United Methodist Church LGBTQ advocate says Charlotte conference is chance for progress

As delegates with the United Methodist Church gather in Charlotte for this year’s 11-day General Conference, things feel a bit different compared to years past, one member of the church’s LGBTQ caucus said.

The conference has been unusually quiet and lacking the vitriol that usually comes when discussing issues like removing anti-LGBTQ language from church doctrines, said Ophelia Hu Kinney, spokesperson for Reconciling Ministries Network.

That is due to the recent departure of many of the church’s more outspoken anti-LGBTQ members, she said.

And although not a guarantee, Kinney, who will be traveling to Charlotte from Maine for the conference, said she feels good about how it’s going as church leaders prepare to debate the issue again.

The conference is typically held every four years, but was delayed in 2020 due to the pandemic. This is the first time delegates have gathered since that delay, and since the denomination experienced a rupture over LGBTQ inclusion in the church.

Some of the biggest topics at the conference, known as the “Three R’s” have a good chance of passing, Kinney said, ushering the church into a new, perhaps more LGBTQ-accepting era.

The Three R’s

Delegates at the conference voted 586-164 to pass one of the three R’s, known as “regionalization,” on Thursday, the third day of the conference uptown at the Charlotte Convention Center, the Associated Press reported.

The proposed amendment will now go to annual conferences, or local governing bodies in the church, for a vote. It will need a two-thirds vote from them to become official.

Currently, the church is very U.S.-focused, Kinney said, but the proposal that passed would allow the creation of regional conferences throughout Europe, Africa and the Philippines, where the church has seen significant growth.

It would enable the U.S. church to make its own decisions around issues like LGBTQ inclusion that other branches of the church, in more conservative places and countries, may not agree with, the Associated Press reported.

The other two R’s, which are “removal” of anti-LGBTQ language from the Methodists’ Book of Discipline and “revision” of new social principles, are expected to pass, Kinney said.

Those two proposals relate to a longstanding issue within the church — how accepting it should be of LGBTQ people and ministers.

The Book of Discipline, which establishes laws and doctrine in the church, currently states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” Ministers are also prohibited from performing same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ people. That language was adopted in 1972 and could be removed at the conference.

“These are pretty deep fissures in the denomination that have been around for a long time, and the question of queer and trans inclusion has just kind of brought everything to a head in the last 12 to 16 years in particular,” Kinney said. “At this point, a lot of churches have disaffiliated.”

Denomination splinters

In recent years, many churches began withdrawing from the denomination over the issue, splintering into the more conservative Global Methodist Church (GMC). Some joined another denomination entirely, while others chose to become independent.

Many expected the progressive churches to be the ones to splinter, Kinney said, because a legal door allowed churches who disaffiliate to take church property, that is typically on loan, with them upon exit.

Instead, more conservative churches bowed out. And since 2019, a quarter of Methodist congregations in the U.S. have disaffiliated, including hundreds in North Carolina alone.

Broad Street United Methodist Church in Mooresville is one of the churches that split off, becoming a member of the Global Methodist Church denomination.

Members voted overwhelmingly to depart last year, with 1,593 voting in favor of leaving, 84 voting to stay, and 44 abstaining. The church could not be reached for comment Friday.

The majority of churches who left the United Methodist Church denomination in western North Carolina are from smaller, rural communities and suburbs that are more conservative. Iredell County saw more than a dozen congregations leave, including seven from Statesville.

Two churches from Charlotte also voted to leave, according to the Western North Carolina Conference — including Oak Grove Church of Charlotte.

NBC News reported the mass disaffiliation hampered the church’s budget due to a loss of revenue. It shrank from $604 million in 2016 to $347 million this year, leading to a reduction in pastors’ salaries, the report said.

In 2023, Oak Grove United Methodist lay leader Karen Reynolds said the continued practice of ordination of gays and lesbians to ministerial positions, including bishops, was contrary to denominational rules.

The 75 active members of the church, which is located on Old Statesville Road in Charlotte, voted by a margin of 9-to-1 to depart from the denomination last January.

But Kinney said she feels those anti-LGBTQ stances are counter to what the church preaches.

“I personally think that the church has an enormous responsibility to be as much of a leader as possible in the realm of advancing justice, especially for people on the margins and for our common good,” she said.

Fewer opposing voices at conference

So far, Kinney said, she’s pleased the discussions are moving smoothly.

“Because so many of the GMC folks have left, some of the louder voices against these things are no longer here,” Kinney said. “That doesn’t mean they’re not operating … their presence is not as strongly felt.”

The conference, which is being livestreamed, will run through Friday, May 3.