Methodist split over homosexuality...

"Open hearts, open minds, open doors."
 Really?

So I read this great piece in the NY Times detailing a new and painful problem for the Methodist Church...the acceptance of gays.

In the article a minister is formally reprimanded for officiating the wedding of his son...to another man.

This hits particularly close to home for me as I grew up in the Methodist church
and with a Methodist minister as a dad.  One thing I remember about visiting other churches and then watching my dad preach after experiencing another minister:

1) My dad is quiet. He is no hellfire and brimstone, pulpit-pounding evangelic.  He speaks with quiet precision.
2) My dad never, ever (to my knowledge or recollection) preached politics from the pulpit. When parishioners would raise questions of that nature to him after service or during potlucks, etc., he would gently but firmly steer the conversation away from the topic.
3) My dad is extremely intelligent, well-read, and highly educated. This comes across in both his subject matter for sermons and in his daily conversation. He wasn't reared in a hellfire and brimstone household or environment, so it's just not in his nature to be that way.

Of course, my dad is also extremely conservative. Extremely. I think I can imagine his stance on homosexuality, well, I've had a brush with it myself. Let's say he's not exactly "open and affirming".

It's all very painful to think on and discuss. While I love my dad very, very much and have a great deal of admiration for him, and I know he would never be openly discriminatory towards anyone (one of his best friends was the first black bishop of the United Methodist Church in South Carolina), I also want desperately to talk to him about this and help him to see that the LGBT community needs faith leaders, needs acceptance, needs fellowship as well, or they are being driven away from Christ, and that's an unspeakable travesty.

The Methodist church seems to be a giant ship that's ever so slowly turning with the tide, and I can only hope that a lot of love, compassion, openmindedness, and faith goes into every parishioner, layman, and pastor's decision on how to steer that vessel.

~m

Some UMC's are ahead of the curve...