Un-United Methodists: Church splinters between its conservative and gay-affirming sides
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Un-united Methodists
The church has long delayed an anticipated split over LGBTQ issues — until now. It’s not going to be easy. As some in North Carolina look to disaffiliate from UMC for more conservative theology, others must grapple with their own stance on how to move forward.
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Carolyn Kirby, 72, has been Methodist her entire life. Her father helped build a Methodist church in the 1940s, and for the past three decades, she’s been a part of the tight-knit congregation at Kenly United Methodist Church in Johnston County.
But over the next few months, that’s likely to change.
As the United Methodist denomination faces a reckoning over gay weddings and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy members, Kenly UMC is one of a string of churches across North Carolina and the world that looks to disaffiliate in pursuit of a more conservative theology.
It’s “similar to a marriage dissolving,” the Rev. Paul Dunham of Kenly UMC said. “You’re hopeful about the future. But you’re brokenhearted that you’re in this spot.”
Like many institutions of American social and civic life, the denomination is divided by the opposing beliefs of its members and a prickly political climate.
Many United Methodist churches and members have long wanted the denomination — with more than 6.4 million members in the U.S. in 2018 — to move toward a more affirming stance on issues of sexuality. But as the denomination goes in that direction, other churches and members that skew more theologically conservative will go elsewhere.
That clash could come to a head here in November, when the North Carolina Conference plans to consider and ratify church petitions for disaffiliation.
Kenly UMC will likely leave the United Methodists.
And Kirby, who favors inclusion for LGBTQ members, will likely leave Kenly UMC.
‘Maintaining unity’
Unlike other mainline denominations, the UMC has avoided fracture over LGTBQ issues until now. The church has long seen itself as a “big-tent” faith community that maintains a range of theological and political beliefs, said the Rev. Patrick Murphy of Knightdale UMC.
“Still, there have always been, within that attempt at unity, difficulties in maintaining unity,” Murphy said.
And as the issue of sexuality roiled the denomination year after year, it became clear that the church could not survive as one body.
The fracture will come at a cost — one that spans local, regional and global levels, and that extends to the non-Methodist communities that surround these churches.
“Anytime we are saying to the rest of the world that we can’t find a way to remain as one, it hurts our witness in the world,” the Rev. Owen Barrow, lead pastor at Fuquay-Varina UMC, said.
For United Methodists, a central tenet of that witness, as laid out in the church’s General Rules, is through good works. On the global level, the church is involved in disaster relief and advocacy on issues ranging from poverty and health to climate and the war in Ukraine. Local churches host food distribution events, blood drives, veteran outreach efforts and more within their communities.
But the splintering means that the UMC’s total manpower and resources will be reduced as churches leave the denomination, the Rev. Julia Webb-Bowden, pastor at Elizabeth Street UMC in Durham, said.
And several pastors noted that while their local mission work has not stopped in the midst of the fracture, the conflict has been a distraction from their community outreach.
“I’m looking forward to the time when we put these arguments behind us, and we’ve just got the Lord and the Lord’s work ahead of us,” Dunham said to his congregation at Kenly UMC in late July.
A debate spanning decades
The UMC — with nearly 210,000 members in Eastern North Carolina as of 2020 — adopted a staunch stance against the full inclusion of LGBTQ members in the church in the early years of its founding, prohibiting gay weddings and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing” lesbian and gay clergy members.
In 2019, the denomination doubled down on that position.
But numerous clergy and laypeople in the U.S. denounced the rule as discriminatory and antithetical to the teachings of Christ. Clergy members engaged in what amounted to ecclesiastical disobedience, people left the church and tensions rose. One side saw the other as hateful for what it viewed as discrimination against gay people, while the other side saw its brothers and sisters violating their shared doctrine and pushing an interpretation of scripture that they felt would cut people off from the love of God.
In 2020, the General Conference — the church’s global governing body — was supposed to vote on a proposal that would have opened the door for churches to disaffiliate under highly favorable terms. But COVID struck, and the conference and vote were postponed to this year, then again to 2024.
Without that proposal in place, conservative churches were left with paragraph 2553, a 2019 framework that grants churches a limited right to disaffiliate in relation to issues of sexuality. Unwilling to wait until 2024 and uncertain of what the UMC will decide in the coming years, some churches are embarking on disaffiliation now within that framework.
In May, the Global Methodist Church launched as a new denomination. It caters to theologically conservative churches leaving the UMC.
Theologically conservative church members took issue with how sexuality was being handled in the UMC and decided “we cannot be part of a church any longer that does not observe the foundational ways in which it makes decisions, that dishonors those decisions made by duly-elected delegates,” said the Rev. Keith Boyette, the Transitional Connectional Coordinating Officer of the GMC’s Transitional Leadership Council. “The reality is that we have two irreconcilable visions of who the church is to be.”
