United Methodist churches may cut ties with denomination over push to allow LGBT ministers

Source: The Hill | February 13, 2019 | Justin Wise

Thousands of churches are warning they may leave the United Methodist General Conference over a vote to drop official language banning same-sex marriage and ordaining LGBTQ clergy, according to the Religion News Service

The mainline Protestant church’s legislative assembly is holding a special session in St. Louis, Missouri, later this month where the body will vote on whether to strip language in its rulebook that prohibits “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from becoming ordained as ministers. The language also bars ministers from officiating same-sex marriages. 

Religion News notes that a split between member churches within the denomination over the restrictions means that certain conservative churches will likely sever ties with the denomination if the conference elects to drop the language. But if the assembly keeps the prohibitions in place, more liberal churches may leave. 

The vote could represent a turning point for the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination, one that has 7 million members and almost 32,000 churches in America. It has 12.5 million members worldwide. 

About 1,500 churches, almost all of them from the U.S., have expressed support for a movement to separate from the denomination if the rules are changed to ordain and marry LGBT people, RNS reported. 

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“I’m a believer that the church has to transform the culture, not the culture transforming the church,” Rev. Jeff Kersey, senior pastor at Mt. Horeb, told RNS.

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