United methodist church is expected to split over gay marriage
(CNN) -- United Methodist Church bishops and leaders are proposing a split into more than one denomination in a bid to resolve years of debate over LGBT clergy and same-sex weddings, according to the church's official news agency.
The proposal, from a 16-member group of bishops and church leaders, says a separation was "the best means to resolve our differences, allowing each part of the Church to remain true to its theological understanding, while recognizing the dignity, equality, integrity, and respect of every person."
The restructuring comes after a contentious General Conference of the second-largest Protestant denomination in the US voted last year to reinforce the church's stance against ordaining queer clergy and performing queer weddings.
New York Conference Bishop Thomas Bickerton, part of the group behind the proposal, told the official United Methodist News Service that heated debate at the conference demonstrated "the line in the sand had turned into a canyon."
"The impasse is such that we have appear to the realization that we just can't reside that way any longer," he said.
At the St. Louis conference in February, the denomination decided that United Methodist
With split over gay marriage delayed, United Methodists meet a year in limbo
Had there been no coronavirus pandemic, America’s largest mainline Protestant denomination would be convening this week for a likely vote to break up over differences on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ pastors.
Instead, the United Methodist Church was forced to postpone the potentially momentous conference, leaving its various factions in limbo for perhaps 16 more months. The deep doctrinal differences sound irreconcilable, but for now there’s agreement that response to the pandemic takes priority.
“The people who are really in trauma right now cannot pay the price of our differences,” said Kenneth Carter, the Florida-based president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops. “What is in our minds and hearts is responding to death, illness, grief, loss of work.”
The conference was to acquire taken place at the Minneapolis Convention Center starting Tuesday, running through May 15. Instead, bishops are proposing to hold it there Aug. 31-Sept. 10 of next year.
The differences have simmered for years, and came to a head in February 2019 at a conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 for a prop
Methodists to split over same-sex marriage
Leaders of the United Methodist Church (UMC) announced on Friday a plan to formally split the church, due to “fundamental differences” over gay marriage and queer clergy.
The proposal of 16 UMC bishops and leaders on both sides of the debate, position out the lane to create a new “traditionalist Methodist” denomination for those who hold to a conservative-Biblical view on marriage.
“THE Leading MEANS TO RESOLVE OUR DIFFERENCES”
This new denomination would acquire $25 million in funds over the next four years, and keep its local church properties and the clergy pensions.
They also agreed to “allocate $39 million over eight years, to aid communities historically marginalized by the sin of racism, to strengthen Asian, Inky, Hispanic-Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander ministries, as successfully as Africa University”.
The nine-page document called 'Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation' released on Friday, states that a separation is “the best means to resolve our differences, allowing each part of the Church to stay true to i
United Methodist Church Expected to Split Over Same-Sex Marriage, LGBTQ Clergy
LOS ANGELES — The United Methodist Church is expected to split into two separate denominations later this year.
One will be “traditionalist methodist” and will continue to argue against same sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy, while the remaining portion would realize both for the first time in the church’s history.
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The relocate comes as church leaders hope to end a contentious impasse that's been going on for years within the nation's third largest religious denomination.
For the last two years, worshippers Victor Self and Chris Fraley have been spending Sundays mornings with their daughters, Coco and Kiki, at Los Angeles First United Methodist Church.
A pop-up chapel is erected each week in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles and on the first Sunday of the New Year, part of the service was dedicated to honoring and renewing the unions of married LGBT couples like Self and and his husband Fraley.
“I think it’s always good for people around the country and in Los aAgeles and everywhere to view families like o
Historic Methodist rift is part of larger Christian split over LGBTQ issues
Thousands of congregations have left the United Methodist Church amid contentious debates over sexuality, including a dispute over whether to accept queer marriage and LGBTQ+ pastors.
The rift marks the largest denominational schism in U.S. history. A quarter of the church’s approximately 30,000 congregations said they planned to remove themselves from the United Methodist Church as of Dec. 31. The church is one of America's largest Protestant denominations.
The historic rift in the United Methodist Church is part of a larger split in recent years in the Christian religion over issues of gender and sexuality. Similar divides have led to splits among Baptists, Mennonites, Presbyterians and other protestant denominations.
"It's been brewing forever – for at least the last 20 years, " said Jason Bivins, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at North Carolina State University.
Meanwhile, the Catholic church is showing signs of an evolving stance on gay marriage.
'It left us' After historic Methodist rift, feelings of betrayal and hope for future