Will the nation’s third-largest church split up over LGBT debate? Leaders try to reach an answer.

[Muda69]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/02/22/will-nations-third-largest-church-split-up-over-lgbt-debate-leaders-try-reach-an-answer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.faa7a2add26e

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In recent years, the deep division over sexuality in the United Methodist Church has led many in the church to use a word they hadn’t heard since their European history classes: “schism.”

A schism, the splitting of a church over irreconcilable differences, has sometimes seemed imminent. Yet in an extraordinary meeting of church leaders in St. Louis that begins Saturday, the 12 million-member denomination will try to reach a plan to hold their church together while also deciding the church’s stance on LGBT issues.

“It is very difficult to be the church in the same way in Monrovia, Liberia, and in San Francisco and in Austin, Texas, and in Peoria, Ill., and in Montgomery, Ala.,” said Bishop Kenneth Carter of Florida, one of the three moderators of the 32-member Commission on a Way Forward that has been preparing plans since 2016 for the denomination to consider. “From a political perspective, we are a church that has among its members Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush and James B. Comey and Jeff Sessions. … How much unity can we achieve? And how much separation do people need from each other?”

The United Methodist Church is, in the United States, the third-largest faith group in the nation and the largest mainstream Protestant group. Here, many Methodist pastors want to perform same-sex marriages and ordain gay men and women as clergy. They look to their counterparts in other mainstream churches that have long allowed gay weddings, like the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church, as far ahead of their own denomination. But the issue of sexuality remains deeply divisive among both clergy and believers across the nation.

Furthermore, the United Methodist Church is not just an American church but a global one. About a third of the denomination’s churches are in Africa, where the church is rapidly growing and where leaders tend to deeply oppose the idea of being part of a church that sanctions homosexuality.

How to hold all this together? In St. Louis from Saturday through Tuesday, more than 800 clergy and lay leaders will vote on several options — including, perhaps, ending the unity in the 50-year-old denomination’s name.

“When I’m realistic, I realize our denomination probably will break apart. We will most likely split,” said the Rev. Frank Schaefer, one of the highest-profile ministers involved in this debate. Schaefer, a father of three gay children, was put on church trial for officiating the wedding of his son and was defrocked by United Methodist officials in Pennsylvania, then hired again as a pastor at a United Methodist church in Santa Barbara, Calif., under a different bishop. “We’re spending resources debating and fighting each other. It’s like a bad marriage. Sometimes it’s better to break up and move on.”

..

This meeting is the first time the church called a special session on a single topic, outside of the every-four-years format for global meetings, since 1970. That year, the topic was merging another denomination into the United Methodist Church.

This time, the topic is whether to break apart.

I expect a split as well.  Probably along the lines of a "United States UMC" and then the rest of the world.  

My spouse and I are good friends with a homosexual couple that was forced out of an area UMC church by a minority of hateful parishioners, afraid that somehow these two individuals would "infect" the youth of the church or something.  It was all quite sad.

 

[BARRYOSAMA]

3 hours ago, Muda69 said:

  It was all quite sad.

 

Dare I say....hateful

[Muda69]

15 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

Dare I say....hateful

Should that church in question be on the SPLC's list?

[BARRYOSAMA]

On 2/22/2019 at 5:04 PM, Muda69 said:

Should that church in question be on the SPLC's list?

If they advocate death to gays, I say Yes.   What say you?

[Muda69]

3 minutes ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

If they advocate death to gays, I say Yes.   What say you?

Possibly, although how would you define the word "advocate"?  If one parishioner of said church wrote "death to gays" on his/her personal blog?  If the term "death to gays" in published on the church's website?  If "death to gays" is a common theme in the weekly sermon given by the church's pastor?  If multiple parishioners go out in the general public distributing literature that says "death to gays"?

Is spouting "we advocate death to gays" without  killing or physically harming homosexuals enough to be labeled as a "hate group"?

 

 

[BARRYOSAMA]

You, yourself (in bold print no less) showed where that church claimed to follow the Biblical teaching on homosexuality.  The Biblical teaching in Leviticus is clearly to kill gays.

If you advocate killing of a group of people with out actually killing them based on their sexual orientation, this is clearly a hateful group.  

Are you suggesting that you have to physically kill someone to be considered a hate group??   Clearly you are not that stupid?  Or maybe Wabash82 is correct....

