiology, incorporating it into the larger discipline by taking it seriously and seeing it as an important contribution to the collective knowledge of all missiologists, regardless of racial background.

John Wesley and Understanding Racial Inequality

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

I was reminded of a John Wesley quote the other day while reading a FiveThirtyEight piece on (mis)perceptions of the racial wealth gap.

For those who don't know, the wealth gap between White and non-white Americans is striking: one federal government survey found that "the typical White family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family." Yet, as the FiveThirtyEight article points out, Americans consistently and dramatically underestimate that racial wealth gap.

The article, entitled "Why Many Americans Can't See the Wealth Gap Between White and Black America" and written by Neil Lewis Jr., argues that one of the major reasons why Americans do not have an accurate sense of the racial wealth gap is because of de facto residential and social segregation. Lewis argues:

"The nature of segregation in the U.S. means that we only end up seeing and learning about what our own groups experience, making it hard to understand the lives of people outside of our own group. This explains, in part, why Americans have such a hard time understanding just how unequal our nation is, and moreover, the racialized nature of that inequality."

It struck me that Lewis' assessment of the situation mirrors perfectly John Wesley's assessment of the failure of the rich to understand the plight of the poor in 18th century England. In his sermon, "On Visiting the Sick," Wesley wrote:

"One great reason why the rich, in general, have so little sympathy for the poor, is, because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is, that, according to the common observation, one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it; and then plead their voluntary ignorances an excuse for their hardness of heart."

One could easily substitute "Whites" for "the rich" and "Blacks" for "the poor," and this quote could describe the problems with making progress on racial justice in the 2020s United States just as well as it did class injustice in Wesley's England. It captures the separation of social networks and the ways in which the privileged are quite comfortable in maintaining that separation, lest their privilege be threatened in some way.

The importance of connection to understanding of racial injustice and motivation to address it is also a major conclusion in Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's landmark study Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. Emerson and Smith argue that one significant reason why white evangelicals fail to understand the systemic nature of racial disadvantage in the United States is because they are not sufficiently connected to networks of people of color from whom white evangelicals could learn about the experiences of their lives.

Emerson and Smith are not optimistic about the power of religion to address this form of racial misunderstanding driven by social distance. Indeed, they write that "religion, as structured in America, is unable to make a great impact on the racialized society. In fact, far from knocking down racial barriers, religion generally serves to maintain these historical divides, and helps to develop new ones." (p. 18) By "structured," Emerson and Smith are referring to the racialized nature of most congregations and denominations in the United States.

Emerson and Smith do not examine in depth the role of Christian mission in addressing this problem. But Wesley was convinced that the practice of mission could help build understanding and empathy across differences. That was the point of his sermon. And many missiologists have emphasized that point since Wesley: mission can be a force for building understanding across racial boundaries, understanding that can then be used to work for greater racial justice.

Nevertheless, for mission to be successful in this regard, that increase in understanding must be an explicit goal, and those engaging in mission must have the right spiritual attitude. Wesley preached, "Whenever, therefore, you are about to enter upon the work, seek his help by earnest prayer. Cry to him for the whole spirit of humility, lest if pride steal into your heart, if you ascribe anything to yourself, while you strive to save others you destroy your own soul."

If White people practice mission as charity to Black people in a way that reinforces their own sense of racial pride, not only will it fail to produce greater understanding, it will destroy their own souls! Humility and openness, then, are requisite to this process of learning about and from other perspectives.

There is much in American society that conspires to prevent this type of cross-racial learning, and missiology as a practice and a discipline has not been without blame in this regard, as David Evans and Otto Harris have demonstrated on this blog.

Yet for those who believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of equality for all persons, there are additional resources and practices in the faith to be used to advance that understanding of the gospel. Building cross-racial compassion through webs of relationships is one such important resource.

Otto Harris: Race, Mission, and The United Methodist Church

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Otto D. Harris III. Rev. Dr. Harris is an ordained elder in the Western North Carolina Conference, pastor of Saint Mark's United Methodist Church in Charlotte, NC, and Adjunct Professor of Pastoral Theology at Hood Theological Seminary.

According to the Markan gospel, from the onset of His Galilean mission, Jesus proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the [reign] of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15 NRSV). The imminent extension of God’s love, redemption, salvation, forgiveness, mercy, and justice to a bewildered humanity was and is indeed good news. In the Pardon in response to the Confession of The United Methodist “Service of Word and Table I,” we pronounce, “Hear the good news: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God's love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven!”[1]

Humans do not have to suffer with the deleterious effects of guilt, shame, and estrangement that result from sin-sickness. We declare the mystery of faith, “Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again.”[2] God loves you (John 3:16). Jesus is with you (Matthew 28:20). The Holy Spirit dwells in you (Romans 8:9). That news transcends culture, ethnicity, and race. That news is eternal. That news is ubiquitous. That news is good!

