Meanness Afoot in the United Methodist Church

I am an ashamed United Methodist! The action of the South Central Jurisdiction (SCJ) to force Bishop W. Earl Bledsoe into retirement was a sad and shameful day for me. I am a lifelong United Methodist with four decades of pastoral ministry. The unprecedented action of the 2012 SCJ was a painful reality that race is still an unresolved matter in the United Methodist Church.

Bishop Bledsoe said before the SCJ that he saw unfairness in the evaluation of him and in the effort to remove him, but did not see a race issue. Whether, having endured involuntary retirement at SCJ, he still feels that way is a good question. But many of us have from the outset wondered whether race is a factor, and what happened at SCJ gave me a clear answer—“yes.”