Leaders of the United Methodist Church have agreed in principle on a deal to split the church in two after years of division over the status of gay and transgender people in the church.
The church is America’s second-largest Protestant denomination. lists more than 13 million members in the United States and 80 million worldwide.
The new plan, if approved at the church’s worldwide conference in Minneapolis in May, would divide the denomination into two branches: a traditionalist branch that opposes gay marriage and the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clergy, and a more tolerant branch that will allow same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy.
The agreement was signed by 16 leaders of the church on both sides of the debate.
The US supreme court legalized same-sex marriage throughout the country in 2015, but that decision applies only to civil, not religious, services.
United Methodist Church (Photo Credit: CNN)
A council of Methodist bishops in Washington DC called Friday’s move the “best means to resolve our differences”.
New York Conference Bishop Thomas Bickerton, part of the group that drafted the plan, said this was a way to reach an amicable separation.
“The protocol provides a pathway that acknowledges our differences, respects everyone in the process, and graciously allows us to continue to live out the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ,” Reuters quoted Bickerton as saying.
Last year, delegates at a crucial United Methodist conference rejected a move to ease the faith’s ban on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy.
By a vote of 438-384, delegates from around the world attending the church’s General Conference in St. Louis reinforced a United Methodist Church policy established in 1972 stating that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
The proposal would have let regional and local church bodies decide for themselves on gay-friendly policies.