More than 1,000 churches across the nation have begun the disaffiliation process and expressed interest in joining the GMC, according to Boyette. As of 2018, there were more than 30,500 United Methodist churches in the United States.
Remaining by default
Most United Methodist churches in Eastern North Carolina seem poised to remain United Methodist. Many lay people, even those who disagree with a more affirming position, don’t see this issue as one they’re willing to leave their church for.
Local churches are not required to act on disaffiliation or issues of sexuality. They will remain United Methodist by default. Those churches interested in leaving must embark on their conference’s disaffiliation process.
But not all congregations are aligned among their members on how to move forward. In those churches, the prospect of disaffiliation raises tensions for people like Kirby who find themselves and their church on opposite sides of an issue the denomination has deemed irreconcilable.
“It breaks my heart,” Kirby said. Still, “I don’t think anybody should be turned away from the church.”
“If the Methodist church divides because of that, I would just have to leave the Methodist church.”
Disaffiliation for Kenly UMC and any United Methodist congregation in Eastern North Carolina won’t be official until at least November. Until then, local churches must grapple with how to address disaffiliation, which side to pick and if there’s any way to reconcile the big tent of views within their congregation.
‘Struggle and strife’
On a hot, muggy Sunday this July, around 20 people sat scattered in the pews of the high-ceilinged sanctuary at Kenly UMC, fanning themselves languidly with cardboard fans. Soft light filtered in through the stained-glass windows and bathed the red carpet and the red Bibles lining the pews. Quiet, familiar chatter cushioned the air before a bell tolled 11 a.m. and the organist began a melody.
Kenly UMC submitted its paperwork to disaffiliate in late July, according to Dunham, who has been the congregation’s pastor for five years.
“The teaching of the United Methodist Church is that every person is a person of sacred worth. And I totally agree with that,” said Dunham, who also pastors Sims UMC, another small, theologically conservative congregation looking to disaffiliate. “We don’t exclude anybody. We’re not fearful of anybody. We love each person that comes in the door.”
At the same time, he said, he and much of the two church congregations believe that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Gay people should not be ordained, and “marriage is best seen between one man and one woman,” he said. “That’s the teaching of the church.”
For Dunham, the “tipping point” came when it seemed clergy members could violate the Book of Discipline — United Methodist law and doctrine — without facing consequences from their bishops.
“The Book of Discipline has become optional,” Dunham said. “I took a vow to both proclaim the gospel and to teach the discipline of the church. … I see people violating that, with their conscience, which they’re welcome to do.”
But by association, Dunham said he and his congregations felt they had to condone a practice the church has long prohibited and that he and his congregants see differently.
Elaine Richardson, 62, has attended Kenly UMC for generations. In the same church she attends every Sunday, her mother was baptized, her parents were married and her father’s funeral service was held.
Now, she sees the UMC as moving in the wrong direction. Performing or condoning gay weddings violates Christian teaching, Richardson said. “That’s not the way we believe it. We believe what is in the Bible is the word of God.”
Sims UMC congregant LaVohn Lewis, 83, is no stranger to changes in the church. Her parents attended Sims back in 1923, and she joined the church in 1950 — all before the UMC was founded.
“We are a traditionalist congregation,” she said, and she feels that United Methodist teachings are straying from scripture. “We have to be strong in our beliefs.”
“The name of the game is struggle and strife,” she said. “We will get through it.”
‘We are United Methodist’
One of the major challenges for a church looking to disaffiliate is cost.
Under the 2019 disaffiliation guidelines, churches get to keep their property when they leave, without payment to the denomination.
Still, they must contend with other costs that can be prohibitive: unfunded pension liability for retired clergy and annual proportional payments that congregations make to support broader ministries of the church.
For Kenly and Sims, just the unfunded pension liability payments make up around 30% of their annual budgets. Raising that money will be a challenge for these small, rural churches.
Other churches know they will remain United Methodist.
The laity and clergy at Elizabeth Street UMC in Durham, for example, advocate from within for the UMC to take an affirming stance on sexuality.
Elizabeth Street UMC is affiliated with the Reconciling Ministries Network, a movement within the church campaigning for the full inclusion of LGBTQ people. Rainbow pride flags decorate the walls of the Elizabeth Street sanctuary, and congregants don rainbow face masks and accessories.
Cody Hamilton joined Elizabeth Street UMC with his husband, David Henkins, after growing up Southern Baptist and feeling as though there was no church for him once he came out as gay.
But after attending a service at Elizabeth Street UMC, Hamilton “knew this was where we needed to be,” he said.
Even some churches with a mix of views lean toward staying.
The Rev. Mitzi Johnson of Soapstone UMC in Raleigh, said that not one member of her 600-person congregation has asked her about disaffiliation. She has addressed the issue from the pulpit, and some asked if the church needs to take a vote on the issue.
