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UPDATE:
On July 2, San Antonia Area Bishop Dorff released his ruling of law
in the Mary Ann Kaiser case, calling the question of law moot. His
decision will automatically go before the Judicial Council, the
denomination's top court for review.
By Heather Hahn*
6:00 P.M. ET June 10, 2013 | (UMNS)
Members of the Southwest Texas Annual Conference, who met June 6-9
in Corpus Christi, faced the question of whether a lesbian can be a
certified candidate for ordained United Methodist ministry.
More than 200 United Methodists and other Christians took to Twitter
on the afternoon of Friday, June 7, to protest Mary Ann Kaiser’s
removal from the ordination process. Kaiser is the youth director and
justice associate at University United Methodist Church in Austin and has been pursuing ordination as a United Methodist deacon.
“#OutOfOrderSWTX Stand with @ladygadfly. Her #UMC
conference did harm by removing her from ordination track bc of her
orientation. #StandWithMaryAnn,” was a suggested and oft-repeated Tweet.
The Tweets followed the prompting of Reconciling Ministries Network,
an unofficial caucus that advocates for the denomination’s greater
inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals. Kaiser
occasionally blogs for the group.
The Book of Discipline,
the denomination’s law book, says all people are of sacred worth but
states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with
Christian teaching.”
The book bans “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from “being
certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve
in The United Methodist Church.”
Kaiser and her supporters contend that church leaders failed to
follow the due process also outlined in the Book of Discipline when
reversing her certification. Others argue her candidacy should have
ceased as soon as she identified herself as gay.
Now attention has turned to Bishop James E. Dorff, who leads the
Southwest Texas Conference. He has been asked to make a ruling of law
on whether the conference’s board of ordained ministry followed the
proper procedure.
He told the conference on Friday, June 7, he would consult with the
conference’s chancellor — that is, his legal counsel — and post his
ruling on the conference website within the next 30 days, the time-span allowed under church law.
His ruling automatically goes for review to the United Methodist
Judicial Council, the denomination’s equivalent of the U.S. Supreme
Court. The church court next meets in the fall.
In a response to email inquiries, Dorff notes that the Judicial
Council either will reject or affirm his ruling, and the court’s ruling
is final.
“I will prayerfully and carefully make a decision on the issue
requested,” his email message says. “My decision will be based on my
understanding of the Book of Discipline, which I have pledged to
uphold.
“I want to give thanks for Ms. Kaiser and her willingness to share
her gifts with the church. I pray that the Spirit will guide us
through this and all things.”
Kaiser, 27, said she is seeking to serve out “God’s call on my life” in the church she has been part of throughout her life.
“I have a deep connection to the theology and the history of The
United Methodist Church,” she said. “I was actually in the (ordination)
process before I came out. So it was not a matter of choosing to enter
this process as an out person so much as staying faithful to the
church I claim as my own once I was out.”
The Rev. Suzanne Isaacs, the chair of the conference’s board of ordained ministry and senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in El Campo, declined to comment on the situation because the request for a ruling of church law is pending.
The United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, which
works with boards of ordained ministry, likewise declined to comment on
this case.
What happened
Kaiser was certified in 2008 as a candidate for deacon by the
Pensacola District Committee on Ordained Ministry in the Alabama-West
Florida Annual (regional) Conference. At the time, she said, “I was not
even out to myself yet.”
Since then, she has moved to the Southwest Texas Conference,
completed a Master of Divinity at United Methodist-approved Austin
Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and now works with the Austin
District Committee on Ordained Ministry.
At a district committee meeting in April this year, she told the
body she is gay. The district committee, nevertheless, voted to
recommend to the board of ordained ministry that she continue in the
ordination process.
However, during the closed clergy session June 6, the board of ordained ministry recommended — and the clergy voted
124 to 119 to accept the recommendation — to revoke her certification.
The board cited her sexual orientation as the reason.
What is in dispute
Reconciling Ministries Network argues that the board of ordained
ministry does not have the jurisdiction to move against her candidacy.
Paragraph 314 in the Book of Discipline
says certified candidates may be discontinued “on their own request,
upon severing their relationship with The United Methodist Church, or
upon action to discontinue by the district committee on ordained
ministry.”
Kaiser and her supporters also argue the board has not followed due process.
