United Methodists Likely to Fully Affirm Sodomy this Weekend

There are more than 12 million United Methodists worldwide and more than 4 thousand are meeting in Saint Louis from Saturday to Monday. Of these, more than 800 are voting delegates who will ultimately decide where the United Methodist Church stands on the topic of homosexuality.

Many might have assumed that the United Methodist Church already affirms sodomy because so many of its ministers have acted contrary to the UMC Book of Discipline and are outspoken proponents of the LGBT agenda. In actuality, however, the UMC has not yet affirmed disgusting same-sex desires and behavior. While homosexuals may serve as UMC clergy, they must remain celibate (much like famous Anglican homosexual priest promoted by The Gospel Coalition, Sam Allberry). Likewise, UMC clergy are not technically supposed to officiate gay weddings, although many have and continue to, sometimes with and sometimes without denominational sanction.

The Special Sessions of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church will decide whether or not this line should be stricken from the denomination’s Book of Discipline, The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.

Matt Miofsky, who is pastor of The Gathering, one of the largest and quickly growing UMC congregations in the United States, wrote an open letter encouraging the full inclusion of sodomites into the denomination. He wrote:

We are called to be passionate about Jesus, committed to the whole of Scripture, eager to share life in Christ with all people. We are also called to a robust, bold and unapologetic invitation to queer people to be fully active at all levels in our churches. These two are not contradictory, they are not mutually exclusive, and they do not represent a compromise of any strong belief in God, Scripture or Christ.

A group of 93 United Methodist educational institutions, schools, colleges, and seminaries has officially lobbied for full inclusion of sodomites into the denomination, as reported by P&P on January 11.

A task force called A Way Forward was to investigate where United Methodists stood on the issue. There was not a task force called to determine where the Bible stands on the issue.

It is expected by denominational insiders that the voting delegates at the special session will either fully affirm sodomy or give each church the right to decide the matter for themselves.

The odds of the denomination standing by their original condemnation of sodomy is infinitesimally small.