The U.S. Military And The United Methodist Church; When Will The UMC Catch Up?

By Rev. Gil Caldwell

Excerpts from “Chaplains stand by gay, lesbian troops“, July 5, 2012. Asbury Park Press.

WRIGHTSTOWN, N.J. – “Col. Timothy Wagoner has been an Air Force Chaplain for 20 years, serving a denomination – the Southern Baptists – that rejects same-sex relationships.Yet here he was at the chapel he oversees, watching supportively as an airman and his male partner celebrated a civil union ceremony.

‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ Wagoner said at the chapel at Joint Base McGuire Dix-Lakehurst, days later. ‘I don’t feel I’m compromising my beliefs…I’m supporting the community.’

Wagoner didn’t officiate at the ceremony – he couldn’t go quite that far. But his very presence at the gathering was a marker of how things have changed for active-duty clergy in the nine months since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was repealed and gays could serve openly.

‘As a Southern Baptist why was I here? I was here to lend support,’ Wagoner said. ‘I was here supporting Airman Umali. I’ve worked with him. He’s a comrade in arms.'”

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If this could happen in the US military, why not even more so in The United Methodist Church? In less than a week the Jurisdictional Conferences will be meeting.They have the opportunity through discussion and resolutions to rescue the now fragmented and prohibition-shaped ministry of UMC clergy to Lesbians and Gay men, and same sex couples. Resolutions could be passed that express our denominational commitment to total and not partial ministry to same gender couples. The UMC dare not wait until 2016 to affirm and approve complete ministry to those whom we believe are “persons of sacred worth”. We cannot be silent because of uncertainty about how the Judicial Council would respond. Some of us believe that a Judicial Council that could render unconstitutional, a denominational re-organization plan, would render our present restrictions on clergy, in conflict and at variance with what we believe and say about ministry in the Book of Discipline.

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Image courtesy of Rev. Gil Caldwell