CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (RNS) — United Methodists meeting at their quandrennial General Conference began shedding some of the contentious rules restricting LGBTQ ordination and marriage that have torn apart the global denomination in recent years.
In an orderly morning meeting Tuesday (April 30), with no debate on the floor of the Charlotte Convention Center, a series of rules were dissolved as part of a package of agenda resolutions.
Among the items that fell away were a ban on bishops ordaining LGBTQ candidates for ministry, a ban on funding for LGBTQ affinity groups or caucuses, as well as the elimination of a series of mandatory minimum penalties for clergy that officiate same-sex weddings.
They were part of a long-awaited motions that over the course of the conference which concludes on Friday (May 3), may result in the United States’ second largest Protestant group officially dropping some or all of its LGBTQ restrictions, including a 52-year-old provision in the denomination’s governing Book of Discipline that says “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Despite the strictures, a growing group of gay clergy have been ordained over the past decade, including two openly gay bishops. These LGBTQ ministers were able to overcome church law because some local church leaders have been willing to advance their calling to ministry in defiance of church rules.
According to the Reconciling Ministries Network, an advocacy group for LGBTQ people, there are 324 gay clergy, including candidates for ordination, in the United Methodist Church. Of those, about 160 are in same-sex marriages.
But the denomination has charged many LGBTQ and straight clergy with disobedience and put them before church trials for violating the ban. Others have been censured while being allowed to be ordained.
“We’re hoping that what will happen this week is that the precarious situation will disappear,” said Helen Ryde, a member of the steering committee of the first-ever United Methodist Queer Delegate Caucus, before Tuesday’s vote.
Those restrictions have been at the forefront of a schism in the United Methodist Church that has led to the departure of some 7,600 traditionalist churches across the United States — about 25% of the total number of U.S. churches.
Now a smaller, but still theologically diverse, denomination is testing the waters once again.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.