Today I came across an interesting article discussing recent developments taking place at the United Methodist Church’s General Committee. Apparently a bill had been proposed to the committee that would allow for each church to individually decide whether or not they would accept LGBT identifying individuals as ministers and whether LGBT individuals would be able to marry within the church. While this motion did not pass the initial perusal by the committee, the issue will still be discussed in one of the next meetings of the Committee. Interestingly, an opposing movement to strictly enforce the anti-homosexual language in the greater Churches rulebook did pass through the committee to be voted on again in coming weeks. I was interested in the idea of the inclusive plan and what it would mean for the organization as a whole if each individual group had the power to make a decision on such a divisive issue independent of one another. Would that sort of autonomy create greater conflict in the organization as a whole? Should individual congregations be allowed to have that power to decide what should and should not be strictly adhered to from the rulebook? In addition I thought this related to a previous post I made discussing the trauma experienced by people who are attacked/shunned from their religious organization due to some factor of their gender or identity that did not mesh with the religious organizations ideals. Based upon the results of this delegation it would appear that the United Methodist Church is not taking steps to become more inclusive of diverse individuals, what will the long term impact of this decision be on LGBT members of the church? Personally I felt that this article gave an interesting insight into the continued struggle for diversification and tolerance within many religious organizations, and raised several interesting questions about acceptance of individuality by religious organizations going forward.

The article I read: https://religionnews.com/2019/02/25/united-methodist-committee-rejects-one-church-plan-which-would-allow-lgbt-clergy/