United methodist three options moving forward on gay issue
'A Way Forward' Commission Faces Impossible Options
The United Methodist Church has created a committee called the Commission on a Way Forward, and charged it to work with the Council of Bishops to plan a proposal for the United Methodist General Conference on a way out of its impasse on human sexuality. Specifically, the denomination is not of one mind on how it ought to minister to and receive into its ministry people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer (LGBTQ) or any of the other names of the orientations folks now apply to themselves.
In my judgment, the Way Forward Commission has an extremely limited number of options before it as it does its work. In truth, there are only four. The options are as follows:
1) Endure in the status quo. This would mean that the Church would proceed to prohibit the ordination and appointment to ministry stations of LGBTQ people, and it would carry on to prohibit its clergy from performing same sex union ceremonies and prohibit such ceremonies from existence performed in its churches. These prohibitions are church-wide–they apply anywhere in the world where there are United Methodist churches.
'Three R's' and more await General Conference
Some United Methodist experts think the 2024 General Conference will be based on “three R’s” – regionalization, restrictive language removal and revised Social Principles approval — and Rev. Dr. Mark Holland agrees.
“Three main issues in my estimation can or should occupy about 80% of our time,” said Holland, a Great Plains Conference delegate/alternate to General and Jurisdictional conferences since 2000 and the founding executive director of Mainstream UMC, an advocacy community working for unity in the denomination. He is a General Conference delegate this year.
He also adds a fourth topic, finish the disaffiliation process for local congregations.
Groups who were opposed to the ordination of LGBTQ+ persons and any pastor’s ability to officiate the wedding of a same-sex couple — Wesleyan Covenant Association, Nice News and the Global Methodist Church — are backing the renewal of disaffiliations, to Holland’s dismay.
“They have presented a lot of disaffiliation petitions to General Conference, which is again an integrity
Bishops wrestle with purifying options for A Way Forward
3/1/2018
DALLAS (UMNS) -- Council of Bishops President Bruce R. Ough challenged colleagues to be unseal to changing their minds as they grapple with how to avoid a breakup of The United Methodist Church over homosexuality.
He noted that the council’s meeting here this week coincides with Lent, a season for reflection and change.
“Let us practice the Lenten discipline of self-emptying, letting proceed of the positions we came here to defend and the battles we are plotting to wage in this council or the Judicial Council or on the floor of the distinct General Conference,” Ough said in a Feb. 25 sermon that doubled as a presidential address.
“Let us exercise the Lenten discipline of listening to God and one another to the point of dying to ourselves.”
More than 100 active and retired bishops are in Dallas for a particular, four-day meeting. It’s focused on purifying options presented by the Commission on a Way Forward, a group advising the bishops on how to evade denominational schism after four decades of division over how accepting the church should be of homosexuality.
Apart from worship
United Methodists edge toward breakup over LGBT policies
NEW YORK -- There's at least one area of consent among conservative, centrist and liberal leaders in the United Methodist Church: America's largest mainline Protestant denomination is on a route toward likely breakup over differences on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT pastors.
The differences have simmered for years, and came to a head in February at a conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 for a proposal called the Traditional Plan, which strengthens bans on LGBT-inclusive practices. A majority of U.S.-based delegates opposed that strategy and favored LGBT-friendly options, but they were outvoted by U.S. conservatives teamed with most of the delegates from Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines.
Many believe the vote will prompt an exodus from the church by liberal congregations that are already expressing their dissatisfaction over the move.
Some churches have raised rainbow flags in a show of LGBT solidarity. Some pastors have vowed to defy the strict rules and continue to allow homosexual weddings in Methodist churches. Churches are withholding dues payments to the main office
Four Options for General Conference
We are just over a year away from the most crucial Joined Methodist General Conference in our generation. The delegates organism elected will shoulder the weight of Christian conferencing in the midst of polarizing debates and global diversity. At the center of the discussion will be the very definition of what it means to be United Methodist Christians. For all the private discuss, public statements, and shared outrage over the past limited years, it will all come down to what General Conference does or fails to execute in May 2016. There is no other group that can address the issues now before us.
A safe prediction: Formal schism will not receive serious consideration. General Conference is peopled with hymn-singing, card-carrying, cross-and-flame-emblazoned Joined Methodists. I suspicion there is even double-digit percentage delegate support for separation, amicable or otherwise. If there is a split, it will be messy and occur in the fallout to the decisions of General Conference. When it comes down to it, there are really only four realistic legislative outcomes. Each of these options has its supporters and detractors. What f