United Methodists Edge Toward Breakup Over LGBTQ Policies

A gay pride rainbow flag flies along with the U.S. flag in front of the Asbury United Methodist Church

in Prairie Village, Kansas on April 19, 2019. Charlie Riedel / AP

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK — There's at least one area of agreement among conservative, centrist and liberal leaders in the United Methodist Church: America's largest mainline Protestant denomination is on a path 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 plan 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 gay weddings in Methodist churches. Churches are withholding dues payments to the main office in protest, and the UMC's receipts were down 20 percent in March, according to financial reports posted online.

"It's time for some kind of separation, some kind of amicable divorce," said James Howell, pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, who posted a video assailing the proposal for its "real meanness."

The UMC's nine-member Judicial Council convenes a four-day meeting in Evanston, Illinois, on Tuesday to consider legal challenges to the Traditional Plan. If the plan is upheld, it would take effect for U.S. churches on Jan. 1. If parts of it are struck down, that would likely trigger new debate at the UMC's next general conference in May 2020.

In fact, it appears that the general conference in May, 2020, will decide that a split is inevitable as a plan will be presented to do just that.

The UMC's largest church — the 22,000-member Church of the Resurrection with four locations in the Kansas City area — is among those applying financial pressure. Its lead pastor, Adam Hamilton, says his church is temporarily withholding half of the $2.5 million that it normally would have paid to the UMC's head office at this stage of the year.

"We'll ultimately pay it," Hamilton said. "But we want to show that this is the impact if our churches leave."

Hamilton is among the opponents of the Traditional Plan leading an initiative dubbed UMC-Next that seeks the best path forward for those who share their views. Clergy and activists in the alliance have met in Texas and Georgia, and a bigger meeting is planned for May 20-22 at Hamilton's megachurch.

Hamilton, in a telephone interview, said two main options are under consideration.

Under one scenario, many centrists and liberals would leave en masse to form a new denomination — a potentially complex endeavor given likely disputes over the dissolution process.

Under the other option, opponents of the Traditional Plan would stay in the UMC and resist from within, insisting on LGBT-inclusive policies and eventually convincing the conservatives that they should be the faction that leaves under what's envisioned as a financially smooth "gracious exit."

"There's a sense that some conservatives have been wanting to leave for a long time," Hamilton said. "They're tired of fighting about it."

While other mainline Protestant denominations have embraced gay-friendly practices, the UMC still bans them, though acts of defiance by pro-LGBT clergy have multiplied. Many have performed same-sex weddings; others have come out as gay or lesbian from the pulpit.

Enforcement of the bans has been inconsistent; the Traditional Plan aspires to beef up discipline against those engaged in defiance.

Traditional Plan supporter Mark Tooley, who heads a conservative Christian think tank, predicts that the UMC will split into three denominations — one for centrists, another oriented toward liberal activists and a third representing the global alliance of U.S. conservatives and their allies overseas.

"It's a question of how long it takes for that to unfold — and of who and how many go into each denomination," Tooley said. "A lot of churches will be irreparably harmed as they divide."

Scott Jones, bishop of the UMC's Houston-based Texas conference, says churchgoers in his region are divided in their views, but a majority supports the Traditional Plan's concepts.

"I have urged all of us to love each other, listen to each other and respect each other, even if we disagree," said Jones, who holds out hope that the UMC's disparate factions can preserve some form of unity.

Ann Craig of Newburgh, New York — a lesbian activist who has advocated for greater LGBT inclusion in the UMC — thinks a breakup can be avoided, though she's unsure what lies ahead.

"We expect something new to happen, but what that change should be or will be has not jelled yet," she said. "I don't think we're going to break up — it's so cumbersome to figure out a way to divorce."

The crisis is being followed closely at Methodist-affiliated theology schools based at universities with LGBT-inclusive policies. There are 13 UMC-connected theology schools around the country.

"There's a lot of turmoil and distress," said Mary Elizabeth Moore, dean of Boston University School of Theology. "We're trying to find a future that will be less destructive than where we are now."

In other words, they are trying to salvage what they can of the Methodist church before it is entirely taken over by those who are people-centered as opposed to being God-centered. 

Celebrating homosexuality in a church once dedicated to Jesus Christ is a sure way to lose God's candlestick from your presence. That means you will not find the presence of God in those churches. 

Rev 2:5 - Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

The western world resembles Sodom and Gomorrah more every day.

Vatican's New Guidelines Maintain Ban on Gay Priests

This report is from the CBC - keep in mind that it is very liberal

and pro-LGBTQI. It is also written from the perspective of someone who obviously doesn't believe there is a God.

Some observers were hoping progressive Pope Francis would reverse the ban

By Megan Williams, CBC News 

Pope Francis poses for a selfie at the Vatican on Jan. 5, 2017. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)

Megan Williams is a Canadian foreign correspondent and writer based in Rome. Her radio documentaries and reports from around the world have won many awards. She covers everything from the Vatican, culture and corruption to Italy's ongoing refugee crisis.

As Pope Francis approaches the fourth anniversary of being elected head of the Roman Catholic Church, he remains an exceedingly popular Catholic leader.

Despite the dissatisfied grumblings from a small core of conservative cardinals, whom the Pope has so far ignored, most Catholics find Francis's move away from stressing doctrinal rules and toward more compassion a more realistic and reassuring direction for Catholicism.

