Renown Pastor's Message Still Resonates
The vision of the Rev. Cecil Williams remains a work in progress
A recent story noting the passing of the Rev. Cecil Williams catapulted me into a time capsule to the past. But I wasn't there long before a news event this past week offered me a new appreciation of how his life's work was light years ahead of his time.
The year was 1971. During spring break, I headed to San Francisco with 30 other members of Morningside College's Religious Life Council. We boarded a charter bus in Sioux City on Friday afternoon, equipped with film cameras, a fresh supply of traveler's checks, and sack lunches.
We stretched our legs in Salt Lake City and Reno, and after 35 hours on the road, arrived in San Francisco at midnight on Saturday.
The next morning our bus driver dropped off all of us fledgling Methodists at 330 Ellis Street. Our destination: Glide Memorial Methodist Church. Although we expected a contemporary service, none of us wide-eyed Midwesterners was prepared for the actual experience. Imagine a church with psychedelic light effects projected onto the wall behind the stage. Add to this a prelude performed by a jazz-folk group and "hymns" including "The Games People Play" and "I Got Life" from HAIR, sung by a swinging choir. And if you can stretch your imagination this far, envision a crowd standing in line outside to get into the church!
Before leaving the celebratory service, one more line formed: each of us, along with a few hundred other decidedly diverse people, patiently waited our turn to get a huge hug from the charismatic pastor: the Rev. Cecil Williams.
Our week in San Francisco was filled with memorable experiences, including "a trip" through the infamous streets of Haight Ashbury, cable car rides across the city's roller coaster hills, and novice culinary adventures at Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown. And if you don't believe me, you can read all about it in the article I wrote for the Collegiate Reporter; it's enshrined in a scrapbook with other college features and articles that led me toward a journalism degree at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
During graduate school, other milestone events unfolded: the end of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and Roe v. Wade. Contemporary worship services across many denominations became common. Huge, megachurches showcased Sunday morning productions, complete with choreography and professional musicians. Vivid memories of Glide Memorial Methodist Church faded. But through the years, the experience lingered as an authentic message of LOVE, JOY, and acceptance.
The death of 94-year-old Rev. Cecil Williams brought it all back into focus. It also sketched in the blank spaces on the canvas of his colorful life story after San Francisco had receded into my rear view mirror.
Born Albert Cecil Williams in the segregated central Texas town of San Angelo, his dad was the custodian of a white church, and his mom was a teacher who told him from an early age that he would be a minister someday. He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at Huston-Tillotson College (now University) in Austin in 1952. Together, with four other Black students, he integrated the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and received a degree there few years later.
Taking It to the Streets
The Rev. Williams served at churches in New Mexico and Kansas City for several years and eventually studied at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. At the time of our college trip, he had been the pastor of this church in the heart of the downtrodden Tenderloin neighborhood for only eight years. Little did we know from the overflowing crowds during our visit that the congregation had dwindled to the single digits when he began in 1963.
He started by adding a house band and a chorus, and gradually Sunday attendance was on the upswing. Not only did Williams reach out to the struggling poor and homeless in the neighborhood, but he became an outspoken champion for lesbian, gay, and transgender people. San Francisco held its first Pride Parade in 1971; police were routinely arresting LGBTQ+ at bars. Later in the 1980s, the church offered HIV screenings, child care, treatment for drug addiction and a legal clinic. Joining forces with another foundation, the Glide Foundation built 52 units of low-income federal housing near the church. Williams and Janice Mirikitami, a church typist turned church program director turned poet-laureate of San Francisco, married in 1982.
He treated everyone who walked in the doors of the church as equals, regardless of their sexuality, social and economic class, age, or race. Described as "a drum major for justice," he was arrested for civil rights demonstrations, and in 1974 delivered a tape recording from kidnapped Patti Hearst to her parents. Eventually, church attendance swelled to 10,000.
