The United Methodists get this issue right -- finally

Yes, of course I'm glad that a few days ago the United Methodist Church decided to change its rules to allow the ordination of otherwise-qualified LGBTQ+ people to be clergy.

It should have happened years ago, just as -- after a long and often-bitter fight -- it finally happened in 2011 in the denomination of my congregation, the Presbyterian Church (USA).

But this UMC internal dispute went on and on, partly because the Covid-19 pandemic prevented an earlier vote and partly because the UMC was so terribly divided. That division happens because the UMC has been (and still is) an international church, and there are UMC churches in such places as Africa that remain committed to misreading the Bible on the question of homosexuality.

In some ways, that's why the UMC General Conference recently chose to divide its denomination into four geographic regions that will allow more local autonomy about church rules. As I suggested before, this division came too late to prevent about 25 percent of congregations from abandoning the UMC and either going independent or joining a more theologically conservative new denomination known as the Global Methodist Church.

There was concern from some quarters that the UMC, in throwing out opposition to ordaining LGBTQ+ people, might also abandon its rule forbidding “immorality including but not limited to, not being celibate in singleness or not faithful in a heterosexual marriage.” But the adopted wording should set aside that concern.

As this United Methodist News report says, "delegates affirmed 'marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant that brings two people of faith (adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into a union of one another and into deeper relationship with God and the religious community.'”

So slowly Christian churches are abandoning the bogus idea that the Bible condemns homosexual orientation. 

As I've said before -- and if you're one of my regular readers you may be tired of me saying it -- any time you find a religion teaching that certain people aren't fully human and, thus, not made in the image of God, you can bet something is badly amiss. To dehumanize a person is to assault the divine creator who made all of us -- not just some of us -- in God's image.

The Methodist Church added "United" to its name in 1968 when it merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Maybe it's time now to consider setting the term "United" aside, given how ununited Methodists have become. But like all of these decisions, that's up to the Methodists and not up to this Presbyterian.

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MAYBE ONLY ONE EASTER NEXT YEAR?

Did you know that there's a chance that this Sunday, May 5, could be the last time that the Orthodox church in Christianity celebrates Easter on a day different from the Easter celebrated by the rest of Christianity? This RNS story explains the division and why it may soon end. "There is once again renewed hope," the story says, "that ongoing ecumenical dialogue between the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church will resolve an ancient rift between the two halves of Christianity over when Easter is celebrated." The two churches split up back in 1054 in the Great Schism, as it's called. Imagine a church having internal disagreements. (Oh, see above.)