“What I’ve said is, ‘No, we just continue being United Methodists. It’s like a marriage. We don’t pause at the end of each year and say, shall we continue? Are we up for another year? The basic assumption is we’re going to continue on being United Methodist,’” Johnson said.
The Rev. Alan Felton, Benson Memorial UMC’s pastor since the start of July, knows he wants to remain United Methodist. His mother, the late Rev. Gayle Felton, was an influential United Methodist theologian and an early leader of the Reconciling Ministries Network. She was also openly gay as a minister.
“My mother’s sexuality gave me an appreciation that all people are loved by God,” Alan Felton said.
Most of the congregation at the Raleigh church wants to stay with the UMC, even despite their varying views on sexuality, he added. “We are United Methodist.”
A ‘purple church’
Pam and Bret Lehman have attended Benson Memorial UMC since 1988. They try to “stay out of the fray” and avoid conversations around sexuality in the church, Pam Lehman said.
“We come to church to worship as a community. The divisiveness in the culture and the world as a whole is starting to enter the church, and I hate it,” she added.
Other churches are still figuring out how to broach the topic.
Fuquay-Varina UMC, with around 800 members on its rolls, is a “purple church,” with members spanning the political and theological spectrum, according to the Rev. Owen Barrow. “Our strength is in our diversity of understanding and approaches to the world,” he said. “I’ve learned just as much from people that I will never agree with, as from people I always agree with.”
FVUMC discussed sexuality and disaffiliation most pointedly in 2019, and saw a number of laity on both sides of the debate leave the church. Now, leaders are gearing up to hold those conversations again in the fall.
From the pulpit, Barrow has started to discuss the denominational shift and explain the UMC’s bureaucracy to get the congregation up to speed.
For Matt Harrenstein, who wants to see the UMC move in a more inclusive direction, the impact of these conversations will rely on the church’s commitment to community.
“The role of the church is to develop relationships so that we can have meaningful conversations around faith and around what it looks like to love each other,” he said. “If we keep the focus on us being a family of faith, it’s harder to walk away” from each other.
‘A necessary process’
Churches have until the end of next year to disaffiliate under the 2019 framework. After that, they’ll be subject to whatever guidelines and resolutions the General Conference adopts in 2024.
Leaders have emphasized that churches that know they will remain United Methodist, in addition to the denomination at large, can continue on with their ministry.
“Just as we do now, each pastor and church can continue to practice ministry as they hear and follow the Spirit,” Leonard Fairley, bishop of the North Carolina Conference, wrote in a July 14 statement. “What we are experiencing now is a necessary process that will ensure that disciples of Christ are being developed and living in the peace, love and justice of Christ.”
As the separation has unfolded, misinformation surrounding disaffiliation and the future of the UMC has complicated an already fraught process.
“These untruths and misinformation are being used as tools of fear,” Fairley wrote in an Aug. 4 statement. The NCC will host three webinars this month to clarify the disaffiliation agreement, clergy withdrawal and “the future of The United Methodist Church.”
Many are looking forward to what the remaining UMC can become, and to finally resolving this conflict — even if that means fracture.
“We’re all so tired. We’re tired of fighting over this subject,” said the Rev. Donna Banks of Epworth UMC, a Reconciling congregation in Durham.
For Banks, the future of the UMC is the full inclusion of LGBTQ people.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said, referring to a history of schisms in the Methodist church. In the 19th century, the church divided over slavery, and jurisdictions were segregated when the church reunited in 1939.
“In the same way we had to repent for putting our Black churches in a separate conference, this will be something else we would have to repent for,” Banks said. “I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history again.”
Banks added that seeing openly LGBTQ individuals continue to seek ministry positions in the UMC gives her hope. “If you can stand here and be in this limbo position, I can come and stand with you,” she said. “Despite what you see, you hope that we will, at some point, be able to welcome you with open arms.”
‘I belong here’
For Webb-Bowden, the pastor at Elizabeth Street UMC, the tension in the UMC has been like “a bad marriage that needed to end a long time ago.”
And while the division means that the UMC can ultimately emerge as a healthier denomination, she said, it also means that as churches leave, the denomination will shrink on a global level.
“There will not be as many dollars supporting the general church and mission and ministry, and that grieves my soul,” Webb-Bowden said.
In the meantime, clergy and laity alike must grapple with the issue within their own churches.
Peter Brick, a member of FVUMC, said he would welcome and support LGBTQ people as congregation members. But he sees homosexuality as a sin and the ordination of gay ministers as inconsistent with scripture.
Even so, Brick, who joined FVUMC three years ago, does not want the church to disaffiliate. He said he would likely remain with the congregation even if it started ordaining gay ministers.
“I belong here, and I like it,” Brick said. “Anything that goes to attack the unity of the church or undermine the church is problematic.”
This story was originally published September 2, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Un-United Methodists: Church splinters between its conservative and gay-affirming sides."