UMC General Conference 2024 Results

[RileyG]

My understanding is that they were almost unanimously on the traditional side of every vote, but I wasn't following the conference closely enough to look at individual votes. Some of the African delegates released a statement after the conference expressing their disappointment both with the results of the conference and with the mishandling of African delegates' correspondence prior to the conference, which resulted in about a quarter of would-be delegates being unable to get visas in time to travel to the US.

I can't say I'm surprised that African Methodists would be more traditional with views on marriage and sexuality.

 

[RileyG]

My prayers are with the Methodists. May God lead you into the future

 

[jas3]

I can't say I'm surprised that African Methodists would be more traditional with views on marriage and sexuality.

That is a big part of why the liberals who gained control at the General Conference deleted the disaffiliation section; if disaffiliation were allowed, the UMC would lose just about all of its African membership. Their plan seems to be to pursue a policy of "regionalization," where the Africans could uphold the biblical definition of marriage and the Americans could change the definition.

No matter what ends up happening with the churches that decide to leave at this point, those people will leave, with or without their buildings. I doubt regionalization will be a tenable solution long-term.

 

[iarwain]

A summary of the summary: the Book of Discipline was modified to remove not only the prohibition on pastors living homosexual lifestyles, but on celibacy outside of marriage as well. Pastors can officiate same-sex unions ("weddings") and can do so in the church building. Church funds can be used to promote the acceptance of homosexuality, and can not be used against the promotion of it. The pathway for individual churches to disaffiliate from the denomination was removed.

I heard they also decided not to use any gender specific descriptions of God (such as Father), and other woke ideas: People at the conference had to identify their pronouns, for instance. I'm not a Methodist, but as a Christian I find this heartbreaking.

 

[jas3]

I heard they also decided not to use any gender specific descriptions of God (such as Father), and other woke ideas: People at the conference had to identify their pronouns, for instance. I'm not a Methodist, but as a Christian I find this heartbreaking.

I hadn't heard that, but it wouldn't surprise me. The 1989 hymnal's psalter (roughly the second half of the book containing psalms to be read or sung) removed most references to God as "He," instead repeating "God" where a pronoun would normally be used. It also removed the generic third person "he," so for example "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" became "blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." It still refers to the Father as Father, but nearly all pronouns were removed.

I do think they'll stop short of changing references to God the Father as "Father." That would require abandonment of the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, and the UMC would cease to be viewed as a Christian denomination by even other mainline Protestant denominations.