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Drew University Library Launches Historic Digitized Collection

The Affirmations Newsletter collection is on display at Drew’s Archives and History Center

August 2024 – Drew University’s Methodist Library is pleased to announce the launch of the Affirmation Newsletters digitization project. In the spring of 2024, the Methodist Library, part of Drew’s Libraries and Special Collections, partnered with Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns to digitize nearly 50 years of newsletters and make them available for free.

Affirmation was founded in 1972 as an all-volunteer group, eventually a caucus, to offer support and advocacy for LGBTQIA+ congregants of The United Methodist Church. The newly digitized collection includes 130 newsletters and 10 daily newsletters from the 2008 General Conference of The United Methodist Church. The newsletters are available through the Internet Archive.

In celebration of the launch, an extensive digital exhibit on the history of Affirmation is on display in the lobby of the The United Methodist Archives and History Center at Drew. A research guide is available to assist those interested in exploring LGBTQIA+ history and Methodism.

Throughout the summer of 2024, Methodist Curator Alex Parrish and Methodist Library Assistants and Drew Theological School students Jackie Chipongo T’25 and Chantel Makarawa T’25 worked to digitize the newsletters, explore the organization’s records held at the Archives, and develop the exhibits and research guide. This work elevated six themes in Affirmation’s history: celebrations, church trials, mourning, outreach, resistance, and work during The United Methodist Church’s General Conferences. These themes are explored in the exhibits and offer insight into how Affirmation worked for the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ Methodists.

The history of Affirmation is particularly relevant after the historic May 2024 General Conference of The United Methodist Church, where delegates voted to remove the four-decade ordination ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from The United Methodist Book of Discipline.

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