The United
Methodist Church moved toward becoming more progressive and LGBTQ-affirming
during U.S. regional meetings this month that included the election of its
second openly gay bishop. Conservatives say the developments will only accelerate their exit from one of the nation’s largest
Protestant denominations.
Each of the
UMC’s five U.S. jurisdictions — meeting separately in early November — approved
similarly worded measures aspiring to a future of church where “LGBTQIA+ people
will be protected, affirmed, and empowered.”
They also
passed non-binding measures asking anyone to withdraw from leadership roles if
they’re planning to leave the denomination soon — a category that almost
entirely includes conservatives moving toward the exits.
The denomination
still officially bans same-sex marriage and the ordination of any “self-avowed,
practicing homosexual,” and only a legislative gathering called the General
Conference can change that.
But this
month’s votes show growing momentum — at least in the American half of the
global church — to defy these policies and seek to reverse them at the next
legislative gathering in 2024.
Supporters and
opponents of these measures drew from the same metaphor to say their church is
either becoming more or less of a “big tent,” as the United Methodists have
long been described as a theologically diverse, mainstream denomination.
“It
demonstrates that the big tent has collapsed,” said the Rev. Jay Therrell,
president of the conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association, which has been
helping churches that want to leave the denomination.
“For years,
bishops have told traditionalists that there is room for everyone in the United
Methodist Church,” he said. “Not one single traditionalist bishop was elected.
Moreover, we now have the most progressive or liberal council of bishops in the
history of Methodism, period.”
But Jan
Lawrence, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, which works
toward inclusion of Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
applauded the regional jurisdictions. She cited their LGBTQ-affirming votes and
their expansion of the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of bishops.
Jurisdictions
elected the church’s first Native American and Filipino American bishops, with
other landmark votes within specific regions, according to United Methodist
News Service.
“It is a big
tent church,” Lawrence said. “One of the concerns that some folks expressed is
that we don’t have leadership in the church that reflects the diversity of the
church. So this episcopal election doesn’t fix that, but it’s a step in the
right direction.”
Bishop Cedrick
Bridgeforth, elected in the Western Jurisdiction meeting, agreed. He is the
first openly gay African-American man to be elected bishop. The vote comes six
years after the Western Jurisdiction elected the denomination’s first openly
lesbian bishop, Karen Oliveto of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area.
The
LGBTQ-affirming resolutions point “to the alignment of the denomination more
with the mainstream of our country,” Bridgeforth said. “It can also help us
begin to center our conversations where we have unity of purpose, rather than
centering on divisions.”
Bridgeforth
will lead churches in the Greater Northwest Area, which includes churches in
Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and small parts of Montana and Canada. He
said he has always worked across ideological lines in his administrative duties
and would continue to do so.
“I have used
our differences as an opportunity for us to come together,” he said. “It
creates more space for a different kind of conversation than, ‘That’s
different, that’s bad, we can’t be together.’” If some churches under his
jurisdiction do choose to leave the United Methodist Church, Bridgeforth said
he would help them make that transition.
“I would not
want anybody to be where they don’t want to be,” he said.
Progressive
groups have said the church should be open to appointing bishops and other
clergy, regardless of sexual orientation, who show they have the gifts for
ministry and a commitment to serve the church.
Conservatives,
however, say the church needs to abide by its own rules.
“I am sure
Bishop Bridgeforth is a person of sacred worth, but he does not meet the
qualifications to hold the office of elder, much less bishop, and should not
have been elected,” Therrell said.
At least 300
U.S. congregations have left the denomination this year, according to United
Methodist News Service. Hundreds more are in the process of leaving, and
Therrell predicted that number would be in the low thousands by the end of
2023. Overseas conferences in Bulgaria and Slovakia have ended their
affiliation with the denomination, and churches in Africa are considering it,
he said.
Many are bound
for the newly formed conservative denomination, the Global Methodist Church.
The UMC is a
worldwide denomination. American membership has declined to about 6.5 million,
from a peak of 11 million in the 1960s. Overseas membership soared to match or
exceed that of the U.S., fueled mostly by growth and mergers in Africa.
Overseas delegates have historically allied with American conservatives to uphold
the church’s stances on sexuality.
Support for a
compromise measure that would have amicably split the denomination, negotiated in 2020, fell apart after that year’s
legislative General Conference was postponed three times due to the pandemic.
The next General Conference is now scheduled to begin in April 2024 in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
A vote by
a 2019 General Conference was the latest of several in
recent decades that reinforced the church’s ban on gay clergy and marriage. But
that vote also prompted many local conferences to elect more liberal and
centrist delegates, whose influence was felt in this month’s regional votes.
SOURCE: GAY CITY NEWS
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