United Methodist Church crunch time

We're coming up to crunch time -- the General Conference of the United Methodist Church begins next Wednesday and runs for 10 days. It will be held in Fort Worth, TX. This is where policy in the UMC will be set. The next GC is in 2012 so bad policy won't be revised until then. Here is the portal to the Reconciling Ministries Network view of GC. RMN works for the inclusion of all people, especially gays, in the church.

I haven't before included pictures with these posts, but I thought the RMN logo for their conference efforts was too pretty to leave out.

The site includes a blog which will be updated as various petitions are brought up for a vote. I'm sure I'll be referring to it over the next few weeks.

The main page lists the petitions before GC. An issues page will lead you to greater discussion each issue. These are some of the issues:

Eliminate or soften the clause "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." The rest of the anti-gay rules are built on this foundation. There are also petitions about softening or eliminating the various individual rules, all with the intention of increasing inclusiveness of gays and allies. This probably needs to be done whether or not the big one is removed. The vote to retain this key phrase has dropped from 80% in favor in 1972 to 55% in 2004.

The UMC, though worldwide, is centered on the USA. There are petitions that seek to recognize the worldwide nature of the denomination with competing proposals on how to do this. One of these proposals insists that social principles must be the same worldwide. That means issues such as homosexuality in the USA will be voted on by very homophobic regions in Africa and Asia where the denomination is growing. The anti-gay forces are afraid they will lose the vote in America and want the votes from the rest of the world to enforce their view.

RMN supports several broader issues including resisting hate, abolition of torture, environmental justice, war and peace, and women's issues (one would think we were way beyond that as an issue).

RMN has a lot of petitions it opposes. Of course, off the top are petitions to retain the key clause and not just keep, but strengthen the various bans associated with it. Some even appear to condemn RMN and Soulforce, the two organizations working hardest for gay inclusion. Alas, the exact nature of these proposals is unknown because the RMN site links directly to proposals on the UMC conference site and that site hasn't been staying up very long at a time.

Next are efforts to ban transgender clergy. This wasn't an issue until the last couple of years when a pastor transitioned to male and the Judicial Council let him continue to be a pastor simply because the denomination rules say nothing of transgender issues. After this GC I'm sure the rules will say something one way or the other.

A third batch of petitions are about Judicial Council ruling 1032. A pastor refused membership to a man because he was gay. The issue went to the Judicial Council, who said the pastor had that right. All 66 American bishops say being gay should not be a reason to reject membership. This is the first time the GC has a chance affirm or overrule the JC. Most of the petitions call for saying the pastor was right.

Finally, a batch to strengthen and extend the funding ban. A previous GC said that denomination agencies cannot give money to organizations that "promote the acceptance of homosexuality". These petitions enumerate what it means to "promote" homosexuality, to expand the ban's reach into areas such as domestic partner benefits and campus ministries that choose to declare themselves open to gay members, and to expand enforcement of the ban. Here is a blog entry that discusses the current hassles of the funding ban. The denomination is dying a slow death -- the last membership count was just below 8 million and it had been above 9 million in the 1950s -- yet the denomination is doing a good job of alienating its youth. Why should I come to your church if you don't like my gay friends?