For the first time in its 240-year history, the denomination now known as The United Methodist Church has no category of people it officially excludes from some part of its ministry.
That is how historian Ashley Boggan D. describes the impact of the recently completed General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“This is finally our chance to be the PEOPLE called Methodist,” the top executive of the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History said by email. “And that means ALL of us have the same opportunities for mission and ministries at any and all levels of the church.”
After more than a half century of debate and defiance over the place of LGBTQ people in the denomination, General Conference delegates — by sizable majorities — voted to end decades-old bans on the ordination of “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and the officiation of same-sex weddings.
The more than 700 delegates from four continents also adopted a whole new slate of Social Principles. The overhaul represents a culmination of an international, 12-year process to make the denomination’s teachings on contemporary social issues more globally relevant, theologically grounded and succinct. Among other things, the revised Social Principles remove a 52-year-old assertion that “the practice of homosexuality… is incompatible with Christian teaching” and broaden the description of marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant between an “adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age.”
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