What’s Going on in the UMC? – Article 5: What’s Next?

      This is the last of a series of articles dealing with the debate over human sexuality, specifically the ordination of homosexual persons and the celebration of same-sex weddings, within the United Methodist Church.  As I have said before, I have chosen to set aside the debate about the rightness or wrongness of the issues themselves in favor of focusing on how, or even if, we can continue to be one denomination that does not agree on these practices.

To review, General Conference 2016 asked the Council of Bishops to appoint a Commission on a Way Forward to make recommendations to be presented to a special General Conference which has since been scheduled for February 23-26, 2019 in St. Louis.  So far, the Commission has recommended three different “models.”  The first model would be to retain the current restrictions on homosexual ordination and same-sex marriage.  The second model, now called the one church model, would remove the restrictions and allow individual annual conferences to make decisions about homosexual ordination and individual local churches and clergy make decisions about performing same-sex weddings.  The third model, now called the multi-branch model, provides for the division of the church into three branches, traditionalist, centrist, and progressive, which would each be able to make its own decision about homosexual ordination and same-sex marriage.  I described these models in more detail, and outlined their pros and cons, in previous articles.

At their November meeting, the Council of Bishops offered feedback and requested more work and discussion by the Bishops, by the Commission on a Way Forward, and throughout the Church, around the last two models.  The Commission on a Way Forward is expected to make a final report to the Council of Bishops at their meeting April 29-May 4.  The Council of Bishops will then finalize a proposal to be voted on at a special General Conference in St. Louis.  That proposal will be announced sometime in July.  The proposal will be able to be debated and amended by the delegates at the special General Conference.  As of now, the Church is waiting for word for the Judicial Council, the Church’s “Supreme Court” if other proposals will be allowed to be submitted to the special General Conference.  If the special General Conference does not pass any new proposal the rules will remain as they are and the restrictions on homosexual ordination and same-sex marriage will remain in place.  The next regular General Conference is scheduled for spring of 2020 in Minneapolis.

As I said before, this is my last article in this series.  I encourage all of you, no matter your position on these issues, to continue to stick together and to pray for our Church and our leaders.