United Methodist delegates have overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional amendment seen by advocates as a way of defusing debates over the role of LGBTQ people in the church.
FILE - The Rev. K Karen, left, of St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church in New York joins other protesters in song and prayer outside the United Methodist Church's special session of the general conference in St. Louis, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. Since 2019, the denomination has lost about one-fourth of its U.S. churches in breakup focused in large part on whether to accept same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy.
The plan would create multiple regional conferences — one for the United States and others covering areas ranging from the Philippines to Europe to Africa. If ratified, one effect of the change is that it could allow for the American church — where support has been growing for the ordination of LGBTQ people and for same-sex marriage — to authorize such rites, even as international churches with more conservative positions on sexuality would not.
Advocates hailed the proposal as a way of decolonizing a church some say is too focused on U.S. issues, though one opponent, a Zimbabwean pastor, said the details of the plan are reminiscent of colonial-era divide-and-conquer strategies. But the Rev. Forbes Matonga of Zimbabwe said the plan actually perpetuates colonial structures by creating multiple regional conferences in Africa along national lines, compared with a single one in the United States. He noted that many African national borders were created arbitrarily by European colonial mapmakers.
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United Methodists endorse change that could give regions more say on LGBTQ and other issuesUnited Methodist delegates have overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional amendment seen by advocates as a way of defusing debates over the role of LGBTQ people in the church.
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United Methodists endorse change that could give regions more say on LGBTQ and other issuesUnited Methodist delegates have overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional amendment seen by advocates as a way of defusing debates over the role of LGBTQ people in the church.
Read more »
United Methodists endorse change that could give regions more say on LGBTQ and other issuesUnited Methodist delegates have overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional amendment seen by advocates as a way of defusing debates over the role of LGBTQ people in the church
Read more »
United Methodists endorse change that could give regions more say on LGBTQ and other issuesUnited Methodist delegates have overwhelmingly endorsed a constitutional amendment seen by advocates as a way of defusing debates over the role of LGBTQ people in the church. It seeks to do that by giving rule-making autonomy to each region of the international church.
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United Methodists open first high-level conference since breakup over LGBTQ inclusionThis will be the first General Conference since more than 7,600 mostly conservative congregations left the United Methodist Church between 2019 and 2023.
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