OpenLtrd

June 3, 1998

An Open Letter to Bishop Talbert, Cabinet, and Conference Staff:

Thank you for your correspondence to the Evangelical Renewal Fellowship, dated May 21, 1998.

The ERF delegation asked you for a prompt and clear written response to the agenda items presented to you prior to the May 20^th consultation. You did respond in writing, promptly and clearly. For this we are grateful. However, we are disappointed with the content of your response. We came to the consultation on May 20^th and spoke our hearts. We held back nothing. Some of us wept for the church. One of us begged, "Please show me how I can remain a United Methodist." We implored you to make evangelicals feel welcome at the table of Jesus Christ in this Annual Conference. Yet you did not take one single step in our direction. Your curt denials to all of our requests leave us feeling more unwanted than ever in this Annual Conference. At the consultation, you said, "We hear your pain." Yet you have said or done nothing to alleviate that pain. In fact you have exacerbated it. We feel like a patient in the doctor's office; and the doctor hears our pain but does nothing to promote healing, even though it is in the doctor's power to do so. The only sane conclusion is that you hear our pain but choose to ignore it. Your negative response to our requests further dishonors our Conference's stand on inclusiveness and diversity. Evangelicals do not feel included in this Annual Conference. This Conference's "celebrations of diversity" sound hypocritical to us. The leadership of this Annual Conference seems to honor every sort of theological diversity except traditional Wesleyan theology. Since the consultation, our Conference Secretary has rejected the petitions from Mission City UMC, in spite of the fact they were submitted prior to the June 1 deadline. It is within the Bishop's power to allow the Annual Conference to deal with them. Your letter states, "the ministry staff would not stand in the way of the submission of any petition." Will you open the doors for the consideration of these two petitions at this Annual Conference session, or stand in the way?

We ask again for consideration of an evangelical district or conference. You have the power to effect a paradigm shift for a conference that has struggled and declined for 30 years. The Roman Catholic Church has Jesuits, Franciscans and Secular Order. Why not try a varied approach for United Methodists? An evangelical conference would curb the acrimony of the ordination process, provide evangelical churches with the sort of pastors they want and provide healthy competition between the new conference and the denominational "regulars". Instead of further exacerbating the conflict between liberals and conservatives, this would provide a "win-win" solution. Barring a more creative response, we are left with only one course: the withholding of apportionments. This is not something we desire. However, you leave us no alternative but to express sympathy and understanding for churches that for faith and conscience's sake choose to withhold apportionments and withdraw from conference activities and programs. We do not believe more dialogue is the answer. We have written papers, wept before you, and bared our souls. In return we receive a terse response of pious platitudes about a unity that does not exist. No hope is offered, no action is taken. We are disappointed by your response.

Sincerely Yours,

The Evangelical Renewal Fellowship Executive Committee

Kevin Clancy, John Christie, Ron Greilich, John Motz, Harry Wood

June 10, 1998

From Ronald A. Greilich

An Open Letter to:

Bishop Melvin Talbert
Members of the Ministry Staff
California-Nevada Annual Conference
The United Methodist Church
P.O. Box 980250
West Sacramento, CA 95798-0250

Dear Bishop Talbert:

