Church plans to split over LGBT dispute
The United Methodist Church – one of the largest churches in the US – is expected to split into two denominations in an attempt to end a years-long, contentious fight over same-sex marriage.
Church leaders said yesterday they had agreed to spin off a ‘‘traditionalist Methodist’’ denomination, which would continue to oppose same-sex marriage and to refuse ordination to LGBT clergy, while allowing the remaining portion of the United Methodist Church to permit same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy for the first time.
The historic schism would divide the nation’s third-largest religious denomination. The plan needs to be approved in May at the church’s worldwide conference.
The writers of the plan called the division ‘‘the best means to resolve our differences, allowing each part of the church to remain true to its theological understanding, while recognising the dignity, equality, integrity, and respect of every person’’.
The United Methodist Church is the US’s largest mainline Protestant denomination. It has fought bitterly about LGBT inclusion for years, and leaders often feared that the fight would lead to a schism.
‘‘I’ve always been committed to unity. But over time, it could not be unity at someone’s expense,’’ said Bishop Kenneth conservative Methodist
Carter, president of the church’s Council of Bishops and one of the formulators of the new plan.
The plan was praised by both conservatives and progressives within the church.
Jan Lawrence, executive director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, a pro-LGBT group within the church, said the separation plan ‘‘gives the hope that we can move toward a church that allows healing to begin’’.
The split was ‘‘a resolution that’s going to free the Methodist church to share love unconditionally with all people’’, said Andrew Ponder Williams, a married gay candidate for the clergy who was a member of earlier committees that attempted to resolve the issue.
The Rev Thomas Lambrecht, vice-president of the conservative Methodist organisation Good News, also praised the plan.
‘‘We believed that separation was the only feasible way of resolving our conflict in the church and allowing different groups in the church to pursue ministry as they believe coincides with their understanding of the Christian faith,’’ he said.
Yesterday’s announcement came as new sanctions were set to go into effect in the church, which would have made punishments for pastors who perform same-sex weddings much more severe: one year’s suspension without pay for the first wedding, and removal from the clergy for any wedding after that.
Instead, leaders from the liberal and conservative wings signed an agreement saying they will postpone the sanctions and instead vote to split at the worldwide church’s May general conference.
The agreement pledges US$25 million (NZ$37m) to the new ‘‘traditionalist’’ denomination, which will break away from the United Methodist Church. In exchange, the new denomination will drop any claim to church assets, such as church-owned agencies.
Any local church that wants to join the new conservative denomination would have to conduct a vote within a specified time frame.
After the separation, the remaining United Methodist Church would hold another conference with the purpose of removing the church’s bans on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy.
Some advocates for LGBT inclusion are worried that simply removing the prohibitions will not be enough.
‘‘There are no signs pointing toward a church that affirms us and repents of the significant harm that has been done to [LGBT] people for decades because of its complicity in spiritual violence against us,’’ said M Barclay, who was ordained in 2017 as the United Methodist
Church’s first transgender deacon.
Barclay said the agreement did not put in place protections against discrimination against LGBT clergy.
Many US mainline Protestant denominations, including the Episcopal Church, already perform same-sex marriages and appoint gay clergy. But the United Methodist Church has fought bitterly over the issue.
The larger divide, however, is between American Methodists and foreign members of the United Methodist Church, especially in Africa. In a church that conducts all its major decisions in churchwide votes, the much more conservativeleaning voters from Africa competed with American delegates who often fervently pushed for a change on same-sex marriage.