Attendees walk past a handful of placards during a break in
the Methodists annual conference in Portland, Ore., in May 2016. The
United Methodist Church, the nation's largest mainline Protestant
denomination.
The United Methodist Church’s (UMC) Western Jurisdiction unanimously
elected the denomination’s first openly lesbian bishop on July 15, going
against the UMC’s official stance on homosexuality.
The Rev. Karen Oliveto’s election follows long-term disputes within the
12.7 million-member UMC about homosexuality, furthering concerns of an
impending church division.
“This election raises significant concerns and questions of church
polity and unity,” Bishop Bruce Ough, president of the UMC Council of
Bishops, said after the vote.
Immediately following the Western Jurisdiction’s election, the South
Central Jurisdiction in Wichita, Kansas, asked for the church’s Judicial
Council to review the decision. The leaders asked if electing a
“self-avowed practicing homosexual” as a bishop was lawful under UMC
doctrine. The election could now prompt review under church law.
The UMC is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the United
States and has yet to change its official statement on sexuality. The
UMC Book of Discipline from 2012 states, “The practice of homosexuality
is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed
practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained
as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”
Despite the official statement, the church itself is divided on the
topic of same-sex marriage and ordination. Some fear a long-brewing
church divide.
“If the Western Jurisdiction wanted to push the church to the brink of
schism, they could not have found a more certain way of doing so,” said
the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of the Methodist magazine Good News.
The Western Jurisdiction has a history of disobedience to church rules,
according to the Institute on Religion and Democracy. “This is a
fundamentally schismatic action of the Western Jurisdiction declaring it
no longer wants to live in unity with the rest of our denomination,”
wrote John Lomperis, the institute’s UMC action director. “If [Oliveto]
is no longer Methodist in belief, she would have more integrity to find
another faith community, rather than breaking the promises she chose to
make to us.”
United Methodist bishops are elected by five jurisdictional
conferences, and any elder in good standing is eligible. Some argue
sexual orientation should not disqualify someone from being in “good
standing.”
Oliveto is a pastor at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, Calif.
In 1964, Glide helped create the Council on Religion and the Homosexual,
an organization intended to enlist religious leaders for LGBT advocacy.
Oliveto has made headlines before for controversial behavior. In 2015,
she made a statement she said was against Islamophobia by holding a sign
saying, “We are all Muslims.” She has also supported abortion, publicly
criticized the ministry of the Apostle Paul, and long officiated
same-sex marriages.
Oliveto also was not the only openly gay minister nominated for a
bishop’s post in the UMC this year. Two others, the Rev. David Meredith
and the Rev. Frank Wulf, were also nominated in early June in other
jurisdictions.
In recent years, many mainline Protestant denominations that once
condemned same-sex wedding ceremonies and the ordination of gays have
changed stances. The Presbyterian Church (USA), The Episcopal Church,
and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have all voted to allow
LGBT pastors and same-sex weddings.
Pressure to make the UMC alter its stance on same-sex marriage and
ordination has increased since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision
legalizing gay marriage last summer.
After the Methodist global meeting in May, reports spread that the
denomination might ultimately divide; the UMC has discussed separating
from more conservative churches in Africa and Asia.
Chris Ritter, pastor at Geneseo First United Methodist Church in
Geneseo, Ill., wrote that everyone was to blame for the potential
schism: “To frame what is happening as either a conservative takeover or
a progressive temper-tantrum would be to both miss the point and wallow
in the sort of self-indulgent blame-shifting that is so common in any
divorce. … We leaders allowed the church to arrive at this place both by
sins of commission and omission. In spite of some notable successes, we
have poorly represented Jesus together.”
Courtesy: WORLD News Service
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