         I thank you and all the members of the Ministry Staff for taking the time to listen to the concerns of some of us who are associated with the ERF. The ERF has no membership list, never has had. We do have a mailing list of laity and clergy who are interested in what we are trying to do in ministry. There are more than 300 clergy and laity who have asked to be included, or were suggested by a friend. Many of the laity are present or former Lay Members of this Annual Conference when in session.
         I thank you also for listening to the "personal stories and histories" of several of those who spoke. The ERF does not have a single spokes person. Over the years we have had an ongoing, internal discussion about the nature of the ERF. Some have wanted to focus on political action within the Conference and beyond, while other have wanted to focus on spiritual strengthening and encouragement and education. We have done some of both, allowing each person freedom to participate as he or she was led by faith and conscience.
          The ERF has a history of nearly thirty years. I was the second "president" for fifteen or more years. A few years ago we moved into a "leadership team" approach to our concerns and mission. Although I was the eldest clergy person from the ERF present, and I have the longest history with this Annual Conference, I chose to speak only once during our time together.
           In what follows I want it to be clear that I am not writing out of anger, but from deep sadness and disappointment. I hope you will read this as an elder and colleague.
           You do not know my personal history. When God called me into the ministry, God also called me to the California-Nevada Annual Conference. I had invitations to serve in at least two other conferences where I would have begun at a larger church at a larger salary. With God's call clear in my heart, I chose to return to C-N.
            In most of my churches in this Conference my salary was at or just above minimum. In most cases the people were wonderful, and God blessed our ministry. I helped to start one church in a community near where I was serving. I was sent to three in a row which were in disarray as far as ministry was concerned. I helped to stabilize each of those situations and provide for transition to the future. None of this has ever been recognized or acknowledged by my bishops or the cabinet. I know that at least once inaccurate information was given to the cabinet by a District Superintendent, and I was given no chance to correct it. How do I know? Another DS accidentally let it slip, and then told me nothing could be done. Because of my evangelical theology there was discrimination. This AC has not been truly liberal in the forty plus years I have been in it. A truly liberal clergy member, a former DS, who helped mentor me in my early years, put it this way,; that the AC, on the whole, was "Doctrinaire liberal." He explained that to mean that most "liberals" in the Conference were as rigid as most "fundamentalists." Back then the term evangelical was not in common use.I have been a loyal clergy person in this AC. I have been a camp counselor and director. I have chaired two committees and served on several others. Nevertheless, theological discrimination has reared its ugly head. For eight years I was the editor of the Conference Journal. The pattern had been for the Journal editor to become Conference Secretary. I was bypassed in favor of another clergy who was removed from the ministry on sexual misconduct issues. Later, I served on the Conference Nominating Committee because I spoke out on the Conference floor about the lack of evangelicals serving on Conference agencies. (This lack of evangelicals still exists. I counted and I could only identify twenty-two. There are a few more on District Committees.) I was eventually elected chair of the Nominating Committee. After a couple of years I was asked to yield the chair to another clergy person who was more acceptable to the Conference leadership. No reason was ever given me for this. Since I was being replaced by a more liberal person, the reason seemed rather obvious.
           I read your response to our consultation and the points that were raised by the ERF, and I was not surprised, but it disappoint me. Perhaps I retained some slim hope that there might be some real liberals with courage
on the Ministry Staff. Assuming that the response was a unanimous one, (assuming is always dangerous,) the response was consistent with a pattern in AC for over forty years.
           Let me explain. Several times throughout these years the AC set up a series of listening sessions, hearings or whatever the name. Usually each district had at least one where laity and clergy gathered to share their ideas about what was needed for the future mission of the AC. In every instance things like Bible study, evangelism, prayer groups, things that centered on spiritual life were at the top of the list.. After one of these events I was standing next to our then Conference Coordinator who was discussing the results with another clergy. The essence of this coordinator's response was, "I don't care what the results show, we are going to do what we want." This said several things to me. (1) The AC at that time wasn't really interested in what the people in the church had to say. (2) The listening events were merely a way to try to appease people.
           In Sacramento on May 20, that is the same impression I received. There seemed to be a few attempts to understand what was being shared, but I don't think anyone really got the message. First, the issue of homosexuality, in any of its facets, is not the foundational issue. Homosexuality, the Jimmy Creech trial, etc., are only symptoms of much deeper issues. The authority of Scripture is one of these deeper matters. The two recent theological dialogues lifted this up as being at the core of the differences between the two groups that participated. The same is true here, and the gap has been growing over the years.
            A second foundational issues centers on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Early in my ministry as a counselor at a Junior Age camp, (grades 4-6) the director of the camp, an elder in this Conference, told all of us counselors not to talk to the youth about believing in Jesus Christ. Why? Because they were too young to make an intelligent decision. The abyss between what persons believe about who Jesus is has been widening over the years. When I ask ministerial candidates whether they have ever led another person to personal faith in Christ, and how they would do so, few have any answer.
            Third, evangelicals in this conference have been threatened, they have been laughed at behind their backs and to their faces. They have been told that evangelicals cannot think theologically, and they have limited intelligence.
             Fourth, Ministry Staff heard the words that were spoken, but I am convinced that they have no real comprehension of the pain evangelicals feel in this AC. If I went to my doctor with physical pain and asked for help, and he listened and the said, I hear your pain but I will give you no relief, I can assure you I would report that doctor to the medical board.
             In Sacramento you heard spiritual pain that is threatening the very fabric of the lives of those who were there. The response to that pain was, in essence, to ignore it. All that was said was that this AC is diverse enough to encompass everyone. That is wishful thinking. This says that we have no standards or boundaries as far as faith is concerned. How can a person who believes that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord of all the world co-exist with the person who says it doesn't matter what we believe about Jesus as long as we are sincere? Many of those who participated in the theological dialogues last November and February recognized that we have irreconcilable differences. In our own Board of Ordained Ministry some of the "liberals" finally admitted, what seems heresy to some, that in this AC we do have irreconcilable differences. To gloss this over, as the Ministry Staff response seems to do in its talk of diversity, is to close one's mind to reality.
              In Bishop Talbert's letter to the AC he suggests that there are some who are excluded from the Lord's table. Within the context of the letter those who are so accused must be evangelicals. In response to this, I say it is simply not true. In forty years of ministry I have never excluded anyone from the Lord's table. Nor do I know any evangelical in this AC who has done so.
              If Ministry Staff thinks that because they spent two hours listening to words in Sacramento this issue will go away, they are wrong.We were not even given the proverbial sop. These foundational issues of faith will continue to be raised. The Ministry Staff response did absolutely nothing to ameliorate the pain, the heartache and the sorrow that we feel. We did not even get an aspirin.
              Bishop Talbert, you and Ministry Staff had an opportunity to do something really significant for the United Methodist Church and the kingdom of God. You could have set a new direction and given new hope to literally thousands of people, lay and clergy, in this AC. But you missed the opportunity you were offered by choosing to say "NO" to all the options we offered.
              I close my letter with deep sadness and regret for a lost opportunity. Even if some reversal were to beheld out, it is too late for a number of our evangelical pastors and for some of the congregations.

Sincerely in Christ,
Ronald A. Greilich, DMin.

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