United methodist church lgbtq stance
Church ends year-old stance against homosexuality
By: Christa Meland and Heather Hahn
The United Methodist Church’s stance against homosexuality—which sparked a half-century of conflict—is now no more.
By a vote of to after about an hour and a half of debate, General Conference delegates eliminated the year-old affirmation in the denomination’s Social Principles that “the practice of homosexuality… is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
In the same vote, delegates affirmed “marriage as a solemn, lifelong covenant that brings two people of faith [adult dude and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age] into a union of one another and into deeper relationship with God and the religious community.”
The Social Principles represent the denomination’s public stands on issues of the day and are not church law. The previous Social Principles had described a marriage covenant as “shared fidelity between a man and a woman.”
“This really signals a recent day and age for The Uni
On 3 May , the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) — the largest Methodist denomination in the earth — removed the language of restriction on so-called “practising homosexuals” from church law. In effect, this lifts the ban on queer clergy and homosexual marriages in the UMC. The approach taken allows liberty of conscience at the local level, and is an attempt to keep progressives, centrists, and traditionalists in the similar tent. It is essentially the same approach that the Uniting Church in Australia has taken.
This judgment was made possible only after around a quarter of its congregations with a more traditional stance had disaffiliated. Some of these became part of a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church (GMC), which was launched in May , after decades of acrimonious debate. Others joined smaller Methodist churches, such as the Free Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Church. A limited simply became independent.
Learning to live together with difference has been a question for the church since New Testament times, and compromise solutions such as this wi
Sexuality and the United Methodists
Others, like the Episcopals, Presbyterians (PCUSA), and Lutherans (ELCA) have taken explicit stances in back of LGBTQ inclusion. Of course, individual members of these institutions will hold diverse views on the topic, and the stance of an institution does not always mirror the stance of an individual member; The United Tactic Church (UMC) is a perfect example of this complexity.
The UMC is a global Protestant denomination which has significant membership in North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. While historically originating in the United Kingdom, the largest population of Methodists now lives in the United States, where it is the third largest religious group after Catholics and Baptists.
Every four years, the UMC meets at what they call the Methodist General Conference—a democratic body of representatives from across the world which gathers to generate church decisions. In , the Conference voted to include language to the church’s law, stating “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” and that same-sex attracted
Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ+ Issues: The Combined Methodist Church
In May , the General Conference voted to remove longstanding bans on the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy and the celebration of homosexual marriages by clergy and in churches. These changes became fully effective on January 1,
BACKGROUND
The UMC traces its origins to the Methodist movement initiated in the midth century by Anglican priest John Wesley and his brother Charles. The current structure of the UMC was established in through the union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The church is founded on three basic principles:
- Do no harm.
- Do good.
- Practice the ordinances of God, including prayer, Bible reading, worship, and the Lord's Supper.
The global church structure mirrors the United States government with legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The legislative branch, the General Conference, meets every four years to set church policy. Approximately 1, delegates (half lay leaders, half clergy) amass to consider revisions to the Book of Resolutions and the Book of D