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VOL. 15, NO. 9

NEWS

Communion study offers insight into sacrament

FROM THE EDITOR

I don’t know who actually answers these surveys, but I know for sure it’s not me. I never get called.

One survey particularly interesting to me is the one our denomination’s General Council on Ministries did with delegates to this year’s General Conference. Last October, 800 surveys were sent out to every General Conference delegate in the United States. Seventy-two percent of them, or 573, were returned. A lack of mailing addresses for delegates who live outside the United States accounts for that apparent oversight.

The 40-page report on this survey, titled 'A Hitchhikers Gbwc_superusere to U.S. Delegates at the 2004 General Conference,' is available online at www.gcom-umc.org.

The report found that homosexuality was the number one issue for these 573 delegates. Whoopie. That’s not news. Neither is the fact that church finances, membership loss and restructuring were named the other top issues. Craig This, a researcher at GCOM, noted for United Methodist News Service that these issues have been among the top ones, since 1988.

This, however, is news: the number five issue recorded by respondents was 'diversity and inclusivity' despite the fact that the delegates are not diverse nor inclusive.

And before you say, 'you’re wrong, Alsgaard,' here we’re not talking ethnicity, gender or ordination.

I’m looking at this staggering statistic: 35 percent of all delegates who responded — 36 percent of the clergy and 35 percent of the laity — live in households where the total household income is more than $100,000.

In the total U.S. population, the figure runs about one-third that number, along the lines of 12 percent of the population with that income.

But this figure is to be expected, you say. United Methodism expects highly educated clergy, you say.

Yup. In fact, 99 percent of the 291 clergy respondents to the survey have a master’s, doctorate or other degree, as do I (M.Div., United Theological Seminary, 1986). That same figure for the 302 lay delegates was 39 percent.

But in the U.S. population, that figure is 9 percent.

Let’s go one step further. Ten percent of the U.S. population lives in a household with an income less than $10,000. Fifty-eight percent live in households with an income below $49,999.

By contrast, a mere six percent of United Methodist clergy fall into that category, and 24 percent of the laity. Combined, that equals 11 percent of the General Conference delegates who responded to the survey.

They are also old. The average age of a delegate who responded is 54. The average age of a person in the United States is 35. Only 4 percent of the General Conference delegates are between ages 20 and 34, whereas that age range is 21 percent of the general U.S. population.

And for those of you wondering about ethnicity, we could do better. We’re a little top-heavy in the 'white/Caucasian' area (79 percent of the delegates versus 69 percent of the population), but even-up in Asians, American Indians and African Americans. We’re way low in Hispanic/Latino delegates – only 2 percent in Pittsburgh, but 14 percent of the population.

So there you have it.

Is it any wonder that this denomination, which has a long and storied history of reaching the masses, of being the 'every man' church where economic status mattered little if at all, has today all but written off the poor?

Why should we expect anything but that when the 2004 General Conference delegation from the United States will consist of old, rich, mainly white, well-educated United Methodists?

And what will they do? Argue about homosexuality, it seems.

Is it not incredible — sinful? — that delegates have the luxury of arguing the nature/nurture debate of human sexuality while, literally, people die of violence, HIV/AIDS and hunger in our poorest neighborhoods?

I’m not accusing these delegates of being stiff-necked or hard-hearted. Certainly not. These are our finest leaders and, knowing several of them personally, I can vouch for many of them in saying that they have Christ’s spirit deep in their hearts and live a life Christ himself would call 'blessed.'

But calling them diverse, or even representative, is a stretch. And until that changes, the direction of our church won’t.

Because, as I learned from the Rev. Leonard Sweet, the guy whose signature is on that little diploma on my office wall that says I’m a well-educated, highly-paid, semi-old (44) white clergy person (well, the diploma didn’t make me white; that was my mom and dad’s fault), 'Unless you change the direction you’re headed, that’s where you’ll be.'

It’s time to change direction, don’t you think?