United Methodist leaders propose splitting church over LGBT rift

Members of the 13 million-person denomination have been at odds for years over the issue, with some congregations in the United States leading the call for full inclusion for LGBT people.

At a specially called meeting last February in St. Louis, delegates voted 438-384 for a proposal called the Traditional Plan, which affirmed bans on LGBT-inclusive practices. A majority of U.S.-based delegates opposed the plan, but they were outvoted by U.S. conservatives teamed with most of the delegates from Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines.

Methodists in favor of allowing gay clergy and gay marriage vowed to continue fighting. Meanwhile the Wesleyan Covenant Association, representing traditional Methodist practice, had already been preparing for a possible separation.

The Rev. Keith Boyette, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association and one of 16 people on the mediation team that developed and signed the separation proposal, said he is “very hopeful” the plan will be approved at the denomination's General Conference this year.

The proposal would give the separating body $25 million in United Methodist funds over four years. The remaining church would gain flexibility to adapt policies about including members of the LGBT community.

"We have to have the courage to do what is right, and that may mean we are not unified," said Rev. Jason Butler, pastor of Raleigh's Open Table United Methodist Church.

Butler said he supports separation that allows more traditionalist Methodists to break away, while his church's inclusive message can be carried out in policy.

"We feel called to be a fully inclusive church because we don't believe that anyone should be excluded or marginalized or pushed to the side based on who they love," he said. "For us, this is, in some ways, sad, but it's also, in some ways, exciting that we can live in a denomination where we can fully be who we believe God is calling us to be."

‘We Are Not Going Anywhere’: Progressive Methodists Vow to Fight Ban on Gay Clergy

The United Methodist Church is one of the only non-evangelical Protestant churches that does not perform same-sex marriages

"Any time we are so deeply conflicted as a church, it's sad," said Rev. Alan Felton, executive pastor of North Raleigh United Methodist Church, which has both conservative and progressive members.

"I would hope that we could find a way for the United Methodist Church to remain intact because we will grieve the loss for anyone to go. At the same time, there are very real differences," Felton said.

According to the protocol statement, separation represents "the best means to resolve our differences, allowing each part of the Church to remain true to its theological understanding, while recognizing the dignity, equality, integrity, and respect of every person."

Boyette stressed that, while the churches remaining in the United Methodist Church would keep the denomination's name, both the new church and the post-separation Methodist Church would be different from the current Methodist Church.

“This is not a leaving, but a restructuring of the United Methodist Church through separation,” he said.

Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, the leader of the United Methodist Church in North Carolina, agrees.

"The proposal is the outcome of a skillfully mediated process in which these leaders came to a unanimous sense of possibility for our future," Ward said in a letter to church members. "Styled by some media as a split, all the participants understand this to be a continuity of the UMC with provisions for separation for those who desire to do so."

The proposal, called “A Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation,” envisions an amicable separation in which conservative churches forming a new denomination would retain their assets.

“The undersigned, in recognition of the regional contexts and divergent points of view within the global United Methodist Church, propose separation as a faithful step with the possibility of continued cooperation around matters of shared interest, enabling each of us to authentically live out our faith,” the proposal states.

The proposal requires approval from the church’s 2020 General Conference, which will be held in May in Minneapolis. Legislation is still being drafted, the church said Friday.

If the church chooses division, Felton and Butler said they pray for common ground.

"Hopefully, there can be avenues of partnership around mission," Felton said.

"The hope is it's not this sort of divorce," Butler said.