Why is homosexuality the one subject that may be too hot to handle?

[RomansFiveEight]

Having attended Eden Seminary in St. Louis, where many prospective UMC pastors are schooled, it seems in the UMC churches around there that acceptance of SSM is a done deal. Across the river in Illinois, it's a very divisive topic and most UMC folks would just as soon not deal with it.

Missouri is a strange beast though. While St. Louis and Kansas City are progressive and represent the two largest population centers in the state; and, likewise, the churches in those areas tend to be more liberal than the rural areas; the State is a deadlocked Red state. We have a Democrat for a Governor but a state legislature that is nearly completely republican; because STL and KC garner enough votes to get a moderate Dem into office, but they can't overpower the votes of a representative legislature.

I suspect that will be true of the Missouri Conference. While many of our largest churches in our most popular areas will represent a more progressive side of United Methodism; at least on the issue of Same-Sex marriage; our overwhelming number of rural churches might change the course. Voting for delegates is one thing; where often, people vote for whoever is at the top of the list 'just to get it over with'. But ultimately, each church gets a vote. And in some ways, small churches get a little 'extra'. A church of 10 people gets two votes (one lay, one clergy). A church of 100 people, served by a single Pastor, also gets two votes. So, if the Annual Conference is asked to vote on a SSM policy, these large number of rural, conservative churches, even if they represent fewer United Methodists, might actually be able to sway the vote. Or might not! At the end of the day, I genuinely have no clue how the Missouri Conference would 'vote' under the current proposed solutions of letting AC's decide.

These proposals, which ask for individual congregations or individual AC's to decide, sometimes assume there's a clear dividing line. Surely, Alabama and New York are going to vote differently. But those of us in more diverse communities are going to be up for quite a challenge.

 

[xpower]

How does the United Methodist church feel about homosexuality as a whole currently?

 

[actionsub]

How does the United Methodist church feel about homosexuality as a whole currently?

Since they may be dividing over this after General Conference this spring (or not), answering for the UMC as a whole is next to impossible. There are conservative elements who are calling for schism, and there are progressive groups who are advocating for broader rights for LGBTIQA folks within the United Methodists, up to and including same-sex marriage and full ordination of practicing gays and lesbians.

 

[GraceSeeker]

How does the United Methodist church feel about homosexuality as a whole currently?

Officially or pragmatically?

Officially, the only place you can find how the United Methodist Church feels about anything "as a whole" is in our Book of Discipline. In it we say (paraphrasing) that we believe that one's sexual orientation isn't and shouldn't be relevant with regard to one's value to God, the church, or any individual. All people are sinners, yet also equally loved by God and Jesus gave his life to reconcile all of us to God. We equivocate in recognizing that we still find that even Christians sin and for the last 44 years have expressed the view that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. And this has been interpreted to mean that in the UMC that we have no rules restricting a person's membership based on their sexual orientation. But we do not allow persons who are practicing homosexuals from being ordained or serving as pastors in our churches, nor shall UMC pastors perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. And these are the rules that are to be in effect across the entire denomination.

But, pragmatically it is a completely different story. The determination of the wording of the Book of Discipline comes about through the vote of people that are elected from regional meetings of local church representatives (called "Annual Conferences") to go to a large global conference call "General Conference." While the results of the vote have been fairly consistent, where those votes are coming from has changed significantly. 44 years ago, the United Methodist Church while existing around the globe was mostly an American denomination and reflected the social mores of the country, which at that time was certainly not very open to homosexuality. The last 4 decades have seen monumental shifts in American views with regard to human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. And in some places United Methodists have changed in their thinking right along with their neighbors. Certainly in the Northeast and Western portions of the UMC in the USA you will find the dominant view to be that there ought to be no exclusive language with regard to homosexuality in our Discipline, while in the Midwest that view might be favored by a slim margin and in the South and Southeast not favored. This is just a guess, but I believe that if one were to have a vote of just the representatives of UMC members found in the USA that the exclusionary language presently found in the Discipline would be removed. However, there are less UMC members in the USA than there were 44 years ago, and the membership of the UMC in other parts of the world, especially in Africa, is exploding. This shift in membership distribution in the denomination means a shift in the distribution of those who are delegates to General Conference so that more and more are coming from Africa and less are coming from the USA. And while in the USA, the membership of the UMC is less inclined to be restricting the ordination of persons over the issue of homosexuality, that shift has not taken place within the UMC membership found in Africa. So, today there are major divisions within the UMC on this question. That division in the USA is between progressive and conservative interpretations of the scripture and how that interpretation is to be applied to practical matters of who we ordained and what the clergy are ordained to do. And that division also is reflected in the overall understanding of what should and should not be the teaching of the UMC on this matter between different parts of the larger global UMC and do we even continue with one single global interpretation or do we allow the UMC to express its doctrines differently from one cultural context to another -- for some are seeking to allow for those types of changes in our Discipline as well.

 

[circuitrider]

Good responses from both Actionsub and GraceSeeker.

I would add that one of the characteristics of United Methodism is that most of the time we operate more on an Annual Conference (Regional) level than a General Conference (international) level.

Since General Conference is a representative body most United Methodists are not in attendance and most have never attended GC. Most clergy stay in the same Annual Conference for their entire ministry career.

So there are regional/Conference differences that are a constant because there is so little crossover from conference to conference, particularly for clergy. The General Conference only meets every four year.

But our Discipline is the same across the world. However in our "Central Conference" (those outside the US) they are given authority to vary from the Discipline in certain matters of culture and law. But the Jurisdictions inside the US have not been given the authority to do so. I believe the fact that those jurisdictions basically have less rights than those outside the US to govern their own affairs is going to become a growing bone of contention as the membership outside the US grows larger and larger.

 

[RomansFiveEight]

If you look at sheer polls, votes, and membership in both conservative (Confessing movement) and liberal (Reconciling Ministries Network) organizations; the reality is, the denomination is not on one mind on the issue of human sexuality. It has us nearly divided down the middle and, in truth, it seems to fit the communities they are in. Progressive, affirming communities are more likely to have affirming UMC Churches and likewise it'd be rare in the deep south to find a UM church that affirms homosexuality. Comically, each side stands on their side of the line pointing fingers and saying the other is merely bending to the will of their culture and not God. And in some ways, both are right. In some ways, they aren't.

The UMC, officially, as has been said above, affirms the sacred worth of all persons regardless of sexual orientation but does not ordain practicing homosexuals nor does it marry them. One thing that makes us unique from other denominations with prohibitions against SSM is that we affirm that a persons sexual orientation is not something that they wake up one day and "choose". We also reject "conversion therapy". The expectation, officially, of the UMC is that a homosexual person is not going to be 'straight', but they also should not 'practice' their sexual orientation. i.e., they are called to a life of celibacy. The Roman Catholic Church has a similar perspective. Obviously, each side has issues with this. The Progressive arm struggles with the idea of affirming sexual orientation but then demanding celibacy, and some conservatives (many agree with the current stance) want to go even farther and reject sexual orientation as valid and begin supporting conversion therapy. This could change this spring, or it might not. Personally, I find a split unlikely.

However we are not a doctrinal church. Individual members of the UMC are free to believe differently. The prohibition from gay clergy and gay weddings is still denominational law; but nobody can or will be 'kicked out' for believing differently than the denomination. And that's at the core of what Methodism is. A small list, a VERY small list, of essential beliefs. The rest, we work out throughout our lives, as a denomination and as individuals.