(AgapePress) - Louisiana United Methodists have rejected a proposal that would have required members of the church to renounce racism, adultery, and both heterosexual and homosexual sex outside marriage.
The petition submitted by New Orleans pastor Dr. Woody Hingle would have affirmed that "local church membership in the United Methodist Church is open to all persons and requires repentance of sin, which includes racism, heterosexual sexual relations outside the marriage bond, and the practice of homosexuality." However, the measure was overwhelmingly rejected by delegates from the Louisiana UMC Annual Conference.
Hingle believes the petition failed because United Methodist delegates were uneasy about declaring that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching." But if they balked at that, he wonders what other biblical standards will be called into question.
"What other sins then don't have to be repented of for membership?" the pastor asks. "You know, if someone's in an adulterous relationship [or] unrepentant about having a lifestyle of lying or thievery or whatever -- where are you going to draw that line?"
Repentance and inclusiveness are two major components of disciple-making, Hingle contends. "And so, the heart of the petition really is, how do we define what it means to make disciples of Jesus Christ?" he says.
But while it is essential to look to scripture to reconcile these components, the United Methodist minister adds, the Louisiana conference delegates demonstrated the same low view of God's Word modeled by leaders in the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church USA.
"We have this statement in the Book of Discipline from General Conference, that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching," Hingle points out. But to the delegates at the Louisiana UMC gathering, he notes, "it is as though those authorities didn't matter."
Apparently, what mattered to the delegates instead, the New Orleans pastor asserts, was their own experience and reasoning. It is the idea that "those authorities trump scripture and what we have in our Discipline that concerns me," he says.
Hingle feels the rejection of his petition by the Louisiana Annual Conference of the UMC is a reflection of the denomination's current state of chaos. He says he was prompted to submit the petition after the top court of the UMC reinstated a pastor who was originally suspended for denying church membership to an unrepentant homosexual.
© 2006 AgapePress
