By Jim Brown, American Family Radio News
July 2004 – “Water Washed, Spirit Born.” That was the recent theme of the United Methodist Church’s (UMC) 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh. However, what this reporter witnessed was not a denomination guided by the Holy Spirit, but one that is divided over the authority of Scripture. “United” Methodist may well be an oxymoron.
Homosexuality was a highly volatile issue for the General Conference, as it has been since 1972. Leading up to the gathering, there was great publicity surrounding the acquittal in a UMC clergy trial of a lesbian pastor who had been accused of “practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings.” Although the denomination’s highest court, the Judicial Council, did not overturn the ruling, it did state that “a bishop may not appoint one who has been found by a trial court to be a self-avowed, practicing homosexual.” Conservatives had hoped the court would vacate the ruling, but agreed that the church’s high court did not have the authority to review the findings of the trial court in the case involving Pastor Karen Dammann.
Just days after the conference, Dammann announced she would not be returning to the pulpit. Conservatives breathed a collective sigh of relief, but were not happy to hear the denomination inexorably proclaim that the openly lesbian minister was still “a pastor in good standing.”
Orthodox Methodists did score a victory when convention delegates voted 55% to 45% not to amend the church’s Book of Discipline to include the statement, “We recognize that Christians disagree on the compatibility of homosexual practice with Christian teaching.”
Unity among delegates was lacking, and activists on both sides were highly organized. Conservatives and liberals both held daily breakfast briefings to strategize for upcoming votes on pivotal resolutions. It was not unusual to see a few liberal moles attending meetings of the renewal group Good News. Leftist special interest groups like Reconciling Ministries and Soulforce staged protests outside the convention center, begging for press attention.
The delegates were harshly divided even on procedural matters, such as whether to recount votes following a voting machine malfunction. Anger also arose when several overseas delegates were unable to cast their votes on certain resolutions because moderating bishops did not allow enough time for interpreters to finish their work.
Delegates were equally divided on the major social issues. Conservative women again petitioned the Women’s Division to withdraw its support for the radical Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a pro-abortion group that denounces abstinence education and equates pro-life Christians with the Taliban. However, calls for supplemental women’s ministries and concerns about the leftist activism of the Women’s Division were not even addressed. Instead, delegates spent time passing committee resolutions supporting slavery reparations and denouncing the Iraq War, President Bush’s education reform law, the death penalty and Native American sports mascots.
Little, if any, floor time was given to evangelistic efforts in the UMC. Not surprising since “Christo-normative inclusivists” like Bishop Joe Sprague of Northern Illinois and liberal clergy of his ilk dominate the church’s hierarchy. Sprague told me that there is no need to evangelize Muslims and Jews because they worship the same God Christians do. Interviews with bishops, clergy, and lay delegates affirmed that denominational politics and the promotion of liberal social causes are much higher priorities than evangelism.
For the first time at a General Conference, orthodox Methodists openly talked of a church split. That may finally come over the issues that dominated the 2004 General Conference. Methodist founder John Wesley once confessed: “I’m a Bible-bigot. I follow it in all things great and small.” While only time will reveal the role of this conference in the history of Methodism in America, one thing is for certain: whether the UMC’s future is great or small depends on whether it follows its founder’s example. 
