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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
‘A better church is possible:’ Methodists celebrate as the church | |
embraces the LGBTQ | |
By Chelsea Bailey, CNN | |
Updated: | |
7:00 AM EDT, Sun May 5, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
On a Sunday morning in 2020, while Rev. Andi Woodworth welcomed her | |
congregation to the in Atlanta, Georgia, she had an epiphany. | |
For years, Woodworth said she and her wife and co-pastor, Anjie, worked | |
to build a United Methodist Church community that was “radically | |
inclusive” of everyone – especially its LGBTQIA+ members. | |
Their church flouted the Methodist denomination’s official ideology, | |
which, in 1972, declared homosexuality was “” and later banned | |
“self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from becoming ordained. | |
But that Sunday morning, as she welcomed everyone to church no matter | |
their race, identity, or sexuality, Woodworth said she realized she | |
was talking to herself. | |
“At the very beginning of 2020, I came out to myself as being | |
trans,” she said. “I thought I was this White straight guy and, as | |
it turns out, that’s not who I am at all. I spent a lot of the | |
quarantine time at home figuring some things out about myself and | |
realized that Anjie and I helped to start a church where I could | |
actually be myself.” | |
While she was accepted by her own church community, Woodworth said the | |
decision to embrace being a trans woman and a pastor in the United | |
Methodist Church also meant that she could lose her job, her home and | |
her congregation. | |
“I’m trans and that means if I’m going to be honest with myself | |
and authentic in how I show up in the world, I’m going to have to | |
wade into not just my own congregation, but into my denomination,” | |
Woodworth said. “I was really not sure how that would go.” | |
A church at war with itself | |
The United Methodist Church has been at war with itself for decades | |
over its stance on homosexuality. | |
Until recently, pastors were forbidden from performing same-sex | |
marriages and those who did risked punishment, including being put on | |
trial by the church, suspended or defrocked. One minister was even | |
ousted for . | |
Others told CNN they felt they were blocked from becoming ordained | |
after coming out. For decades, it is speculated that thousands of | |
clergy and church members hid their sexuality, while a chasm grew | |
between the conservative, the closeted and the challengers who | |
protested the church’s anti-LGBTQ stance. | |
“There was always the threat for queer clergy that even with a | |
supportive Bishop, even with the opportunity to serve in an out or | |
semi-out way, that charges could be brought because the rules did | |
exist,” Rev. Kristin Stoneking told CNN. | |
In 2019, the United Methodist Church’s governing body for | |
congregations to petition to leave over the issue. By 2023, a, more | |
than 7,600 churches voted to disaffiliate, with many | |
conservative-leaning congregations splintering off. | |
But that longstanding schism ended this week when, in a historic move, | |
the church passed a series of measures to from its Book of Discipline, | |
which sets out the denomination’s bylaws and regulations. | |
The church’s governing body marked a new era of by voting to lift | |
the bans on LGBTQ clergy and on pastors performing same-sex unions. | |
They also removed the language that said homosexuality was | |
“incompatible with Christian teaching.” | |
Many, including Woodworth, felt the changes were monumental. | |
“This change in our church law is so huge because it means that folks | |
can choose to show up as who they really are and still choose to serve | |
God,” she said. | |
Anjie Woodworth, who attended the meeting known as the “General | |
Conference,” said she watched as, with each vote, many of her | |
colleagues and friends dissolved into tears. | |
“We’ve basically been through a denominational divorce already in a | |
lot of ways,” she said. “There’s been so much harm done and so | |
much abuse wrought on queer folks in our denomination – really | |
overtly sometimes at past General Conferences – I think people’s | |
fear and trauma responses have been coming up, even though things were | |
going well.” | |
Anjie serves on the board of the , an organization that’s worked for | |
40 years to ensure full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the United | |
Methodist Church and clergy. | |
She said she celebrated the end of the church’s anti-LGBTQ policies | |
with people who had been fighting for that inclusion for longer than | |
she’s been alive. | |
“To get to watch these young folks celebrate with folks who have been | |
at this work for decades … I was sobbing just at the beauty of it | |
all,” she said. | |
Elation tempered by sadness | |
Rev. Andy Oliver, senior pastor at the in St. Petersburg, Florida, | |
said after such a historic week his thoughts are immediately drawn to | |
the thousands of people who aren’t alive to witness the change, | |
including his friend Robert “BJ” Jackson. | |
Oliver said his views on homosexuality changed when he met Jackson, his | |
choir director in college. Jackson was gay and in a loving | |
relationship, but he was forbidden from marrying his partner, Tim. | |
Over the years, Oliver said he and Jackson became best friends. He | |
didn’t hesitate when they asked him to officiate their wedding, or | |
dwell on the consequences performing the ceremony could have within the | |
Methodist church. | |
BJ and Tim’s May 2014 wedding was the first same-sex union Oliver | |
performed. He says he’s spent the last decade battling complaints and | |
the threat of a church trial for officiating 26 others. | |
Robert “BJ” Jackson died in | |
“He is really one of the reasons why I dedicated myself to this work | |
… to create a church that would be fully inclusive and loving for | |
him,” Oliver said. | |
He called Tim, Jackson’s widow, after the church’s historic week. | |
“I said, ‘You know, and I know, BJ was here,” Oliver said, | |
growing emotional. “Can you imagine staying a part of a church all | |
this time that in its rules tells you you’re incompatible? And yet | |
you stay, and you fight because you know, a better church is | |
possible.” | |
The Real Work Begins | |
The United Methodist Church, is one of the largest mainline Protestant | |
Christian denominations in the United States, according to the Pew | |
Research Center. As of 2022, the it has more than 5.4 million members | |
in the US, across nearly 30,000 active churches. | |
The church has deep roots in Savannah, Georgia, where the founder of | |
the Methodist movement – John Wesley – served as a minister when | |
the city was the capital of the British colony, according to . | |
Rev. Billy Hester, said the church’s legacy and impact is visible | |
throughout Savannah, which made it even more consequential when, in | |
2019, his congregation at Asbury Memorial Church voted to leave the | |
denomination over its stance on homosexuality. | |
Hester said many of Asbury’s congregation identify as LGBTQ and after | |
years of fighting against the UMC’s bylaws, the vote to disaffiliate | |
was overwhelming. | |
Although his church is no longer a member of the UMC, Hester said he | |
was encouraged by the news this week. | |
“I’m sorry that there’s been so much pain and suffering up until | |
this point. I’m so glad this happened for the denomination,” he | |
said. | |
But he also cautioned against sweeping pronouncements of change. | |
“Just because the denomination says it’s okay, doesn’t mean the | |
local churches will. What I hope will happen now in these Methodist | |
congregations is for LGBTQ folks to feel very affirmed.” | |
CNN’s Justin Gamble contributed to this report. | |
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