Actually, our standards in the area of homosexuality have been written down and are strict. They say that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching and that homosexuals are not to be ordained and that homosexual weddings are not to be performed in our churches.
This is what the conservative wing of the church has won on maintaining for years now, and this is what the admission of the African churches to full voting rights will make extremely difficult for the liberals to change. Last quadrennium they tried an end around to have each national church become their own rule-making organization, but that, too, was defeated.
So, while I readily admit that our seminaries are infected with gross liberalism, I'll also point out that Asbury Seminary, a general Methodist seminary but acceptable to our denomination, has remained biblical, and I'll also point out that a rebellion of sorts has taken place at United Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, and that it has rejected its liberal past and is returning to a more biblical position.
Those who know of these struggles should pray for the conservatives in the United Methodist Church. They are showing progress on some significant fronts.
One of our pastors attended a gay wedding......the wedding of her ex-husband.
The clear object here is that this church officer intends to make the Church accept his views, rather than to accept the Church's published views and leave the ministry (and one would hope the Church) because of incompatibility of his views.
One wonders why the incident took place in MA, but the trial is taking place in PA. Certainly the MA location is not in the same Conference as the trial. Did the minister officiate under MA law of the time (2007)? Would a Massachusetts Conference or Bishop stepping in be seen as a discriminatory form of "hate speech" where same-sex marriage had then become lawful under MA state law? Was/is this minister's charge located in PA, and is the trial thus in PA where the ban of same-sex marriage is still in effect?
And why has this taken six years to bring the minister to trial? Knowing the Church law being beyond question in this matter, why was this minister's qualifications not suspended immediately? If his dismissal from the Conference to be effected, would he not have a basis for a civil trial against the Church?
I think you see the morass that tolerance in doctrinal practice has brought the UMC to, eh?
Hogwash. I left the UM because it joined the enemy. In Oregon, there are several UM churches with gay ministers. One of them had a small flyer in the pews which said, "We're not here to convert you, but to invite you into a community of friendship."