The Rev. Williams retired as pastor in 2000, but remained the Minister of Liberation and CEO of the Glide Foundation, and its multiple community outreach programs. In 2006, he and his wife appeared in The Pursuit of Happyness, based on the life of homeless salesman and his son who had found help at Glide in 1981.
Today the Glide Foundation relies on its $29 million budget for its social programs. Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Nancy Pelosi, and Diane Feinstein, and many other famous Americans number among its supporters. A celebration of life is planned at Glide on Sunday, May 12.
UMC General Conference Makes News
Not surprisingly, Glide Memorial Church separated from the United Methodist Church in 2020. Financial Issues, as well as the issue of same-sex marriages, had simmered for years, eventually winding up in the courts.
It's a wonder it didn't happen sooner. In fact, in 1972, one year after our Morningside group attended Glide Memorial Methodist Church, the amendment, "The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching," was added to its original draft wording: "persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth."
But as the 11-day 2024 United Methodist Church General Conference concluded yesterday in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Rev. Williams would be pleased that the outcome of its deliberations is nudging it closer to reflecting his vision of radical acceptance.
Adoption of a revised church structure will grant international regional conferences a new, equal authority to adopt their own Book of Discipline. This will allow U.S churches to move forward in a more affirmative way. (It hinges on regional votes, and will not take effect until 2026.)
The 52-year-old declaration that the UMC doesn't condone the practice of homosexuality and is incompatible with Christian teaching was removed from the UMC Revised Social Principles. The new definition of marriage is a covenant between "two people of faith". The ban on barring "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" from being ordained or appointed as ministers, has been dropped. With these revisions, the UMC joins the ranks of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterians, and the Episcopalians in a more welcoming stance.
The changes come at a high cost as over 7,600 U.S. conservative churches, mainly in the Southeastern U.S., disaffiliated with the UMC over the past five years over LGBtQ+rights. The denomination is looking at a 43% reduction in its overall budget.
Members of the UMC church in our neighboring town split over this issue, and 142 churches in Iowa have left the denomination. Surely they have loved ones who are LGBTQ? I lost a much-loved cousin to suicide four decades ago because of this stigma and lack of acceptance. Today I'm blessed by a younger generation of family members who are in same sex marriages. It isn't a lifestyle choice.
Paragraph 2553, specifying the grace period for disaffiliation and purchase of church properties, also has been deleted from the UMC Book of Discipline. Isn't it time now to offer a prayer for the healing of lifelong friendships and family relationships regarding this issue, and return to the UMC message: "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open doors".
After all, the Rev. Cecil Williams never was about showing people the door to leave. He was all about inviting them in. Going forward, the UMC will be on the right side of history, along with members of a younger generation more accepting of sexual/gender diversity.
A new UMC declaration calls for "human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, and other racial, ethnic, and gender categories." And if I close my eyes, I can hear the Rev. Williams shout out a resounding, "AMEN!" to that!
"I want the church to be the church. And it seems to me, if it's going to be the church, it's got to stop turning its head away from poor folks. It's got to stop turning its head away from black folks, from brown folks, yellow folks, red folks, poor white folks. It's got to stop turning its head away from gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender. It's got to stop turning its head away from children who are in desperate need. It's got to stop turning its head away from women, who are going through all kinds of situations where empowerment is critical at this time. What I'm seriously saying is, it's time for the church to be the church, and you always start out with those who are less fortunate, those who are in greater need. Middle class America has got to recognize that it's got to go to the bottom to help folks help themselves."
The Rev. Cecil Williams
When we were going through our pre-marriage counseling with both my Methodist pastor and my husband’s faith leader of a different denomination of Christianity, my fiancee was struggling with which church we would attend after marriage. When my pastor boiled it down to this statement- “All religions and denominations have their own rituals, practices, and beliefs, but at the core of the Methodist belief is a commitment to just do what you can to make the world a better place” - there was no doubt for him where we would attend.
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