Boston Rev. Martin McLee moving up

After more than seven years as pastor of Union United Methodist Church in Boston’s South End, during which time he made welcoming the gay community into the life of the historically black church a significant piece of his ministry, the Rev. Martin McLee has been appointed to a new position within the United Methodist Church.

When McLee arrived at Union nearly eight years ago from a Dallas church, his mission was to make Union a bridge builder in a diverse community that he perceived to have "this tribalistic understanding of life - this group here, this group [over] here."

McLee became Union’s pastor just after the congregation made history by voting to become a Reconciling Congregation, meaning one that advocates for the full inclusion of LGBT people into the life of the United Methodist Church, whose official doctrine holds that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching" and prohibits the ordination of openly gay ministers. Union was the first historically black church in the country to take such a step.

To that end, McLee is the leader of the local delegation of United Methodists headed this spring to the denomination’s General Conference, its governing body, in Fort Worth, Texas, where the issue of gay ordination is expected to be a contentious issue. "As one leading the delegation, one of my goals is to convince the church to change its rules with regard to ... its understanding of gay folk and gay and lesbian clergy," he said. "And that, as a delegate, is within my right and individuality to express disagreement with the rules of the church. So it’s a balancing act you know. In acting in my official capacity as a superintendent I am bound by the rules of the church and I won’t be effective if I’m going to violate the rules of the church. And I’m just hoping that when we go to Fort Worth the rules will change and the church will see the wisdom in changing its understanding of how we treat gay folk and look at it through a justice prism that says we should treat gay folk with the same equality we treat straight folk."

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