James Wesley

JAMES WESLEY
Washington Square UMC
New York, New York

Compared to my friends, I came out relatively late.  I was in my mid-20's and going to a fairly large, established Methodist church on the influential west side of Los Angeles.  I only knew one gay person who went to the church and that was just a guess on my part.  I was very involved in a 20-something group and really felt like I belonged.  However, the more comfortable I felt with being gay, the more uncomfortable I felt in participating in anything at church.

The pastors with whom I felt most connected left not long after I started the coming out process and were, unfortunately, replaced by an older, conservative man with whom I felt extremely uncomfortable.  Gay issues were rarely, if ever, discussed.

One day I decided I wouldn't go anymore.  The sad thing is that after going every Sunday for a few years, I never heard a word from anyone at that church.  If it weren't for the reconciling movement, I probably would have never again set foot in a Methodist Church.  After all, I'm already looked upon as an outsider and deviant by a sizable portion of the population, I don't need to feel that way in my own church!

Washington Square has long been a place of welcome to New York's LGBT community.  The Rev. Paul M. Abels, Washington's Square's pastor from 1973-1984, was the first openly gay installed parish minister in a major Christian denomination.  The church was also home to the Harvey Milk School of lesbian and gay youth and the Gay Men's Health Crisis Center.  Known as the "Peace Church" due to its antiwar activism during the Vietnam War, Washington Square hosted dozens of other activist groups over the years, from the Black Panthers to community housing development organizations and a variety of dance, theater and music groups.

In 2004, the congregation decided that renting space for worship and other programs would be a better use of their resources than maintaining their church and the parsonage, two old and decaying landmarks.  The buildings have since been sold, and Washington Square has merged with Church of All Nations and Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Churches.

This stole was given to us in advance of the 2000 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Cleveland, OH.  Members of Washington Square joined with Park Slope Methodist Church to contribute 35 stoles for display in Cleveland.  Washington Square's four stoles and Park Slope's thirty one are identically sized pieces made from turquoise, lavender and purple cotton batik.  In addition to his own stole, James Wesley also made one in honor of Chad Miller from Washington Square (stole #680).

 In 1999, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) inquired about the possibility of having a display of the Shower of Stoles at the General Conference the following April.  At the time, there were only around twenty United Methodist stoles in the collection.  We decided to introduce the Shower of Stoles to the Reconciling community by bringing the twenty UM stoles and about a hundred others to RMN’s Convocation in Denton, TX over the Labor Day weekend.  Stoles started to trickle in during the fall, and by February they began coming in droves.  In all, we received 220 United Methodist stoles – the vast majority of them arriving within eight weeks of the Conference.  Thanks to a monumental effort by a number of volunteers who pitched in to help record, inventory, sew labels and make last-minute repairs, all of the new stoles were present in Cleveland.  Twenty more people brought stoles directly to Cleveland, bringing the total number on display to 240.

 Towards the end of the General Conference, twenty eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists and allies stood on the Conference floor in silent protest over the Conference’s failure to overturn the ban on LGBT ordination – a profound witness and act of defiance for which they were later arrested.  As these twenty eight moved to the front of the room, another 200 supporters stood up around the balcony railing, each wearing one of the new United Methodist stoles.  Hundreds more stood in solidarity as well, in the balcony and on the plenary floor, wearing symbolic “stoles” made from colorful bands of cloth.  A group of young people from Minneapolis, members of a Communicant’s Class, had purchased bolts of cloth the preceding evening and stayed up all night cutting out close to a thousand of these “stoles.”  In less than eight months, a handful of stoles had grown to become a powerful, visible witness to the steadfast faith of LGBT United Methodists nationwide.

 Martha Juillerat

Founder, Shower of Stoles Project

2006