Twenty years ago, Beth Stroud was defrocked as a United Methodist Church pastor after telling her Philadelphia congregation that she was in a committed same-sex relationship.
Beth Stroud sheds a tear pondering what reinstatement would mean 20 years after she was defrocked from her job as a United Methodist pastor in Philadelphia, Sunday, May 12, 2024, at Turning Point United Methodist Church in Trenton, N.J. Delegates at a United Methodist conference recently struck down longstanding anti-LGBTQ bans and created a path for clergy ousted because of them to seek reinstatement.
Bishop John Schol of Eastern Pennsylvania welcomed the outcome, stating, “I’m grateful that the church has opened up to LGBTQ persons.”I was completely disoriented,” she told The Associated Press via email. “For what felt like several minutes I couldn’t tell where the front of the room was, where I was, where I needed to go. Everyone was clapping and then they started singing. The bishop asked me quietly if I wanted to say anything and I said I couldn’t.
At 54, Stroud doesn’t plan a return to full-time ministry — at least not immediately. Now completing a three-year stint teaching writing at Princeton University, she is excited to be starting a new job this summer as assistant professor of Christian history at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio — one of 13 seminaries run by the UMC.
When Stroud finally made her decision, she knew it was the right one. But the decision did not come easily as she followed the UMC’s deliberations on the anti-LGBTQ policies.
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