The heartbreaking article in the Dallas News can be found at this link. The newly resigned pastor at St. Luke Community UMC in Dallas, Tyrone Gordon, has been accused of multiple sexual improprieties.
Discretion, potential lawsuits, and “presumption of innocence” prohibits me from publishing some of the things I want to say right now. So let me just list my emotional responses–and, by the way, I had heard that this might be the case earlier in this week, so I was not completely taken by surprise by the article: anger, heart-broken, shame, deep frustration, horror, disgust, completely out of patience with personal privilege abuses, fury at the North Texas Conference if they did indeed know of this and kept silence, and, because we are a connectional church, as opposed to free-standing independent churches, knowledge that I get to share in some way in the guilt of the alleged acts. This also means I must be a part of the cleansing and healing. All of which will take a long, long time.
Personally, I say “kudos” to the person who filed the lawsuit. Without it, Gordon would have been allowed to slink away, untouched by alleged actions (see how careful I am to use the proper words here?) that have been destructive to many. Because Gordon voluntarily relinquished his clergy credentials, officially the church courts no longer have power. Perhaps. But The United Methodist Church had a moral responsibility here nonetheless, and I say that by hiding behind the “official” power, we have offered moral bankruptcy as the solution.
I am appalled.
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