United Methodist delegates lifted the denomination’s half-century-old ban on gay clergy and same-sex marriage in just a few days.
But when asked at a press conference about the lightning speed of change, Pastor Effie McAvoy took a longer view.
“Oh, it didn’t take days, honey,” she said.
United Methodist Church votes to lift ban on LGBTQ clergy, marking historic policy shift
McAvoy, pastor of Shepherd of the Valley United Methodist Church in Hope, Rhode Island, said it took decades of work to make changes that were “very healing.” She was a member of the Queer Delegates at last week’s UMC General Assembly in Charlotte, and she was grateful to be a part of the historic moment.
This reversal can be seen as an end to a half-century of epic conflict and division over LGBTQ involvement, not just within the United Methodist Church, but across mainstream Protestant denominations in the United States. They are tall steepled churches at countless town squares and rural crossroads, traditionally “big tent” churches, and culturally mainstream congregations, some of which predate American independence. be.
The nation’s largest Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Lutherans have all removed barriers to LGBTQ participation in their pulpits and altars. But this comes amid a long-term decline in membership and influence.
Pastor David Meredith (left) and Pastor Austin Adkinson (right) sing at a gathering of members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters outside the Charlotte Convention Center on May 2, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The United Methodist Church recently removed anti-LGBTQ language from its official rules, ending a half-century of debate over LGBTQ inclusion in the mainline Protestant denomination. (AP Photo/Peter Smith, File)
I’m sure there will be skirmishes in the future. Individual congregations and entire regions around the world will resolve the implications. Controversy is growing among some conservative evangelical churches and universities that have largely avoided battles in the past.
But for mainline Protestants, last week’s General Conference appears to be a milestone. It was a relatively quiet conclusion to the heated showdown between Protestant denominations in Congress, marked by protests, political gamesmanship and fervent prayer that had been a near-annual spectacle on the American religious calendar.
Over the decades, there have been numerous cases of civil disobedience, in which clergy have ordained or married in defiance of church prohibitions, some of which have been tried for heresy or other violations. Some people were hit.
“Part of me still can’t believe it,” said the Rev. Frank Schaefer, one of the last United Methodist pastors to face church discipline after presiding over his son’s same-sex wedding. Schaefer was reinstated to public office by the Methodist Board of Appeals in 2014 after being released by a lower court.
“We fought long and hard for this, and there were many disappointments along the way,” said Schaefer, who is now a pastor in California. “Our tears turned into tears of joy.”
But the UMC faces the same dire challenges as Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and smaller mainline denominations that have taken similar routes.
All churches lost large numbers of congregations to schism and had to overcome difficult relationships with partner churches in Africa and elsewhere.
Will Willimon, a Duke Divinity School professor and former United Methodist bishop, supported expanding LGBTQ inclusion in the church, but said there are larger issues at stake.
“We are an aging denomination,” he said. “We share that with many in the mainstream. Unfortunately, I don’t see how this vote will address those points.”
Willimon said even conservative breakaway groups like the new Global Methodist Church, which is made up of many former UMC congregants, face similar challenges because their membership is largely white and aging. Stated.
In the United States, mainline churches have lost millions of members since their peak in the 1960s, some due to schism and many due to underlying demographic trends. Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, said the group’s membership is older, has fewer children, and struggles to retain the children it does have.
Burge, who studies religious demographics, said there is “no silver bullet” to reverse mainstream decline.
United Methodist will have 5.4 million U.S. members in 2022, less than half its 1960s peak, and the recent departure of about 7,600 mostly conservative congregations will reduce that number further. right. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has 1.1 million members, just a quarter of its 1960s peak. Similar trends exist in other denominations.
Mainstream battles over LGBTQ issues began to rage in the early 1970s, before these initials were used.
In 1972, the United Methodist General Conference declared homosexual acts “incompatible with Christian teachings.” Other sects have published similar teachings. Some imposed explicit bans on homosexual clergy.
In 1996, an Anglican bishop was tried and acquitted of heresy for ordaining a homosexual minister. The ordination of the first openly gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003 sparked a long-simmering controversy.
Conservatives and liberals formed their own church caucuses for denominational legislative councils, and Bibles and slogans were exchanged between Robert’s proclamations of the rules of order.
In 2000, progressive Presbyterians blocked the entrance to the General Assembly and were arrested. As United Methodists steadily strengthened their LGBTQ ban, progressives disrupted the General Assembly with protests, drumming, and singing. Conservative United Methodist leader Reverend Bill Hinson roiled the 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh by calling for a denominational divorce, even though his side had won all the legislative battles.
“Why do we keep hurting each other?” Hinson asked. Others quickly shot down the idea, but it was a foreshadowing.
By the second decade of the 21st century, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches had largely abolished that prohibition. They worked with partner churches around the world to navigate great tensions.
A sizable minority of U.S. congregations has joined more conservative denominations, arguing that discussions about sexuality are a symptom of deeper theological rifts.
The United Methodist Church is unique in that it is international and has many representatives from countries with conservative sexual values and laws. A special legislative session in 2019 strengthened the ban on LGBTQ people.
The results were short-lived.
Churches in the United States have increasingly defied the ban and elected more progressive delegates for this year’s gatherings. Many churches began separating under interim measures approved in 2019 that allow churches to keep their properties on favorable terms.
For Willimon, the process was devastating. Whether the congregation stayed or left, people’s relationships were torn apart, he said.
Many churches have become independent, but thousands have joined the new Global Methodist Church, which promises stricter restrictions on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage.
Currently, attention is focused on Africa, where UMC has 4.6 million members.
A group of African delegates protested outside the General Assembly and said their members would discuss whether to leave.
“The General Assembly did not listen to us,” said Pastor Jerry Kula of the conservative group Africa Initiative, arguing that the denomination was departing from the Bible’s teachings on marriage. “We do not believe we know more than Jesus.”
Bishop John Wesley Yohanna of Nigeria has said he will likely stay on for now to heal rifts in the local church, but will likely leave the order at the end of his term. “From the African church tradition, marriage is between a man and a woman,” he added.
But other African delegates are encouraged by plans to increase the region’s autonomy on such issues. They said the church in Africa, while remaining sectarian, maintains a ban on marriage and ordination within the region.
“Our decision to remain in the United Methodist Church is not determined by what happens in America,” said Ande Emmanuel, a pastor in southern Nigeria. “God called us to the church, but the church is not a property of America.”
Bishop Eben Njiwatiwa of Zimbabwe said the majority of African bishops present at the General Assembly agreed that regionalization plans respect local cultures.
The United Methodist Church has one of the most liberal sexual policies among major mainstream U.S. organizations, in part because it has a large presence in rural, small-town, and southern regions where a more conservative sexual ethos prevails. James Hudnutt-Boimler said it was the last group to become a Professor of American Christian History at Vanderbilt University. He is a Presbyterian minister (USA) and co-author of The Future of Mainline Protestantism.
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“That’s why they’re the last ones left,” he said.
And more receptive younger generations who left in defiance of the ban won’t automatically return, Hudnat Boimler said, adding that conservative evangelical congregations are no exception.
“Some conservative megachurch pastors think to themselves, ‘We won this. Look what happened to the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians.’ “Maybe,” Hudnat Boimler said. “Don’t be so complacent.”
