After an emotional debate, Methodists at a national legislative meeting Thursday upheld the denomination’s policy that same-sex relationships are “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Delegates at the General Conference voted by about 60% to 40% against softening the language on homosexuality in their Book of Discipline, which contains church laws and doctrine. The meeting is held once every four years, which means the policy won’t come up for a conference vote again until 2016.
Advocates for gay and lesbian Methodists gathered in the convention hall wearing rainbow stoles and protested the vote by singing and interrupting the meeting. Some cried when the vote tally was announced. Methodist leaders briefly shut down business in response to the protest.
Something makes no sense! Methodists say no gay leaders – This means clergy? – Then why did the local Methodist district recently hold a day long session about same sex couples living in parsonages?
They’ll be back.
Hi Vrmjws — the local Methodist districts are responsible for upholding church teaching. Obviously, some do not — some repudiate church teaching.
The good news about the Methodists is that the puerile [see “protest videos” for exhibits] revisionist activists attempting to change church teaching at the national level failed quite dramatically.
I’d be interested in the political strategies involved in changing the leadership — lay and clergy — of local Methodist districts.
Sarah,
Actually it is the annual conference that is responsible for meting out discipline the the UMC, although annual conferences can be overruled in some case by the UMC Judicial Council which rules on matters for the entire UMC.
Leadership change is probably not going to happen in the UMC since the seminaries (except for Asbury), the denominational boards, and the bishops’ council are all controlled by raging, revisionist liberals. Bishops are elected by regional Jurisdictional Conferences, which are also firmly controlled by liberals.
In my experience, lay leadership above the individual church level is taken over by doctrinaire liberal agitators that have the time to work the system. Normal folks that have to work for a living just don’t have the time to spend on agitation and the manuvering it takes to get elected or appointed to a conference wide position and then get your annual conference to elect you as a delegate to General Conference.