Paragraph 635.2 (h) of the church law book requires boards of
ordained ministry “to examine all applicants as to their fitness for
the ordained ministry… .” Paragraph 635.2 (j) also mandates that the
boards “interview and report recommendation concerning … certified
candidates for ordination as deacon.”
Kaiser’s first interview with the board of ordained ministry was
scheduled for January 2014. She said she had not expected her name even
to come up at this annual conference meeting. If all had gone as
planned, she would have been commissioned as a deacon next year at the
earliest.
What is happening now
The Rev. John Elford, senior pastor of University United Methodist
Church where Kaiser works, brought the question of law to the floor of
the annual conference on Kaiser’s behalf. He said that the board had
not met the requirements in Paragraph 635.2.
“This is not a publicity stunt,” he told those gathered.
“Nor is it a question of whether or not we, as a church, are ordaining
LGBTQ folks. This is about whether we will follow disciplinary
procedures as we support those like Mary Ann whom God is calling into
ministry. If we cannot promise to treat our future leaders with
respect, compassion and in a spirit of relationship as they enter the
process of ordination, we have little hope of ensuring a future for our
church.”
The Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, who has argued multiple cases before the
Judicial Council, sees the case differently. He is the vice president
and general manager of Good News, an unofficial evangelical United
Methodist caucus that advocates maintaining the Book of Discipline’s
current stance on homosexuality.
He noted that Kaiser “did not meet the qualifications for
candidacy,” so the district committee should not have continued her
certification.
He agreed that normally, under Paragraph 314, the district committee
would be the group to rescind a person’s candidacy. However, he noted
that church law also says the district committee is amenable to the
annual conference.
“The clergy session is a session of the annual conference,” he said.
“I take this to mean that the (board of ordained ministry) and the
clergy session can reverse an action by a district committee that they
believe is incorrect,” Lambrecht said. “They can certainly reverse (I
believe) an egregious error, such as certifying a person who did not
meet the requirements for candidacy.”
The Rev. Thomas E. Frank, the author of the frequently used textbook Polity, Practice, and the Mission of The United Methodist Church,
said the Book of Discipline could be clearer on the process. On the
one hand, he said, church law identifies district committees as
“subcommittees” of the board of ordained ministry. On the other hand,
he said, the Book of Discipline “clearly” delegates to the district
committee certain duties including the powers "to supervise all matters
dealing with candidacy.”
Historically, a district committee in The United Methodist Church
and in predecessor bodies in the UMC “has always held a significant
place in the (ordination) process, as the first step toward set-apart
ministry and the locus of the initial ‘license to preach,’ (in
the old language),” said Frank, a historian of Methodism and professor
at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. “The wisdom in this
arrangement is that candidacy can begin locally, among the people who
know a candidate best. Keeping it local also reduces the stakes
considerably. If a person decides not to pursue candidacy or things just
don't work out, larger bodies don't have to be involved.
“The action taken in the Texas case ramps up the significance of
(district committee on ministry) decisions considerably,” he added,
“and truncates those valuable, gradual steps from local to increasingly
connectional ministry.”
Matthew M. Berryman, the executive director of Reconciling
Ministries Network, said he hopes his group’s Twitter blast not only
helps reinstate Kaiser but also reminds the conference and board of
ordained ministry of their responsibility to treat everyone fairly.
He said he wants the board of ordained ministry “to understand the gravity of their misstep here.”
“In refusing to interview Mary Ann, the board of ordained ministry
is complicit in structures of sin that cause deep injury,” he said.
“Following the call of biblical obedience, RMN hopes Bishop Dorff will
correct this mistake by making a fair and just ruling.”
Lambrecht said he hopes the Judicial Council does take up the case,
“so that we can clarify the extent to which district committee
decisions can be reviewed and/or reversed by the (Board of Ordained
Ministry) and clergy session.”
For her part, Kaiser said the Tweets in her support have given her
reason to smile and likely have provided hope to others who are gay.
“The struggle for me in all of this is that it is really easy for
people to think, ‘Oh, Mary Ann, she’s just doing this for attention or
she’s doing this to make people uncomfortable,’” she said. “To me, this
is a spiritual issue. … Why I am on this path is that I am trying to
be authentic and trying to be faithful. Publicity for being gay is not
an enjoyable experience.”
*Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News
Service. The Rev. Jay Voorhees, executive editor of United Methodist
Reporter, contributed to this story.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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