The quintessential task of the Church is to vivify and share this good news. This task is not to be relegated to a committee or outsourced to a particular order. This task is to be fulfilled by all who believe in the good news. Notwithstanding, some (such as the American Society of Missiology (ASM)) particularly focus on and represent this task. I celebrate this brilliant collection of minds who offers theoretical frameworks to help the Church more fruitfully fulfill this task.

While I celebrate this brilliance, not one Black person is an ASM officer, on the ASM Board of Directors, on the ASM Board of Publications, a Missiology Editor, on an ASM Editorial Committee, or on any form of leadership listed on the “Key People” page (https://www.asmweb.org/key-people). While this claim would certainly benefit from more scholarly research, I surmise that ASM leadership is ethnically representative of the discipline of Missiology.

To what can we attribute the absence of Black thinkers and leaders in conventional missiological conversations? Is the good news that Jesus embodied and proclaimed not good enough for Black persons to proclaim? Are Black persons perspectives not relevant to the conversation? Perhaps, Black persons are not significantly represented in faith traditions (denominations), including The United Methodist Church, typically associated with the dominant voices of missiology and mission work. According to a 2014 Pew Research Report, Black persons represented less than 1% of The United Methodist population.[3] Black persons cannot be a part of the missionary population if they are not part of the general population.

If the low representation within faith traditions can be overcome, how can Black persons be included in the mission work of the Church? Of The United Methodist Church? How can an institution, who has been racialized as superior, contextualize this good news for Black people, who have been racialized as inferior? Methodism has a history of being able to present the good news to Black persons in a way that it was received and celebrated. Vance P. Ross observes, “Black People gladly joined Methodism because Methodism, in divine obedience, avowed the humanity of Black people.”[4] However, relatively early in the conception, Methodism quickly devolved from this ability.

United Methodism shares this relative inability to appropriate the good news for Black persons with the universal Church. Missiology to “urban” (e.g., softened way of describing undesirable Black spaces) communities has often seemed like toxic charity and/or colonization. Black communities, along with the world community, has recently been overwhelmed with news that has been not so good. Along with pandemic-related news, powerful institutions have been weaponized to discipline Black bodies, poverty and pain endemic to “urban” communities have been criminalized, and access to dignity has been monetized to the detriment of Black persons who cannot afford it. In the midst of all of this, the loudest voices for the Church have sanctified these travesties and voices of lament from the Church have been strangely silent.

What about the Black persons who already believe in the good news? What is, or can be, their role(s)? And how can the Church, The United Methodist Church, contribute to fruitfulness in these roles? Maybe, there is an opportunity to explore a different theoretical framework for missiology, which may be used to transcend other cultural, racial, and/or ethnic spaces.

Perhaps, the good news has not been sufficiently interpreted and appropriated for Black persons and Black communities. The Church would do well to provide opportunity and support to help Black thinkers and leaders lead in presenting and representing a counternarrative to the loud travesty-sanctifying voices and the strangely silent voices of lament. This counternarrative could interpret and appropriate the good news for the disregarded “urban” mission field. The residents of this mission field may receive anew, or new, the good news as it has been contained in and expressed through our liturgies, our litanies, our social principles, and the work of our general agencies.

The Church can find ways to promote these thinkers and leaders as public theologians, as they vivify and share the good news. The Church should include these brilliant minds among the other the brilliant minds who provide theoretical frameworks for all those who believe in the good news to embody and proclaim. God’s love, redemption, salvation, forgiveness, mercy, and justice are indeed imminent in “urban” areas, as they are all the world. God disrupts the sin-sickness of weaponization, criminalization, and monetization, which do not have to be suffered by those who wield them or by those receive them. That news certainly transcends culture, ethnicity, and race. That news is eternal. That news is ubiquitous. That news is indeed good enough to be shared by all to all!

---

[1]1. Thomas Anderson Langford III, gen. ed., The United Methodist Book of Worship. (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1992), 35.

[2] Ibid., 38.

[3] Pew Research Center. "How Racially Diverse are U.S. Religious Groups,” July 27, 2015. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/27/the-most-and-least-racially-diverse-u-s-religious-groups/ft_15-07-23_religiondiversityindex-1/.

[4] Vance P. Ross, “I’m Black. I’m Methodist. I’m Challenging (To What End)?” in I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist, ed. Rudy Rasmus (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2020), 141.

Plan Now: Webinar on “Misogyny, Racism and Asian American Women”

The following event announcement comes from Rev. John Oda, Program Manager for the Asian American Language Ministry Plan at the General Board of Global Ministries. You can read a previous UM & Global piece by Rev. Oda about Asian Americans and race here.

The Asian American Language Ministry Plan, the New Federation of Asian American United Methodists, and the General Board of Church and Society are co-sponsoring webinars called "Raise Up Your Voice Against Racism." This month’s webinar will explore “Misogyny, Racism and Asian American Women.” The webinar will be held May 25^th at 5:00pm PST / 8:00pm EST.

