#united methodist church

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jason DeRose at NPR:

The United Methodist Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S., has voted to repeal its ban on LGBTQ clergy as well as prohibitions on its' ministers from officiating at same-sex weddings. Delegates overwhelmingly approved the changes, 692 to 51, during the United Methodist Church's General Conference. The meeting is taking place this week in Charlotte, N.C. after the pandemic delayed the 2020 General Conference where these decisions has been slated to take place.

The tone of the Charlotte meeting has been decidedly upbeat, in sharp contrast with the last, highly contentious global meeting back in 2019, when heated floor debates left many feeling hurt. In fact, there was no floor debate over the clergy and marriages rules this time around. Rather, they were included on a consent agenda. However, in the years leading up to this General Conference, about one-quarter of United Methodist congregations in the U-S left the denomination. Those congregations tended to be among the most conservative in the church. Their departure made the decisions this year less fraught. Some of those departing congregations left to form the more conservative Global Methodist Church and others decided to become independent. The main reason many of those congregations left the denomination is that despite the church's official rules against LGBTQ clergy and same-sex weddings, some local geographic conferences chose to not enforce them.

At the United Methodist Church's General Conference today, the UMC voted overwhelmingly to lift its ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and denominational clergy officiating same-sex weddings.

This is made possible in party by the departure of more conservative churches to either the Global Methodist Church, independent of any denomination, or other Wesleyan denominations.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: United Methodist Church ends ban on LGBTQ+ clergy in historic vote

CNN: United Methodist Church lifts 40-year ban on LGBTQ clergy

[dreamerinsilico]

Christianity, and inclusivity

Having some kind of feelings about realizing I've wound up in Filial Piety Mode re: doing an organized religious activity.

I was raised United Methodist Christian. Despite being very involved in my family's church growing up, I rejected this entirely around age 19. Full-on obnoxious internet atheist period ensued for several years, tempered by me growing a sense of nuance after a bit.

Now I'm well into my 30s, and last year my mom very hesitantly asked if my brother and I would be willing to maybe attend their (newish) church's Christmas Eve service with them, so their friends they'd been telling about for months/years could meet us.

And we did, and it was great, honestly. I was happy to volunteer to go again this year. It's still not where I place whatever faith I have, honestly, but it meant a lot to me a few years ago when the United Methodist Church became, uh, less united, over queer people, and my parents left the specific church they'd been members of for 30 years because of it. The local conference said, "lol, we'd like to keep being bigots" and they said, "alright, we're out."

Their current PCUSA church is very welcoming, and I'm still not going to be a Christian again, but I do know the rituals and I don't mind making my mom happy by attending. (Also, their friends are awesome.)

[lgbtpopcult]

United Methodist Church will allow LGBTQ clergy, after 40-year ban

[eatthebearfirst]

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A post shared by Matt Eubanks (@matteubanksonline)

I raised in the UMC, and it little to do with Christianity, mainly just poltics.

[human-dunkaroo]

going to methodist churches where no one knows me just to feel something

[pastormike1976]

Quote from Steve Wozniak about computers; with my reflection at the end.

[glendaleumc]

CLICK THROUGH FOR PHOTOS FROM 2019-2024

In 2017, we nearly closed the doors at Glendale UMC in Nashville, TN. Decades of slow decline led to around 20 in average worship attendance and we realized something needed to change. Change we did. The most important of them all - intentionally being outwardly inclusive + affirming to create safe space for all of God’s children to grow in their faith.

Along with many other changes we made, all individually small if done slowly overtime to not upset anyone that we chose to do all together in one Sunday, started us on a journey to welcome over 150 new members since then and today, we now have around 200 active people who have decided to call Glendale their church home.

We share this as an encouragement to our other churches who may be where we were back in 2017. Sharing God’s inclusive + affirming love with all people authentically can bust the doors wide open for people who’ve been made to feel lesser than, excluded, not enough, or not loved by God as because of who they love or how they identify. 💜

[junebugwriter]

I guess I never had much of a chance.

I just started watching Jessie Gender on Youtube's essay about masculinity and... it hit like a goddamn truck. So much of what she talks about in her past so closely mirrors my own, it's downright eerie. Down to the fact that I was an Eagle Scout. Although, to be fair, it sounds like she had a much better time in it than I did, considering I never really made many friends in my boy scout troop, and I never worked any of the camps.

