Methodist Church Faces Decisions on Changes : Unit Wants ‘Incompatible With Christian Teachings’ Out of Stance on Homosexuality

The United Methodist Church’s social action agency is asking the denomination’s General Conference to strike language from the church body’s official statements saying homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” church officials said Thursday.

The action by the Board of Church and Society sets up the likelihood of another bruising battle over the volatile issue of homosexuality when the denomination’s highest legislative body meets next April in St. Louis.

Board members voted 40 to 24 on Oct. 10 to ask the 998 delegates to the General Conference to make the change in the denomination’s official stance.

Current Statement

Currently, the church’s official statement on homosexuality, included in the denomination’s Social Principles, declares, “Homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth (who) are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured, though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Branding homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching” has been a part of the church’s Social Principles since 1972. Attempts to change the language have been made at each quadrennial meeting of the denomination since then.

In 1984, the statement was used as a springboard to add to church law governing clergy the provision that no “self-avowed practicing” homosexual could be ordained or receive appointment as a minister in good standing.

In August, a United Methodist ecclesiastical court found an avowed lesbian pastor guilty of violating the ban on homosexual clergy and suspended her from the pastorate for 10 months.

The pastor, the Rev. Rose Mary Denman, is expected to leave the Methodist Church and seek certification as a pastor in the Unitarian Universalist Assn.

‘Schism in the Church’

“To delete (the present statement) would say to some that we are calling homosexuality compatible with Christian teaching and would cause schism in the church and sap our energy well into the next century,” said the Rev. Richard Looney of Knoxville, Tenn., a church and Society Board member.

Looney was supported by Bishop Richard B. Wilke of Little Rock, Ark., who said the nation is in a time when it “can’t deal with sexual practice outside marriage.”

“If we take this out now, I will spend the rest of my life trying to shore up pastors and churches because people will say we are condoning the practice of homosexuality.”

Supporters of the change said the term “incompatible” is a code word for stereotyping and judging people and, said Evelyn Burns of Norway, Me., that “should be unacceptable” to Christians.

“This board is called to provide avenues for healing,” said Shirley Dare of Evanston, Ill., and changing the wording would help bridge “the separation we feel from each other.”

The issue of homosexuality was also a subject of sharp debates at the church’s annual regional conferences earlier this year, with at least 13 sending petitions to the General Conference urging that the present language be retained.