The Rev. Frank Schaefer and the Methodist Church

At first, I thought about just throwing this in the "In the News" thread, but then this morning I woke up to see that the California-Pacific bishop had made a statement.

For background:

Now, the Methodist Church has an interesting structure. It's split up into conferences, and the whole church only meets every four years. There's an ongoing joke that there's a committee for everything, which is pretty true. One of the priorities of the church is to get lay leadership and volunteers as involved as possible. There are lots of people, not just clergy, invested in how this all shakes out.

So, Rev. Schaefer has been defrocked. His clerical status has been taken away. However, even his own bishop disagrees with that move, and other conferences also disagree with what the Book of Discipline states should happen. Last year, the local district here (districts come together to form conferences) decided they were going to support their clergy that decided to conduct gay marriages. For many, it was time to take a stand. This stand has spread to other districts within our conference, and it's expected to be a hot-button issue at annual conference (when the conference meets as a whole).

California-Pacific Conference has taken an even more visible stance.

I'm interested to see where this goes, and what happens to the church. The decentralized nature of the Methodist Church means that sometimes conferences have autonomy to decide what they like/don't like. I suppose this avoids the schisms, or threats of schisms, seen in other churches, such as the Anglican church.

Have you been following this story at all?

 

I'm an atheist living in a part of the world where gay rights aren't really in contention, so I'm really the ultimate outsider on this. Given that I don't know how much intelligent commentary I can offer. I will say that it's patently obvious to me that the people who oppose gay rights are ultimately going to find themselves on the wrong side of history, but if they had the awareness and perspective to realize that they'd lack the narrow-minded self-absorption necessary to oppose gay rights in the first place. So.

I suspect this former minister will land on his feet, one way or another.

 

Well, that's part of the problem. Other conferences has disagreed with the Book of Discipline before Rev. Schaefer made his choice. I agree that he should have tried to address it within his district and conference beforehand, but by the same token, other conferences have already disagreed with the stance his ultimately took.

Part of it, I think, is being able to look your child in the eye. That is what I have been told, anyway.

 

A youth pastor wrote this piece:

from: What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter | In The Parlor

 

I'm not familiar with the culture, rules, beliefs of the Methodist Church, but I have a couple of good friends who are Seventh-Day Adventists, one is a theologian and another's father is a pastor and theologian. Their Big Issue for a while has been whether to allow female pastors.

Seventh-Day Adventists Facing Pressure On Allowing Female Pastors

Then you get this sort of thing: Adventist Today : Woman Pastor is Elected Conference President in Southeastern California

Change is inevitable, no matter how much you resist it.

Certain denominations have changed in light of homosexuality, and I think it's a matter of time before others do. The degree of change will vary, of course.