[Muda69]

12 hours ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

You, yourself (in bold print no less) showed where that church claimed to follow the Biblical teaching on homosexuality.  The Biblical teaching in Leviticus is clearly to kill gays.

If you advocate killing of a group of people with out actually killing them based on their sexual orientation, this is clearly a hateful group.  

Are you suggesting that you have to physically kill someone to be considered a hate group??   Clearly you are not that stupid?  Or maybe Wabash82 is correct....

I believe actions speak louder than words. 

So you believe all Christian churches who say they follow the Bible are hate groups? That would include all Catholic churches, all churches in the various protestant denominations (SBC, UMC, etc.) and non-denominational protestant churches.

 

 

[swordfish]

OLD Testament VS NEW Testament........

All I'm gonna say 'bout that.....

[Impartial_Observer]

***Moving from VOC thread***

I'm left scratching my head with this discussion. One the one hand bashing Christians has pretty much become sport in this country. While the the bible may or may not offer death for the sin of homosexuality, I'm not aware of any instances in recent history where Christians are killing gays for being gay. On the other hand, we're suppose to embrace Islam as a "peaceful" religion, and celebrate diversity, and all the current PC culture. Yet there are any number of incidences in recent history where Muslims have killed people for being gay. 

[Muda69]

Update:  https://www.umnews.org/en/news/gc2019-daily-feb-24

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Petitions meant to address pensions and the Traditional Plan topped the list of priorities for what General Conference delegates will work on in their legislative committee.

This was a key vote as delegates to the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly try to set the direction in the denomination’s longtime debate over homosexuality. 

By 56 votes, the Traditional Plan topped the One Church Plan, supported by a majority of the bishops. 

The Traditional Plan was second behind pensions, and the One Church Plan was fifth behind legislation that deals with disaffiliating churches.
  
The Traditional Plan would strengthen restrictions against officiating at same-gender unions and being “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy. The One Church Plan would leave questions of same-sex weddings up to individual clergy and congregations.

“We’re very happy the Traditional Plan received the majority of the votes,” said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of the unofficial advocacy group Good News, which has championed the legislation.

“In spite of all the efforts of the groups and the bishops, the church remains committed to a scriptural understanding of sexual ethics.”

...

Bishop Julius C. Trimble, who leads the Indiana Conference, said his word to his people is: “Hold on and keep doing ministry the way you're doing now.”

“There's more to come. Let's not put a period on it yet.”

...

The Traditional Plan received 459 votes.
 
The next highest vote getters were two different plans for how exiting congregations could leave with their property, with 412 and 406 votes respectively.

The One Church Plan received 403 high-priority votes.
 
The Simple Plan, which would eliminate all restrictive Disciplinary language related to homosexuality, received 153 high-priority votes.

The Connectional Conference Plan, which would restructure the church around theological lines, drew 102 votes. 

...

Before voting even began, delegates learned that the two petitions that are part of the Modified Traditional Plan would first go to the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters. The permanent committee of General Conference deals with legislation that affects central conferences — church regions in Africa, the Philippines and Europe.

Neil Alexander said his unofficial advocacy group Uniting Methodists, which supports the One Church Plan, is not giving up. 
“We are in the beginning of a complex legislative process,” Alexander said. “There is much debate and many decisions to come. We will be sharing information and ideas we believe will win broad support.”

The Rev. Edwin Momog, a delegate from Sierra Leone, said the hall was charged and tense during the vote. But he believes a majority of delegates are happy. 

“But God has a way of doing things. He has some sense of humor. When we feel so much anxious, that’s when he comes in with his own way. It is God’s church. And, I think the voting just went God’s own way.”

Audun Westad, lay delegate from the Norway Conference, said it saddened him that the disaffiliation petitions got such huge support. 

“That does not look good for their willingness to stay together with people of a different mind,” he said.
 
The German delegation was surprised that the plan was ranked so low with less than 50 percent of the vote, said Klaus U. Ruof, German communicator. They likewise were surprised the delegates wanted to talk pensions and money before talking about a plan, he said. 

The Rev. Alex da Silva Souto, an openly gay clergy delegate from the New York Conference, was less surprised. He has championed the Simple Plan.

“Today’s results are not the first time we as LGBTQIA United Methodists have been hurt by our church, and not the first time that our denomination contradicts its mission, and still we are here,” he said. “We will continue to trust in God's priorities for our welfare.”

....

