Posted on 05/01/2024 10:01:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The United Methodist Church General Conference voted to drop a ban on funding LGBT advocacy groups and removed a required punishment for pastors who officiate gay weddings after thousands of theologically conservative congregations left the mainline Protestant denomination in the last two years.
On Tuesday, delegates approved a petition that struck from the UMC Book of Discipline Paragraph 806.9 language that prohibits the General Council on Finance and Administration from "ensuring that no board, agency, committee, commission, or council shall give United Methodist funds to any gay caucus or group, or otherwise use such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality."
The change was among the bulk of legislation approved by a vote of 667-54, which also loosened restrictions on the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals and mandatory punishments for clergy who officiate same-sex weddings.
Measures passed in Tuesday's consent calendar scrapped elements of the Traditional Plan enacted at the 2019 General Conference to bolster UMC's restrictions on same-sex marriage and ordination of noncelibate homosexuals.
According to UM News, other measures approved Tuesday include the striking of a ban on "self-avowed practicing" LGBT individuals from being considered for ministry. The delegates also voted to scrub the requirement for a one-year suspension without pay for any pastor who officiates a same-sex wedding and to allow gay pastors with good standing to be appointed to positions across annual conferences.
The Rev. Jeff Campbell, the top executive of UMC Discipleship Ministries, told UM News he welcomed the removal of the funding ban, saying it freed his agency "to fully serve all those who seek our support without worry of unnecessary, discriminatory oversight."
"Discipleship Ministries staff remains committed to challenging and supporting all leaders for our missional task of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world," he added.
For decades, the UMC has faced a debate over whether to change its Book of Discipline's biblical stance on LGBT issues, which labeled homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching."
Although numerous attempts at past General Conferences to change the various provisions failed, many theological progressives within the denomination refused to follow or enforce the rules.
In December 2022, for example, the UMC General Board of Church and Society gave a $2,000 grant to Reconciling Ministries Network, an LGBT advocacy organization that is not an official part of the UMC, to develop a Vacation Bible School curriculum.
A GBCS spokesperson argued in an earlier interview with The Christian Post that the grant was compatible with the Book of Discipline since the money would not be going to LGBT advocacy directly.
In response to the longstanding debate and progressives' resistance to the rules, approximately 7,500 mostly conservative congregations disaffiliated from the UMC from 2019 to 2023.
Most of these departing congregations have affiliated with the Global Methodist Church, a theologically conservative denomination launched in 2022 in response to the UMC debate.
Due to the large number of conservatives that have left the UMC in advance of the General Conference, many expected the churchwide legislative gathering to finally remove the Book of Discipline rules banning the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of people in same-sex relationships.
Those Methodians are gonna burn, along with the Episcopalians and Presbyters.
UMCRevMom@aol.com must be ecstatic over this.
face it, Methodist is now the church of sodomy
Gonna be a whole lot of very disappointed folks come judgement day.
No, the United Methodist Church is. Our church of 6200 people voted to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church and we are still proud Methodists in the John Wesley tradition of scriptural Christianity.
Ping. You were mentioned.
The exodus from UMC will accelerate.
Hope this causes more departures
I tip my hat to you! I'm aware of the money and legal problems some Methodist churches faced to disassociate from the hedonist UMC general conference.
Please make the past couple of years a defining moment that you remember the rest of your lives. Now and forevermore, nobody anywhere or any time or any way can convince your church to turn away from the Lord and His ways. From now on you're sticking to Jesus like glue. Wesley's holiness movement can be alive again today, when our culture needs it most, if all Christians stand up for Jesus like your church did, even when it hurts.
It cost us $1.59M to get out, but it was worth it. I’m the church’s attorney and it was just disheartening to see these “men of the cloth” try to be jackbooted thugs.
70 years old and every second of those years I have been Methodist. Now is decision time.
They’re toast.
When evil takes over your church that is a clue what needs to happen next.
Those who abandon the teachings of Christ and of His Word fall condemned as they embrace their demonic, damnable heresy.
The Methodist church in my hometown disaffiliated last year. That congregation was more than 120 years old, and owned all the land and the buildings. So, it didn’t cost them much.
The UMC church I attend now is much larger. I LOVE my church family there. But, they are fully onboard the new movement. They openly support LGBTQ groups already, even allowing them to present displays in the hallways. I fear gay marriage will soon be coming here. That would be the end, for me.
But, I will really hate it. We’ve already lost many lomg-standing members in the last few years.
It's Sodomy versus non-Sodomy.
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