In Season 1, Episode 19 of The Beautiful Kingdom Builders, I had the honor of sitting down with Sue Haupert-Johnson, Bishop of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Our conversation explored not only her personal story and spiritual practices, but also what it means to lead with courage and faith in a season of deep conflict within the Church.
Bishop Sue shared about her early faith journey, the influences that shaped her call to ministry, and the ways her experiences—as a woman, a mother, and a leader—have informed her pastoral voice. Grounded in Wesleyan theology, she spoke of a vision for the Church that prioritizes connection over hierarchy and invites both clergy and laity into shared ministry.
At the heart of our conversation was the reality of navigating disaffiliation within the UMC. For many congregations and leaders, this has been a painful and divisive time. And yet, Bishop Sue pointed to the possibility of faithfulness even in disagreement—of a Church that listens, holds tension, and refuses to abandon love.
This season of change culminated in a historic moment at the 2024 General Conference of the United Methodist Church, where the denomination removed exclusionary language from the Book of Discipline, fully including LGBTQ people in the life of the Church. For many, this marked not just a policy shift, but a theological and spiritual turning point—an embodiment of God’s expansive grace.
The Virginia Annual Conference sessions in 2024 and 2025 became a powerful witness to what it looks like to stay at the table through disagreement. Through initiatives like the Journey in Understanding, the conference has sought to foster dialogue, healing, and deeper connection across differences.
What emerged from our conversation is a hopeful vision for the future of the Church—one rooted in authenticity, justice, and the leadership of the next generation. Even in the midst of conflict, the Spirit continues to move, calling us toward a more inclusive and compassionate community.
Please visit this link to see what a journey in understanding looks like: journey | VAUMC. It was a beautiful example of listening to understand, not necessarily to agree, and to go forward in unity despite disagreement.
In our conversation, Bishop Sue recommended two books: J.B. Phillip’s book, Your God is Too Small and Amanda Ripley’s High Conflict.
Please enjoy this episode of The Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more!
TRANSCRIPT:
Ruth Perry (00:15)
I am so delighted to have Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson today, the Bishop of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Thank you so much for being here today, Bishop Sue!
Sue Haupert-Johnson (00:25)
My pleasure. I’m delighted to be here.
Ruth Perry (00:27)
Just laying it out there to begin with, I’d really like to talk with you about disaffiliation and leading through conflict. Because in my background, I very church experience in a local church where my dad was the and my brother was the associate pastor. And it got so ugly and just the fallout of that situation has been decades long now. I had two big lessons that I took away from going through that. Number one, it was a patriarchal church culture. And this was causing cognitive dissonance for me about that worldview because I realized if the women of the church had had a place at the these conversations, then the outcome would have been very different.
And then the other thing that I realized was this was independent church kind of separated from any denominational structure. So we didn’t have anyone to come in and help. And so those two lessons have come with me since then. And I was invited to pastor in the United Methodist Church three years ago. So my very first Annual Conference was the 2024 Annual Conference in Hampton.
And there was some tension there, to say the least. And even thinking back on in the last week, as I’ve anticipated our conversation, it just makes me emotional because it was such beautiful and Holy-Spirit filled experience, I feel, going to the 2024 Annual Conference and then seeing what came of it in 2025 at the Annual Conference.
And so I’m hoping I don’t get emotional talking to you today, it was just really beautiful and I really appreciated your leadership and I wanted to talk to you today. But before we get into that, can you go and tell us about the beginning of your story a little bit about your faith journey?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (02:02)
Yeah. Yeah, I grew up in a very large United Methodist Church. My family joked that we passed five United Methodist Churches to get to our church, but in some ways it was providential. It was a church where the bishop usually attended, so I knew all the bishops in Florida. A lot of the conference staff went to the church there, so I knew them. I was very involved as a youth and a young adult, especially in the music programs of the church. I consider the church as integral to my life early on in the sense that I learned all the Bible stories, that I knew the framework of the story, that I knew.
I don’t think I’ve ever doubted the presence of God in my life or the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but I had increasing issues as I went to college with the institutional church and just, I think I had to find faith for myself and the relevance of it. I was laughing, I was reading the piece this week about how don’t make fun of Christmas and Easter Christians on Christmas and Easter because how are you hospitable if you’re judging them? And I really am grateful that the 10 years I was out of the church, when I returned, I was welcomed with open arms.
And really, I had a profound experience of Christ, a profound experience. The Gospel of Luke will always mean a lot to me because I had achieved everything I wanted to in my secular life and was miserable. And I realized, you know, Jesus… Well, my experience of Him was He said, why don’t we try things my way now? Which to me was a very gracious presence in my life, you know, that, I’ll use what’s past, I’ll use what’s happened in your life. And I always say that to local pastors and folks who come to their calling later in life, that everything that happens to us, God uses in our ministry, in our increasing knowledge and love of God.