I'm not clear on how all this voting works and what is binding and what is not,  but it appears pretty close.   If it remains like this a schism is very likely.

 

[Muda69]

Conservative Christians Just Retook the United Methodist Church: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/united-methodists-fracture-lgbt-plan-rejected/583693/

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The United Methodist Church has fractured over the role of LGBT people in the denomination. At a special conference in St. Louis this week, convened specifically to address divisions over LGBT issues, members voted to toughen prohibitions on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy. This was a surprise: The denomination’s bishops, its top clergy, pushed hard for a resolution that would have allowed local congregations, conferences, and clergy to make their own choices about conducting same-sex marriages and ordaining LGBT pastors. This proposal, called the One Church Plan, was designed to keep the denomination together. Methodist delegates rejected their recommendations, instead choosing the so-called Traditional Plan that affirmed the denomination’s teachings against homosexuality.

This is a consequential vote for the future of the United Methodist Church: Many progressive churches will now almost certainly consider leaving the denomination. It’s also a reminder that many Christian denominations, including mainline groups like the UMC, are still deeply divided over questions of sexuality and gender identity. While the UMC in the United States is roughly evenly divided between those who identify as traditionalists and those who identify as moderates and liberals, it is also a global organization. Many of the growing communities in the Philippines or countries in Africa are committed to theological teachings against same-sex relationships and marriages.

....

The United Methodist Church, which was formed in a 1968 merger between two denominations, has known for a long time that it would eventually have to address these deeply felt disagreements over LGBT issues. At the denomination’s 2016 General Conference, delegates asked UMC bishops to produce recommendations for how the Church should resolve divisions over LGBT issues. Over the next three years, Methodist leaders developed the One Church Plan, which would have allowed local pastors and regional conferences to make their own decisions, keeping the denomination together but allowing for diversity in its ranks.

In order to put that plan into place, however, the bishops needed the support from a body of Methodists delegates from around the country and the world, so they convened this special General Conference.  Denominational leaders worked hard to win support: “There’s been a full-court press to adopt the One-Church Plan,” said Tom Lambrecht, an elder at a United Methodist church in Wisconsin who served on the Commission on the Way Forward, a body convened to advise the UMC bishops on what to do, in an interview on Tuesday.

The bishops clearly did not have the support for which they had hoped. During a vote early in the conference, delegates did not put the One Church Plan at the top of their collective agenda. On Tuesday, they definitively voted against any further consideration of the plan. “The fact that that’s been rejected shows that our leadership has lost its ability to influence and lead our Church in a way that people are willing to follow,” said Lambrecht.

...

While LGBT issues drove the debate at the UMC’s gathering, delegates seemed to disagree about something deeper: what Jesus actually teaches about sexuality and how LGBT people should be treated in the church. Conservative delegates argued that their position is a matter of biblical fidelity: “Traditional believers regard scripture as being the ultimate authority,” said Boyette. “When it comes to something like our teachings on human sexuality, and what the Bible spells out as the boundaries there, those are essentials.” Other delegates, however, argued that conservatives focus on this issue to the exclusion of others, like divorce, and that conservative Methodists are perfectly willing to interpret the Bible’s teachings on other issues, like women in ministry. “I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about the Bible as though the rest of us don’t love the Bible, read the Bible, interpret the Bible, understand the Bible,” said Adam Hamilton, the pastor of a prominent Methodist congregation in Kansas who supports LGBT inclusion in the UMC.

....

Now that the UMC has voted to reaffirm its stance against homosexuality and toughen punishments for churches and clergy that violate its teachings, a number of progressive churches may consider leaving the denomination. Before the meeting had even begun, churches from across the theological spectrum had begun looking into this possibility—Daniel Dalton, a lawyer in Michigan who specializes in religious property issues, said he has talked with more than 700 churches who are thinking about making an exit. In the past, this hasn’t always been so simple: While local churches build and run their own congregations, bishops largely have control over what happens to their assets when they want to leave the denomination. “Everybody wants out,” Dalton said. “The only thing that’s holding them back is that their property could be taken away from them.” For some churches, this is about theology and unity. For others, “it’s a battle over money,” Dalton said.

Even some of the conservative churches who supported the Traditional Plan may leave, Boyette said. His group, the Wesleyan Covenant Association, was founded as a potential alternative denomination for churches that describe themselves as orthodox and oppose same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBT clergy. Conservatives got what they wanted out of this General Conference, but “the patience of people is wearing thin,” he told me. His group will meet to assess next steps later this week.