Even his softened stance toward LGBT Catholics — from his "Who am I to judge?" comment about gay people to his use of the word "gay" — has provided hope for gay Catholics, long shunned by their church, that the shift in tone might make its way into official church documents.

Those hopes, though, were recently dashed when the Vatican published a new set of guidelines for the training of seminarians with the rosy title The Gift of the Priestly Vocation.

Within the manual lay a decidedly less jubilant clarification of who qualifies for the job. 

"The Church … cannot admit to the seminary … those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture,' " it read. 

The ban on gay men from entering the seminary came as a surprise to no one close to the Vatican. First introduced in 2005 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, it was part of an attempt to purge the priesthood of homosexuality — both the act and the orientation — in part as a response to the sex abuse crisis. 

'The idea that gays cannot be good priests is stupid, demeaning, unjust and contrary to the facts.'

- Thomas Reese

Vatican observers such as Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and National Catholic Reporter columnist, did not hide their dismay that the ban on gay seminaries, albeit couched in vague language, remained.

"The idea that gays cannot be good priests is stupid, demeaning, unjust and contrary to the facts," wrote Reese. "I know many very good priests who are gay, and I suspect even more good priests I know are gay."

Reese may well have been referring to men like Krzysztof Charamsa. 

The former high-ranking Vatican official and now defrocked Polish priest worked for a decade or so under Ratzinger, inching deeper into the closet as he increasingly heard language like "intrinsically disordered" used to describe gay people.

Vatican official Krzysztof Charamsa, left, came out as gay in 2015 and denounced the Vatican for 'paranoid homophobia' at a news conference with his partner Eduard Planas. (CBC)

"It was horror to think that I [was] gay," Charamsa said of his early years in the seminary in his homeland of Poland.

Later, as a doctrinal official at the Vatican, he said, he was under continual stress that someone might realize he was gay.

But after falling in love with a man, Charamsa made a move that few other gay priests have dared.

In a blistering denunciation of what he called the Vatican's "paranoid homophobia," in late 2015 Charamsa stepped out of the closet at a news conference, with his gay partner by his side.

"It was desperate, my coming out," he said, "because I wasn't able to simply say, 'We need to study sexuality. We need to get informed.' But you know, everybody at the Vatican knows, when we begin to get informed [about sexuality], we'll have to change the doctrine, because it's incoherent with human sexuality."

Same sex = no sex

Cardinal Thomas Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto, attended the Vatican family meetings and in an interview shortly after Charamsa's public outing, said he took exception to the former priest's characterization of the Catholic Church as homophobic.

Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Collins, seen here in 2007, says it's 'simply unfair' to accuse the Catholic Church of being homophobic. (L'Osservatore Romano/Associated Press)

"I think that's just simply unfair," said Collins. "To accuse anyone of being phobic — that's a bludgeon to shut down people's freedom of speech. You barely open your mouth and someone says you're phobic."

Collins, a doctrinal hardliner, says gay Catholics should be treated with compassion, but his advice to same-sex couples is the same advice the Catholic Church provides to Catholics who have divorced and remarried outside the church: do not have sex.

"To accuse anyone of being phobic — that's a bludgeon to shut down people's freedom of speech. You barely open your mouth and someone says you're phobic." - AB Collins

"We're dealing with a tendency or inclination," Collins said. "We're not slaves to anything in life. What it means to be free is not to be a slave to our inclinations."

Yet longtime Vatican expert Robert Mickens says euphemisms such as "homosexual inclinations" are just one of the many ways the Catholic Church avoids facing the issue of gayness in its midst, or what he calls the "homoerotic culture" of the church.

This is where this discussion goes off-track, I think. AB Collins appeared to be referring to sexual inclinations of any kind, not just homosexual. The concept for priests and bishops is that they are spiritually minded, not earthly minded and nothing is more 'earthly' than sex. Marriage is outlawed in the priesthood, so why wouldn't gay sex be likewise?

I don't agree that marriage should be outlawed; it is a fine ideal, but too many priests have proven themselves to be far less than ideal. Nevertheless, even if marriage were permitted, gay partnerships would still be a sin in my books. Nothing is more clear in the Bible than God's hatred of homosexuality, so it's very difficult to see how a practicing homosexual can have a realistic relationship with Jesus Christ.

Mickens, who left the seminary more than 20 years ago after he realized he was gay, says it's an open secret the Catholic priesthood — and the Vatican — is rife with gay men.

He discovered it first-hand in Rome.

The Vatican — is rife with gay men

"After I left the seminary, I started to go out to gay places — beaches and nightclubs — and I was running into all kinds of priests and seminarians and officials that worked at the Vatican," he said.

Mickens says he pities many of them because of the stress of living a double life.

Mickens, like Charamsa and many other gay priests who will speak openly about it, says the Church still remains an attractive place for Catholic gay men who don't want to face their sexuality.

He and others also say much of the anti-gay stance in the Catholic Church is generated by priests he describes as "self-loathing, homophobic and homosexual."

Yet, he says, it is not likely the Church will encourage open discussion about the high numbers of gay men in the priesthood any time soon.

"The Church wants to keep this issue a taboo so that those pious young men will continue to think of the priesthood as the noble way, rather than, 'I'm gay and maybe that's how I should lead my life as a gay man.' If we allow people to live openly their homosexuality, we lose a great pool of our resources for ministry."

Ministry for what, or Whom? Not for God! How can someone practicing what God declares an abomination be a minister for God?