After a decades-long battle, United Methodist delegates repealed their church’s denominational bans on LGBTQ+ clergy, removing a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed ministers.
At the first General Conference in five years due to COVID-19, delegates voted 691-51 May 1 to remove the ban. The now-repealed ban was originally enacted in 1984, during this time the conference also voted to require “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.”
The following day, on May 2, delegates voted 523-161 to remove a 52-year-old declaration from the official Social Principles that deemed the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching”; the church’s 1972 General Conference approved the phrase.
Rev. Andy Oliver, Pastor of Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, was present during the 2024 General Conference. He says the people at the conference were fighting the hardest and they wanted to have the ability to create a new church.
“It was literally 52 years of work and 52 years of organizing,” Oliver says. “It really was a relay race of people that labored, some of them until they died and didn’t get to see the change. Many of them labored until they couldn’t take the toxicity anymore and had to leave and find a place of healing and safety.”
Every four years, the UMC gathers for its General Conferences. Oliver says that members would show up to try and change the rules of the church for inclusiveness, but things would get worse.
“Churches like Allendale and many other churches across the United Methodist connection began to just ignore the unjust rules,” Oliver says. “Basically, act as if they weren’t in place, and as we began to ignore those rules, we hosted weddings here.”
With the change, it doesn’t mandate or explicitly affirm LGBTQ+ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them. A measure was also approved that forbids district superintendents or regional administrators from penalizing clergy for either performing a same-sex wedding or for refraining from performing one.
Clergy members who were previously required to surrender their credentials because they were convicted of being a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” or because they presided at a same-sex marriage or union service may apply for readmission to their clergy session, according to the UMC website.
During the May 2 vote, marriage was given a new definition in the Book of Discipline, as marriage is between “two people of faith” rather than “between a man and a woman.” The offer came from delegate Molly Mwayera of East Zimbabwe, who noted many African countries do not allow for same-sex marriage due to laws.
It is possible that the rule change will mainly apply to U.S. churches since other countries, like many in Africa, have the right to impose the rules for their own regions. The UMC counts 4.6 million members in Africa.
The conference endorsed a regionalization plan April 26 that would allow the churches of the U.S. the same autonomy as other regions of the global church. This still requires local ratification as it could create a possibility where LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriage are allowed in the U.S. but not in other regions.
A footnote describing what a “self-avowed, practicing homosexual” is has been removed. The measure took effect immediately May 3 upon the conclusion of the General Conference.
Rev. Dr. Vance Rains, Lead Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Orlando, says the wording needed to be modified as it was traditional. He thinks more liturgies will change as the time comes.
“My intention is that, whether it be a heterosexual couple or a same-gender couple, they’ll be treated exactly the same,” Rains says. “The language is traditional, it assumes a man and a woman, but many of us have been making that kind of modification anyway, even in heterosexual ceremonies.”
Rains made sure to note that it has always been the pastor’s decision to wed a couple, as the couple would have to be ready to get married.
The vote comes after the departure of more than 7,600 American congregations, mostly conservative, from the UMC. One-quarter of the denomination’s American total showed dismay over the denomination not enforcing its LGBTQ+ bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ ordination.
The UMC was formed in 1968 by the joining of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. In 2020, it was estimated the church had 12.5 million members worldwide, with 7 million in the U.S., according to Human Rights Campaign. The member count dropped to 5.4 million in the U.S. in 2022 and is expected to drop further with the new ruling.
As some churches have left, Rains says there’s been painful sorting with pastors and more conservative members leaving. For the more conservative UMCs, Rains says he hopes those churches do the theological and biblical work to understand the difference between accepting versus affirming.
“It’s an evolution from a simplistic reading of our Bibles to a deeper, faithful, more introspective look at what the Bible, not just what it says, but what it means and the whole of it,” Rains says.
The most common mistake when it comes to understanding verses or stories in the Bible is ignoring the context, according to Lifeway Research.
Rev. Dr. Jenn Stiles Williams, Lead Pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Orlando, says people need to look at the contextual and historical understanding of scripture. She says there was scriptural misinterpretation when it comes to the changes made at the conference.
“At St. Luke’s we take scripture very seriously, but we’re able to read it from a historical concept,” Williams says. “Being able to look at the words and really wrestle with our Methodist understanding of reason, tradition and experience as we come to scripture.”
When a third of the churches left, Williams says the global denomination had to make financial decisions. She says it wasn’t a bad decision as they got clear on their purpose and what it means to be a church.
In the new version, the church urges members not to condemn gays and lesbians. It describes human sexuality as a “sacred gift” and “healthy and natural part of life that is expressed in wonderfully diverse ways.” The change calls for human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and other racial, ethnic and gender categories.
With the new changes, Oliver says churches like Allendale UMC will continue to support its community but will also walk alongside its sibling churches to help them into the new reality.
“We were living as if the rules had already been changed for the last eight and a half years,” Oliver says. “But now the rules have been changed. There’s going to be a lot of work of healing that has to be done in all of our churches to live into these new rules and this new way of being.”
Oliver finds it remarkable to see some of the queer people who have stayed in the church to fight for change.
“Conservatives in the church did everything in their power to continue to dehumanize these people,” Oliver says. “Over those 52 years, queer people would have to listen to themselves be talked about as issues and not as people.”
It’s up to the LGBTQ+ community to decide if they feel safe in the UMC, Rains says. He hopes members of the community who have been looking for a safe spiritual community can find one now.
