Pan-Methodists raise concerns about Pickens’ dismissal
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The Rev. Larry D. Pickens prays during a worship service at
the United Methodist Church's 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh. A
UMNS file photo by Mike DuBose.
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A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
Dec. 13, 2007
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Bishop E. Earl McCloud Jr.
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Pan-Methodist members of The United Methodist Church’s ecumenical
agency are questioning the process that led to the dismissal of the
agency’s chief executive.
On Dec. 5, while meeting in Birmingham, Ala., the Commission on
Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns told the Rev. Larry Pickens
that he would not be continuing in his post. Instead, the commission
elected retired Bishop Albert F. "Fritz" Mutti, who had served as its
president from 2000 to 2004, as the interim chief executive.
A search committee was formed the next day to recommend a permanent
replacement for Pickens, the first African-American to serve in that
position.
Through the Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation and Union, The
United Methodist Church has long had relationships with three historic
African-American Methodist churches: the African Methodist Episcopal,
African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal.
The three pan-Methodist members of the Commission on Christian Unity –
Bishop E. Earl McCloud Jr., presiding bishop of the AME Office of
Ecumenical & Urban Affairs; Lula K. Howard, the AME Zion
representative; and Juanita Bryant, the CME representative – were
unhappy enough with the process that led to the dismissal of Pickens
that they left the meeting after the decision.
A chief concern, according to McCloud and Howard, was that the full
commission never had a chance to vote specifically on whether to
re-elect Pickens. Instead, members were presented with a motion from the
personnel committee to elect retired Bishop Fritz Mutti as the
commission’s temporary leader and initiate a search process for Pickens’
replacement.
"We didn’t vote for or against Larry. What we voted for was an
interim general secretary," Howard told United Methodist News Service
during a Dec. 12 phone interview.
A close vote
McCloud said that he and several other commission members tried to
introduce substitute motions that would have required a direct vote on
Pickens but were not allowed to do so. The 21-19 vote to elect Mutti
reflected the division among commission members, and while the vote "did
not completely line up as blacks against whites … it did not seem very
fair," he said.
"I thought it (his dismissal) was not a
right signal in the interest of the church when at the same time they
are talking about Acts of Repentance."
-- Bishop E. Earl McCloud Jr.
In response to the concerns, Bishop Ann Sherer, president of the
Commission on Christian Unity, said it was standard procedure at the end
of each year to either re-elect the current chief executive or elect a
new person. The personnel committee chose to elect Mutti and form a
search committee to recommend a new leader, she added.
Noting that the actions occurred during a confidential executive
session, Sherer said she could say no more but "to express my
appreciation to Dr. Pickens and hope that we can begin to move toward a
new future."
McCloud said he was allowed by Sherer to make a statement to the
commission after the vote on Mutti was taken, as were Howard and Bryant,
who he said was a dissenting member of the personnel committee. Then,
"without any coordination among the pan- Methodist representatives," he
said, all three left the meeting.
Attempts by United Methodist News Service to contact Bryant were unsuccessful.
Howard, who just completed two four-year terms as a commission
member, said Pickens had received a positive endorsement from the group
when he was re-elected in the fall of 2006 for the following year. She
felt she had been left "in the dark" about the later discussions between
him and the personnel committee regarding job performance.
While she said she respects Mutti, "I just thought the way they handled Larry was not appropriate."
Acts of repentance
McCloud, a former president of the pan-Methodist commission,
acknowledged that Pickens was "not perfect" but said the chief executive
had made some of the improvements requested of him over a period of six
months. "I thought it (his dismissal) was not a right signal in the
interest of the church when at the same time they are talking about Acts
of Repentance."
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Bishop Fritz Mutti
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He said he believes the commission did not give Pickens what he
considered to be due process, and the action taken "was poor behavior on
the part of Christians."
The 2000 United Methodist General Conference, the denomination’s top
legislative body, held an Act of Repentance service focused largely on
racist acts within the Methodist Church that led to the creation of the
three historically African-American denominations in the 1800s. Some
United Methodists expressed concern later that African Americans within
the denomination were not part of the focus of the service.
As a follow-up to the Act of Repentance, General Conference mandated
that all the churchwide boards and agencies include pan-Methodist
representatives among their governing members.
All local United Methodist congregations were called upon to engage
in reflection and liturgical acts of repentance, and a study guide was
developed for that purpose.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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