But to the point... I really did echo a lot of her experience. I tried my hardest to be a man. To live up to the ideals of masculinity that society enforces. But I was never going to be anything close to that. I was always too fat, too sensitive, too emotional, and too unathletic to ever be anything close to Western Masculinity (tm).

I did try though. I was desperate to be seen as something close to approaching masculine, but it came out in such strange ways.

For those who don't know me in person, I grew up in the United Methodist Church, quite literally. My dad was a pastor all his life, and that's the only life I knew growing up. As such, we lived life "in a fishbowl," as we'd call it. That means we were supposed to be the Model Family. Above all reproach, under all scrutiny. If any of us stepped out of line, we were going to be reprimanded for it. Do you folks on here have any idea what that does to a kid? My parents loved me, to be sure, and I bear them little ill will. They did their best under the circumstances. But we were a religious family in Texas. There's very little non-conformity afforded to us. My mother, God bless her, she already bucked tradition. She wasn't exactly feminine, mostly. Sure, she wore dresses, wore makeup, even went square dancing with my dad. But she had little time for the trappings of femininity, and only wore them under obligation. She did not enjoy being a pastor's spouse, for the most part. She endured it, for my Dad's sake, but she made no secret that she wasn't going to pretend to be some Stepford Wife bizarro Tammy Faye Bakker. Not her.

So I grew up with my dad, a uniquely anxious person, stressed about how me and my brother were going to make it. My dad was a pretty old-school guy, but at heart he was a bleeding heart liberal, as much as one could be in Texas in the 80's and 90's in religious circles. There's not a single Democratic president he didn't vote for. He was Democrat til he dies. Yet... that could never be public knowledge. Not in the church. Not in Texas. So already, we became bearers of secrets. Mom isn't a pastor's wife. Dad isn't a Republican. And so we were taught to bear our own secrets.

I'm neurodivergent. I have ADHD. And I am almost entirely incapable of telling a lie. (Ask my partner, she knows!) But little secrets... that was a matter of survival. Little secrets, for the benefit of the Image. Everyone has them, I learned. But God help you if your secrets ever got out.

So I learned, and learned, and learned some more. I'd ask questions, and to their credit my parents answered most of them truthfully, if they could. But there were some things you do not question.

One of them was gender. But I did not know that word.

How could I?

Not in that environment. Not in the fishbowl. Not in Texas. Not in the church.

Girls did x, boys did y, and that's that. Girls were x, boys were y, and that's it. End of discussion. Black and white.

There were signs I did not conform. I loved the show Barney and Friends... until I overheard kids at school call it a show for girls and little babies. Not a show for boys.

Overnight I stopped watching.

I used to sleep with a blanket every night. I loved, adored that little blanket. I found solace in Linus from Peanuts, and his little blue blanket. But my father chafed at its ever-presence. He never said anything against it, but he didn't have to. I could tell. So my mother, God bless her, she stitched me and my brother some pillows with fun animal designs on them. They substituted for the blanket. Father approved, as they had things like tigers and killer whales on them, which were Boy Approved (tm) things to like.

But then there was the ladybug puppet. It was a cute little stuffed ladybug that fit on my hand, and it even had an extra leg so as to be anatomically accurate. I slept with that every night.

Until my mother told me that dad didn't want me to do it anymore. He was worried it was too "feminine." And she said it in a very sing-song voice, a teasing tone I grew all too familiar with.

So into the closet the puppet went. And me with it.

I became hyper-vigilant about what could be perceived as "feminine" from there on out. I watched what I did like a hawk, trying never to ever raise the annoyance or ire of my dad or my peers. But it was never enough. As anyone who has ever had to play that game of gender chess, there was never going to be any chance for someone who is a trans girl to ever be anything but, even if they didn't know that was what they were.

I didn't hear the word "transgender" until I was in grad school. By then, I had already felt a call to ministry. By then, I had long ago locked up all gender nonconformity in a closet back when I was in grade school. I had lost an entire childhood, teenhood, early young adulthood. And by then, I felt like they described what being trans was like, as if it was for someone else. Glad I didn't deal with that issue!

