United Methodists become united over ending ban on ordination of gays
Departure of conservatives during schism paved way for change in policy
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc76190ca-125a-4060-bd7c-a4ddd497120f_1200x889.jpeg)
The days of the United States’ largest mainline Protestant denomination prohibiting the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” are over.
By an overwhelming vote, 692-51, the United Methodist Church’s General Conference today formally rejected its gay-ordination ban, making the church the largest Christian denomination in the United States to take such a position.
The end of the gay-ordination ban goes in effect after the conference, meeting in Charlotte, N.C., ends Friday. Ordinations are authorized at the regional level; it is possible that some regional bodies, particularly those outside the United States, which tend to be more conservative, will continue to maintain traditional ordination standards.
Today’s change, made without debate, was made inevitable by action taken by the 2019 General Conference — the most recent one held before this year as the covid epidemic forced delays of gatherings of the church’s supreme ruling body. That conference established a procedure where congregations could, as an act of conscience, leave the denomination over homosexuality-related issues and retain their church property. By the deadline last year, 7,658 congregations, representing about a fourth of the church’s membership, departed. Most if not all of them were congregations disturbed by liberal trends in the denomination.
Many of the congregations left to join the newly formed Global Methodist Church, which opposes same-sex marriage and will be holding its convening General Conference in September in San José, Costa Rica. Some of the congregations joined smaller denominations, such as the Free Methodist Church, opposed to same-sex marriage, while others decided to operate independently of a denominational structure.
Although diminished in membership numbers, the United Methodist Church remains the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. Among the major mainline denominations — the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Church in America, the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church — the UMC becomes the last to end prohibitions on same-sex ordination and marriage.
While same-sex ordination and solemnization of same-sex marriages is the norm in the mainline Protestant movement, neither is done in the three other largest U.S. Christian denominations — the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Evangelical denominations also do not recognize same-sex marriage.1
The country’s largest historically Black denomination, the National Baptist Convention USA, does not have a formal position on gay ordination. A tiny number of local congregations, which operate autonomously, have gay pastors.
Update:
On May 2, the conference on a 523-161 vote repealed a statement in the denomination’s ruling document, the Book of Discipline, that “[t]he practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” It similarly referred to marriage as “a sacred, lifelong covenant” that unites “two people of faith.”
The named denominations in this paragraph also do not ordain women. Many evangelical churches, although far from all, do ordain women.