Wait a minute. The crucial language that the “practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” was just approved this past February? That hasn’t been the language in church discipline documents for many years before 2019 and affirmed in multiple votes?

But here is the most crucial point. What, precisely, are the “fundamental differences” that the United Methodists involved in these negotiations — leaders from left and right — cited as the cause of the upcoming ecclesiastical divorce? Was it really LGBTQ issues, period?

Consider this commentary from David French (an evangelical Presbyterian) of The Dispatch:

The secular media will cast the divide primarily in the terms it understands — as focused on “LGBT issues” — but that’s incomplete. The true fracturing point between Mainline and Evangelical churches is over the authority and interpretation of scripture. The debate over LGBT issues is a consequence of the underlying dispute, not its primary cause. …

Thus, at heart, the disagreement between the Evangelical and Mainline branches of Christianity isn’t over issues — even hot-button cultural and political issues — but rather over theology. Indeed, the very first clause of the United Methodist Church’s nine-page separation plan states that church members “have fundamental differences regarding their understanding and interpretation of Scripture, theology and practice.”

Ah, there’s the rub. Who wants to put “Scripture, theology and practice” in a news report — especially at NBC Out and similar structures in other newsrooms — when you can blame the whole denominational war over conservatives refusing to evolve on LGBTQ issues?

Read it all.

After decades of fighting, United Methodists avoid a visit from Ghost of the Episcopal Future? https://t.co/o1OptQUJJ9

— GetReligion (@GetReligion) January 6, 2020

A longtime Nashville daycare operation is being evicted, leaving dozens of families in the lurch, after it found itself caught in the middle of a brutal legal battle over the role of sexuality in the Episcopal Church.

The fight over sexuality and the Bible seemed like a legal disagreement between the Diocese of Tennessee and St. Andrew’s Parish, but the innocent victim in all this is the daycare that sits on church property in Green Hills.

Cooperative Child Care has had a successful model – no scandals, no issues and 30 years of quality service – but now it has been given six months to get out.

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Members of St. Andrew’s Parish in Nashville will split their time this week between preparing for Christmas and packing up their church’s possessions.

The congregation will hold worship services on Sunday and Christmas Day and then say goodbye to the property that has been its home for more than 50 years.

“There’s a lot of grieving going on here,” said the Rev. James Guill, pastor of St. Andrew’s.

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In the 1960s, St. Andrew’s purchased the property where our church stands from the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee with its own money. St. Andrew’s also chose to have a relationship with the diocese. Because it is an Anglo-Catholic church, though, the relationship was never intended to be the same as other Episcopal churches. The diocese and its bishop at the time, John Vander Horst, not only knew this, they encouraged St. Andrew’s and its rector, Edwin Conly, to grow their unique church.

In exchange for the purchase price, Bishop Vander Horst gave us a warranty deed. The deed conveyed the property to St. Andrew’s free and clear, with no trust in favor of the diocese. The diocese also asked St. Andrew’s to formalize the parties’ special relationship through modified language in its corporate charter.

But the story does not end there. When St. Andrew’s arrived at the property, it found a dilapidated mansion and other poorly maintained buildings. St. Andrew’s parishioners built a new church building, later razed the mansion and built a new parish hall. Over the years, St. Andrew’s alone has paid to maintain its buildings and operate its church.

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