"If the One Church Plan passes, I'm certain you will not stop trying to make me fit your idea of a loving person." "You surely don't want to be united with me, if I am as mean and unloving as I am accused," Nicklas said. The way the plan has been discussed is harmful, she said. "When that is the message - when gay persons become convinced I don't love them because I don't condone their behavior, it hurts my relationships with them," Nicklas said. "By those advocating for the One Church Plan, I was either told explicitly that I am mean-spirited and unloving for holding to the church's doctrine on same-sex relationships, or the general tenor of the communications implied that I am unloving if I don't agree to change the church's Discipline. In opposition, Cara Nicklas of Oklahoma faulted the way the impassioned debate has played out over the church's competing plans. That triggered a number of speeches for and against the idea. "I'm asking you to wash your hands of this Traditional Plan today," Berlin said as his supporters applauded, "because it will bring that illness into our house." into churches in other countries.īerlin urged anyone who is against the minority report to abstain from voting or to reject the Traditional Plan so the church would maintain its current status quo. "It's going to be about the people we don't serve," Berlin said, "and the disagreement that will continue."īerlin, who is the lead pastor of Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Va., added that a "virus of conflict" would then cross from the U.S. And they will do weddings they will break the Book of Discipline there will be trials it will be in the news," he said, adding that the focus will shift away from any good the church accomplishes. Some conferences will leave, I believe," Berlin said. "Many pastors are going to lead their church away from the connection. "Many of us have members who will leave," he said, adding that he had already gotten texts and other messages to that effect in the aftermath of Monday's initial vote. "You will be putting a virus into the American church that will make it very sick, and it will be sick quickly," Berlin said, adding that however it's intended, the Traditional Plan will be perceived as an overt act against gay church members and others. On the other hand, Berlin warned, there would be dire consequences if the Traditional Plan were to be embraced - particularly for Methodist churches in the U.S., where they represent the country's second-largest Protestant denomination. "To those who would like to maintain the current Book of Discipline, you can still have it that way," Berlin said, adding that pastors would not be forced to perform same-sex weddings and churches wouldn't have to change their practices. "I doubt you're going to get a better offer today," Berlin said in his minority report speech, addressing delegates who might have withheld their vote because they felt the plan didn't go far enough. Trying to marshal support for the One Church initiative on Tuesday, Berlin of Virginia called it the "only shot at change" for people who want to lift blanket bans on same-sex couples who want to wed and on LGBTQ members of the church who want to be ordained. #GC2019 /2aHcw0CLL4- springboob squirepants February 25, 2019 The bishops had recommended endorsing the One Church Plan.įor anyone who missed it. And as the conference has shown, there is a wide diversity of deeply held opinions about those views. The report focused on sexuality and ways to strengthen the unity of a religious body that's home to a wide variety of views. When it formed the commission, the Council of Bishops said it had heard many criticisms that the Book of Discipline "contains language which is contradictory, unnecessarily hurtful, and inadequate for the variety of local, regional and global contexts." There, clergy and lay members of the church weighed how to respond to a 2018 report from a special church commission on revising the Methodists' guiding Book of Discipline. Louis, where delegates were meeting for this week's special session of the General Conference. The standoff over hotly contested aspects of church doctrine played out in St. Tom Berlin of Virginia - who compared it to a virus that would cause a dire sickness in America's Methodist community. The Traditional Plan prevailed, despite impassioned warnings from delegates such as the Rev.
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