30 April 2008
Disappointing news from General Conference
Bear with me on the technical procedural language here. This afternoon, the General Conference voted to adopt the minority report from the Church & Society 2 Committee regarding Paragraph 161G of the Book of Discipline. In short, what this means is that the Discipline retains the language that calls the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching”. The vote was 55% to 45%.
The alternative report (which was the majority coming out of Committee) would have changed the language of that Paragraph to say that faithful United Methodists have genuine disagreements about this issue, and that the Church would continue to seek faithful responses and insights, and would have deleted that language about being incompatible with Christian teaching. Because the minority report was adopted, the majority was not voted on.
The newly adopted language also removes some of the prior language that recognized our “limited understanding” of the “complex gift” of sexuality. It also added the words “monogamous, heterosexual” to the marriage covenant.
I’m sure others will have more studied commentary on this in the days to come, but my take on it is that the Conference has voted to adopt a statement on human sexuality that is at least as repressive, if not more so, than the prior statement. The alternative would have been to say that faithful Christians agree to disagree.
Count me disappointed.
2 Comments so far...
Darrylo W. Douglass Says:
4 June 2008 at 12:44 pm.
Count you disappointed… more like count YOU disappointing.
What do you see wrong with adding monogamus and heterosexual to the marriage covenant… do you believe in HIS word?
Though I can’t speak ON his behalf, but I know that GOD doesn’t care about Minority or Majority, there is HIS word and that’s it.
Dan Says:
12 June 2008 at 11:17 am.
As you can see, there are differing perspectives in the world on this topic. I believe that this post exemplifies the dangers of Biblical literalism devoid of critical thinking and analysis. To paraphrase Rex, it’s possible (and healthy) to take the Bible seriously without taking it literally.
And no, God doesn’t need me to speak for her either. God has already spoken through the life and teaching of Jesus who embodied radical love and radical inclusion, and God continues to speak through our lives as we nurture a congregation of radical love and radical inclusion.