A report from Stop AAPI Hate found that 68% of the Anti-Asian violence against Asian Americans since March 2020 has been against women. We must never forget that on March 16, 2021, a gunman killed eight people in three Atlanta spas, six of whom were women of Asian descent: Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Soon Chung Park, Xiaojie Tan and Yong Ae Yue.  The authorities recently named these murders as hate crimes. These killings were part of a long history of violence, hatred and misogyny against Asian American women in the U.S and must viewed in this context.

Panelist: Rev. Sung Yeon Choimorrow is an Ordained Clergy person in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF). NAPAWH works to build power with Asian American and Pacific Islander women and girls to create a more just world. Rev. Sung Yeon was born in South Korea and spent her childhood in Singapore and India. She came to the U.S. at the age of 18 to study Political Science and Urban Studies at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL and earned an M.Div from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. She has been featured in and quoted by: the New York Times, NBC, CBS This Morning, CNBC, Yes Magazine, Ms Magazine, Al Jazeera News English and more.

As a first generation immigrant working mom, Rev. Sung Yeon is passionate about building power to create change so her daughter can live in a world that is more just than the one that she inherited.

Moderator: Elizabeth Chun Hye Lee serves as United Methodist Women’s Executive for Economic and Environmental Justice and Climate Justice Lead. Her primary area of work is around advancing climate justice with members, church, and society, through trainings, program development, partnerships, corporate engagement, advocacy, and solidarity. Her approach to climate justice is through gender, human rights, and theological analyses. Prior to UMW, Liz served as the Director for Young Adult Mission Service at Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, spearheading the redesign of the historic US-2 and Mission Intern programs into the Global Mission Fellows program while developing over 100 global and national partnerships.

John Oda: Why Asian Americans Should Speak Out About Racism

Today's post is by Rev. John Oda. Rev. Oda is Program Manager of the Asian American Language Ministry Plan at the General Board of Global Ministries.

On May 25, 2020 George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed by a white police officer in the city of Minneapolis. Mr. Floyd was initially stopped by the police because a store clerk alleged that he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill. By now all of us have heard about the video of George Floyd and many of us have viewed it. If you have not, you should. Here is what you will see. A white police officer named Derrick Chauvin kneels on Floyd's neck with all of his weight for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds. It is a horrifying scene. Mr. Floyd helplessly calls out for his mother as he slowly suffocates. The crowd screams out, “He can’t breathe! He can’t breathe!”

All the while, directly in front of this small group of people is an Asian police officer, apparently there for crowd control. He stands there while the breath of life is extinguished from Mr. Floyd. And he does nothing to help. “It wasn’t my job,” he would later explain.

When I first saw that video, I was outraged on two levels. First, I was angry that George Floyd was killed for no significant reason other than he was a black man in police custody in this country. But secondly, I was also disturbed by the Asian American police officer who did nothing. I was so upset, in fact, that that night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, restless and unnerved. My mind kept flashing back to that Asian cop. I initially could not figure out why this hit such a raw nerve in me.

Finally, around 2:00am I bolted upright. I figured it out. The Asian police officer standing by, doing nothing, was a metaphor for the Asian American community when it comes to racism. Many of us, Asian Americans have a propensity to stand by and not get involved when it comes to issues of racial prejudice. Of course, this is not true of all Asian Americans, but the large majority of Asian Americans tend NOT to raise up our voices against racism. But now, we must.

There is a need for all Asian Americans to speak out against racism because our very lives depend upon it. Our silence is literally killing us. Anti-Asian American animosity has been on the rise. This anti-Asian American hate has been exacerbated by xenophobic policies and racist rhetoric disseminated by our previous president. When President Trump used terms like Wuhan Virus, Kung Flu, China Virus, and China Plague, he fueled the fears of and hatred against people who look like me. Asian Americans have become the scapegoats and the cause for the COVID-19 lockdown, the rising unemployment, the very discomfort that people felt and are feeling during this pandemic.

The U.S. government does not track hate crimes against Asian Americans, so back in March of 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the Stop AAPI Hate website was launched to gather reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans. According to Stop AAPI Hate, 4,000 incidents of racism and discrimination targeting Asian Americans have been reported since March 2020. And according to the organization’s data, people 60 and older have been disproportionately targeted with physical violence, as were women.

In 2020, we saw a precipitous rise in attacks against Asian Americans. In San Francisco hate crimes have increase by 50%. In Philadelphia hate crimes have gone up 200%, and in New York City hate crimes have risen by 833%. On January 26, 2021 President Biden signed a memorandum pledging to combat anti-Asian and Pacific Islander discrimination and the Presidential memorandum states, “During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric has put Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) persons, families, communities, and businesses at risk.” While I wholeheartedly affirmed this memorandum, it has not slowed the incidents of hate.