“We’ve been saying to certain people, we just don’t need your gifts and your abilities and the things that God has invested in you,” Rains says. “I think now that we can fully celebrate that, we’ll only benefit from it. We’ll be blessed by their gifts and their personhood.”
In 2020, an estimated 5.3 million LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. said religion is important to them, that they attend religious services or both, according to the Williams Institute. Some key findings were that middle-aged and older LGBTQ+ adults are more likely to be religious than younger adults, and LGBTQ+ adults of color are more likely to be religious than white LGBTQ+ adults.
Tom Boyko, administrative assistant at Mandarin United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, says he grew up with a Baptist background. He was leery of going back to church as a gay man, but he wanted to have faith. His late husband, Kendal Jolly, was raised as a member of the Assembly of God denomination but both joined Methodist Church when Jolly worked as choir director for St. Luke’s.
Boyko was with gay friends when he was personally invited to join St. Luke’s by Kim Barnes, Rev. Bill Barnes’ wife. Bill Barnes was the lead pastor of St. Luke’s before Williams took over.
“Right away that told me that if the pastor’s wife is inviting gay people to this church, that this church accepts gay people,” Boyko says. “Kendal and I were so involved, we started bringing gay friends there who had same beliefs and wanted to go to church but weren’t welcome anywhere.”
When Boyko’s husband passed away, St. Luke’s held a service in his memory along with a performance from the choir. Boyko says it was beautiful to see the pastors speak about the great faith Jolly had.
At St. Luke’s, Williams is the third lead pastor in its 40-year existence. The church was officially chartered in 1983 and the surrounding area now holds a community of 90,000 residents. Williams is proud to keep the church inclusive and welcoming for Central Florida.
“St. Luke’s has been on the forefront with … Rev. Bill Barnes making sure during the AIDS epidemic that we were hosting things like serenades and raising money for Central Florida,” Williams says.
At St. Luke’s, they believe that love, grace and the equity of a place at the table of Jesus Christ are afforded to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or socio-economic status, according to its website.
The core values at St. Luke’s are love lived out through acceptance, hospitality, community, discipleship, service and accepting it means Christ’s love knows no boundaries, Williams adds.
The UMC is now put in line with other denominations like the Presbyterian Church, the Lutheran Church and the United Church of Christ. A United Methodist believes that God loves all people and that they share in expressing that love, according to the United Methodist Church’s official website.
After being a part of the UMC for 12 years, Oliver says he carries stories with him of the people fighting for possible safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people. He thinks of Ben Wood, a young man in North Carolina who was gay. Oliver says Wood was very involved in his church but had a hateful youth director that condemned him.
“This young man took his life as a result of that action and it kept me going to want to continue to fight so that there would be no more Ben Woods,” Oliver says. “I wanted to fight and create a better church that would be safe spaces for LGBTQ youth and places for them to grow in who they were meant to be.”
Those types of inclusive churches are called reconciling churches, Rains says. He says that before the rules were changed some of the churches made a declaration that fully welcomed people.
“We’re making a big statement here and now we must consistently live up to it,” Rains says. “So, whoever walks through our doors, they know they’re going to be treated with utmost respect and their dignity is going to be respected.”
At First UMC of Orlando, the members celebrate the gift of diversity in the Downtown Orlando community and world, according to its website.
Rains says he’s been proud of his church but now he is proud of the denomination for making the official change. There has been a mood of celebration in the UMCs since the change. “It took us too long to get here, but we are here and we’re very hopeful about that,” Rains says.
When it was officially announced that UMC would remove the ban, Boyko says he was filled with joy, adding that he received a call from a UMC pastor involved in Jolly’s memorial service.
“She called me right away when it happened and she said, ‘I was thinking about you and Kendal today’,” Boyko says. “It was very emotional because churches should accept everyone, nobody should be excluded. Whether you’re rich, poor, white, black, gay, straight, everybody should be there because God is love, God isn’t hate.”
Now with the decision being finalized, Boyko thinks there are going to be a lot of good things that will happen with the church.
One of the things Williams is looking forward to at her church is same-sex weddings. She says she is honored to embrace those looking to get wed, especially members who have stuck with St. Luke’s for so long. Williams says this change will allow churches to move forward in making a difference in their community.
“The only thing that gets in our way is us,” Williams says. “We don’t have any excuses not to grow and to continue to do the good work that we have because there’s no dark shadow hanging over us.”
These changes allow anyone regardless of sexuality to walk through the doors of any UMC, Rains says. He thinks everyone has gifts and dreams that make them unique in the image of God.
As for the future of the UMC, it is up to the members to follow the new rules of acceptance. Anyone can make the church a new kind of place, Rains says.
“I don’t know what the future will look like exactly, but I just expect it to be richer,” Rains says.
Allendale UMC is a Reconciling Congregation: a place without barriers and a sanctuary for all, according to its website. Although Allendale is welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community, some churches may need to earn that trust, Oliver says.
He thinks some churches have to put in the work and if those churches are successful in that, then there could be a day when LGBTQ+ people can trust the UMC.
One of the ways churches can support LGBTQ+ people is by showing up in spaces alongside and fighting with them, Oliver says.
“I hope that churches show up at Pride and march in the parade, which can be a very healing experience for both the church and those who have been harmed,” Oliver says. “I hope churches celebrate their queer members.”
Those looking for more support in the UMC can find it with The United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus. It seeks to act in solidarity with one another and others who have been marginalized in the church, according to its website.
Oliver says churches should be involved in issues of advocacy as it helps everyone learn from their community.
“I think the more that we can be in relationship with one another, the closer we grow to each other and to God,” Oliver says.
