The majority of the “supreme court” of the United Methodist Church, the Judicial Council, has affirmed the re-instatement of Frank Schaefer, an Eastern Pennsylvania pastor who was defrocked last year for performing a same-sex wedding. The UMC’s governing Book of Discipline affirms the biblical teaching that sexual relations are only for the covenant of man-woman marriage, and forbids our ministers from blessing or our churches from hosting “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions.”
As noted, I am disappointed with this flawed decision, but the implications are much narrower than many think. Indeed, the Judicial Council itself acknowledged that in this decision, “Some may see a flagrant disregard for parts of the Discipline,” but insisted that it was simply doing its job to uphold the letter of the law.
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