On January 5, 2021, a 52-year-old Asian American woman was shot in the head with a flare gun in Oakland’s Chinatown. On February 3, 2021, a 64-year-old grandmother in San Jose, California was assaulted and robbed of cash that she had just withdrawn for Lunar New Year gifts. On that same day in Manhattan, Noel Quintana, 61, was riding the subway when his assaulter slashed his face. On February 4, 2021, a 91-year-old man in Oakland, California was inexplicably shoved to the ground by a man who was walking behind him. On February 26, 2021, a 36-year-old Asian-American man was stabbed while walking outside the federal courthouse in Chinatown, New York City. On March 14, 2021, a Burmese man and his two children were slashed by a knife-wielding attacker while shopping in Midland, Texas. The accused man said he did it because he thought they were “Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus.” And on January 26th, 84-year-old Thai man named Vicha Ratanapakdee was going for a morning walk in his San Francisco neighborhood, when a man running at him full speed smashed into his frail body, throwing him to the pavement. Mr. Ratanapakdee died of his injuries two days later.

And because we, as Asian Americans, do not like to raise up our voices against racism, most the acts of violence or microaggressions (subtle acts of racism), have gone unreported. I did a quick and admittedly non-scientific survey of five of my Asian American friends. I asked them if, over the past year, anything had happened to them that they might be considered an act of racism. Three out of the five of them said that they had experienced some sort of racism which they would attribute to the fears around COVID-19. One friend was yelled at in a local grocery store. She was told to go back to “where you came from” and “you people brought this virus here.”

I have also experienced racism but in subtle ways. For example, one day I was walking in my neighborhood near a grocery store. This was back in May 2020, so social distancing regulations were in full force. In front of this grocery store was the all too familiar line of people waiting their turn to enter the store. I was walking in a group of three fully masked people. I was the last in our small group and the only Asian American. While passing by this line, we all politely lined ourselves up in single file walking about 15-20 feet apart. The first person started walking by the grocery store line without any commotion. The second person went by and nothing happened. When I approached, an older Caucasian woman spotted me and with what can only be described as a mixture of utter hate and disgust, moved as far away from me as she could. She looked at the previous two people in my group but had no reaction to them. It was obvious that my Asian face scared her. She angrily glared at me as I passed by.

Would I report this to the Stop AAPI Hate website? No. Would this incident make any headlines in the nightly news? Of course it would not. However, this experience did change me. When you’ve done nothing wrong and someone stares right into your face with such hate and disgust, it makes you wonder. What did I do? Will it happen again? Will it be worse next time? This is the world which we, as Asian Americans, live in today. It is our turn to be the scapegoats.

This violence and hatred are not new. During WWII, all of my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and my own mother and father were illegally incarcerated in American concentration camps. Their crime? They were of Japanese ancestry. About 30% of those illegally forced into those camps were American citizens.

Years later a study was done which asked the simple question – how could this have happened? The study came back and pointed to three reasons why such an atrocious event could have taken place while pretty much the entire United States stood by and did nothing. First, at that time there was a pervasive hatred and prejudice against Japanese Americans. Second, there was a heightened sense of fear of Japanese Americans. They called it “wartime hysteria.” The American public feared that Japanese Americans would hurt them. Lastly there was lack of political leadership from within the Japanese American community and certainly from the U.S. government.

I would argue that these same elements are partially at work in the United States right now. There is pervasive hatred of Asian Americans from a small portion of our society. There is a heightened sense of fear, almost a hysteria, of Asian Americans because of the various uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. And lastly there is a lack of political leadership.

I would argue that this lack of political leadership is due to the fact that the majority of Asian Americans want to remain silent about racism. We have not organized on a national level very well, although this will hopefully change soon. We have not raised our voices to our elected officials and in public venues en masse. When racist incidents happen to us, we stuff it, ignore it and try to pretend the animosity against Asian Americans doesn’t really affect us that much.

Because AALM felt we must do something to combat this pervasive hatred against Asian Americans, in June of 2020 the AALM Committee created an Anti-Racism Task Force. The Task Force’s first assignment was to create an “AALM Statement Against Racism,” which we did.

This group was next tasked with creating a series of webinars focused on racism. These webinars were aptly named “Raise Up Your Voice Against Racism.” The target audience for these webinars would be Asian American United Methodists and beyond. AALM, the General Board of Church and Society, and the NFAAUM came together and planned these webinars. The webinars were coupled with six “in between” conversations, which were held in between the webinars.

The purpose of the webinars and the “in-between” conversations is three- fold: first, the webinars and conversations hope to educate the audience about racism. Most of the material is presented through an Asian American lens. Secondly, the webinars and the “in between” conversations hope to dispel the myth that the issue of racism is a White and Black issue – it is not. The Asian American community has not felt the years of oppression that the African American Community has felt, but our pain is nonetheless real. Lastly, the webinars and the “in between” conversations highlight the need for all Asian Americans to speak up and out against racism and emphasize the importance for us to stand in solidarity with our Brown and Black brothers and sisters in this fight.

