Posted on 08/04/2005 6:24:09 AM PDT by mbarker12474
Pastor denies membership to homosexual, placed on leave
July 26, 2005
A UMNS Report By Linda Green*
A United Methodist pastor in Virginia has been placed on “involuntary leave of absence” for refusing to allow a homosexual to become a member of his congregation.
The Rev. Edward Johnson was placed on a yearlong involuntary leave of absence, effective July 1, by action of the clergy of the denomination’s Virginia Annual (regional) Conference on June 13. He will receive medical benefits but no salary.
The clergyman, pastor of South Hill (Va.) United Methodist Church for six years, could be reinstated as a United Methodist pastor in good standing if he fulfills recommendations from the conference’s board of ordained ministry.
The Rev. William Anthony “Tony” Layman, who was district superintendent when Johnson was placed on leave, said the pastor’s unwillingness to allow a homosexual to become a member of the church led to the filing of a complaint against Johnson.
Layman told United Methodist News Service that he worked with Johnson for four months before filing a complaint against him in April for refusing to allow the person membership into the congregation.
“For me, this was the last recourse,” Layman said. “Johnson had two opportunities to receive the person into membership himself or allow the associate pastor to do it. He would do neither.”
Johnson refused to obey the district superintendent or the bishop, Layman said. “It was this act of insubordination that put him on notice.”
Layman said he and other conference officials “did all we could do to help (Johnson) see the inconsistency of his stance in his ministry.”
“Our Social Creed says that we as a church would not ordain homosexuals, but they have the right to be received in membership,” Layman said. “The church supports homosexuals as part of the congregation and as persons of definite worth.
“Johnson has deep beliefs around this issue,” Layman said. “He is a man of integrity who is living out his conscience.”
United Methodist News Service contacted both the office of Bishop Charlene Kammerer, leader of the Virginia Annual Conference, and Johnson, asking for comment. No response had been received as of July 26.
According to the June 13 minutes of the conference’s clergy session, Kammerer said all matters in clergy executive session are highly confidential under the Book of Discipline. She urged the clergy members to honor that confidentiality.
Carole Vaughan, director of communications for the Virginia Annual Conference, would only confirm that Johnson had been placed on involuntary leave of absence. Due to confidentiality issues, she would not tell why Johnson was placed on leave. Officials at the South Hill church also would not comment.
Gary Creamer, a member of Johnson’s congregation, said the conference’s action “is unjust and over the top.”
“The church is not upholding the biblical principles outlined in Leviticus, 2 Timothy and Corinthians about homosexuality and the sins thereof,” Creamer said.
“I cannot see how you can take Holy Communion and openly practice that lifestyle. The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. Now everybody sins, but we like to think that everybody who is a member of the United Methodist Church is attempting to repent of their sins. Openly practicing homosexuality is not an attempt to repent of sins, in my opinion.”
The placement of Johnson on involuntary leave stemmed from him being charged with violating church polity and being “unwilling to take direction from his district superintendent and his bishop,” according to the minutes of the clergy session. The action was confirmed by a two-thirds vote of those at the clergy session — 418-114, with 8 abstentions.
During the clergy session, Kammerer was asked whether it is lawful for a clergyperson to “receive into the membership of a local United Methodist church anyone who is able to receive the vow, affirm the vow and promises to fulfill the vow, and who, at the same time, acknowledges and impenitently practices homosexual relations?” Kammerer said the bishop and the district superintendent are charged to give guidance, as was done in Johnson’s situation, according to the minutes.
Kammerer also was asked if the permissive language in Paragraphs 214 and 225 of the Book of Discipline gave “Johnson the right and responsibility to exercise responsible pastoral judgment in determining who may be received into church membership of a local church.”
Kammerer ruled “negative in this case,” the minutes report.
In a July 26 statement, the evangelical Good News organization said the standards of Scripture and the interpretation of those standards within the Book of Discipline regarding homosexual practice are “equally applicable to clergy and laity, and that Rev. Johnson’s decision finds support in church membership vows.”
