{"id":13075,"date":"2016-05-19T16:10:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T23:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=13075"},"modified":"2016-05-19T16:10:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T23:10:24","slug":"umcgc-reflection-a-prayer-for-old-white-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/umcgc-reflection-a-prayer-for-old-white-men\/","title":{"rendered":"#UMCGC Reflection: A Prayer for Old White Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Reinholz<\/strong>
\nMay 19, 2016 | Portland, Oregon<\/h4>\n

Dear God, I\u2019m an old, white, heterosexual man. I have as much privilege as any segment of our population in the United States can get. I\u2019ve had that privilege since the first Europeans arrived on the shores of North America. For now, I still have clout internationally in this Western, Euro-centric world. I have the money, I control American politics, and I control The United Methodist Church.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Creator God, old white men have allowed your creation to be destroyed and resources pillaged. Our reliance on fossil fuels contributes to global warming and climate change and jeopardizes the lives of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. We have broken treaties and colonized entire civilizations simply so we can claim their abundant resources for ourselves.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, old white men in this country have destroyed Native American peoples, while old white European men have colonized Africa, India, and South America. Old white men enslaved Africans and destroyed entire tribes and communities in your name. We have considered those whose skin is darker than ours as unworthy, not of value, or subhuman.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

God our Mother, old, white, heterosexual men have raped and abused your beautiful daughters and seen women as sex objects, as things to be possessed. We see homosexuality as a threat to our manhood because lesbians renounce us and gay men are seen as traitors to male power. We are afraid of people who have different sexual orientations than what we consider \u201cnormal\u201d.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gracious God, old white men control your United Methodist Church. We are afraid of anything that loosens our grip on power, and think we know best. We see inclusion as diluting our power and are desperately afraid of losing power or being proven wrong by allowing more voices to be heard. So, we old white men dominate conversations, using our cultural privilege to bully, persuade, dominate. There are a lot of us here at General Conference, and we are sucking the air out of the room.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, old, white, heterosexual men are not the only problem in The United Methodist Church, but theirs are the voices most often heard at General Conference, this despite the absence of men in the work of our local churches. Certainly, there are other voices that echo the same arguments made by many old, white, heterosexual men. But, the voices of women and people of color are seldom allowed to be heard because they are not the voices of old, white, heterosexual men.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Creator God, we old white men of the United States have proven incapable of leading your United Methodist church. We have not listened to your voice, nor the voices of your children around the world. Help us to use our power and influence to become bridges, not barriers. Help us to use our privilege to add a chair at the table for each one of your beloved children. And, may we, the old, white, heterosexual men of The United Methodist Church, have the courage to step aside and trust a new generation of young, diverse, spiritually grounded sisters and brothers to lead our church.
\nLord, have mercy on old white men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Reinholz is the PNW Conference Associate Lay Leader and serves as the reserve lay delegate to General Conference. He is a retired USAF officer and former high school teacher. David\u2019s passions include music and mentoring youth and young adults.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related Post:<\/h4>\n

\u00a0General Commission on the Status and Role of Women Monitoring Report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Reinholz May 19, 2016 | Portland, Oregon Dear God, I\u2019m an old, white, heterosexual man. I have as much privilege as any segment of our population in the United States can get. I\u2019ve had that privilege since the first Europeans arrived on the shores of North America. For now, I still have clout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":13086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[449,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-conference","8":"category-pnw-delegation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/david-reinholz-blog.jpg?fit=1300%2C678&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3oT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13075"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13099,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13075\/revisions\/13099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}