Putting on sackcloth and ashes, the United Methodist Church confronted more than 200 years of institutional racism and discrimination that split John Wesley’s Methodist followers into two distinct camps — black and white.
In a stirring three-hour ceremony May 4, delegates to the church’s 2000 General Conference apologized to black churches that left the Methodist church because of pervasive racial discrimination. In addition, they apologized to black United Methodists who still face racial prejudice.
The churchwide mea culpa is the latest apology in an unprecedented season of repentance that has seen Pope John Paul II apologize to Jews for the Holocaust and Christians apologize to Muslims for the medieval Crusades.
What was different about the Methodist apology, however, was that the church was seeking forgiveness both within and without. Not only did the Methodists apologize to others, they apologized to themselves.
“Racism has lived like a malignancy in the bone marrow of this church for years,” said William Boyd Grove, ecumenical officer for the church’s Council of Bishops. “It is high time to say we’re sorry.”
Representatives of historically black denominations said they humbly accepted the apology but cautioned it must be more than words. McKinley Young, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, said, “For us, the true measure of repentance will come when the lights are down and everyone has gone home.” (RNS)
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