When Loving Your Neighbor Has No Easy Answers
Do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. - The Three General Rules
Loving our neighbor is our core commitment to one another as a Christian people. As Pastor Lowell preached on Sunday, where we sit determines where we stand. Because we sit together at the table of God’s grace, we stand with one another in all of life’s assorted joys and difficulties.
How we accomplish this requires careful discernment, prayer, and a lot of practice. Through generous listening and discussion, we are often able to do real good for and with one another, mitigating the harm by the broken structures of our world.
At 8:50pm on the third and final day of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, an unexpected motion came to the floor:
“We move that the 2027 Annual Conference be outside of Idaho and that a location that is safer for all be selected in a timely manner for appropriate arrangements to be made for all concerned.”
Our regional body (called an Annual Conference) consists of the state of Oregon and the southern half of Idaho. We are in covenant with United Methodists across this region, committed to life together as we manage the ministry of this diverse geography. When we gather for the business of the conference, especially our annual meeting (also called Annual Conference), we traverse the bounds of the Conference to meet in the places where local ministry happens.
It takes a tremendous amount of work and financial resources to prepare a local church’s staff, volunteers, and technological infrastructure to host Annual Conference. To capitalize on this effort, the Annual Conference Sessions planning team decided we would gather at Boise First UMC (Cathedral of the Rockies) for 2026 and 2027.
However, the choice to remain in Boise this year was not without consideration. Earlier this year, the Idaho governor signed a bill that criminalizes trans and/or non-binary people for using bathrooms that align with their identity and affirm their dignity.
At that time, Bishop Cedrick wrote: “I strongly and unequivocally support our trans and non-binary friends, members, allies, families, and neighbors. We will not require anyone to go anywhere that poses a risk. At the same time, we will not abandon our witness and work in Idaho. […] At the moment, no solution feels fully just, fair, or right. Still, we are called to do our best. […] Remaining in Boise is not an endorsement of harmful policy. It is an act of solidarity with those in Idaho who are resisting harm every day, and it is an opportunity to bear witness to a gospel and a Jesus who do not demonize or criminalize a basic human need.”
Our friends in Boise welcomed us with open arms. The folks at the Cathedral are truly remarkable hosts. For those not traveling to Boise, the online participation option was smoother than ever (as reported by our own Harriett Ottaviano). And, the weekend was not without incident.
On that last night, colleagues shared with the gathered body that harm and fear had precipitated the motion to reconsider a second year in Boise.
Those in the immigration process fear coming in-person to Annual Conference in Idaho, opting to participate online for fear of being detained.
During this Annual Conference, a non-binary clergy person faced discrimination at the hospital when their wife required emergency care.
It was recognized that the United Methodists in Idaho have worked faithfully to advocate in the legislature, faithfully care for queer folks and immigrants in meaningful, tangible ways, and whose own identities represent these groups; all in a place where to claim that work or hold that identity comes at a high cost.
And, in seeking to honor and protect those whose experiences had been shared, the request was respectfully made to not host our annual gathering in Idaho in 2027.
Our democratic decision-making structure currently utilizes Robert’s Rules of Order. The presiding Bishop chairs the Annual Conference, with a Parliamentarian sitting close at hand for procedural questions that arise. You participate by using two separate online forms: one to cast your ballot and one to get recognized under a specific provision to enter the queue. For the most part you can speak for or against, ask a question, refer or amend a motion, point out incorrect procedure, or to end debate. Often, discussion will move past your speech or intended action before you are called upon. The queue was not visible to the gathered body during this session, so as a participant you don’t know who you might be cutting off by calling for an end to discussion or if there might be helpful amendments coming to the floor. It is imperfect at best.
Amid the late-night discussion, a queer clergy person spoke against the motion:
Upon coming out and realizing there was no space for her in her home conference, she left West Virginia for the Greater Northwest. She was then sent to serve in Gooding, Idaho. Her District Superintendent asked her to take down her coming out blog before she was introduced to her congregation, effectively closeting her again. For the second time she endured the difficulty of coming out in a red state.