On March 15 the Asian American Language Ministry Plan and the New Federation of Asian American United Methodists (NFAAUM) published a powerful statement condemning the violence that was being perpetrated against the Asian American community. All the active Asian American United Methodist Bishops endorsed the statement, as well as Asian Americans in academia and many Asian American United Methodist church leaders. The next day, 8 people were senselessly murdered at three massage parlors in metro Atlanta. Six of those who died were Asian American. While the authorities have yet to say that these shootings were hate crimes, I know that these slayings were a part of the ongoing, consistent, and growing pattern of violence against Asian Americans.

As I finish writing this piece, I am also preparing to go to the same grocery store where that woman glared at me with utter hate and disgust. It will be my first time back at that grocery store since that incident. An uneasiness sits in my stomach because I know that at any moment any random person can come by and glare at me, or spit on me, or yell at me or even hit me simply because I am of Asian ancestry. It is the climate in which we Asian Americans live in today and it will only stop if we Asian Americans loudly raise up our voices against racism and work together with other communities of color and allies to dismantle the systems of oppression and hate in the United States.

Recommended Readings: Asian American Language Ministry Statements

The Asian American Language Ministry (AALM) Plan is a long-standing initiative of Global Ministries whose work has become that much more critical in the past year amid conversations about race in the United States. AALM has issued multiple statements on Asian Americans and race over the past year that are critical reading on how the UMC is engaging issues of race, especially as they impact and involve Asian Americans. Those statement include the following:

AALM and the New Federation of Asian American United Methodists (NFAAUM) issued a statement condemning the rise of anti-Asian violence in the United States on March 16th, just hours before the shooting of six Asian American women and two others in Atlanta. This statement was signed by numerous prominent Asian American leaders in The United Methodist Church.

In February, AALM issued a statement condemning attacks on Asian American elderly persons, which have been on the rise.

Last summer, AALM issued a statement against racism in the wake of the George Floyd protests. AALM, NFAAUM, and Church and Society worked together to compile a video of young Asian American United Methodists reading the statement.

In addition to the linked PDF versions above, the latter two statements are also available in Word format on AALM's website.

Dana Lyles: Two Pandemics at the Same Time

Today's post is by Dr. Dana Lyles, Director of Multiethnic Ministries at the General Board of Global Ministries.

For me, the past twelve months have been particularly challenging. Our nation has been grappling with the devastating impact of COVID-19, and 2020 saw multiple shootings of unarmed Black people. These two pandemics—one of COVID-19 and one of racism—at the same time have taken a heavy toll.

COVID-19 amplified healthcare disparities between White and non-White people. According to the APM Research Lab, people who identified as Native American/Indigenous, Black, or Pacific Islander had a higher mortality rate than those who identified as White. Now as vaccines are being made available, non-White people are being vaccinated at lower rates than White people. During the first month of the US vaccination program, 60.4% of those receiving the COVID-19 vaccine identified as White.

Between April 1 and May 25, 2020, the United States grappled publicly with the killings of Ahmad Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Arbery and Taylor died in February and March respectively, but their deaths did not gain widespread media coverage until months later. Arbery’s death was first reported by national media on April 1st. Taylor’s death was reported on May 13th. Two weeks later after Taylor’s death was reported by national media, George Floyd died on a Minneapolis sidewalk while in police custody. Taylor and Floyd’s cases caused outcry across the nation as two unarmed Black people died from the actions of police officers.

As a self-identified Black person, I was angry.  I was angry that members of my collective Black community were dying at a higher rate due to COVID. I was angry that members of my community were being killed by those who had taken an oath to protect and serve. I didn’t feel safe.

Not only has the Black community been impacted by acts of racism, our Asian brothers and sisters have been subjected to an increase in racist attacks since the pandemic occurred. In the past year hate crimes against Asian Americans increased by 150% in major US cities, and most of those acts were against women.  Hate crimes against Hispanic and Latino communities continue to increase to an all-time high.

After the killings last summer, we saw multiple statements released by companies, organizations, and even The United Methodist Church condemning racism and acts of violence. Many annual conferences and even the Council of Bishops released statements condemning racism. Beautifully crafted statements are meaningless unless there are actions behind the words. In the Council of Bishops statement, they requested actions included asking “United Methodists to read all they can on the subject of anti-racism and engage in conversations with children, youth and adults” and to “join in prayer at 8:46 AM and PM for 8 minutes and 46 seconds for at least 30 days.”

As a denomination, we must move beyond surface-level actions of acknowledgement and begin to actively engage in mission in our local communities for change. We cannot continue to read books and have “uncomfortable conversations” without subsequent action or change in our communities.

