by Heather Hahn, United Methodist News
On the eve of a nail-bitingly tense U.S. presidential election, Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone reminded her fellow bishops that God’s deliverance is a theme that runs throughout Scripture.
She also spoke of how she sees God’s deliverance already at work as the United Methodist Church begins anew after years of internal rancor over the status of LGBTQ people.
“The United Methodist Church is moving forward choosing the pathway of love,” Malone said Nov. 4 in her first presidential address to the bishops. “And it is this love that we embody and multiply and witness in our communities and in the world.”
Some 100 active and retired bishops gathered this week at the United Methodist-related Epworth by the Sea Conference Center to discuss the denomination’s future and role in the world.
Malone, who also leads the Indiana Conference, is the first Black woman the bishops have elected as their president. She and her fellow episcopal leaders hope to guide The United Methodist Church as it seeks to let go of past acrimony and move into a more inclusive future that also maintains unity across multiple nations, cultures and theological perspectives.
In an address titled ‘Pressing Forward: All Things New Again!,’ Malone preached on God’s promise of deliverance in Isaiah 43:16-21. In that familiar passage, God proclaims to the exiled and beleaguered Jewish people: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Malone pointed to that passage as one of many in the Bible showing God’s will for people’s deliverance.
“It is God’s will for people to be liberated, to be free from bondage, despair and darkness—to live a free and an abundant life,” she said.
Malone said she often found herself praying to the Holy Spirit that God’s will for liberation be done—including in The United Methodist Church.
Among her prayers, she said, is her cry to “heal and deliver us, the United Methodist Church, from the brokenness and trauma experienced from the many years of fighting and division and separation that led to disaffiliations and the splintering of the church.”
She reminded her audience that God has heard her and all people’s cries.
Malone (a lifelong United Methodist born in 1968, the same year as the merger that created The United Methodist Church) said she has never been “more hopeful about the future of the United Methodist Church as I am today!”
Earlier this year, General Conference (the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly) overwhelmingly voted to remove decades-old, denomination-wide stances against the practice of homosexuality, the ordination of gay clergy and officiation of same-sex weddings.
The same assembly also passed explicit protections so no United Methodist clergy would be compelled to officiate at any wedding against their conscience. General Conference also instituted the policy that the denomination’s central conferences (church regions in Africa, Europe and the Philippines) could set their own standards for ordination and marriage rites in line with local laws.
The General Conference also moved forward the plan for regionalization, which would transform the U.S. and each central conference into regional conferences with equal decision-making authority.
To take effect, the regionalization plan will need to be ratified by at least two-thirds of the total voters at the denomination’s 131 annual conferences, church bodies consisting of voters from multiple congregations and ministries.
Bishops preside but have no vote at General Conference. Nevertheless, they have committed to supporting the ratification of regionalization. The bishops plan for all annual conferences to hold votes on regionalization and other amendments to the denomination’s constitution by the end of next year.
Malone said United Methodists witnessed a profound display of God’s power, goodness and steadfast love at this year’s General Conference.
“The United Methodist Church no longer has any statements, policies or ‘othering’ practices within its polity that discriminates, regulates or excludes any person or people groups,” she said. “To God be the glory!”
In addition to removing language that marginalized LGBTQ people, she pointed out, General Conference also committed The United Methodist Church to being anti-racist and justice-seeking.
“God is doing a new thing,” Malone said. “The United Methodist Church is moving forward as a diverse worldwide church that celebrates theological differences, that celebrates diversity, and claims this rich diversity as God’s gift.”