9 years later, that same church – the one from which she’d hid her coming out blog – stood by her at her “big gay wedding during big gay Pride month!”
“Representation and presence matters,” she stated plainly. “We have trans folk [in Idaho] living every day with the reality of these rules. What do we say to them when we say ‘We’re not going to walk with you anymore? We’re not going to be present with you in a moment of your suffering. We’re not going to stand here and catch the stones that Idaho is throwing at you. Instead, we’re going to flee from them.’”
Other speeches were provided that reminded of the harm that happens to immigrants, people of color, and queer folks in many areas of Oregon as well. First Church knows this well from our own advocacy work here in Portland. Additional speeches spoke in favor of the motion. All speeches focused on the care and protection of queer and immigrant siblings and their own families within the conference.
The body faced a difficult question: how do we love one another in this moment?
How do we honor those who had been harmed or who did not travel to Annual Conference for fear of harm?
How do we honor those who live the realities of harm every day and are asking for the witness of our presence standing with them?
And how the heck do we do this using Robert’s Rules of Order?
20 minutes past the expected close of Annual Conference, with most in the body equipped with only a shoddy understanding of how to swiftly use Robert’s Rules of Order (if at all), we were not able to answer these questions well. The either/or dichotomy on the table felt like a train wreck we could not stop; in the crash, someone we loved would be hurt.
We shared the same desire: love, honor, and protect God’s beloved as we do our work together. We knew who we wanted to love, honor, and protect: queer folks, immigrants, people of color; all who fear because of the current political reality.
For all that we agreed on, we faced two opposing options.
After a prayer and ballot, the vote returned: 99 in favor, 90 against. Conference would not return to Idaho in 2027.
Pain rippled out from this decision: from the outcome of the vote to the close margin of the vote to the way in which it was carried out.
As of today, we have no balm for this wound. From those I’ve spoken with, it is clear that no matter which option felt more loving, the way it took place was not what anyone wanted.
In the coming weeks and months, I hope for honest conversation and gracious listening to receive and take seriously the pain and fears that we and our siblings experience. I also hope for earnest creativity to think through what shift to our culture and rules of discussion must take place so we don’t replicate a situation where we agree on so much of how we want to love our neighbor, but have rudimentary tools with which to act upon that agreement of love.
For my part, I feel a renewed commitment to be meaningfully connected to our United Methodist siblings living, working, advocating, and doing ministry in Idaho. It is far, but there are no bounds to God’s love; the love that we echo when we love our neighbor. I hope to find both our existing and new ways to share in this connection with our congregation over the coming year.
Finally, I hope that you’ll join me and our Annual Conference in prayer:
Holy God, giver of our every peace, we come to you in supplication for the whole of our conference: those in Idaho and in Oregon, those with vulnerable immigration status and those whose ethnicity makes them a target, those who are allies and those whose identity is marginalized by the structures we participate in.
Forgive us when we have caused harm when our intention was to do good.
Forgive us when we have not been able to hear the truths of our beloved.
Forgive us when we have assumed one another’s intentions without having the honest conversations to understand.
Forgive us when we have not known how to act and so did not act at all.Strengthen us when we speak the truth of our lives.
Strengthen us when we are faced with the choice to practice compassion.
Strengthen us when we find ourselves slipping into dysregulated or disordered action.
Strengthen us when creativity and humility are required to love one another.Make us whole, that we would wrestle in fierce conversation that brings caring resolution. Pour out upon us a wellspring of your creative Spirit, that we would dream and then implement new structures, new ways of conversation, and new tools for decision making.
Above all, keep us close to one another as we are kept close to You; for together we hope, together we serve, and together we love. Amen.
In love,
Pastor Karyn
Read Bishop Cedrick’s pastoral note about Saturday’s action at Annual Conference here.