And so I ended up when I was about 28 going back to church and went to Hyde Park in Tampa and had a really good experience And it wasn’t the pastor, it was mostly the older women of the church, Ruth, the saints of the church who had such powerful faith. I mean, they had lost husbands, they had lost children, they had seen everything in the world, and they still were just pillars of faith. And I often say I would kill to go back and prepare Communion again with Grace Spear. She was a 90-year-old woman who just tended to me, shepherd me. You know, when you talk about being discipled, and I think that’s the ideal way to learn the faith is to be discipled by people and to model. I mean, that’s what Jesus did with the disciples. And Grace did that for me.
And so those older women in the church, and I get mad at the ageism in the church because, man, those women have carried the church for a long time. And so I ended up realizing that my secular life was not rewarding and that I was being called to something more. And I ended up going to seminary fully intending on teaching theology, because who would want to serve in a church? And then I had a senior pastor at my home church who invited me, the staff parish committee invited me to come back to be on staff for a year. And I fell in love with it. And so, you know, 30 years later, here I am.
But people say to me all the time, they rag on the church and they talk about the ugliness in the church. I’m like, you know what? Multiply everything you’ve seen by a million and I’ve seen it. But I can honestly say that the beauty of the church that I’ve seen outweighs any of that. And when you glimpse the kingdom of God and when you glimpse a people of God working together as the body of Christ, that’s the hope of the world. And so rather than throw rocks at it and complain about it, my goal in life is to help create healthy, loving, welcoming communities that are out to serve the least and the lost.
And I get so frustrated when the church, I mean, this whole Christian nationalism movement is insane. God doesn’t align with the wealthy and the powerful. I love in the Magnificat, which I pray daily, where Mary sings, the poor God will fill with good things and the rich will be sent empty away. And I think that the church has got to really be a force for the voiceless and the weakest. And so when we lose track of that…
And I think the disaffiliation kind of reflected the politics of our time, right? We want our property, it just, I think it reflected everything that Jesus most despised. To use the church for your own political ends or to have your way or to promulgate a lot of misinformation and lies. I just would pray at night, God show me how these ends justify the means because I don’t get it. I still don’t get it. I’ll never get it.
Because I had lived in the church being against what I believed for most of my ministry, right? I’ve always been for LGBTQ inclusion. And so for them to say to me, well, the church left me. I’m like, the church didn’t leave you. I mean, come on, seriously? I lived in the church. You know, it doesn’t mean that I have to agree with it. There’s some basics we have to agree on, but there’s a lot of leeway and John Wesley realized that. So anyhow, I have little patience and I think back to those days and I still just shake my head, and go, boy, they lost themselves.
Ruth Perry (07:21)
I think a lot of people like myself, because I grew up very conservative, evangelical, and going back to that church conflict, that was really the first domino falling, where I started rethinking things. But I think dominoes have been falling for a lot of people who grew up evangelical like myself. And I’m just sick and tired of culture wars and I’m tired not being able to wrestle ideas that are like, I don’t want to be spoon-fed what to believe. I want to wrestle with it and really weigh both sides and determine for myself. And so I want some leeway in that process of maybe exploring something that someone thinks is heretical.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (07:46)
Right, right. Well, you know, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out and everything is neatly lined up, God, you know, meets a persecutor of the Jews on the road to Damascus. God totally messes with our certainty all the time. And so, yeah, you can think you’ve got it figured out, but then God’s gonna come to you in a way that you just can’t fathom, right? That’s the whole of gospel. And in the most unlikely of ways. So, yeah.
Ruth Perry (08:27)
So for 10 years you were pursuing a secular path for a career, what was that in, Bishop Sue?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (08:34)
Well, I went to law school and I think if I wasn’t in the church, I’d be a judge. I love justice. I love the intellectual part of law. I love weighing arguments and coming down to the just outcome. What I didn’t like about the practice of law was the business.
You know, at the end of the day, it was about making a buck and I wish somebody had clued me in how miserable life is when you have to bill somebody for every six minutes of your time. And that was that was the reality. And I just don’t care enough about money. I mean, I didn’t want to spend my life moving money from one person or one corporation to another. And don’t get me wrong. I am very grateful for people who do that and love it.
I am very grateful for good lawyers and I have good lawyers and I know good lawyers. But it was not my calling and nothing is worse to be working outside your calling. I don’t care whether it’s a church calling, well the vocation, right? To be in the wrong vocation I think is a hard thing. So there’s nothing worse than a miserable job. And I had a miserable job and I realized that God was not leading me down that path.
