FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 1, 2024
REV. CHARLIE BABER RECEIVES CONTEMPORARY HISTORY TRAILBLAZER AWARD
GCAH selects pastor and Wesley Bros. creator as inaugural recipient
BOZEMAN, Montana –The General Commission on Archives and History has selected the Rev. Charlie Baber as the inaugural recipient of the Contemporary History Trailblazer Award. Baber is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Conference, creator of Wesley Bros. Comics and currently serves as youth pastor at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C.
In announcing the honor, Dr. Ashley Boggan D., GCAH’s general secretary, listed Baber’s many accomplishments. In addition to creating the Wesley Bros. Comics, Baber is the author of “Submitting to be More Vile,” which was published in 2019 by Abingdon Press. In 2023, Baber released “Incompatible: How the Church Cast Out LGBTQ+ Christians and Where We Go Next.” He has partnered with GCAH on numerous initiatives, including a confirmation class published on GCAH’s online portal, UMHistoryhub.teachable.com, and a timeline of Methodist-related splits and mergers. In recent years, Baber created the art for life-sized cardboard versions of Methodism’s early founders, including the Wesleys, Francis Asbury, Philip Otterbein and Harry Hosier, that GCAH displayed at denomination-wide events.
“Charlie, I’ve long been one of your biggest fan girls and I am so honored to present you with the inaugural Contemporary History Trailblazer Award. This award was inspired by you and your ministry,” Boggan said at the awards event. “We wanted to find a way to ensure that persons who are engaging with and wrestling with our past in innovative ways can be honored and recognized.”
As Baber accepted the award, he shared the origin story for the Wesley Bros. Creating the comic, he said, was “a spiritual practice for me to process what it means to belong to a church, but, more importantly, what it means to belong to a God where I wasn’t really sure if I was allowed to be who I was."
The award was presented during the 10th Historical Convocation held Sept. 9-13.
Pictured (l-r): Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, GCAH president; Rev. Charlie Baber, award recipient; Dr. Ashley Boggan D, GCAH general secretary.
Media contact:
Crystal Caviness
ccaviness@umcom.org
615.306.3401