United Methodists end anti-LGBTQ+ policies
The United Methodist Church, one of the largest organized Christian groups in America, ended a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ policies this week, including a ban on gay clergy and on penalties for clergy who conduct same-sex marriages.
The moves came as votes of the UMC’s General Conference, the denomination’s legislative body, which normally meets every four years.
While multiple other mainline Protestant groups, including Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ, years ago ended anti-LGBTQ+ policies, the United Methodists - who historically have been more politically and regionally diverse - remained deeply divided. Tensions stayed high in recent years as advocates for liberal reforms kept pressing for change and conservatives continued to resist.
Because of the tension, nearly a quarter of the UMC’s 30,000 congregations in the United States have left since 2019, primarily conservatives. That’s when denominational leaders opened a window for congregations to leave with their property, according to the UMC news service. The deadline to leave was at the end of December.
Methodists also approved a new system for organizing that gives more rulemaking autonomy to each region of the international church. That will allow for different parts of the UMC to be more or less conservative, among other things.
Many UMC members feel the votes in addition to the “regionalization” will help the movement grow.
Mande Muyombo, a regional African bishop from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told the UMC’s news service that Methodists in Africa will continue their traditional practices around marriage as being between one man and one woman. But he thinks the regionalization vote will allow African Methodists to be “authentic” while remaining connected to a diverse range of United Methodists.
“I see a great future for the United Methodist Church in Africa,” he said.
“The aftermath of the splintering process won’t be easy for any of the churches involved, the ones who remain and the ones who broke away. There are many obstacles ahead and in some sense, we need to rebuild and rebrand our church. But the future looks now better than before the change, because we are now finally in a position to better reach the younger generation,” the Rev. Frank Schaefer, a UMC pastor who was defrocked and put on trial - a church trial - a decade ago after he officiated the wedding of his son to another man, wrote Thursday in an email to the Post.
“Legislative actions don’t change behaviors. The United Methodist Church, though, is at a pivotal moment. We have just changed our discipline, and inclusion now embraces ALL of God’s children. We have the opportunity to step bold into a world where we become the big-tent denomination we claim to be,” said Jan Lawrence, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, which advocates for LGBTQ+ people in the church.
The votes Tuesday and Wednesday were greeted with overwhelming emotion, and people at the Charlotte (N.C.) Convention Center applauded where the general conference met, sang hymns, hugged and cried. The tally Wednesday to remove the 40-year-old ban on the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” was 692 to 51.
“It was a long and painful road, but the tears we’ve been crying have today been turned into tears of joy!” Schafer wrote.
Schaefer, who was eventually reinstated, wrote Thursday that the loss of so many conservative churches was “a hefty price to pay,” but worth it.
Schaefer was one of a handful of clergy who faced trials in the 2010s as they sought to challenge a document in the UMC’s Book of Discipline that call homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
On Tuesday, delegates voted overwhelmingly to delete mandatory penalties for conducting same-sex marriages and to remove the denomination’s bans on considering LGBTQ+ candidates for ministry and on funding for gay-friendly ministries. It also ended a ban on consecrating gay people as bishops.
Traditional Methodists in May 2022 started a new denomination, called the Global Methodist Church, which will continue conservative practices and policies related to sexuality and gender and won’t ordain or marry LGBTQ+ people. It has since added more than 4,000 congregations in the United States, the denomination said in November.
The votes this week in Charlotte protects the right of clergy and churches not to officiate at or host same-sex weddings.
Schaefer, who has three gay children and pastors in the Santa Barbara area, said that is a “concern.”
“Because the church has also voted on allowing more freedom to different regions, we might see some homophobic language or guidelines reappear in more conservative parts of the world. However, this will only affect the particular region and will also not become church law again.”