You know, do I wish I’d been passionate about it? Do I wish I loved it? Yeah, it was pretty lucrative. But it wasn’t for me.
Ruth Perry (09:48)
Do you ever put your lawyer hat in ministry?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (09:52)
All the time. You know, I think what I appreciate now and how God uses, I think I would love it if everybody went to law school. I think it teaches you how to think, teaches you how to be logical, although it’s kind of a curse in the church, because a lot of argument in the church is emotional, right? And so sometimes I’m sitting with somebody going, yeah, that makes no sense. But it’s, you know, so.
Sometimes to be a logical person in the church is like a new lesson in frustration. But I’m grateful that I understand the law. I’m grateful that I understand how the business world works. I’m grateful that I’ve had clients. I’m grateful to know their lives. I’m grateful to just have a basic understanding. I mean, my undergraduate degree was in finance. So, economics, all of that stuff, I’m glad I’m grounded in it. Every day in my work it helps and certainly the legal part helps because a lot of our assessment is, is this right? Is this lawful? Is this being done in above board manner? In personnel, is this being done fairly? And so all of that, yeah, I think it was a valuable education.
Ruth Perry (10:57)
And how has your motherhood impacted your ministry?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (10:58)
Tremendous, you know. I think I’m a much kinder, gentler person since I was a mother because I realized when Samantha was a baby how easy it would be to mess one of these up. And so I started looking at my parishioners and anybody in general as, you have some bad parenting. And then if you throw in addiction and sexual abuse and just physical abuse and trauma. It doesn’t take much to really mis-wire a human being. And so I think I have a lot more empathy.
At the time I was pregnant, there was an unsheltered homeless man named Leland. And sometimes in churches they would have the pastor pretend to be homeless, we didn’t have to pretend; Leland showed up. To my church’s credit, they were lovely to Leland. And Leland was a regular part of our community. And he would call me so often and my assistant would be like, oh God, it’s Leland again. I’m like, you know what? I realize I’m the only human being he talks to. And I value our friendship. And so anyhow, I remember when I found out I was pregnant.
And I told Leland and he was crying with joy for me because we had gone through a lot of fertility stuff and it was hard fought. And Leland said, you know, Pastor Sue, I wish I was your baby. And and I said, Leland, no, you don’t, because I would kick your butt. But, I think to know people like that, that’s why I get so frustrated.
To speak badly about unsheltered people or to speak badly about immigrants or just you’re just showing your ignorance and you’re showing you don’t have contact with them on a daily basis because if you do your heart breaks and you realize my reality is not everybody’s reality and there’s some reality that I am very grateful I mean my last prayer before I go to bed every night is God thank you that I have a place and a name and that’s an old Jewish saying a place and a name but I thank you that I’m not a refugee or fleeing from a country with only the clothes on my back dragging my I mean with no assurance of safety or I don’t know how you can be cruel to people like that and I think that is the distortion of our times and the distortion of the faith and I’m pretty tired of it at this point so yeah.
Ruth Perry (13:07)
So you’ve already mentioned that you pray the Magnificat every day. And this nighttime prayer. What other spiritual practices do you have that sustain you?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (13:11)
Yeah. Yeah, I’ve long prayed the daily office. I pray the evening, the morning if I remember, but always the evening. And to me, there’s something about the regular immersion in Scripture, day in and day out. And the Psalms, certainly pray the Psalms often. To me, they’re especially powerful in these days we’re living in. And I worship weekly. Sometimes online if I’m observing a pastor that I want to see how they preach or how the service is going.
But to me the beauty of the faith and the heart of the Wesleyan understanding of things is we have a method. And so to me there’s something very reassuring about having a pattern of life, having a foundation, so that I do these things in good times or easy times so that I have them just to fall back on on harder times. And so it’s kind of the safety net, the fabric, the ground of my being that I rely on. And that’s been, I think the people of great faith that I know, that’s the hallmark of their lives. There’s a method.
Ruth Perry (14:19)
A lot of the audience that I have is ecumenical, so all kinds of denominations. What are the distinctives of Wesleyan theology and practice that most
Sue Haupert-Johnson (14:24)
Great. Yeah. Right.
Yeah, I appreciate, I think that sanctification or the notion that I as a human being am always a work in progress. And I think that’s valuable and that the goal is not to be in heaven sitting on a cloud with a harp. The goal is not my individual salvation. God is at work to save the whole world and is using me in that story. And so, I don’t sit around and guess who’s going to heaven and who’s not. I think God’s desire is, we all will. And my focus is, my every day becoming more perfect in love of God and neighbor.
