Division and defrocking because of same-sex wedding

Religious practices change all the time—just ask Catholics who celebrated mass in Latin until the 1960s or Protestant groups that started ordaining women as ministers in the 1970s. But are there certain core beliefs that can never change? 

Former Methodist minister Frank Schaefer on the division within the United Methodist Church (UMC) says:

"The church is really trying to sweep this under the rug and we're pretending we're all united, we're the United Methodist Church after all." 

For many years now several debates have gone on about celibacy and about intercourse with people of the other and of the same sex.

Conservative theologians within the United Methodist Church argue that Schaefer's defrocking was justified because church law, by definition, must be upheld — otherwise, it is not a church law. They maintain that homosexuals are welcome in the church, but that one should abstain from the practice of homosexuality. 

Schaefer says there was "no way in Hell" he would have declined when he was asked to ordain his son's same-sex wedding in 2007. "I saw it as an act of love," says Schaefer.  Others within the church saw it as an act of rebellion. 

“The ultimate debate is not over sexuality—it’s just one battle flag issue in the current culture wars that’s been going on in the last 150 years between traditionalist and liberal revisionists,”

says Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative Christian think-tank in Washington, D.C.UMC is experiencing a split in opinion on gay marriage.

Read more about it in: Religious Hoi Polloi

Matt Rourke/Associated Press

The Rev. Frank Schaefer with his wife after meeting with Methodist leaders on Thursday.

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• A Church Divided: Methodists Clash Over Gay Marriage (financialsurvivalnetwork.com) + video
  Schaefer was stripped of his clerical credentials this past December after a 13-member jury of pastors found him guilty of disobeying church law. The UMC Book of Discipline, which contains the church’s laws and doctrines, forbids celebrations of same-sex marriages and asserts that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
  While Schaefer’s defrocking may have been meant as a warning to silence rogue pastor’s who disagree with the UMC Book of Discipline, it has arguably had the opposite effect: The church now faces a legitimate uprising by clergy members and laypeople within the denomination who passionately disagree with the church’s stance on homosexuality. The internal debate has been waging since 1972 when the first language condemning homosexual practice was introduced in the Book of Discipline.
  
• Defrocked pastor advocates for LGBQT community (chronicle.northcoastnow.com)
  An ordained United Methodist minister, Schaefer believed his son hid his feelings from him because of their close ties to the church — one that condemns homosexuality. His son’s fear of disapproval was so strong, he later found out, that he was contemplating suicide.
  “He cried himself to sleep many nights and he prayed to be normal. He decided it would be better to be gone,” Schaefer said.
  Fourteen years ago, Schaefer told his son that he accepted him. That he still loved him.
  Acceptance from his church in Lebanon, Pa., however, was a different story.
  On Thursday, Schaefer visited First Church in Oberlin to discuss how he was defrocked for officiating at the 2007 gay marriage of his son. Schaefer’s visit to Oberlin came just after a federal judge ruled that Ohio must recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages.
  
• Defrocked pastor to speak in Napa (napavalleyregister.com)
  Schaefer told his district superintendent within the Methodist church, but only told his congregation members when directly asked. However, a member filed a complaint with the national church’s Eastern Pennsylvania Conference in April 2013 — just 26 days before a statute of limitations would have expired — and triggered a church trial for defying the Methodist ban on uniting gay couples.
  After a two-day trial in November, a jury of Methodist clergy convicted Schaefer of disobeying church law. The church conference stripped Schaefer, who has two other gay children, of his minister’s credentials a month later after he declined to uphold the Book of Discipline’s gay-marriage prohibition. The expulsion is under appeal.
  
• Methodist jury convicts Pa. pastor for gay wedding (news.yahoo.com)
  
  Testifying in his defense, the 51-year-old pastor said he decided to break church rules out of love for his son. He said he might have lost what he called his "ritual purity" by disobeying the Methodist Book of Discipline, but that he felt he was obeying God's command to minister to everyone.
  "I love the United Methodist Church. I've been a minister for almost 20 years and there are so many good things about the United Methodist Church except for that one rule," said Schaefer, of Lebanon.
  Schaefer, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, could have avoided the trial if he had agreed to never again perform a same-gender wedding, but he declined because three of his four children are gay.
  The nation's largest mainline Protestant denomination accepts gay and lesbian members, but it rejects the practice of homosexuality as "incompatible with Christian teaching."
  The church's lawyer, the Rev. Christopher Fisher, told the jury that Schaefer clearly violated the Book of Discipline. He said the complainant, Jon Boger — a member of Schaefer's congregation — was dismayed and shocked when he learned this year about the ceremony.
• US Methodist church convicts minister for officiating at son's gay wedding (theguardian.com)
  "When pastors take the law of the church in their own hand … it undermines their own credibility as a leader and also undermines the integrity of the church as a whole," Boger said.
  He said he understood Schaefer's motivation.
  "It's his son. He loves his son. In a way I felt bad for him," Boger said. "But he's also shown no remorse or repentance, nor has he apologised to anyone."
  
• Methodist Pastor Defrocked Over Gay Marriage Service (nytimes.com)
  
  Members of the United Methodist Church, the nation’s third-largest Christian denomination, have been battling bitterly over homosexuality for four decades. The church now faces an increasingly determined uprising by clergy members and laypeople who have refused to cede, even after losing the most recent votes, at the Methodist convention last year, on proposals to change church teaching.
  “After 40 years of playing nice and attempting a legislative solution, we will not wait any longer,” said Matt Berryman, a former Methodist pastor who said he turned in his credentials because he is gay. He now serves as the executive director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, a Methodist gay rights group.
  In Philadelphia last month, 36 Methodist ministers recited the Declaration of Marriage on the steps of a Methodist church for two gay men in a 25-year relationship. In New York, Methodist clergy members have been triumphantly posting accounts on a blog of the same-sex marriages they have been performing.
• Fellow United Methodist pastor calls for Frank Schaefer to be 'openly rebuked' for officiating gay son's wedding (pennlive.com)
  Stallsworth urged jurors to set the punishment from a pedagogical standpoint – not merely a punitive one – meaning, that the sanctions should also be directed at sending other clergy a message. The church has penalized several pastors in recent years for performing gay marriages, handing down sanctions that range from suspension to removal of office. In the worst case scenario, Schaefer could be defrocked, or lose all of his ordination credentials.
  Stallsworth said the punishment should be determined for the good of all, including not just Schaefer, but for the instructional good of other clergy, the order of the church and the sustenance of all the members of the church.
  The open rebuke, he said, should be “proportionately effective” to help repair the common order of the church and to “protect the conscience of weaker bretheren.”
  
• Methodist minister defrocked for officiating son's same-sex wedding (myfox8.com)
  Schaefer was asked to immediately surrender his credentials, but he refused, forcing church officials to defrock him, the statement said.
  +
  Ewing expects the appeal to be tried some time in 2015.
  Asked of his plans until then, Schaefer said, “I will continue to be a voice for the LGBT community.”