Our local communities have mission opportunities to engage in mission with our non-White brothers and sisters. There are many communities that have immediate needs being overlooked. Flint, Michigan still does not have clean water. Water access to some parts of the Navajo Nation is nonexistent, and residents have to rely on a water truck to bring clean water each week. Food insecurity continues to be a pressing issue in many of our major cities, especially in non-White neighborhoods. Rising home and rent prices due to gentrification is making it increasingly difficult for families to find safe and affordable housing.

As part of the church’s missional response to these injustices, the Multiethnic Ministries Unit at Global Ministries connects and collaborates with US Annual Conferences and congregations for mission programs related to racial/ethnic ministries through various programs.

The Community Developers Program has been in ministry and mission with racial/ethnic congregations and communities since 1968. The Community Developers Program (CDP) is a network of racial-ethnic congregations and communities throughout the United States committed to advancing the church’s capacity to be in mission partnership with the communities where they are located. Work includes advocacy, economic development, youth organizing, addressing local needs, creating an awareness of national and international causes and effects. Currently, the CDP Network has 22 community sites in 16 states spanning all 5 jurisdictions. Our sites are engaged in advocacy work such as affordable housing, access to healthcare, and immigration concerns.

Last year, the Multiethnic Ministries Unit awarded dedicated grants to Black and Brown communities to assist in multitude of COVID-19 relief efforts. Grants were used to provide access to food, rental assistance, and healthcare assistance.  The unit also awarded grants to congregations in the Minneapolis community to assist residents directly impacted by the social unrest after the killing of George Floyd. The grant was used to assist residents with access to medication, healthcare, food, and mental health support.

There is much more work to be done, though, in responding to the two pandemics affecting racial/ethnic communities. I encourage you to work with your local congregation, district, and/or annual conference to explore potential mission opportunities in racial/ethnic communities. It is time for The United Methodist Church to move beyond beautifully crafted statements and align our words with actions.

David Evans: Reversing the Gaze

Dr. David Evans is associate professor of history and intercultural studies and the director of cross-cultural programs at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. He is co-editor of Between the World of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Christianity. David is a member of John Wesley United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg, VA.

The chapel speaker slowly flipped the large poster board cards which declared the sins we were to avoid to enter the Kingdom of God: Greed. Wrath. Envy. Lust. Gluttony. Sloth. Pride.

I’d never thought much of sloth or gluttony. I’d need to do more reading to discover what those sins were about. I wanted to avoid sin as much as possible, given the sin-filled life I had lived prior to being born-again. Greed, envy, and lust I knew too well as one of four boys who felt like there was never enough food to satisfy the hunger of each of us. And as the third who was too small to contest the older two, nor given the same attention as the baby, I was aware what they had that I didn’t. I always wanted more.

But pride? A sin?

For as long as I could remember, pride was that thing that all of my elders told me I needed to have in my work, my dress, in my self… in my race. If I failed to turn in a homework assignment, my family told me, “Have some pride and follow through by turning in your work.” If I left the house looking disheveled, my grandmother, the only Black politician in a White town, would instruct me, “Take pride in how you look, you don’t just represent yourself, you are a Brown.” If I allowed my opponent to drive past me on the basketball court, my coach would say, “Take some pride in your defense and don’t allow him to turn the corner.” But of all the ways that I learned to value pride, racial pride superseded them all.    

In the pages of my African American encyclopedia and literature about the history of African American people I learned that White society disrespected and devalued us. Toni Morrison said as much through one of her characters in Beloved, “Out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight.” She continued, “And O my people, So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up.” It was up to us to believe in ourselves. It was up to us to love ourselves and hold our necks high with pride. Pride, as I understood it, was a matter of life and death—a matter to be embraced not rejected.

The command to reject pride put my teenage heart and mind in turmoil. Having only repented from a life of drugs and drinking a few weeks before this revival camp chapel in rural Michigan, I was aware that I didn’t know the rules of this Heavenly Kingdom well and I needed guidance. I had been to church my entire life, but these people were different. They were not different because they were white Christians, I’d been around white Christians at my home Lutheran church for a long time, but because they were white Christians who made me their mission project.

They wanted to save me, or get me saved, I was never sure if the distinction was significant. What I was certain of was that saving me meant conforming me to the likeness of their politics, which opposed abortion and argued ferociously for the death penalty. Saving me also meant that I had to agree to the commands of their Heavenly Kingdom, of which the two greatest commandments were: ask Jesus into your heart and deny the love of self. Up to that point, my grasp of politics and God’s commands hardly extended beyond the Martin Luther King Jr. lessons I’d learned at home: guns aren’t toys and love everybody.

I knew little of the intense scripture memorization that was necessary to succeed in this new revivalist environment. The passion which they held for saving people’s souls from hellfire and damnation was unrivaled by any passion I’d known before. I was enchanted by their fervor. And I found structure in the new Kingdom rules that gave me sufficient resolve to reject my old vices. But as I embraced their biblicism I felt my old and new Christian sensibilities at odds, almost at war—one that implored me to love myself and the other to despise myself.