And for John Wesley, the whole goal of the human life is perfection in love, so that I have perfect love for God and neighbor. And obviously that’s a lifetime task and it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in my life every day. But what John Wesley saw is that when we die, he thought most people were perfected in love on their death beds, which makes sense, right? Because you’re perfected and then you meet Christ face to face and Christ sees himself when you get there. That’s the ongoing sense of I’m a work in progress.
Why I’m not Calvinist. I think there’s too much emphasis on when I was converted. You know, like it all happens at once? I don’t think so. You know, the day I came back to the church and that I count as my conversion time was just the beginning. Like my husband says, you know, it’s like if you stop there, it’s like getting to Disney World and just cheering when you get inside the turnstiles, but you don’t explore the whole Magic Kingdom. And so to me, the beauty of the Christian life is the
Ruth Perry (15:47)
Yeah.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (16:07)
day to day, becoming more like Christ. And you know, I hope I’m more like Christ now than I was 10 years ago. And if I’m not, then that’s when I have to really lean into the method because I should be. And I say when I preach in churches all the time, because there are usually older folks in them if you haven’t noticed.
I’ll say if you’ve been in United Methodist Church for 30, 40, 50 years, you should be darn near close to perfection and love. So I don’t know why you’re being so mean petty or unchangeable and rooted in the past because God’s always, making all things new and I think we all need to be made new. So that’s to me the Wesleyan theology in a nutshell, is that through the method, through these practices, through connection with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit works in us day to day until we become like Christ. And that’s a much richer, more beautiful understanding.
And God’s doing that in the world too, right? That God is trying to transform the whole world and all of creation is groaning for the new heaven and new earth. And so instead of like sitting around and talking about who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell, I think my better job is to love people and to introduce them to Christ so that they become all that they can be. And that’s to me the challenge.
Ruth Perry (17:29)
Yeah, we tend to make God so small.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (17:43)
Well, if you want to read a great book, it’s a classic. J.B. Phillips wrote a book called Your God is Too Small. And he’s dead on in that book because every chapter is about how we how we make God in our own image and how God, a lot of times, God reflects our parents. However you’re parented has a huge impact on how you see God, I think.
Ruth Perry (17:53)
Another question I people would if they’re like me coming from different background than the Methodist Church is about all the hierarchy and even like what is a bishop and how do you describe your role?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (17:58)
Right. I think rather than thinking about it as a hierarchy, connection is better. Connection, because we can do more things together than we can alone. If we pool our resources. I just was in a meeting all morning with global ministries and, when people put their resources together, we can do amazing things.
A connection that nobody’s alone. If you’re clergy in the United Methodist Church and you’re feeling alone, then the connection is failing you and we’ve got to do what we can to shore it up. And, you know, I really didn’t think of it this way until I was on a panel with Nadia Bolz Weber. And she said to me, you know, Bishop, I am Lutheran because I need a bishop. I need somebody to hold me accountable.
And I think that’s, like you said, you had all of that nightmarish experience in the church, in the conflict, and nobody was around. And sadly, churches don’t really benefit or really see the beauty of our connection unless they get into trouble. But I’ve had churches where there’s been embezzlement. I’ve had churches where there’s been sexual misconduct. You’ll have a pastor the next week, and you will have a whole team come in to help answer questions, do pastoral care.
So I like the connection better than the hierarchy, but that said, I remember meeting a pastor’s widow years ago and she said, this is the first time I’ve come back to United Methodist Church because my ex-husband who just died was a pastor and he did untold… No, he wasn’t United Methodist. He was another denomination. And she said, he got away with a ton of stuff that he never would have gotten. He wasn’t properly vetted. He wasn’t properly supervised. And she said, I will never go to a church that’s not a United Methodist church because I know that you vet your pastors, that you have a standard for pastors, and that you take action when pastors do things that are inappropriate or unlawful.
And so, I mean, I’m not Pollyannish enough to think that it’s perfect, but I think that we do our darndest to make sure that our churches are safe, to make sure that our clergy are not doing harm. And I can honestly tell you, if it hits my desk, it’s dealt with. So I get great satisfaction out of that. So and you know I’ve told the cabinet, I’ve said, you guys, if somebody brings you a complaint and I don’t get it, because that’s where it dies down. I mean, I’ve seen it in the past where things get pushed under the rug and I said heck, if I find out that you didn’t give me a complaint, I’ll file a complaint against you because we have got to know when stuff is is being reported or lifted up or brought to our attention. So I don’t mess around with that. I guess that’s my legal background too. But yeah, no, don’t turn a blind eye to anything.
