Local Methodist churches react to changes
This week, during its General Conference in Charlotte, N.C., the United Methodist Church committed to one of the most far-reaching and dramatic changes in its centuries-long history by eliminating several anti-LGBTQ+ rules from its Book of Discipline.
These include language forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from serving as clergy and preventing same-sex marriages from being hosted at UMC churches or officiated by UMC clergy.
“It is time we caught up to our other denominations in terms of inclusivity,” said Dawn Check, pastor at the Christ Community United Methodist Church in Butler. “As Christians, we are called to love everyone, even if we don’t understand them.”
Ken Miller, pastor at the Harrisville United Methodist Church and the Forestville United Methodist Church, emphasized the changes allow churches to govern according to their conscience.
As part of the new legislation, language was added to the Book of Discipline which states superintendents cannot bar clergy from performing or not performing same-sex marriages.
“People who are conservative on those matters will still be allowed,” Miller said. “There will be no coercion one way or the other. If a church does or does not want to have same-sex marriage in their church, that’s up to them.”
David Janz, pastor at the First United Methodist Church in Butler, is far more lukewarm about the changes coming out of the General Conference. He expressed concern that the UMC had gone in a direction many of its flock would not follow.
“Our congregation tends to be a fairly traditional one, and chose to remain in the United Methodist Church after 2019 because we agreed with the positions that were there,” Janz said. “Now the positions are completely opposite.”
While still positive about the changes, Check is concerned about how churches in Western Pennsylvania will respond. She described her own as a “salad bowl of different positions” regarding this matter.
“For Western Pennsylvania, it will be a complicated issue, because we are traditionally more conservative than the rest of the United States,” Check said.
Janz said he is calling a “response meeting” for Thursday, during which he will present options for the church’s future. However, Janz has not ruled out the possibility the First United Methodist Church would go as far as seeking disaffiliation, as many churches in Western Pennsylvania did last year.
“We could stay United Methodist,” Janz said. “We can choose to exit and join another body of believers, or we can choose to become an independent church ourselves. Those are all options I think are on the table.”
Disaffiliating will be far more difficult this year and moving forward. At the 2019 General Conference, the church introduced Paragraph 2553 to its Book of Discipline, allowing any church to exit the denomination if they fulfill certain criteria. More than 7,600 churches in the U.S. alone disaffiliated from the UMC through this procedure, including seven in Butler County.
Paragraph 2553 expired at the start of 2024, and was officially voted out of existence by a 516-203 tally during the General Conference on Wednesday.
Some churches still have held votes on disaffiliation even after the expiration of Paragraph 2553, citing other sections of the Book of Discipline as justification.
Conversely, Miller believes the tide of disaffiliations has already turned, and doesn’t expect the atmosphere to change much at his church.
“I think a lot of the people who were unhappy with the way the church was heading have already moved on,” Miller said. “So I don’t expect there to be a huge change now. The huge change was the disaffiliation.”
