The Rev. Jerry DeVine, GCORR board member and a district superintendent in the Detroit Conference, leads the GCORR board's strategic planning orientation at its September 2008 meeting. GCORR photo by John Coleman

By the Rev. Jerome DeVine

Diversity is a creation and gift of God’s divine intention. Our wholeness comes from embracing that gift of love. Conversely, racism is an idolatrous resistance to God’s intentional gift.

Race and gender are factors in our political dynamics because the norm of expectation and practice when it comes to choosing leaders has primarily been white males. In a country where the population is moving quickly towards a more complex diversity, we must examine that norm in terms of how it eschews or embraces this changing demographic.

There are varied voices speaking to the intersection of race and politics. There is also an absence of voices in some cases. Early on in the presidential primary campaigns one of my sons came out strongly in favor of Senator Barak Obama. Frequently he would offer his thoughts on the senator’s qualifications and gifts for this office. Not once, in my recollection, did he refer to Obama’s race. Many young adults are living in a far more fluid understanding of multiracial identity and relationships than their parents or grandparents.

In contrast, I heard a sharply different voice in a recent conversation at a table of United Methodists. One was a volunteer who had made phone calls for the Obama campaign. During most calls she was received respectfully, if not eagerly. One call recipient, however, responded with contempt, “I am not going to vote for that ______!” The volunteer chose not to utter the epithet, but the indication was clear.

While my son saw a gifted leader who happens to be biracial, the person who received that call chose only to see a caricature demonized through the lens of white racism. I pursued a deeper conversation with my son on how a person’s understanding of their racial heritage can be an asset in interpreting life events. I doubt I could have had that same conversation with the campaign call recipient.

The forces that have shaped us as a denomination have also been central to the formation of the dominant U.S. culture. We are mainstream. Therefore, the culture reflects the church, which reflects the culture, and in both arenas we must do better. While a number of black and Asian American men have risen to the rank of bishop, there have only been two Hispanic/Latino men, one Latina woman, no Asian American women and no Native American or Pacific Islanders elected thus far. And several U.S. jurisdictions have been especially resistant to electing women of color bishops. All one has to do is to look at the statistics and then ask the underlying questions.

In a country that has nearly a 50 percent racial-ethnic population, still our United Methodist churches and leaders are predominantly white. I have heard the rationale that this is appropriate because our U.S. membership is about 87 percent white. Has it occurred to us that we remain predominantly white because we have allowed white privilege to guide the church, rather than be guided by God’s intentional, creative diversity?

The Rev. Jerome DeVine is superintendent of the Albion District of the Detroit Conference and a board member of the General Commission on Religion and Race.

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