Key Points:
- For the first time, there will be a caucus of LGBTQ delegates at General Conference this month in Charlotte, North Carolina.
- Members of the caucus are preparing either to celebrate if the votes giving them full participation in the denomination go their way, or to soldier on if those efforts fall short.
- There is hope for relationship-building with African delegates, who traditionally have opposed removing restrictions against LGBTQ people in the church.
Everything might change for the better for LGBTQ United Methodists when the long-delayed General Conference finally meets in Charlotte, North Carolina, this month.
Then again, there are no guarantees.
Helen Ryde, a lay delegate from the Western North Carolina Conference and an organizer for Reconciling Ministries Network, considers it “a fool’s errand” to be confident about anything to do with any General Conference.
“Until we get on the floor and people start pressing those voting buttons,” said Ryde, who uses they/them pronouns, “we really don’t know what’s going to happen — no matter how much preparation and conversation and strategizing has gone ahead of the game.”
Ryde is a member of the new United Methodist Queer Delegate Caucus, which was created to represent those people elected to serve at General and jurisdictional conferences who identify as LGBTQIA+ in The United Methodist Church and are committed to a fully inclusive church. There are 58 delegates in the caucus, including jurisdictional conference delegates and reserves, Ryde said. Twenty-six are voting delegates at General Conference — the first time a queer delegate caucus will be represented there.
The caucus has three priorities at the legislative gathering:
- To remove the language from the Book of Discipline that excludes LGBTQ people from full participation in the church. (The Book of Discipline bans clergy from officiating at same-sex weddings and prohibits the ordination of “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.)
- To pass a plan for regionalization that would give United Methodists in the U.S. the same freedom to shape their local policies as those in United Methodist central conferences — church regions in Africa, Europe and the Philippines.
- To approve the Revised Social Principles, which include eliminating the provision that marriage can only be between one man and one woman.
The Queer Delegate Caucus spells out its intentions on its website, referring to past General Conferences when the desires of LGBTQ United Methodists to be full-fledged members of the denomination were not heeded:
“While the pain of past gatherings gives us all pause, this General Conference feels different. The departure of many vocal conservative leaders and the joining of progressive and centrist voices for full inclusion give us cause for hope. We have hope that one day soon the church will fully embrace the humanity of her LGBTQIA+ siblings. We hope to fully share the inclusive and Christ-like love of the church God is building for the future.”
Timeline: The homosexuality debate
The Rev. Duane Carlisle said for him personally, “the removal of harmful language would be something that is most meaningful to me in my ministry.”
He is a caucus delegate and pastor of First United Methodist Church in West Lafayette, Indiana.
“But all of (the caucus’ priorities) are so intertwined, and they’re all important, and we want to support all of them,” he added.
Considering that the denomination’s official position states that the practice of homosexuality “is incompatible with Christian teaching,” the caucus is also designed to be a comfort to a group of United Methodists who have often felt neglected or repressed.
“I would say the primary purpose has been to create community, a sense of shared experience of what we’re going through, and hopefully to raise up a sort of consistent voice from queer folks who are voting delegates at General Conference,” Ryde said.
“It’s about people not feeling isolated and feeling like they’ve got a community of supportive folks near them and around them.”
The caucus may host a press conference during the April 23-May 3 General Conference, but Ryde said that is not a certainty and depends on what happens.
In the past, Ryde said, “there’s been some pretty awful stuff said on the floor of General Conference. So we’ve been discussing, how can we consider appropriate responses in the event that that might happen again? How can we provide pastoral care to people in that moment?”
Jorge Lockward, a delegate in the caucus and minister of worship arts at the Church of the Village in New York, said that even if things don’t go well at General Conference, LGBTQ United Methodists will not be deterred.
The Queer Delegate Caucus will be “a powerful presence,” he said. “If the General Conference, as it has done in the past, refuses to hear the clear evidence of the movement of the Spirit, we will be there to remind the General Conference of that movement of the Spirit.”
Regardless of what happens, Lockward vows, “we are not going back.”
“It’s like the Spirit is giving us an opportunity to figure out how to live together in disagreement, so (we) don’t have to destroy each other,” he said.
Ryde acknowledged that the relationship of the caucus with delegates from Africa, who have been a strong voice opposing full participation of LGBTQ people in the church, bears watching.
“I believe if we can stay connected and fellowship (with United Methodists in Africa), then as conversations emerge in Africa about issues of LGBTQ equality, we will have made connections and relationships to be able to walk alongside them in that journey,” Ryde said.
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The Rev. Kennedy Mwita, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church Moheto in Kenya and a board member of the Reconciling Ministries Network, said there is room for such a conversation. Reconciling Ministries Network is an unofficial United Methodist advocacy group that seeks full equality of LGBTQ individuals in the life of the church. Mwita’s church is the first in Africa to become a reconciling church.
“It is quite challenging, especially in our context where most people are still influenced by culture, tradition and colonial mentality,” Mwita said. “The missionaries who came earlier in Africa, I think they gave a wrong message, a wrong kind of information that people have held for so long. … If you have the time to really learn, discern and understand, (sexual) orientation is a complicated area of humanity that people need to explore and study more.”
Even with losing about 25% if its U.S. churches to disaffiliations because of the dispute about its LGBTQ members, The United Methodist Church still has “something unique to offer to the world,” Ryde said.
Ryde mentioned churches in rural locations that have stayed United Methodist, yet are “nowhere close to ready to putting out a rainbow flag.” Ryde said that if those churches over time take steps to be more inclusive, then places of welcome and safety would be created in communities that otherwise wouldn’t have had them.
“I still believe that our United Methodist churches can be the churches that stand up against the bullying of a trans kid in high school or middle school,” Ryde said. “They can be the ones that stand up against the banning of books that teach the full truth of our racist history. …That’s my hope. That’s my belief.
“To me, that’s the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus: standing up for the marginalized and excluded. And I still think we can do that.”
Patterson is a UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Weekly Digests.