Ruth Perry (20:51)
I very much appreciate that. And I will say, just three years in the denomination for me now, the connection has been so strong and I’ve felt so supported and encouraged and uplifted in so many different ways by so many different people. And I’ve met so many really wonderful, kind people. And I love my little congregations too.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (20:53)
Yeah. Good. And you know Ruth, I would say, you know, and anytime I have a pastor who’s like, I just don’t feel connected, I feel like, I’m like, you know what? You do something about it, right? If I’m not feeling connected, I always was the first one to call a new pastor in town and say, and not just United Methodist, I think it’s incumbent upon us to create community and to create community that’s not our church members, right? So I always had excellent ecumenical friends, clergy from all denominations, rabbis, imams, because there’s a unique kind and those are colleagues that you need.
So I would say if you’re feeling alone, now if it’s depression or mental illness or something causing that, we’ve got to address that. But if it’s not, you hold the keys, right? You have a phone. You can go visit. So you take the initiative and create connection. I love clergy and laity who create connection because I think that’s how we model Christ.
Ruth Perry (22:10)
I was in a day of training for the Living Waters District in January, and I was in a lay servant leader class, and one of the ladies said that she met you in the restroom at the Annual Conference. And then she said, you introduced yourself, and she introduced herself and said, I’m just a lay person. And your response to her was you are not just a lay person, that we’re partners in ministry, and she was just really touched by that. How would you describe the relationship between clergy and laity?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (22:31)
Right. Yeah. You know what? I wouldn’t even make that distinction. I love that our English word for vocation comes from the Latin for call, right? So any of us who have a vocation is called. And I think God gives us unique gifts and calls us to different things. In fact, when I graduated from seminary, one of my professors was really annoyed that I was pursuing ordination because he said, man, I wish you’d go back and be a lawyer because people don’t expect lawyers to talk about Jesus. So I think that laity are called by God and put in places.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Miss Kerry. Miss Kerry was an administrative assistant in the federal courthouse when I worked in the federal courthouse in Tampa. And she was called to be an administrative assistant and she was Jesus Christ agent in that federal courthouse. If you had a problem, if you were grieving, if you needed a word of encouragement or support, people flocked to Miss Kerry like moths to flame. And I know God called her to be there. So I don’t divide clergy and laity. I think that we’re all called to something. And if you happen to be called into representative ministry, I don’t think it’s because you’re any better.
I think it’s just, you know, God chooses weird people for weird things. If you read the Bible, you know, I’ve always loved Jesse who Samuel comes looking for the anointed one and Jesse’s bringing out all his, older and better sons, right? And Samuel’s like, no, no, no. And then, you know, David, he’s like, I got this other kid. And sometimes I think, God calls us not because we’re the best or the brightest, or the most, certainly not the most holy, if clergy are the most holy. I’ve met a lot of laity who are more holy than clergy. But I think that when you start seeing people as called by God into all arenas, then you don’t privilege representative ministry over any other.
And one thing that whenever I talk to a group of laity, who are exploring a call to ministry, say, you know, I think one of the grievous mistakes the church has made is when somebody gets really involved in a church and has done everything every office a lay person can do in the church. Well, it’s time for you to be a pastor. And that’s just not the case. So I think God is calling people to be excellent lay people. And any pastor knows, gosh, you’re so reliant on those folks.
And I have had tremendously gifted laity who have… They’re the backbone of the church, certainly not the clergy person as it should be. so no, let’s get rid of the laity clergy distinction and just talk about what has God called you to do in this world to bring the kingdom about. So don’t ever walk up to me if you’re a lay person and say I’m just a lay person.
Ruth Perry (25:19)
So can take us back to the season of disaffiliation I think pretty much everybody has heard about it or something about probably a skewed telling of it So just from someone who’s been there and seen it and been part of the leadership. What was the season of disaffiliation about in the United Methodist Church?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (25:40)
Yeah, I think it was about, you know, I had a DS, she said, this is just a property grab. I think it was, I think the time was ripe for it. I think that the rise of the conservative in the political realm really fueled the conservative part of the church to rise up. I think that what I lament was there wasn’t a lot of, let’s talk about this. Let’s reason about this together. Let’s hold each other as, you know, siblings in Christ and honor Christ in each other. That kind of went out the window.
And I know that there was probably poor behavior on both sides, but I experienced it mostly from those who really poisoned a lot of our churches with really radical claims. I can understand if you disagree with me about human sexuality. Certainly not an essential of the faith. Certainly not anything Jesus talked about. You know, and there’s always been, it seems like the… When one controversy dies, another arises. I know until 1971 every bishop was asked if they would support integration. And if you answered yes, you might not get elected in the South. And then the next issue of the day was LGBTQ. And in 1971, that kind of started being the litmus test for bishops.
