Seeking racial justice in The United Methodist Church is imperative for the well-being of the church as a whole and of its members.  The petitions in this plumbline were identified by the Inter-Ethnic Strategy Development Group (IESDG), which comprises leaders of the denomination's five official ethnic caucuses.

Recognizing changing social issues and concerns since 1972, The General Conference 2012 called the General Board of Church and Society to engage in a process to revise them “with the goal of making them more succinct, theologically founded, and globally relevant.” The General Conference’s direction was to review and revise the whole document to live fully into our identity as a global church.

Reproductive justice is a movement led by Black U.S. American women, with significant landmarks in 1989 and 1994. There are four shared tenets of reproductive justice today, as stated by SisterSong, a Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and often shared by the group United Methodists for Reproductive Justice:

• “The human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy”

• “The human right not to have children”

• “The human right to have children”

• “The right to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities”

After more than 75 years of ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism in historic Palestine, after 57 years of a brutal occupation in the small amount of land left for Palestinians, after an inhuman blockade that has been slowly destroying the people of Gaza since 2007, having authoritative reports from the world’s leading human rights experts that Israel has created an apartheid regime in all the land it controls, and especially faced today with the terrifying events we have seen in the Holy Land since October, we need to act on our convictions and strengthen our commitment to peace in Palestine/Israel.

Around the world, we are seeing rising threats to basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, even in supposedly democratic societies. Christians have a responsibility to defend our freedom to speak the truth about injustice wherever we see it. We also must protect the right to act on our values and address systems of injustice with nonviolent methods such as boycotts and divestment. We know that speaking truth to power will incur repercussions, including misinformation, defamation, and intimidation. We must employ wisdom to discern when important concerns about racism are manipulated to silence opposition to injustice.

All too often churches have been complicit in the censoring and banning of books, often out of ignorance. Controlling what is taught, or not allowed to be taught, is dangerous and anti-democratic, and a growing threat. “The censorship of truth, books, and memory is a precursor to eliminating the voice and influence of a people from the governing of their own country.

In caring for creation, we are reminded that humans are a part of God’s holy creation. The impacts of climate change are immense, and the humans who experience the heaviest impact are the ones who have contributed the least.
In presenting legislation on creation justice and climate change, we seek to strengthen the church’s witness as a bearer of God’s goodness, minimize our shared harm, and make a difference in the places we can.

The Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions recommendation is a call from the United Methodist Climate Justice Movement for us to “DO SOMETHING” about the degradation of our environment caused by global warming and its resulting climate change.

The very first commandment in Scripture is for humans to care for the garden.

Establishing green teams empowers United Methodists to work together in their local context to address issues that are harming God’s Creation and perpetuating injustice. It also gives new and existing teams guidelines for effective action in four areas: Worship, Education, Practice, and Advocacy.

And then, God made humans caretakers of all God had created here on Earth, including animals, creatures of the sea, birds of the air, as well as humans. But, at present, humans are not working together in harmony with the rest of Creation as God intended. In fact, they are responsible for harming and even de-creating what God gave them to protect.

At this upcoming General Conference, delegates will likely be bombarded with a myriad of legislation and resolutions to be voted upon. However, tucked in all the pages and pages of legislation is one vital piece that supports the protection and support for deaf and hard of hearing persons and people with disabilities. The “Overcoming Ableism and Audism” legislation confronts the wider church regarding the bias and prejudices experienced by deaf and hard of hearing people and people with disabilities.

Persons with disabilities and those who are d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing lack the institutional and structural supports within The United Methodist Church (UMC) to accomplish the UMC’s stated goal of full inclusion. Steps need to be taken to change that reality.

The position of the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), and the other 14 members of the Love YourNeighbor Coalition (LYNC) is that discriminatory and restrictive language regarding “homosexuality” and LGBTQIA+ persons should be removed from the Book of Discipline.

The issue is whether the United Methodist Church will seek repentance, reconciliation and reparations for our part in the illegal overthrow and illegal annexation of Hawaiʻi and seek to repair the damage done by colonization and occupation.

Delegates will have the opportunity to vote for an official UMC Apology for the Illegal Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The United Methodist Church has grown beyond being a US church with mission outposts, but the structure hasn't been updated to reflect the global nature of our church. The Worldwide Regionalization legislation would restructure the church to make all members of The United Methodist Church equal partners in its ministry. It keeps us connected as a church while making space for local cultural expression and autonomy.

Fossil Free UMC (FFUMC) is promoting General Conference legislation to address climate change by adding “fossil fuels” to the list of ethical investment screens in paragraph ¶717 of The 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline. At issue is whether The United Methodist Church should divest from fossil fuels, the primary driver of climate change, or continue to invest in fossil fuels corporations while engaging in shareholder action. 

In February, United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) held a webinar briefing that covered all of the legislation they have presented and support for the General Conference session being held in 2024. You can watch that program on their website, and gather other resources related to justice in the Holy Land.