This translation is not completely accurate as it was automatically generated by a computer.
Powered by
A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
1:30 P.M. EST February 4, 2011
Delegates consider legislation during the 2008 United Methodist General
Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. A UMNS file photo by Mike DuBose.
View in Photo Gallery
The United Methodist Judicial Council again is being asked to
re-consider a 2005 decision allowing a pastor to bar a gay man from
joining his congregation.
During its April 27-30 meeting, the denomination’s top court will look
at a request from the California-Pacific Annual (regional) Conference
“for the Judicial Council on its own motion to reconsider Judicial
Council Decision 1032.” The location of the April meeting is yet to be
determined.
The council also will take up a request from the New York Annual
Conference, deferred from its October meeting, for a ruling on the
validity of a policy related to clergy and same-sex marriage.
In October, the court declined reconsideration requests on Decision 1032
from several of the church’s annual conferences seeking a reversal of
the decision. Through individual concurrences, Judicial Council members
expressed hope for an end to the controversy stirred within the
denomination over the decision and the continued attempts to resolve the
issue on the judicial level.
“The General Conference is the only body authorized and able to resolve
the issue for the Church,” wrote Jon R. Gray in a concurring opinion on
one of the October cases. General Conference, the denomination’s top
legislative body, will next meet April 24-May 4, 2012, in Tampa, Fla.
Judicial Council Decision No. 1032 related to the case of the Rev. Ed
Johnson, who had been the senior pastor at South Hill (Va.) United
Methodist Church until he was placed on an involuntary leave of absence
by the Virginia Annual (regional) Conference. Bishop Charlene Kammerer
upheld the action.
Johnson had refused to admit a self-avowed, practicing gay man into
membership in the church. The pastor was returned to the pulpit
following the court’s action.
Decision 1032, based on Paragraphs 214 and 225 of the denomination's law
book, The Book of Discipline, said the paragraphs are “permissive, and
do not mandate receipt into membership of all persons regardless of
their willingness to affirm membership vows.” The ruling meant that the
pastor in charge of a local church has authority to determine a
layperson’s readiness for membership.
Clergy marriage
The New York Conference request asks for a declaratory decision about
the validity of a policy that it adopted in 2010, effective this year,
allowing any of its clergy members to be “legally married at their own
discretion, as permitted by Paragraph 103 of the Articles of Religion.”
The policy is based on the premise that Paragraph 103 takes precedence
over Paragraph 2702 prohibiting same-sex marriage for clergy.
During an oral hearing at the October meeting, J. Ann Craig and Nehemiah
Luckett — New York lay members who identified themselves as gay —
argued that Article XXI of Paragraph 103, declares that marriage is “a
moral structure available to all.” Same-sex marriage is now a legal
option in Connecticut, a state that is part of the conference.
In her presentation, Craig said that the denomination’s ban on
same-gender marriage is contrary to Paragraph 103, which states that it
is “lawful” for pastors, “as for all other Christians, to marry at their
own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to
godliness.”
She added that the church’s doctrinal standards, of which the Articles
of Religion are a part, take precedence over changes to The Book of
Discipline.
At the same hearing, the Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, a Wisconsin pastor
representing Good News, an unofficial United Methodist evangelical
caucus, called that reasoning a misinterpretation of Paragraph 103.
“It unilaterally changes the definition of marriage to include
same-gender marriage” without the action of General Conference, he said.
Reconsideration on Baltimore-Washington case
Also on the spring docket is a request from officials in the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference for reconsideration of Judicial Council Decision 1156.
In that case — also the subject of an oral hearing in October — the
council ruled the Baltimore-Washington Conference violated the rights of
a suspended pastor and ordered it to restore compensation and benefits
to the Rev. Helen Steiner Smith “until she receives another appointment
or is declared ineligible for appointment.”
Smith had been suspended from her position as pastor of Benevola United
Methodist Church in Boonsboro, Md., in May 2009 after allegedly failing
to carry out pastoral duties by not fully disclosing her husband’s
status as a registered child sex offender. According to news reports at
the time, David Alvin Smith pleaded guilty the previous year to a sex
offense charge after his adult daughter told authorities he had sexually
abused her as a child.
Smith was placed on a voluntary leave of absence by the conference, an
action “reversed and vacated” by the court, which found the case to have
been mishandled by the bishop, superintendent and conference board of
ordained ministry and “replete with errors, omissions, flaws and
disciplinary violations.”
The entire April 2011 docket is available at umc.org.
Briefs or comments on any of the April docket items are due by Feb. 26.
An electronic copy should be sent to judicialcouncil@umc.org and 13
paper copies mailed to F. Belton Joyner, Jr., Secretary, 1821 Hillandale
Road, Suite 1B, PMB 334, Durham, NC 27705.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her at http://twitter.com/umcscribe
News media contact: Linda Bloom, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
About UMC.org
RSS Feed
Press Center
Contact Us