From a 40-year-old ban on LGBTQ clergy to a redefinition of marriage as being between “two people of faith,” delegates at the United Methodist Church’s recent General Convention have reversed decades of anti-LGBTQ policies.
Reports the Boston Globe:
It took just a few days for United Methodist delegates to remove a half-century’s worth of denominational bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriages.
But when asked at a news conference about the lightning speed of the changes, the Rev. Effie McAvoy took a longer view.
“Oh, it didn’t take days, honey,” she said.
It took decades of activism for a change that was “so very healing,” said McAvoy, pastor of Shepherd of the Valley United Methodist Church in Hope, R.I. A member of the Queer Delegate Caucus at last week’s UMC General Conference in Charlotte, she was grateful to be part of the historic moment.
The reversals can be seen as marking the end of a half-century of epic battles and schisms over LGBTQ involvement — not only in the United Methodist Church but in US mainline Protestant denominations overall. Those are the tall-steeple churches in myriad town squares and rural crossroads, traditionally “big-tent” and culturally mainstream congregations — some predating America’s independence.
The nation’s largest Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Lutheran denominations have all now removed barriers to LGBTQ participation in the pulpit and at the altar. But this comes amid long-term declines in membership and influence.
There will be skirmishes to come. Individual congregations, and entire regions across the world, will sort out the implications. Controversies have grown among some conservative evangelical churches and colleges, which largely avoided past battles.
But for mainline Protestants, last week’s General Conference looks like a landmark. It was a relatively quiet coda to what had been an almost annual scene on America’s religious calendar — impassioned showdowns at legislative assemblies of Protestant denominations marked by protests, political maneuverings, and prayers.
Read the complete Boston Globe story here.
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