So I think a lot of it, if you look at it, a lot of it was in the South. And I think that the Bible has always been looked to to support, to condone slavery, to condone segregation, to make… The huge issue in the early 1990s was divorce. And so it just seems like we’ve always got to be arguing about something. But what I appreciated about the United Methodist Church was because we had a trust clause and because we understood that every United Methodist Church is an outpost for our denomination in that town, that that preserved it through a lot of these controversies.
You know, other denominations, I always thought we were so much better, because every Baptist church would split 10 or 20 times in 100 years. No, we had a trust clause. And that said, you know what? This will be, no matter what controversy rises, no matter how much we disagree, this will still be a United Methodist church in this community. And we’re thinking seven generations down the road, and we’re not gonna let whatever the argument du jour is separate us. And that is held. And so I really, don’t think we ever should have abandoned the trust clause.
I think we should have said, and if I had been, if I had had any control, I would have said, you are welcome to leave. If you disagree with the church, you are welcome to leave, but you are not welcome to stir up everybody to go with you, and you were not free to take the property. And, you know, I stayed in the United Methodist Church when LGBTQ rights were not recognized, because I did not see that as an essential of the Church. And if I thought it was, I would have left. I would have not taken anybody with me. I would have not created any kind of… Because I value the body of Christ.
And anytime you come to a vote, anytime you come to, and we saw that at Annual Conference, you know, the year you talked about, you bring it to a vote. If you’ve read, there’s a great book by Amanda Ripley called, Real Conflict, I think it’s a conflict book. But she says, the problem is it becomes all about winning and losing and you lose sight of the controversy at hand.
And it, you know, if you’ve read James, the tongue is a fire and it burns and it burns to the gates of hell and that’s what happened. I mean, to hear churches that disaffiliated because they were told the United Methodist Church no longer believed in Jesus or the resurrection. To be told that the United Methodist Church, that all we want are drag queens. I mean, every little, every one situation was blown, you know, the
It just… And I wish that there have been wiser minds and I wish the denomination had held strong and said, you know what, you are free to go. But you aren’t free to take our property and you aren’t free to create war zones out of our churches. And unfortunately, that’s what happened. And I don’t know how you live with yourself if you do that. I mean, there are some points where you’re just like… And it was hard.
I know I told my cabinet in North George, I’m like, If I say something that does not reflect Christ well, if I, you know, stoop to that level, call me on it. But I just was amazed at what was said and what was written, what I received, to be called like, what was it they always called me? Apostate. She’s apostate. And then the gender stuff came in like, the Jezebel, the evil woman, because something about women’s leadership, especially the far right, and you see that in our politics too, is threatening and must be destroyed, right? I mean, don’t think Pam Bondi was just let go. It’s no mistake that the first two fired out of the cabinet were women because even the religious leaders that they’re looking to denigrate women and…
I just, it just got out of hand. And I think it’ll take a long time. I know I’ve got a lot of scars. I know you have scars. We all have scars because, we should have been better and that the body of Christ deserves better. And, you know, I just, I was amazed because I had so many talks and so many discussions and tried to, I worked so hard and then I realized, they really don’t want to work this out. They want what they want and I can’t, I can’t fight that. So.
And you know, move on. It’s time to say, we need a more excellent way. We don’t need to ever let this happen again. And a part of it was we lost our identity. What is the Methodist identity? United Methodist identity. And how do we be Christ-like in all things, right? I mean, Jesus said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. I think he meant it. But I just watched slicing and dicing in the worst form.
Ruth Perry (31:42)
So you’re someone who takes the Bible seriously. You read it every day. You’re doing your best to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. And yet you’re failing this litmus test, Bishop Sue, on this very important issue. How do you defend your perspective?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (31:45)
Yeah, right. Yeah. You know, I think this is why I appreciate tradition and experience. I mean, if you’re a real student of the Bible and not just verses in the Bible, you see God’s… I mean, there’s a great passage where God talks about, will give identity to the eunuch. They weren’t allowed in the temple and God says, I will restore them. You see God work through the unlikely. You see God include the Gentiles, right?
And to me, the miracle was that the Jerusalem church said, yes, right? We do see there’s a wideness in God’s mercy. We saw that. so it came through my experience in the church, and dear friends of mine who came out after I knew them well, right? It was like, everything I’ve been told by our culture about LGBTQ folks is not born out in my experience. Some of my best friends, some of the most loving and giving people. And also I came out of seminary at the height of the AIDS epidemic. And so I watched as so many loved ones were taken off life support, watched men sob at the loss of their loved, you know, another man.
