The United Methodist Church’s General Conference, the church’s highest legislative body, meets April 27-May 7, 2004, in Pittsburgh. At that meeting they will be considering a recent proposal to change the demonination’s Social Pricipals to acknowledge more fully that honest Christians can disagree over homosexuality.
The current language is Although we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching, we affirm that God’s grace is available to all.
The proposal, submitted by the Board of Church and Society in a 20-12 vote, changes the language to Although faithful Christians disagree on the compatibility of homosexual practice with Christian teaching, we affirm that God’s grace is available to all.
I asked last August if the Methodist Church was moving towards acceptance. It seems that perhaps it is. The UMC may not be the largest demonination in the U.S., but it is big. If this mainstream of an organization can join the cause of fair treatment and equal rights, the future is looking brighter.
So would this change mean that same-sex couples will be married in Methodist churches as a matter of policy? May openly gay, non-celibate homosexuals be ordained to the ministry?
Prior to about 1980 it was in fact the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., before phenomenal growth in the SBC put it ahead in the numbers.
Just a plug for the fact that gay people are fully accepted in the Episcopal Church, there are a large number of openly gay priests and an openly gay man likely to become a bishop. There is strong advocacy for a nationally approved ritual for solemnizing same-sex marital unions, though this is opposed by a smaller group, but many local parishes do it as a matter of course.
Not an intent to hijack, just to re-emphasize that at least some churches are already prepared to recognize their gay members as fully a part of the life of the church and not banned from its ministry either as recipients or as ministers.
There are a large number of active United Methodists who strongly support gay rights; our own Jodi is among them.
I’m another. I was deeply disappointed in the Methodist Church when the first statement came out, and I’m hopeful that this modification will be approved in September. I feel it reflects the state of affairs within the church at the moment.
An ex-girlfriend, her mom (a district superintendent for the Methodist Church–in Bartlesville, Oklahoma), her dad (a Methodist minister), her step-father (see note on her dad), her uncle (see note on her step-father) and her aunt (see note on her uncle) are all in support of Methodist acceptance of homosexuality. (True, the ex ain’t part of the preaching royalty like the others, but she’s as stubborn as all get-out, so that should count for something. And she’s nuts–which means she oughta be able to keep her opponents off guard most of the time.)
Of course, now that I think on it, I believe her dad might be leaving the Methodist fold and heading toward the Disciples of Christ; apparently, he doesn’t like the hierarchy of the Methodist church telling him at which church he’s going to be preaching. But if that’s so, then he’s a staunch ally in the new branch, too.
At any rate, her mom mentioned that there was a lot of support building, and that at each national conference, more and more people supported full acceptance.
I think the Methodists are heading in what I consider to be the right direction. (On matters concerning homosexuality, that is. Now if only I could get them to do something about that pesky belief in a god… ;))
I live in a small rural mostly Methodist Community growing up. when I was in my teens our long time pastor came out of the closet in church and said that he was leaving his wife for a man. The Church negated everything that minister did and and everybody he married or babtised had to get is redone. It was a sick but kinda funny experience because all these people that have been happily married under the grace of god were suddenly living in sin all becuase of one man sexual preference. I am glad some people in the religious community are getting a clue.
I doubt that they’re ready to go that far, Otto; but eventually, maybe so. They did refuse to press charges against Rev. Karen Dammann. Last August I thought it meant schism. Now it’s starting to look more and more like the tide is turning in favor of tolerance, if not actual acceptance.
Good for the Methodists. It’s a step in the right direction. I have err…umm… <cough>known<cough> a few UMC ministers in my time. Even heard that most of em were good at their jobs too.
Etgaw, I hope you won’t consider this offensive, but I really have to have a cite for the truth of that assertion – the sentence I’ve italicized in the quote from you above. It’s been the tradition of the church for nearly 1800 years that the unworthiness of the ministers does not impede the effect of their ministry, and one of the Articles of Religion of the U.M.C. spells this out explicitly. I’m wondering if you misunderstood comments made by adults who quite frankly didn’t know what they were talking about, or if the D.S. or Bishop took it on themselves to demand this of people contrary to the Book of Discipline.
And I’ll be glad to give my real-life story on why I think “itinerancy” – the practice of moving pastors around at the Bishop’s whim – is a totally absurd way to run a church.