I did not have the language of post-colonial mission to guide me through the conflict between Christian mission and cultural belonging. And as I marched boldly towards the kingdom that they preached, I often found myself drowning in a moat of missionary zeal that rebuked the lessons I’d learned growing up. These missionaries replaced those lessons with rules that saved me from the sometimes aimless wandering of my adolescence but also threatened to destroy my connection to my family, friends, and ancestors.

They were right that pride threatened my existence, but it was their pride in believing they knew what I needed, not my self-love. Their white missionary gaze looked upon me as an economically impoverished, single-parent, unchurched, Black, city kid. They never once asked me about my beliefs, values, church attendance, or family traditions. They took pride in assuming that they knew what I needed and that what I needed was to become more like them.

I became like them; they converted me. I assimilated to their white Christianity. I gained what W.E.B. DuBois called “double consciousness”—the ability to see the world first through the eyes of others who looked upon me with “amused contempt and pity.” And I discovered that the more I conformed in my speech, dress, and values, the more distant I grew from myself, my family, and my friends.

Was that their mission, I wonder, to distance me from my self, my people, my ancestors?

Whether it was their intention or not, the impact of their work did just that. Thankfully, the foundations my family built endured their missionary enculturation. Through the perspectives of my intellectual ancestors, like DuBois, I now wonder what would have become of the Christian mission in the midwest revival camp if they gave up their pride and gained my perspective? What if they were to embrace a double-consciousness, that enabled them to see the world first through the eyes of others who look upon them as lacking perspective and community? What if they could see that Black boys from inner-cities had something to teach them and they replaced their acts of charity with solidarity?

That has become my mission. By reversing the gaze, I want to demonstrate that righteous Christian mission is that which is guided by the Spirit’s movement towards double-consciousness, seeing from the perspective of others, and solidarity, sharing with others in community. When we share perspectives with others, then our love for them and love for self will not be at odds with one another, but will be in harmony with God’s mission and vision for a new Heaven and a new Earth.

Pastoral Payment and Missional Appointments

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

The Methodist tradition is distinct among streams of Protestantism in practicing ministerial appointment. Appointment means that bishops (in the UMC; other titles apply in other Methodist bodies), in consultation with others (the cabinet, ministers, and congregations), assign ministers to serve congregations. Both ministers and congregations get input in that process, but the ultimate decision of which ministers serve which churches is up to the bishop and her cabinet.

This appointive approach contrasts with a call system, which is employed by most Protestants with a primarily congregational polity (such as Baptists, UCCs, and Presbyterians), in which a congregational committee puts out a job posting for a minister, screens applicants, and ultimately decides whom to hire. There are modified call systems, such as those used by the Lutherans and Episcopalians, in which bishops help connect churches looking for ministers and ministers looking for churches. Nevertheless, in these modified call systems, congregations still make the final decisions about who to hire as a minister.

There are good and bad aspects of all these systems of matching pastors and congregations. One of the positives often touted about the Methodist appointment system is that it allows for a more “missional” approach to deploying ministers. In the words of the Indiana Conference:

“We believe that missional appointments will be strategic in attempts to match the characteristics of the congregation and community with the gifts and strengths of the pastor to maximize our fruitfulness in the transforming work of reaching people with the Gospel and leading them to become and live as disciples of Jesus. We will expect to be very intentional to pair our brightest and best pastors with churches that have demonstrated a high degree of readiness to make disciples.”

To ensure that pastoral gifts and ministry contexts match, the Book of Discipline (¶ 427) states, “Appointments shall take into account the unique needs of a charge, the community context, and also the gifts and evidence of God’s grace of a particular pastor.” The goal is for the church and ministry context to which a pastor is appointed to fit “with gifts, evidence of God’s grace, professional experience and expectations, and the family needs of the pastor” (BOD ¶ 428.5.a).

In the United States, there is one important criterion in pastoral appointments that is not explicitly spelled out on this list: finances. The BOD mentions the “financial condition” of a church as a sub-point on a list of relevant information about congregations (¶ 427.1.a), but that underscores the role of congregational finances in the appointive process.

In the United States, United Methodist clergy are predominantly paid by the congregation they serve. Health insurance, pensions, and other benefits are usually pooled through the annual conference or denomination, but take-home pay comes from the congregation. Most annual conferences have equitable compensation funds that can supplement the amount a congregation pays so that clergy are still paid the conference minimum salary. Equitable compensation funds, though, tend to be used in limited situations rather than as a main means of funding pastoral payrolls in US annual conferences.

