Lesbian UMC bishop laments denomination’s ban on ‘queer clergy’
A United Methodist Church bishop, whose election was declared invalid in 2017 for being in a same-sex marriage but who remains in office, has denounced the denomination’s ban on “queer clergy” in a General Conference sermon.
Bishop Karen Oliveto of the UMC Mountain Sky Area gave a message on Monday morning before the churchwide UMC General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.
During her remarks, Oliveto asked those gathered if they were “willing to make God’s love visible in all you do” and if they would “meet and serve Jesus in the outcast, the downcast, and the cast aside.”
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Oliveto gave several examples of such people, listing those who are homeless, alone, poor, in jail, orphans, the uneducated, and a couple of examples from the LGBT community.
“Are you willing to meet and serve Jesus in the transgender person who has taken a deeply spiritual journey to claim their God-created self?” Oliveto continued. “Are you willing to meet and serve Jesus in the queer clergy person who has been faithful to God’s call even when the Church has tried to deny that call?”
At present, the UMC Book of Discipline labels homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching” and prohibits the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions.
Although efforts to amend the Book of Discipline to remove the standards at the General Conference has always been voted down, many progressives within the UMC have resisted the rules.
Oliveto is a case in point, as she was elected bishop in 2016, even though she was in a same-sex marriage, which violates the rules of the Book of Discipline.
The United Methodist Judicial Council, the denomination’s highest court, ruled 6-3 in 2017 that Oliveto’s election was invalid and called for a process to begin to remove her from office.
"It is not lawful for the college of bishops of any jurisdictional or central conference to consecrate a self-avowed practicing homosexual bishop," the Judicial Council stated.
"Under the long-standing principle of legality, no individual member or entity may violate, ignore or negate church law."
However, seven years later, Oliveto remains a bishop in the UMC.
In September 2018, a complaint was filed against Oliveto over a 2017 sermon in which she claimed Jesus had bigotries and expressed concern about making Him into “an idol.”
“If Jesus can change, if He can give up His bigotries and prejudices, if He can realize that He had made His life too small, and if, in this realization, He grew closer to others and closer to God, then so can we,” Oliveto stated in 2017.
The complaint was reportedly resolved later behind closed doors, with the specific details being kept confidential by the UMC.
In advance of the General Conference, approximately 7,500 churches voted to disaffiliate from the UMC due to the debate over the Book of Discipline, with most of these departing congregations opting to join the theologically conservative Global Methodist Church.
Last week, General Conference delegates voted 586-164 in favor of a petition for an amendment to the UMC’s constitution allowing for regionalization, which would open the door for different regions of the global denomination to have their own standards on LGBT issues.
The petition still needs to be approved by at least two-thirds of UMC annual conferences before it can be ratified.
