Gaar Adams

Opinion contributor

“Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.” I encountered this welcoming slogan of the United Methodist Church — the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the country — on a weekly basis growing up as a young parishioner in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It is a phrase familiar to 12 million UMC members globally; the denomination even publishes a style guide to standardize how this “brand promise” should uniformly appear on billboards, advertisements, and newsletters around the world.

But today that ubiquitous slogan rings with cruel irony, and the unity sought by the church has been torn apart in the wake of a controversial binding resolution passed by the UMC’s top legislative body affirming a ban on non-celibate LGBT clergy and same-sex marriage. The vote effectively closes off any space for theological diversity on the topic of homosexuality within the denomination.

Despite the ruling, polls shows that American UMC members are following the same trends as the general U.S. population and becoming more accepting of the LGBT community: Today, 60 percent believe that homosexuality "should be accepted" within the church and nearly half, 49 percent, "strongly favor" or "favor" same-sex marriage within the church.

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As a queer man raised in the UMC since birth, I urge all its members to begin this Lenten period of reflection contending with the lasting damage that this condemnation of the LGBT community will inflict on congregants struggling with their sexuality. And to the UMC communities wrestling with leaving the church, I ask you to first reckon with the consequences of complicity and then take the bold step of starting an entirely new denomination of acceptance for the 21st century.

The pain — and danger — of stigma

As a teenager in the early 2000s, I dutifully attended weekly religious classes in preparation for my spiritual confirmation within the United Methodist Church. But, while studying the guiding principles of the UMC, I struggled to grapple with my sexuality and how it might fit within my religion's confines. This fear of rejection is not a phenomenon that I alone wrestled with; it is felt by too many LGBT youth.

LGBT youth struggle with their mental health at an alarmingly high rate. A 2016 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found attempted suicide rates more than four times higher among lesbian, gay and bisexual high school students than their heterosexual peers. Among LGBT young people in religious communities, the figures are even more alarming.

One study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that young people who identify as lesbian or gay, and reported that religion was important to them, were 38 percent more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts. For lesbians of faith alone, it found a shocking 52 percent increase in suicidal thoughts.

But it is a stark 2017 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing a state-by-state timeline of same-sex marriage legalization and its association to a reduction in suicide attempts that demonstrates exactly what I knew as a kid: LGBT youth are just looking for acceptance.

Thankfully, I was raised by two loving and supportive parents and a relatively open-minded member of the clergy that emphasized morality over literal scriptural interpretation. But as I begin to think about having my own children, I must reflect on the role the UMC is playing in shaping the lives of its next generation. And I’m not alone in questioning whether the community is fit to play a role in the upbringing of my children.

A new generation of congregants — and allies

A recent Family Equality Council study found that LGBT millennials are actively planning to grow their families at a rate not far behind their heterosexual peers. But as prospective LGBT parents like my husband and me look to identify support networks and healthy environments for child-rearing, we are faced with the question of whether the religious communities we were raised in can be the supportive spaces we need for our new families.

When I speak with my LGBT friends about raising children, they are as unequivocal as me: We want to imbue our children with a sense of morality, but also have nuanced conversations with them about their religious heritage and its complicated traditions. As a third-generation Methodist, that means discussing with my kids how the denomination’s founder vocally expressed his liberal abolitionist stance in 18th century America, while also educating them about how the UMC is becoming more socially conservative.

These kinds of difficult conversations on ethics and morality should always come hand-in-hand with faith. But one thing is unambiguous: I will not be a part of an organization that does not respect my legal right to marry or create a family.

As the UMC contends with a decline in its American membership, its leadership must reflect on how its social policies (including the 2016 public revocation of its 40-year-old resolution supporting Roe vs. Wade) might disillusion its former brethren. And UMC members uncomfortable with the recent vote must consider how a splinter denomination might incorporate a theological platform that follows trends of social liberalism and attracts new parishioners — not just queer ones but also young, progressive members — focused on building an inclusive community.

Shortly after the UMC vote, I Skyped my parents back in Wisconsin and asked my mother why her parents — one Lutheran, one Dutch Reform — joined the United Methodist Church all those years ago. “Oh, it was a very spiritual issue,” she chuckled, “The church had a big pipe organ and it’s where the choir could sing the most.”

Hiding in the joke about my grandmother’s love for a good Christmas carol, I caught the truth: She, like so many others, joined and remained in the church for its community. But, today, the “United” Methodist Church has turned its back on its own slogan and is no longer a community that I recognize. So, to every clergy, parishioner, and congregation heartbroken or ashamed by the state of the UMC, the time has come to build a new community of true open hearts, open minds, and open doors.

Gaar Adams is a London-based writer and is currently working on a nonfiction book on queer communities in the Middle East. Follow him on Twitter @gaaradams.