So I saw the depth of love. And if all love comes from God, how do you make sense of that? Right? And some of the most faithful, devout, really lovely followers of Jesus Christ were LGBTQ. And so I had to say, you know what? If all of sin, and I’m not sure why that, you know, gets special sin, I had so many people yell at me full of pride and anger and ugliness. I’m like, I don’t understand how this sin is any different from what you’re calling sin and LGBTQ folks.
And so I think that my experience of the depth of their faith and truly faithful people who I know are so connected to God that if for one second they sensed that God disapproved of them loving somebody of the same gender, they would have renounced that. But they never got that sense. I just had to start, you know, and if I’m wrong, I’m wrong, right? And Jesus, thou art full of mercy.” And so at some point a friend of mine said this well, he said, if I have to meet my Maker and I have to meet Jesus Christ face to face, I think I’m going to err on the side of I was too loving and too open then the other way.
And so I just had to learn that everything I had been told to hate and to ridicule and to mock about LGBTQ folks was absolutely wrong and misguided. And that just came from knowing them. Same with the homeless people, right? Everything I’ve been told about them, Leland dispelled. Everything I’ve been told about divorced people, right? Because we grew up, my goodness.
God works through that. So I think it’s having a little more openness to mystery and that God does work in weird ways and that, you know, it’s time to let everybody be faithful. I, you know, and I may be wrong. Anytime I talk to somebody and they can’t say I may be wrong, I am eternally frustrated. But I don’t think I am. Yeah.
Ruth Perry (35:10)
I appreciate John Wesley’s rules for living. Do good, do no harm, stay in love with God. And I think the church, like all denominations, the church in America has done a lot of harm, whether they were well-intentioned or not. It’s hard to believe it was all well-intentioned because the harm has been just extraordinarily heartbreaking ⁓ that families would disown children. That suicide rates would be so high, that we shame and other, and we don’t see the belovedness of God LGBTQ. All of that is very harmful. And so at the Annual Conference in 2024, a college minister came forward with a resolution. Is that the right word, resolution? Suggesting that the Virginia Annual Conference make an apology for harm done to LGBTQ.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (35:34)
Right.
Ruth Perry (35:57)
after the General Conference had removed the exclusionary language. And so for three days, the Virginia Conference of United Methodists, from different perspectives, talked about this. Speeches for and against. As I was in my hotel, I would hear people talking about it, passing through the halls, people were talking about it. It was just, the air was buzzing and the conflict was palpable. And so, for me having that church conflict background, I’m a little keyed up but worried about things. And that last business session, when a group of pastors came forward and suggested rather than taking a vote because it would be so divided, it would have been close to 50-50, they suggested a commission be put together kind of like a truth and reconciliation
Sue Haupert-Johnson (36:34)
Mm hmm. Right. It was, I think. Yeah.
Ruth Perry (36:43)
that would take time to think and work more deeply on this and hear from people from all perspectives. I just remember, it felt like the whole room just kind of everybody’s shoulders relaxed. And the Holy Spirit, was palpable, that that was the right thing, most God honoring path forward. How was that conference behind the scenes for the Bishop of the Virginia Annual Conference. What was your experience?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (37:09)
Right, right. Well, I remember, you know, we even have people stand up and the vote was that even. And I realized I got to just buy myself some time so that we could talk about this until morning, right? So, and we had to have ballots made anyhow. So, that’s what I was thinking to begin with. And I think it was an affirmation from the Holy Spirit that three clergy walked up to me. Two of them were, well, one was very pro LGBTQ and one was totally against. And they said, what if we just talked about this? What if we created a group to talk about this and see where we end up? And I said, that’s exactly what we need. And clearly the Annual Conference wanted a third way, a more excellent way.
Because you know, one thing that bugged me about the whole disaffiliation thing, if I was ever in a church, like if we had a capital campaign or a building campaign and the vote failed 55 to 45, we wouldn’t go ahead with it. We would, you know, let’s talk about this. Because clearly there’s, there’s nothing that is helpful about an up or down vote because if you’re on the losing side you feel like crap, right? And so what we did was we created this commission and we had folks who were LGBTQ. Interesting to me how often they’re left out of the conversation on that commission as well as very conservative folks. And the beauty is over a year they sat together and they grew to love one another.
And so it really, you know, they might vote opposite, but they both want each other in the church. And so let’s get rid of the votes and just realize that if, you know, if we have the essentials, we have the rules, the general rules for a reason, right? That’s the orthodoxy. And we can argue all day long about other things, but at the end of the day, we need to stay together.
