METHODISTS AND MARRIAGE: From the Weekly Standard

ONE OF AMERICA'S largest Protestant denominations voted in May to prohibit the solemnization of same-sex unions in its churches, to withhold ordination from practicing homosexuals, to ban church funding for "gay" causes, to require celibacy for its single clergy, and to endorse civil laws that define marriage as uniting a man and a woman. And it wasn't the Southern Baptists.

No, all this occurred at the governing General Conference of the United Methodist Church, a "mainline" denomination whose leadership has been decidedly liberal for decades. Over 8 million strong, the United Methodists are the third largest church in the United States after the Roman Catholics and the Southern Baptists, and the turn they have taken on the issue of homosexuality is almost directly opposite to that of the quintessential mainline group, the Episcopalians.

The Episcopal Church--only one-fourth the size of the United Methodists--has been much in the spotlight since the election of its first openly homosexual bishop last year. Advocates of approving homosexuality hoped the Episcopal Church was a harbinger of America's religious future. But the Methodists aren't following its lead.

The United Methodists have always been Main Street, to the Episcopalians' Wall Street. They are more suburban and small town than the Episcopalians, more southern and midwestern, and on the whole more culturally conservative. United Methodists are also highly international. Almost one-third of the U.S.-based denomination is now overseas, mostly in Africa. This represents not only growth abroad but also diminishing numbers at home.

Methodism was America's largest church as recently as the late 19th century, but after 40 years of continuous decline, the United Methodists have gone from 11 million to 8.3 million in the United States. Meanwhile, their former mission churches in places like the Congo, Angola, and Mozambique are surging. Full of enthusiastic recent converts, these congregations are ones where liberal theology holds little sway. Africans and to a lesser extent Filipinos have been crucial to setting United Methodism's more culturally conservative direction. ...

Sixty percent voted that homosexual practice was incompatible with Christian teaching, 72 percent voted to uphold the ban on practicing homosexual clergy, 80 percent reaffirmed the ban on same-sex unions, and 85 percent reaffirmed that clergy must be celibate if single and monogamous if married.

Seventy-seven percent voted to affirm "laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman," making the United Methodists the first mainline church to adopt a political stance on same-sex unions. The ban on funding of homosexual advocacy by the national church was expanded to include regional bodies. And adultery, premarital sex, homosexual practice, and same-sex ceremonies were all made chargeable offenses that could precipitate church trials. ...

...Almost all the United Methodist churches in America that are growing are in the deep South. There are now more Methodists in Georgia than in all the Pacific and Rocky Mountain states combined.

The conservative African church, meanwhile, keeps growing. This year, the formerly autonomous Methodist Church of the Ivory Coast, with a million members, joined the United Methodist Church. This raised the non-U.S. component of the denomination from 20 percent to 30 percent.

Church liberals are flummoxed. For decades they styled themselves champions of the Third World. But Third World Christians are conservative on what is, for liberals, the most important cultural issue.

United Methodism, like most old mainline denominations, exerts cultural influence beyond its numbers. Although less than 3 percent of the U.S. population are United Methodists, about 12 percent of members of Congress are, including Hillary Clinton. So are President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

more, if you subscribe
posted by Eve at 3:18 PM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home