But I did. I simply did not allow myself to question things. Did not allow myself to break the box I was put in as a child. Because I was a white guy, going to be a pastor. I figured I would just be that all my life.

Life has changed about three times since then. I only allowed myself to ask myself the hard gender questions in October of last year. I was 35. I'm turning 36 this next month.

I'm starting my life over again, a fourth time. But I'm actually looking forward to the future, for the first time in my entire life.

Because now it actually exists.

[divinum-pacis]

First United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., hosted hundreds of LGBTQ people and their allies May 1, 2024, for a celebratory sing-along after the United Methodist General Conference lifted a ban on gay ordination. (RNS photos/Yonat Shimron)

[thedooristhebluecushion]

Get to know me, I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

Tagged by @kattahj, I’m honored 🥰

Last Song?

Did a stupid story thing on Instagram where you searched your name & posted the first song that came up didn’t think it’d get me questioning my life:

Keep your chin up, but every once in a while…

Have a good cry.

Well, go on and make a good livin', girl, don't forget,

To make a good life.

Favorite color?

Hunter Green & Mustard

Currently watching?

Cherry Magic Thailand - it restoreth my soul.

Pit Babe - how dare this spicy show give me feelings?

Cooking Crush - Off/Gun perfection

For Him - I genuinely don’t know why I keep watching this one.

The Sign - but I’m 5 episodes behind bc it’s staaaaresssing me out.

Last Movie?

I have been watching The Cherry Magic Movie on repeat because it heals something inside of me I can’t explain.

Sweet / Spicy / Savory?

Yes. Mainly Buffalo Sauce. Which if done right is somehow all three. But if I had F/M/K it’d be:

F*** - Spicy

Marry - Savory

Kill - Sweet

Current Obsession?

My job occupies a lot of my thought & when it doesn’t it’s bc I’m distracting myself with BLs tbh so I guess those.

Last Thing You Googled?

United Methodist Book of Discipline 🤦🏻‍♀️

Selfie or another pic you took

I was outlet shopping & came across these Crocs and just… could not compute? Are we really here? Who’s buying these? Godspeed I guess.

Anyway let’s try to forget these Crocs exist… I’m tagging @kwalker31, @negrowhat, @firelise & @telumendils who will probably ignore this like they do all my texts.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Laura Bullard at Vox:

Last week, hundreds of United Methodist Church (UMC) delegates from around the world sat down to vote on whether or not to reverse a longstanding ban on the ordination of LGBTQ clergy. The decision would also determine whether or not to strike a rule that prohibited clergy from presiding over “homosexual unions.” The room was uncharacteristically hushed as delegates logged their votes. They’d gathered to participate in a quadrennial General Conference, where an elected group of clergy and laypeople review and edit the rules and social stances of the church on a variety of subjects. When the results were announced, the room erupted in loud sobs and cheering. With this vote — and several others — over 50 years of church law, doctrine, and social stances aimed at restricting the full inclusion of LGBTQ methodists were reversed. In a dramatic deviation from the staid (remarkably congressional) proceedings, the Methodists began to sing. Church historian Ashley Boggan told Today, Explained’s Noel King that the UMC’s schism should matter to Methodists and non-Methodists alike. “If you look at Methodist history within the United States, it’s a great lens for looking at American history,” she said.

How did we get here?

For the last five years, the United Methodist Church has been fighting over its stance on LGBTQ members. In a one-off special session in 2019, the UMC had voted to tighten its prohibitions on LGBTQ members — a decision that nearly half of all UMC congregations across the country went on to publicly reject in the following years. So, in 2022, a splinter denomination was born: the Global Methodist Church. Traditionalist congregations had seen the writing on the wall: Change was coming, and they didn’t want to be part of it. Conservative churches began leaving the denomination in droves, and by the time the General Conference convened this year, a quarter of US congregations had jumped ship. It was this newly slimmed-down UMC that voted to reverse the church’s anti-LGBTQ positions earlier this month.

This Vox article on the United Methodist Church’s recent split over LGBTQ+ issues represents the microcosm of America.

[oldshowbiz]

Photographic evidence that Hollywood and Highland was also filthy in the 1980s.

[lgbtpopcult]

United Methodist Church lifts bans on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex weddings : NPR

[johnjhalseth]

Calvert United Methodist Church in Calvert, AL.