 

In the final hours of the conference on Tuesday, the debate turned acrimonious: One delegate alleged, without clear evidence, that people at the conference were bribing others for votes. Another speaker’s mic was silenced when he threatened to filibuster any vote before the end of the day. And the debate came to an abrupt halt: Delegates had to clear out of the conference hall so that it could be turned over for a monster-truck rally.

Some Methodists, however, seem determined to keep fighting this battle within their denomination. “I am a 32-year-old, and I am one of the youngest delegates here. For a denomination who claims so desperately to want young people in our churches, maybe we need to reevaluate,” said Alyson Shahan, a delegate from Oklahoma, who seemed to support LGBT inclusion in the denomination. “This body is not where the disciple-making happens. Thank the good Lord, am I right?”

There will be another General Conference again in 2020, where any of these issues or proposals can be taken up again. “With the traditional plan that adds teeth, you’ve not only alienated progressives, but also centrists,” said Hamilton. “Do you think these churches will quietly accept this regressive, traditional plan with teeth? Will these churches protest less, or more, for LGBTQ persons in the future?”

“You’ve inspired an awful lot of people who were not really engaged in this struggle before,” Hamilton said. “And for that, I thank you.”

 

Talking to relatives and acquaintances of mine who are members of a UMC congregation this battle is far from over.   And the question of "picking and choosing" what to believe, aka "interpret" from the a 2000 year old book and what to discard is always good for a laugh.

 

[Muda69]

An update on this issue from an Indy Star article.  Signs point to a split coming in 2020:  https://www.indystar.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/22/united-methodist-church-progressive-conservative-split-lgbtq/4233406002/

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...

After years of debating gay rights, the United Methodist Church is probably headed for a big split. Months after global Methodist leaders voted against LGBTQ rights this year, five bishops representing the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church released a statement Nov. 6 in support of LGBTQ clergy. Church leaders are debating whether to fracture into two organizations – one liberal and one conservative – before the denomination's next annual gathering in 2020. 

“Unity is a high priority for many of us, and we watched it fall apart in front of our very eyes," said the Rev. Erin Martin, the Columbia District superintendent who oversees more than 40 Methodist clergy in the Portland, Oregon, metro area, of the vote against LGBTQ rights in February. 

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

"It felt as though something died that day within the United Methodist communion,” she said, her voice cracking. “We may not be able to hold together.”

After Southern Baptists, Methodists make up the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination, totaling more than 6.8 million members, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Beyoncé. Baby boomers make up the majority (38%) of the congregants, and 94% of them are white, according to the Pew Research Center.  

At the denomination's annual convention in 2016, Martin said, everyone could sense fissures over the subject of sexuality. The church, she said, was “struggling for a consensus." She worried that the Methodist movement might be on the brink of a tipping point. February's vote confirmed it.

“For those who aren’t part of the church, this confirms their worst suspicions that Christians are narrow, critical and full of hate and condemnation,” Martin said. 

Threatening to split isn't new for the United Methodist Church. At the conference in 2004, delegates voted overwhelmingly (869-41) to remain united despite disagreements over human sexuality. But leaders on both sides said the situation has become untenable, and separation is probably the only way forward. 

Legislation in favor of splitting the denomination has been submitted before next year's global gathering, including a proposal calling for "an amicable separation" that would divide the United Methodist Church in two. 

The Wesleyan Covenant Association, headquartered in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, is a group within the Methodist church that subscribes to what the Rev. Keith Boyette, president of the organization, calls a commitment to the "historic Christian faith," or a more traditional take on Methodism. At the meeting in February, the Wesleyan Covenant Association endorsed the ban on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage. 

Boyette, 66, said he's sad to think about a Methodist church split, but "it would be sadder to me if we remained mired in continual escalating conflict, which prevents the church from focusing on its primary mission, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ."

"We're distracted from that in many ways because we're consumed by this conflict," Boyette said. 

He said he believes the church will divide in spring 2020: Either it'll be a soft split, the result of an agreed plan of separation, or a hard split, in which some churches and pastors decide they've had enough and no longer want to be part of the United Methodist Church. Boyette roots for an amicable separation. 

"We're done fighting," he said. "Let's find a way to release each other and go forward, and pursue the vision we each have."

....