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
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....
Interesting that the number is 111. Translate the visual of those digits into Hebrew and they aling with 666.
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.
Traditional Christianity is awash in unrepentant sin. Time for members of God's church to flee.
I have always felt the leftward lurch of the church began
during the VN war when so many cowards decided to go to
divinity school to escape the draft.
“They identify themselves as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer/Questioning, and Intersex” in the letter.”
Only 6 of the 56 Faceebook gender identities represented? How can they be so insensitive?
This church bears no resemblance to the Methodist church I grew up in in West Texas. I realize that times, morals and mores change and in these times I’m grateful for the guidance of my parents and their insistence for me to keep the Word of God near ... the Old Testament and the New. It has given me great comfort and kept me fairly sane over the last two years with the loss of my wife, my mother and my brother. And it’s a handy desk reference. ;o)
God Bless you xzins. I’ll be praying for the church.
They need to be defrocked and dememberized, IMHO. STAT.
He is appropriately named.... I wonder if he buggers the little kiddies....??
One of them is my former pastor, and he “came out” at the national conference some time around 1998 to 2000, whenever. It was discussed in our local paper of our dinky town. He was then promoted to a prominent big city church.
Realizing that he was far from the only one in the UMC who had “ministered” to me over the past years, I left the UMC. He was just the most honest.
The north east conferences are rotten to the core and have been for decades.
The leftists attacks one denomination at a time, bringing down one at a time. We need to stop the war at the UMC lines.
The bible warns against following people who teach false doctrine.
No organization filled with children ripe for same-sex abuse has ever escaped the queers that always stand ready to rape the young lives. Just look what they did to the Catholic Church and they are going to do it again.
One could get caught up in the impropriety of homosexual clergy which would make this nothing more than "the same old problem".
But looking at the way some of this is written, it sounds more like an attempt at an overt, hostile takeover. I came away with the impression that this mixed group of sexual misfits is ready to challenge the leadership for the "brand" of UMC.
Xzins, is this the denomination of your ordination?