Beloved Whittier Church,
As many of you have heard or read, I was quoted in the Smoky Mountain News in an article concerning the Confederate statue in Sylva. I’ve also been quoted in an article from Blue Ridge Public Radio after leading a prayer at a candlelight vigil following the death of George Floyd and in an article in the Sylva Herald after speaking at a County Commissioners meeting about the statue. Each time, I thought it was clear in the moment that I was speaking for myself as a citizen of Jackson County and not for our church, but each time, some form of the attribution “pastor at Whittier UMC” has been added to my name, associating my statements with our church.
This is, of course, unfair to each of you. We have a wide variety of opinions in our church and I can’t speak for all of us, especially not without having spoken to each of you first. God in God’s wisdom has made each of us unique, with unique backgrounds and life experiences, and God works on each of our hearts in different ways and at different paces throughout our lives. To speak for our church publicly on matters like the statue pushes all the beautiful God-given uniqueness in our church to the side and can short-circuit our individual spiritual growth. I don’t want to do that.
I want to ask for forgiveness for any harm that I caused by speaking to the press in this way. I’m sorry to have caused any shock, anger, or concern. Even after a year on the job, I’m still learning that the title “pastor” follows you everywhere you go and I know now that I could have been more attentive to that and to standard journalistic practices before I spoke on the record. Thank you for being patient with me as I learn. Moving forward, I’ll be contacting each news outlet to see if the online versions of these articles can be edited, knowing that what’s physically in print can’t be changed, and I’ll be much more careful before choosing to speak publicly again. I’ll also make sure that this statement is also available on our facebook page so that’s accessible to community members and potential visitors.
Please know that I hold each of you and all of you in my heart. Whether or not you agree with what I said in the paper, we can all agree that these are difficult, turbulent times and that, as this year and this pandemic goes on, the times may get more difficult and more turbulent. We can trust that God will continue to be at work in the world through the power of the Spirit and, if we’re bold, we can trust God to work in our conversations with one another about difficult and even frightening topics like white supremacy, racism, and how to reconcile ourselves with our history.
My metaphorical door is always open! Feel free to give me a call if you’d like to talk about this or any other difficult topic (or even non-difficult topics too!). My hope and prayer is that throughout these times, even if we don’t think alike, we may still love alike, to quote John Wesley, and grow alongside each other to be ever more like Jesus our Savior. Again, I'm thankful for all of you and for all that we have to learn from each other.
Saturday evening blessings,
Pastor Jo