Thus, because pastors are paid by congregations and because not all congregations can afford to pay their pastor the same amount, the cabinets of US annual conferences must take finances into consideration when making appointments. In general, pastors are not given pay cuts when they are assigned to new congregations. Thus, pastors are only assigned to congregations that can pay them as much or more than their last congregation.

This creates a career ladder system within the US apportionment system that introduces a variety of considerations other than missional fit when making apportionments. Cabinets must consider pastors’ previous salaries, churches’ ability to pay, and where pastors could go in future appointments. Pastors have a financial incentive to seek appointment to better-paying churches, since that will impact their income potentially for the rest of their careers. This also puts pastors in competition with one another, since the number of high-paying churches in any given annual conference is limited.

These additional factors limit cabinets’ abilities to make appointments based on purely missional reasons. If there is a church and ministry context that would fit very well with a particular pastor’s ministry skills, but that congregation can only pay the minimum salary, and the pastor currently makes more than minimum, it is highly unlikely that she/he would be appointed to that church, regardless of how well her/his gifts fit the missional opportunities present.

Moreover, while one of the benefits of the appointive system is that it ensures women and racial and ethnic minorities are given appointments, the congregational payment system can lead to compounding systemic discrimination against women and minorities in their income. If white men are given better churches early in their career, whether that is because of unconscious bias by congregations or cabinets, gendered assumptions about the need for men to be primary breadwinners, or because some churches “just aren’t ready for a woman/minority pastor,” that is a financial leg up that will continue to boost that white man’s earnings above those of his female and minority colleagues for the rest of his career.

Thus, the two main benefits of the appointive system—missional fit and ensuring the rights of women and minorities—are undermined by the congregational payment system used in the US church.

The congregational payment system, however, is not required. Nowhere is it prescribed in the Book of Discipline, nor is it the only option under US law. Indeed, several branches of United Methodism outside the United States have adopted a different system, in which the annual conference, episcopal area, or central conference pays all pastors out of a central pool of money. This centralized approach to paying pastors has the potential to overcome the problems outlined above with a congregational system of payment.

In the coming weeks, UM & Global will profile two examples of centralized systems of paying pastors: those used in Germany and in Zimbabwe. These two examples, which will be written up by the people running those systems, are offered up as model for the US church to learn from and to potentially consider for their own adoption.

Recommended Viewing: Mission Beyond COVID-19 Webinar on Asian Americans, COVID-19, and Race

Video of the fourth episode of Global Ministries' monthly webinar series, "Mission Beyond COVID-19," which examines aspects of mission theology in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now available online. This webinar occurred last month, with Dr. David W. Scott facilitating a conversation between Rev. Dr. Grace Pak, Rev. Dr. Eleazar Fernandez, and Rev. Dr. Roger S. Nam about "Asian Americans, COVID-19, and Race." The video is just over a half hour.

The fifth and final (for now) episode of this series, featuring Dr. David W. Scott facilitating a conversation with Tatenda Mujeni, Dr. Tendai Manyeza, and Dr. Katelin Hansen, on "COVID-19 and the Health of Communities" will happen at 10:00am EDT next Thursday, October 15th. Those interested may register in advance for the webinar. A fuller description is below:

COVID-19 and the Health of Communities

We often think about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health of individuals with the disease, but the pandemic affects the health of communities in a variety of ways—physical, social, economic, etc. How, in this time, can the church support the health of the broader communities in which it is located? What are the main threats and challenges to the health of our communities posed by the pandemic? How can the church share its resources and talents with the resources and talents of other partners to promote the health and flourishing of local communities, despite and in the midst of these challenges?

Thursday, October 15, 2020 at 10:00 am EDT

Panelists:
Tatenda Mujeni, Imagine No Malaria Program Manager, Global Ministries
Dr. Tendai Manyeza, Missionary Doctor, The United Methodist Church Hospital in Kissy, Sierra Leone
Dr. Katelin Hansen, Director of Operations, Community Development for All People
Moderator:
Dr. David W. Scott, mission theologian, Global Ministries

Recommended Viewing: The Theological Roots of Racism and Colonialism

As part of the UMC's Dismantling Racism campaign, the denomination has been sponsoring a series of virtual panel discussions on aspects of race and racism. The most recent panel, on "The Theological Roots of Racism and Colonialism" was held on Sept. 16th.

The panel featured Rev. Dr. Mai-Ahn Le Tran of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colón-Emeric of Duke Divinity School, and Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings of Yale Divinity School as panelists.The panel was moderated by Rev. Erin Hawkins, former General Secretary of the UMC's General Commission on Religion and Race.

The panel reflected on the ways in which theology and race intersect in the US context but put this discussion in larger contexts of colonialism and World Christianity. Panelists tied racism within the US to patterns of colonialism overseas and lifted up learning from world Christian perspectives as a means to decenter whiteness in American Christianity. The panel, which lasted about an hour, is well worth watching for these and other insights on the topic.

The panel can be viewed online here. There is also a UMNS story summarizing the townhall.