And so, you know, heck, I don’t agree with my whole family around the Thanksgiving table. And to me, I don’t want a church full of Sues. How do I learn and grow? It’s difference that has brought me along the journey. And so I think that if we can agree, well, one of the best, I can’t even remember who said this, but somebody said, you know, if you have one hand on the cross, you’re pretty close to one another. So why can’t we just all have a hand on the cross and, you know, in the non-essentials, think and let be and let Jesus sort it out, right? I always like Paul’s, you know, in Corinthians, we see through a glass darkly, but then we’ll see face to face. So let’s just acknowledge we’re seeing through a glass darkly.
And at the end of the day, I think Jesus wants us just to love one another and to respect each other and to defend each other. And, you know, and I went hasten that I’m part of a family and man, we disagree and we’ll fight each other. But man, if you’re on the outside and you say something against one of us.
You’re getting the whole group against so, you know, why can’t the church be more like that? If you’re messing with an undocumented person or you’re messing with somebody who’s weaker and doesn’t have status, if you’re messing with somebody who’s mocked because of their sexuality, the whole family should be standing up for you just because you’re a child of God and you’re my sibling in Christ. So I don’t understand why we’ve lost that. But we’ve got to reclaim that the church isn’t going to survive.
Ruth Perry (40:36)
I’m going to post video of the report at the 2025 this commission gave (vaumc.org/journey/). I’m going to post that in the show from what you just said, what gives you hope now as the United Methodist Church moves forward?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (40:40)
Good. You know, increasingly the church is finding its voice. And increasingly, and I’m talking about the church that defends the poor and the, and I’m hopeful, I’m hopeful, my 24 year old gives me hope that younger generations are longing for relevance and longing for a better world and a better future for all people, not just for themselves. And they think much more communally.
And certainly my daughter does not think in terms of race and ethnicity. You know, it’s a different world. And I’m hopeful that we can turn it over to them and let them move the church in beautiful new ways. Because we’ve held onto the past far too long. We’re way too rigid. And we need to follow where Christ is leading.
And I think it’s new in different ways, which should be exciting, but for a lot of folks it’s threatening. So I’m hopeful we can take their lead and follow them into a better future.
Ruth Perry (41:47)
If you could speak directly to those who have felt hurt or excluded by the church, what would you want them to hear?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (41:53)
That the church is not Jesus. That the church, you know, ideally when it’s in its most beautiful form, it is the body of Christ. But human beings are sinful and broken. And so any human organization is going to be broken. So I plead with you to not write off Jesus because of what you’ve experienced in the church, and to ask God to show you and to send you people in your life who truly represent Christ and to go with them and to not assume that just because you’ve had one bad experience or a lifetime of bad experience in one church, but that you open your eyes and heart to the possibility that God can work through a group of people and you just need to find that group.
So that’s what I would say. Because I mean, I’ve been hurt by the church too. think that, it’s not, you know, I can’t even say the church. It’s individuals in the church. It’s people who weren’t, they weren’t being faithful to the method, right? They weren’t open to their own growth. heck, think Saturday Night Live nailed it with the church lady, right? When you’re just a pinched old woman who’s judgmental, that’s really not a good representative of the church.
I think back when I was a kid there were two missionary women and we called them the buzzard sisters because all they did was sit in the church. never showed the love and the grace of Christ. They were just the hall monitors. And if that’s your experience of people in the church, luckily there were many others who showed me a better way and showed me Christ. But don’t presume that everybody who calls themselves Christian represents Christ.
Ruth Perry (43:24)
I want to thank you so much for being on the Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast today, Bishop Sue.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (43:28)
My pleasure. Thanks. I’m so glad you’re doing this, Ruth. And greetings to everybody out there. And I hope our paths cross one day.
Ruth Perry (43:35)
Would you like to have the last word? Is there anything else that we haven’t covered today?
Sue Haupert-Johnson (43:40)
You know, I think my last word is as we approach Easter, I love the account where the angels at the head and the foot say to the disciples, Jesus has gone on ahead and he’ll meet you in Galilee. And I’ve always thought about, know, Jesus is already ahead of us. He’s out there and he is still waiting for us, and he is in the least… the places we least expect to see him with, the people we least expect to see them… least expect to see him with. But he’s out there and so I invite you to join in the journey of going and finding him. And that is what life is all about. So join us in that journey.
Ruth Perry (44:21)
Amen. Thank you so much. God bless.
Sue Haupert-Johnson (44:22)
Amen. Thanks a lot. Blessings on Easter and thanks again. Appreciate it. Bye bye.
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