All posts tagged: ordination

United Methodists strike down ban on ordination of gay clergy

United Methodists strike down ban on ordination of gay clergy

Published by Sam

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (RNS) — United Methodists meeting for their top legislative assembly Wednesday (May 1) overwhelmingly overturned a measure that barred gay clergy from ordination in the denomination, a historic step for the nation’s second-largest Protestant body. With a simple vote call and without debate, delegates to the General Conference removed the ban on the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” — a prohibition that dates to 1984. With that vote, the worldwide denomination of some 11 million members joins the majority of liberal Protestant denominations such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ, which also ordain LGBTQ clergy. The morning vote on the motion was part of a larger series of calendar items voted on in bulk. They also included a motion barring superintendents, or overseers, from punishing clergy for performing a same-sex wedding or prohibiting a church from holding a same-sex wedding, though the actual ban on same-sex weddings in churches has yet to be voted on. The vote on the …

After traditionalist churches left, UMC may be more — not less — diverse

After traditionalist churches left, UMC may be more — not less — diverse

Published by Sam

(RNS) — After the departure of thousands of traditionalist United Methodist churches from the denomination over the past five years, it might stand to reason that those congregations remaining in the fold are more progressive and open to ordination and marriage of people in same-sex relationships. But the picture is far more mixed. A new report from the Religion and Social Change Lab at Duke University that looked at disaffiliating clergy from North Carolina’s two United Methodist conferences or regions found that even after the departures, 24% of North Carolina clergy remaining in the denomination disagree with allowing LGBTQ people to get married and ordained within the denomination. “…at least some amount of ambivalence over LGBTQ+ issues among UMC clergy is likely to persist for years to come,” the report concluded. After a four-year COVID-19 delay, and the departure of about 7,600 U.S.-based churches — a loss accounting for 25% of all its U.S. congregations — the denomination is likely to reconsider the issue of human sexuality when it convenes its top legislative body April …