Future of Glide may be in doubt Bishop planning probe of famed S.F. church
As the Rev. Cecil Williams, the longtime spiritual leader and minister of liberation at Glide Memorial Church, worked the crowd from the back of a minivan at Sunday’s Pride Parade, the hierarchy of his national church was working to possibly drive him out of the position he has held there for 55 years.
On Saturday, Bishop Minerva Carcaño sent an open letter to pastors and churches of the California-Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, outlining what she sees as egregious disregard for church rules under the leadership of Williams and Janice Mirikitani, Glide co-founder and his wife.
Among other accusations, Carcaño said the nationally famous Glide Sunday celebration was no longer a Methodist service, instead populated by people of “other faiths such as Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Wiccan. Atheists and agnostics comprise another segment of the Glide community,” she wrote.
Carcaño also questioned the finances and administration of Glide and why Williams is
still acting as senior pastor even though he retired in 2000. She also noted that four pastors have been appointed to head the Tenderloin church since Williams retired, most recently Jay Williams (no relation), who abruptly resigned after serving only a year.
“No pastor has been allowed to exercise their rightful authority or responsibilities while serving at Glide,” Carcaño wrote. “To this day, Cecil Williams and his wife, Janice Mirikitani, make all decisions in the background at Glide.”
Citing the fact that the Glide Foundation, which conducts the business of the congregation, has not submitted any financial reports for review by the Methodist conference, Carcaño said she has decided to conduct a full investigation of Glide for violations of rules set forth in the church Book of Discipline, the church’s doctrine.
Calling from his car after the parade, Williams said there is no doubt in his mind that the bishop wants to get rid of Glide and all it stands for, and replace it with a traditional conservative Methodist congregation. But, he said, at this point Glide might be too big to push around.
“We are here to stay,” he said. “The revolution will continue.”
Karen Hanrahan, president and CEO of Glide, said, “The letter claims that Glide is not Christian enough. Glide is about Christian values. But Cecil’s philosophy is that people have to walk the talk. Glide has grown up in the city living the values of unconditional love and radical inclusion.”
Glide has been inclusive of all people and faiths since Williams took over what had been a dying Methodist ministry in 1963 and turned it into a global brand called simply Glide.
To broaden the church’s appeal, Williams removed religious symbols from the sanctuary, installed an electric church band, and was among the first to preside over samesex weddings. He also fed the poor. Glide serves more than 700,000 meals every year and runs programs for the homeless, people living with HIV, abused women and others. In doing so, he has built a powerful institution with elite donors and supporters.
Among those who have stood and swayed at Glide are Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Maya Angelou, Isabel Allende Bono and Warren Buffett, who has annually offered a one-on-one lunch as an auction item to benefit Glide. Over the years, this has brought more than $20 million to support the services of Glide.
Glide has a budget of $16 million and a reported membership of 11,000. Its board of trustees includes Richard Blum, the investor and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
In 2000, when Williams reached age 70, he was forced to retire as senior pastor under the rules of the Methodist church. When that happened, Glide trustees declared him co-founder and minister of liberation, and he is still at the church service every Sunday, even preaching from his wheelchair.
“They can’t touch me now,” he told The Chronicle at that time. “My last breath might be in the doorway of Glide.”
According to Hanrahan, the current dispute over Williams’ role started in 2016, when Carcaño took over as the bishop overseeing the Methodist congregations in Nevada and California.
“She wants to make Glide a religiously traditional Methodist church,” Hanrahan said, “and she has made it clear she does not approve of some of the people that come through the door.”
The issue first surfaced at Glide this year when it was announced that the Rev. Jay Williams was leaving the church’s pastor position in April after less than a year. Then on June 17, it was announced that Carcaño was reassigning associate pastors the Rev. Theon Johnson III and the Rev. Angela Brown away from Glide as of July 1.
As shown in videos posted on Facebook, members of the congregation booed and shouted, “Oh, my God!” and “Where’s the bishop? She’s too coward to come here!”
Sunday’s 9 a.m. sermon, before the Pride Parade, was “bittersweet” as the two departing pastors bade their goodbyes, said Glide co-founder Mirikitani. She said the bishop will assign a pastor for next Sunday, and it may change from week to week thereafter.
“We are in limbo,” she said. “The congregation is devastated.”
On Sunday, Carcaño sent out a follow-up statement from her office in West Sacramento noting that she had attempted to assign a new senior pastor at Glide, but the pastor was rejected by the Board of Trustees. She also criticized Mayor London Breed for meddling and mixing church and state, and took a crack at Williams for removing religious symbols way back when.
“While the cross was removed from the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church sanctuary in 1967,” Carcaño wrote, “the cross still stands on the tower of the church, at the corner of Taylor and Ellis, as a beacon of hope to the people of the Tenderloin and the greater San Francisco area.”
Mirikitani said one possibility is for Glide to leave the denomination, though she and Williams would be hesitant because they value the spirituality provided by the Methodist connection. Glide is one of 10 United Methodist churches in San Francisco.
The Methodist Book of Discipline does not spell out a process for churches to exit the denomination. It is conceivable that Glide could leave by choice, as happened twice last year in Mississippi, but the denomination owns all the church’s buildings.
“We’ve had a good relationship historically with the United Methodist Church,” Hanrahan said, “but this bishop seems intent on destroying this relationship.”