Decision 1032, based on Paragraphs 214 and 225 of the denomination's law book, The Book of Discipline, said the paragraphs are "permissive, and do not mandate receipt into membership of all persons regardless of their willingness to affirm membership vows." The ruling meant that the pastor in charge of a local church has authority to determine a layperson's readiness for membership.Several Annual Conferences, including the Northern Illinois Conference, have sought a revisit of the decision. Today, the Council, in essence, said, "It isn't up to us."
A United Methodist pastor has the right to determine local church membership, even if the decision is based on whether the potential member is gay or lesbian.One would admire this example of judicial restraint and respect for the principle of stare decisis if, say, the Church were just as willing to toss out adulterers, divorced folks, thieves, and other such miscreants. Instead, we have the specter of local church membership being decided not by the Grace of God but the social predilections of clergy.
Annual (regional) conferences cannot limit that right or ask the church’s top court to set policy, the United Methodist Judicial Council ruled during its Oct. 27-30 meeting.
“The General Conference is the only body authorized and able to resolve the issue for the Church,” wrote Jon R. Gray in a concurring opinion on one of the October cases. The General Conference is the denomination’s top legislative body and meets every four years.
The denomination has set the question of the status of sexual minorities on the back burner far too long. With this decision not to decide the Judicial Council at least opens up the possibility of clarifying, once for all, that membership in a local congregation of the United Methodist Church is not at the behest of the too-often faulty judgments of appointed clergy, but solely the provenance of the grace of God.
General Conference is in two years. I think now is the time to submit petitions for consideration on this matter. Being the Body of Christ is far too serious a matter to leave to the ordained folks among us.
4 comments:
This is one reason why I prefer the Presbyterian style of church governance. The pastor is just an employee.
To be honest, I had no idea our polity gave clergy under appointment this kind of power. It's actually kind of frightening. That's why I say it might not be a bad idea to start sharpening pencils and getting petitions ready for General Conference.
Personally, the Quadrennium business is antiquated. While I think annual meetings, such as the Presbyterians have, would be as potentially anarchic as ours is lethargic, moving to a meeting every two years would work.
Our GAs moved to every two years a few years ago because the far right wing of the church hoped that will slow down progress on gay issues. Hasn't really solved anything, but I suppose it is cheaper. Given how useless our GA's usually are, cheaper is better.
Only our Session has the responsibility for deciding membership. However, a pastor could, if they choose to, refuse to participate in the service, I suppose. But if the Session agreed to admitting someone to membership and the pastor refused to participate in the service, it seems unlikely that pastor that would last very long.
Our clergy have exactly three jobs: moderate (not run) the Session, preach the sermon, and pick the hymns. Of course, plenty of congregations in the PCUSA let pastors run everything. But that's not supposed to be how it works, fortunately. I've always figured it must be a fairly freeing situation for a pastor, unless they're a control freak.
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