Methodists focus on common goals at conference

But LGBT issues continue to stir tensions

GROVE CITY, Pa. — The large college gymnasium pulsed with contemporary praise music Thursday evening as hundreds of United Methodists gathered for an evening ordination service.

It was one of several moments in their annual regional conference where they emphasized a common mission — but they also acknowledged the worsening fissures in their denomination.

The Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church began meeting Wednesday and continues through Saturday.

It was the first regional annual meeting since a landmark February vote in St. Louis by representatives of the worldwide denomination to reinforce its bans on ordaining or marrying LGBT persons.

In Western Pennsylvania Methodism, which has a wide spectrum of views but is more conservative overall, the attendees sought to navigate tensions over the issue even as they sought to reverse declining membership and combat racism.

Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, in her State of the Church address Thursday afternoon, urged members not to step back from ministry while waiting to see how the denomination resolves the controversy.

“I am grateful to those saying we’re not putting a pause on anything,” she said, citing efforts to evangelize as well as to tackle social-justice issues such as gun violence, racism and poverty.

For those who “wait to see what the denomination is doing,” she said: “Men and women and boys and girls are literally and spiritually dying.” Many “are slipping into despair, and they don’t really care what our denomination is going to do . ... They need somebody to tell them about a God who loves them unconditionally.”

Conservative and progressive groups are making their presence known at the gathering.

A group of about 50 people, many wearing rainbow colors in solidarity with LGBT people, gathered for a noon service Thursday outdoors on the campus of Grove City College, where the meeting is

being held.

“There’s a lot of concern, a lot of hurt,” said Tracy Merrick, a member of First United Methodist Church of Pittsburgh and of Reconciling Ministries, which supports full inclusion of LGBT persons in church rites. “There are huge uncertainties” about the impact of church policies in Western Pennsylvania, he said.

The Wesleyan Covenant Association of Western Pennsylvania, which supports the denomination’s current policies, is also hosting midday gatherings.

The latter group has endorsed a slate of candidates for delegates to the next General Conference of the denomination, meeting in 2020. Another group, called the Broader Table Coalition, is endorsing a slate that is more diverse ideologically and in other ways.

The 2020 convention is the next time the denomination as a whole could take up the issues of gay ordination and same-sex marriage.

However, the special General Conference in February 2019 was set aside to deal with these topics, and delegates decisively rejected an option that would have allowed each church or region to set its policies. Instead, those delegates approved a “Traditional Plan,” upholding the churchwide bans on the ordination of any “selfavowed practicing homosexual” and on same-sex marriages. They added mandatory penalties for violations.

Such votes reflect growth in conservative portions of the international church, particularly in Africa, which are gaining representation in general conferences.

Many are talking about a possible split in the denomination, which is the last of the large, historic “mainline” Protestant groups to maintain such policies.

The Western Pennsylvania delegates are considering legislation recommending a task force study on how an amicable restructuring of the denomination might work out.

Katherine Fehl, a member of the regional leadership council of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, said she was disappointed that some leaders in other conferences are defying church rules on ordination and marriage.

“Everybody’s hurting” but shouldn’t translate that hurt into defiance, she said. But the Western Pennsylvania Conference “in particular does a pretty good job of just being loving to each other regardless of what our opinions are.”

In other issues, Bishop Moore-Koikoi issued strong condemnations of racism and misogyny within the conference, which spans 23 counties. She pledged strong support to women pastors who, she said, in some cases have been unsafe in their homes or churches and have had to take out restraining orders against dangerous persons.

Bishop Moore-Koikoi, the conference’s first AfricanAmerican woman bishop, also confronted racism directed toward ministers.

“No more will anyone say they won’t accept a Korean pastor or a black pastor,” she said forcefully. “If you say that, we’re going to ask you to step down from leadership, because that’s not a representation of what Jesus Christ has called us to be.”