If You're Reading This, You Want More
October 2026 | Rev. Anna Swygert, MPH, MDiv
Note: In June 2023, the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) Board of Directors established the Racial Audit Implementation Team to carry forward the recommendations from the comprehensive Racial Audit. This work represents our deep commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization. Anna Swygert is a member of that team, and this reflection is part of our collective journey to name, confront, and transform the white dominant culture within MFSA. It emerges from ongoing conversations centered on six key themes/patterns of white supremacy identified within our organization. These are the entrenched patterns we are actively working to disrupt as we move toward the liberation and equity we seek.
We are sharing these reflections and insights publicly with our movement because accountability, transparency, and shared learning are essential to dismantling white supremacy. We know that transformation does not happen in isolation. By sharing our process, struggles, and growth, we hope to invite our broader community into this work with us—offering tools, solidarity, and space for mutual reflection as we continue building a more just and faithful movement.
Theme 3: MFSA deflects responsibility by comparing itself to the United Methodist Church which leads to complacency at times, and at other times self-righteousness. These attitudes insulate MFSA from the critical self-assessment that would lead to the deconstruction of white dominance.
“Would you want to be in MFSA Leadership?”
My reply, “What is MFSA?”
Their reply, “Methodist Federation for Social Action.”
My reply, “And what does that mean?”
My introduction to MFSA came via text from a clergy colleague during a particularly hard Florida Annual Conference, full of behind the scenes organizing and vote whipping. And while I’ve been in MFSA leadership for years, I find myself still asking that same question regularly. “What is MFSA?” This initial text was an invitation into a community yearning for a more inclusive Church, a gathering of “like-minded” progressives, a “justice-seeking United Methodist movement.”
In our conversations as the Racial Audit Implementation Team, we found the words “justice-seeking” can often sound like “like-minded.” “Like-minded” communities seem inclusive; however, when we are only seeking people who are “like-minded,” we often find we are surrounded by people who look like and think like us. Thus, when we engage in justice work, we think justice looks the way that we want it and that we are the only ones that fight it. When other communities say they are fighting for justice in a different way, it challenges us to think about justice from a different perspective.
The ”like-minded” community I was promised in my own chapter rang true in many ways; the overall perception was that it was a place for white people to feel good about themselves talking about justice. I later learned this was not isolated to Florida. The audit provided clear language to my experience in naming MFSA functions as an organization of and for white progressives (See Theme 2). I realized my chapter was facing a crisis of identity, unsure of where to find itself following the emergence of conference-level commitments to racial justice following the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. There was a local (and later I learned, national) history of MFSA identifying as “the good white ones” (See Theme 1). I found myself in leadership of a predominantly white organization (PWI), who was aware of this dynamic, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with that fact, especially within the evenly larger PWI of The United Methodist Church. I heard some refrains of, “We’re a predominantly white organization, but so is the UMC.” Perhaps you are familiar with a similar refrain in your chapter, in your conference, or in your local community,
“At least we’re not as racist as the UMC!” “At least we have people of color in leadership! “At least we’re more progressive than them!”
These “at least” statements lead us to Theme 3: MFSA deflects responsibility by comparing itself to the UMC which leads to complacency at times, and at other times self-righteousness. In comparing itself to the UMC, MFSA has avoided critical self-assessment that would acknowledge embedded racism. As a separate 501(c)(3), MFSA is its own organization, an institution related to the UMC but distinct as its own entity. MFSA’s mission is to be a justice-seeking United Methodist movement, energizing people to be agents of God’s justice, peace, and reconciliation: to make an impact in creating the conscience of the Church. The heart of this mission is the belief that if we change the church, we change society. In this proximity to the UMC, the MFSA has become great at critiquing the UMC, but it has failed to see its own issues. MFSA is a predominantly white institution, regardless of its relationship to the UMC.
Additionally, the UMC is not a monolith; it is a worldwide church, despite the dominant voice of the United States. It is the US-portion of the UMC that is a predominantly white organization; that is not true of our Annual Conferences in the Philippines or in Africa, MFSA has been a beacon of hope for the US-part of the church, but if the UMC is a worldwide Church, MFSA needs to embody an international movement, decolonialize our thought processes, and listen to voices beyond the US. MFSA cannot seek to be a place for “like-minded” people if it hopes to be the beloved community: multiethnic, multicultural, inclusive, and welcoming.
It is not enough to be “not as bad” as the UMC. We want more than “at least.” We want more than the bare minimum. If you’re reading this, you want more.
You want to mobilize, lead, and sustain a United Methodist movement that energizes people to be agents of God’s justice, peace, and reconciliation. The first step is to name our mission and our own responsibility to deconstruct white dominance.
Anna Swygert (they/them/theirs/she/her/hers) is an Ordained Deacon in the Florida Conference of the UMC, the Vice Chair of the Florida Regional Chapter of MFSA, Co-convener of the MFSA Racial Audit Implementation Team, and a board member of MFSA.