quote: LINTHICUM, Md. - The United Methodist Church reversed itself Friday, deciding to reinstate a lesbian minister who was defrocked after revealing her relationship with another woman.
A church panel voted 8 to 1 to set aside an earlier decision to defrock Irene "Beth" Stroud for violating the church's ban on openly gay clergy.
The Philadelphia minister said she was relieved by the ruling and hopes the church will become more inclusive to people regardless of sexual orientation.
I'm slightly shocked they're re-instating her. Will this cause the sort of divides that are effecting other churchs? This hit close to home. The church in question is in my neighborhood.
[ April 29, 2005, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged ]
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Just fyi, dkw is at a staff team building type thing for her new appointment this week, and will not see this until tomorrow night at the earliest. You might want to bump it then if you want her specifically to weigh in. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Maryland has the ugliest town names, it's kind of charming. Linthicum, Odenton, Gaithersburg. There were some others but I don't remember them. I was born in Bethesda.
P.S. Whether they should ban them or not, I think it's important that if clergy are gay, they are open about it.
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Wow. I can't give any helpful input, but I am sort of amazed. I was brought up UM and my mom was a pastor for a while. She and my brother (a little more fundamental...ist) would probably be up in arms about this.
Posts: 226 | Registered: Mar 2005
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There are some things I really like about the United Methodist Church. One of them is its handling of the information ABOUT this case and this issue in general. It's very open, but also respectful of the privacy of people involved in certain aspects of the process.
this article is a good example of what I'm talking about.
At any rate, it's pretty clear that this is not over. Stroud has decided NOT to resume full minsterial duties until the final decision is made -- her reasons are compelling, and thoughtful, I think. I admire her in many ways.
Frankly, the church IS struggling with this. But it is doing so in an open manner and using every process and method withhin it's structure and traditions. It's a good process, too. The UMC is much more democratically run than any institution I know of, especially religious denominations. The power of clergy and lay persons is balanced. Local rule and denominational rule are fairly well harmonized.
They have methods of revising their long-standing assumptions that are not jarring, but allow things to change "organically" and without throwing traditions out the window, nor hanging onto traditions that the people realize do not make sense.
They also recognize the fallible nature of all decision-making where humans are in the loop. They know that not only could past decisions be flawed, but so could the current "new" decisions be flawed. And they tend to make some provisions for dealing with the flaws.
Still, they aren't lawless. Stroud was convicted because she violated church law. The reversal of that decision was on the basis of flaws in her trial, not in the finding of fact. Indeed, the ruling states that she would still be found guilty in a trial that was not flawed. The question is whether that trial will ever happen.
It is, I suppose, possible that she will never be retried. Doubtful, because someone will surely force the issue. But if that trial never takes place, then it's as if she came out publicly and the church never took any action. That's limbo. It might be just what the church needs. Time to see this play out.
But surely that's not the most likely scenario. There are those who want to see laws and rules enforced, regardless of the consequences. There are also those who don't like the idea of homosexuals as clergy and who will not want this case left undecided or untried (which is essentially the status it has been thrown back into). All this new decision did was undo the prior decision. It rewound the tape back to 000.
The General Conference is 4 years away (or is it just 3 now?) So there's no potential for change from that quarter.
If she's tried again, she'll be defrocked, most likely. And that'll be that.
Except that this is going to reverberate in the Church. I think people are going to wonder why her committed sexual behavior disqualifies her from the clergy. I think that people are going to look harder at the scriptures used to justify the ban on homosexual clergy and maybe they'll come away with a different understanding than the one that seemed so obvious for so long before now.
I personally hope that the church moves away from a ban. It's my one big reservation about the church right now.
I don't want to see schism, though. I hope that things move along quickly, but not in such a jarring fashion that the people who are against homosexual clergy feel like the church is no longer theirs.
Ah well...
I guess the main thing is that sometimes a church needs our prayers too.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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This reminds me of what is happening within th Anglican church too....it is dividing the whole church at this point and they have begun splitting off into splinter groups.... Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Since I don't believe women are supposed to hold high offices in church anyway.. I'm staying clear of this one. Posts: 925 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I don't know, Tater. Every time I look at your post I think you haven't really stayed clear. Or maybe I don't really understand what staying clear means.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Here is the link to the story on the official UMC website. The verdict was thrown out because of errors in the trial, but the committee stated that the evidence was overwhelming and that the charge would have been sustained if not for the errors.
She will likely be retried, and likely lose her credentials again (assuming no changes from General Conference before the trial). She’s stated that she won’t exercise her credentials as clergy until “the whole process is concluded,” which means, in effect, that she’s still abiding by the verdict even though it’s been reversed. Which seems to me like an honorable thing for her to do, under the circumstances.
Ooops. Bob already linked to that article. Oh well, it's good enough to read twice.
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