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Comments
Hi, Anna. What a great resource. Thanks. I noted that on some denominations you noted disagreement, so I thought I’d say that the United Methodist Church should be noted as containing significant disagreement as well.
This disagreement has been made known in several ways.
There is the work of the Reconciling Ministries Network.
http://www.rmnetwork.org/
There is also the work of the Methodist Federation for Social Action.
http://mfsaweb.org
Several regional bodies have called on the denomination to change. Here are statements from the Western Jurisdiction:
http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=5259669&ct=12064967
and the Northeast Jurisdiction:
http://elections.umc.org/nej-approves-resolution-committing-to-rights-of-all-including-lgbt/
Many annual conferences have made similar statements, though I don’t have a list handy.
Finally,many of our bishops has called for a reversal of the stance. Here is a letter issued in 2011 (one year before our most recent General Conference):
http://mfsaweb.org/?p=5195
Finally… one interesting fact about the UMC that you may or may not be aware of. The UMC truly is an international church. It is the General Conference who speaks for the church as a whole (the bishops cannot do that), and a full 40% of the delegates to General Conference come from other countries. And most of them come from Africa, where there are some very different social contexts relating to this issue. There are plenty of very conservative UMC’s in the USA, true. But the numbers speak very clearly – if we were dealing with American Methodists only, then this position would have been reversed quite awhile ago. As you might imagine, this leads to some great tension and difficulty – we want to remain a truly global church, and yet it does raise some troubling disagreements.
Finally, I do not expect this question to be resolved any time soon. However, it’s also worth noting that the margins have been growing smaller over the years. One day, I do believe that the UMC will reverse its position on this matter.. and I hope that we can find a way to make the change graciously.
Anyhow… here are some dissenting opinions to reference!
Good work, and hope you’re well.
-Sara
One more interesting thing I just noticed in your post – Elizabeth Warren is UMC! Yay for us!
And speaking of diversity of opinion within the United Methodist Church – here are two more famous names we can claim as our own: George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Whenever I think of Paul’s letter to the Galatians… divisions being broken down, no longer Jew nor Gentile… I think of George W and Hillary together at the communion table. It’s not a bad image.
Thank you Sara, for those really helpful corrections and additions!
The information is far more complete now. I’ll amend the text above to direct to your comments as well.
Peace.