What was being denied to this individual was membership in the church, not participation in its programs and ministries, said the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, senior pastor of Faith Community United Methodist Church in Greenville, Wis., and chairman of the Good News board of directors.
“Good News acknowledges differences of opinion about whether it is appropriate to deny church membership to individuals based on pastoral judgments about their sincerity and the state of their repentance or lack of it. However, we do not believe that the Book of Discipline requires pastors to receive unconditionally everyone who presents himself or herself for church membership.”
Johnson may return to an appointment next year if he follows guidelines set by the board of ordained ministry, but Layman declined to discuss what those guidelines are.
“The board of ordained ministry is working with him in providing opportunity to return. He does have an opportunity to return to an appointment,” he said.
The case will also come before the Judicial Council, the denomination’s nine-member supreme court, which meets Oct. 26-29 in Houston. The council will review Kammerer’s decisions on fair process and pastoral authority under Paragraphs 214 and 225 of the Book of Discipline. The court automatically reviews every bishop’s ruling of law from annual conference sessions.
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
WHY do you allow open adulterers into membership? Are you of the same denomination?
Is this a member of the United Methodist Church (denomination) who is labeling the Methodist Church as becoming secular and irrelevant? By observation we would agree. We are here, though, wondering if many of the members of churches within the denomination are of the same opinion.
Yes, God bless him for taking a firm position. I would like to meet him or communicate with him. Does anyone know the best way to do that?
This is a college/seminary trained Methodist pastor, right? He has been ordained, we only assume, by a board or presbytery of Methodist ministers. He has done nothing to be "de-frocked" relative to his ordination. I would recommend that Pastor Johnson take that background and organize an independent Methodist church (that is, an independent local congregation) in which that congregation itself may set the standards for church discipline according to the dictates of its own Bible-guided and Spirit-led conscience.
The difference between ordinary sinners - in most cases - is they don't proselytize and attempt to secure acknowledgement and approval of their lifestyle.
Homosexuality is an especially grave and insidious offense. Look at what it caused in the Catholic Church.
1. When homosexuals go to Mass, they don't proselytize or attempt to secure acknowledgement and approval of their lifestyle. I don't see priests watching their, er, flock, while they are saying Mass, checking if any men are holding hands or displaying affection during Mass.
If those men (or women) are seen on T.V. doing so that doesn't mean that they may automatically be denied communion.
2. Pederast priests, their CRIMES in their parishes and the American Church's handling of those priess and their CRIMES caused the American Catholic Church their problems, not homosexuality perse.
The Catholic Church does about 95% of all the charitable outreach for homosexuals with HIS/AIDS. It ain't the homosexuality or homosexuals that are the "problem" for the Church. The Church made its own problems on that one. THEY allowed the pederasts to become priests and DIDN'T deal with them and their CRIMES when and how they should have.
Homosexuals openly flaunt their perversion and seek to convince others of the legitimacy of their acts.
They seek to get openly homosexual perverts appointed as clergymen, are pushing for state recognition of their unnatural relationships, stage parades, get people who condemn their activities fired, push for books and classes in schools which condone their activities.
This is all true.
Trying to normalize homosexuality won't make it normal.
Toleration of openly practicing homosexuals has not worked.
We don't tolerate openly adulterous relationships and don't tolerate other perversions practiced openly.
Homosexuality is a grave sin, the people who practise it are wrong, and society should stop tolerating these people and equating their perversions in a legal sense, with ethnicity, religion, race or gender.
They are thoroughly despicable.
I generally agree with you though I don't blanket think that all homosexuals are despicable. I think their homosexuality is abnormal and their activists' agenda of trying to normalize it IS despicable.
I also believe that our society's going along with them is despicable.
Fornicators could also describe a bunch of young Marines on R and R. (Or I & I as it was called in Nam, IIRC)
But the real question is. IS it following all laws equally. Or is it a human interpretation that these laws count while those laws don't really matter.
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