“If we cannot think alike, we may love alike”: Can the Methodist schism over queer clergy and same-sex marriage yet be healed?

Reverend Professor Glen O’Brien wrote an opinion article for ABC Religion and Ethics, posted 31 May 2024. Read the full article here.

On 3 May 2024, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) — the largest Methodist denomination in the world — removed the language of restriction on so-called “practising homosexuals” from church law. In effect, this lifts the ban on queer clergy and same-sex marriages in the UMC. The approach taken allows liberty of conscience at the local level, and is an attempt to keep progressives, centrists, and traditionalists in the same tent. It is essentially the same approach that the Uniting Church in Australia has taken.

This decision was made possible only after around a quarter of its congregations with a more traditional stance had disaffiliated. Some of these became part of a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church (GMC), which was launched in May 2022, after decades of acrimonious debate. Others joined smaller Methodist churches, such as the Free Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Church. A few simply became independent.

Learning to live together with difference has been a challenge for the church since New Testament times, and compromise solutions such as this will leave some more radical Methodists unhappy at both ends of the debate. The UMC will probably now be better equipped for its mission as a result of having resolved an internal division that has torn it apart for decades, freeing it up to direct its energies in a more outward direction.

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