Posted on 05/10/2016 3:24:21 PM PDT by xzins
By Heather Hahn
May 9, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore. (UMNS) On the eve of the 2016 General Conference, more than 100 United Methodist clergy and clergy candidates have come out as LGBTQ religious leaders.
“We are here because God has called us to serve in this denomination, and our souls are fed by the theology in which we’ve been raised,” the 111 United Methodists write in what they call “A Love Letter to Our Church.” The signers come from across the United States, and one signer is from the Philippines. They identify themselves as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer/Questioning, and Intersex” in the letter.
Their letter comes a week after 15 clergy and clergy candidates in the New York Conference took a similar step of coming out together. It also comes just two days after the Rev. David Meredith, a United Methodist pastor in the West Ohio Conference, married Jim Schlachter, his boyfriend of 28 years.
These actions could put these clergy at risk of losing their credentials under church law, just as 864 delegates from around the globe are embarking on a 10-day legislative meeting that will determine church rules for the coming four years. Some of the May 9 letter signers are among the delegates.
However, the letter also indicates that many United Methodists are moving forward regardless of what General Conference decides, said Matt Berryman.
He is the executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, an unofficial United Methodist group that advocates for the church to be more inclusive. The network has coordinated publicity of this and other challenges to church law as part of the group’s “It’s Time” campaign.
“Since 2012, we’ve decided we would be the church no matter what,” Berryman told United Methodist News Service. The majority of delegates at the 2012 General Conference voted against a proposal to say United Methodists disagree whether homosexuality is against God’s will.
To read the entire UMNS story by Heather Hahn, click HERE.
LGBTQ Defiance Mounts as General Conference Begins By Walter Fenton
More than 70 United Methodist pastors from the West Ohio Annual Conference participated in or bore witness to the same-sex wedding ceremony on Saturday, May 7. The Rev. David Meredith, who pastors at Clifton United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, married his partner Jim Schlachter at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio. Meredith acknowledged his marriage is in violation of UM Church teaching, but he said he hoped it would "excite, engage and motivate others working for change."
The ceremony came just days before The United Methodist Church's General Conference convenes in Portland, Oregon, and once again takes up the contentious issue of same-sex marriage, the ordination of openly gay clergy, and the practice of homosexuality.
"Even though the church has debated this issue for nearly 45 years, and has repeatedly declined to endorse same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly gay clergy, for the past several years LGBTQ advocates have decided to break covenant with the vast majority of the denomination, and engage in these acts of ecclesial disobedience," said the Rev. Rob Renfroe, President of Good News and Pastor of Discipleship at The Woodlands UM Church (The Woodlands, Texas), one of the largest churches in the denomination.
Good News is spearheading a coalition of traditionalist United Methodists at the denomination's General Conference, which meets every four years and begins today. Along with The Confessing Movement and UMAction, Good News seeks to defend and promote the UM Church's core theological confessions. It shares with the vast majority of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.
The ceremony in Columbus was clearly part of an orchestrated effort on the part of LGBTQ advocacy groups seeking to change the UM Church's position on sexuality and marriage. It comes just two weeks after a same-sex wedding service held in a UM Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Retired Bishop Melvin Talbert co-officiated at that wedding with the Rev. Val Rosenquist, an elder in the Western North Carolina Annual Conference.
Also, the boards of ordained ministry in the progressive Baltimore-Washington, New York and Pacific-Northwest Annual Conferences recently announced they would no longer follow the denomination's Book of Discipline when interviewing candidates for ordination. All three boards said they would no longer bar openly gay candidates from seeking clergy credentials in their annual conferences.
"Clearly, progressives have decided that even if they fail again at this General Conference to change the church's position, they will continue to regularly and provocatively defy the will of the church's highest legislative body," said Renfroe. "Their actions will divide the church, particularly if our bishops fail to hold them accountable. Even worse, they will undermine the good work of colleagues and the health and vitality of thousands of local UM Churches."
The West Ohio Annual Conference is one of the largest annual conferences in the denomination's North Central Jurisdiction. However, in the past several years it has been racked by dissension over the same-sex marriage debate. Some pastors and local churches are threatening to leave the conference if other pastors are simply allowed to defy the church's teachings on what many believe are core issues.
"We want to remain connected to brothers and sisters in the faith," said the Rev. Jeff Harper of Evangelical UM Church in Greenville, Ohio, "but not if a minority in the church is willing to defy and disregard what we believe are the sacred bonds and covenants that unite us."
The Rev. Jeff Greenway, who leads the Evangelical Fellowship of West Ohio, issued a strong statement calling for accountability for a "clear act of disobedience to the spirit and letter of our covenant. It is with great sadness that we write as persons who love the church, have been devoted to and invested in the United Methodist Church, and who have consistently advocated for unity."
Walter Fenton is a United Methodist clergyperson and an analyst for Good News.
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Heresy prevails at the outset. These people should be instantly suspended by Bishop Palmer of West Ohio, but so far not a peep.
The world is racing towards the Antichrist.
well that makes it easy
there should be 111 clerical vacancies by the end of business today
or else, this is a fake church and people should run fast fast fast away from it
The falling away comes first (2Th2) and we’re seeing it.
They will not be charged by the end of the day.
“Clearly, progressives have decided that even if they fail again at this General Conference to change the church’s position, they will continue to regularly and provocatively defy the will of the church’s highest legislative body,” said Renfroe. “Their actions will divide the church, particularly if our bishops fail to hold them accountable. Even worse, they will undermine the good work of colleagues and the health and vitality of thousands of local UM Churches.”
Amen. Boot ‘em. They knew the rules when they signed on.
I guess they don’t pay much attention to the Bible. That will come up at the last judgement.
The only way for these people to use the bible is with heavy, serious editing and reinterpretation that is pure sophistry.
yes
Luther referred to ‘The whore church’.
Now we have ‘The queer church’.
Apostate bunch of perverts teaching parishioners ‘the way’.
The way to Hell.
When Paul wrote of those who would not enter the Kingdom he immediately followed it up sayng and such were some of you, meaning that some of those he’d written to had repented and their new identity in Christ was not in accordance to the things they now were ashamed of.
But if someone still defines themselves by something on that list, confining it to that list just for argument’s sake, and they even celebrate it can they be in the “such were you” category and have repented?
Or are the in the “such ARE you” category still, and with that undeniably still unrepentant ... only now high handedly so?
Clearly the latter.
To be blunt, The Lord calls us to holiness ... not to happiness.
A person whose identity as they actively define it is “homosexual” or “transsexual” cannot be a Christian. The door is too narrow to carry such baggage through.
Repentance is clearly possible; but, the lines to the old hymn are NOT ...
“Just as I am,
I’m changing not,
How dare you say my soul’s got spots!
I feel I’m okay,
And that’s good enough,
Oh a Lamb of God I come,
Just as I am.”
... anyone familiar with the real song knows how it really goes....
Thyatira, Revelation 2
^ this
Interesting that the number is 111. Translate the visual of those digits into Hebrew and they aling with 666.
Nothing surprises me any more when it comes to these people.
A schism would be the best thing that could happen to the UMC. All of the Christian Methodists go one way, and anyone who is only interested in anal sex goes elsewhere. Then again, the purpose is not to have a separate “gay” church. The believers must be made to conform.
Yep. And, they want to keep the buildings, lands, and treasuries, and if they can swing it, they need evangelicals so there is money in the offering plates.
Traditional Christianity is awash in unrepentant sin. Time for members of God's church to flee.
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