c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When the United Methodist Church convenes in Pittsburgh next week (April 27) for its quadrennial General Conference meeting, nearly all quarters agree that the same subject that has divided the church for 30 years will again dominate the agenda _ homosexuality.

Setting the stage for the 11-day meeting was the recent acquittal of a lesbian pastor, the Rev. Karen Dammann, in Washington state. She was charged with violating the church’s ban on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.

Some 1,600 pieces of legislation on a host of issues will be considered by the 998 delegates representing the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination. Officials say at least 100 different resolutions seek to solidify or change gay policy in the 10.2 million-member church.

“If people were hoping this would be a quieter conference, the Karen Dammann decision made that impossible,” said the Rev. Troy Plummer, director of the gay-friendly Reconciling Ministries Network.

Rather than try to overturn bans on gay clergy or same-sex unions, pro-gay activists are targeting other language that calls homosexual activity “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

In its place, activists want to insert language that says, “Differences of opinion among faithful Christians regarding sexual orientation continue to deeply divide the church. We stand before God admitting that we have thus far been unable to reach common ground. As we continue to discern God’s will together, we are united in declaring our understanding that God’s grace is available to all.”

Plummer called the current language the “primary culprit” that keeps gays and lesbians from full membership in the church. Conservatives, meanwhile, say it represents the consensus of delegates at every meeting since 1972.

“Yes, there is still debate, but we still debate things like baptism, too,” said the Rev. Scott Field, pastor of Wheatland Salem United Methodist Church in Naperville, Ill., and a leader of the evangelical Good News movement. “This is the settled law of the church.”

Both sides agree that the Dammann verdict has unleashed a torrent of criticism that the 13 pastors who cleared Dammann on March 20 were ignoring church law. Conservatives want more accountability.

“We have renegades and vigilantes making up their own rules,” Field said. “You’ve got two locomotives headed toward one another and they are going to meet in Pittsburgh.”

One factor that is likely to influence the debate will be the growing number of overseas delegates and delegates from the Southern United States, who tend to vote more conservatively.

Foreign Methodists _ who represent about 1.9 million members in the “central conferences” _ will gain 32 seats for a total of 184, while the Northeast, Midwest and Western regions will lose 48 seats compared to the church’s last meeting in 2000.

“The more Central Conference delegates there are, the less it will be business as usual,” Bishop Ruediger Minor of Moscow, president of the Council of Bishops, said at a pre-General Conference briefing in January.

The Rev. Thomas Frank, director of the Methodist Studies program at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, said foreign delegates will push the U.S. church to address other topics than the gay issue.

“It really pushes us toward being a global church, and frankly, I don’t think Americans are going to like that very much,” Frank said. “They haven’t shown much interest in that in the past.”

Other topics facing the church include:

_ Budgets: Delegates will consider a $585.7 million budget for the next four years, an increase of 7.3 percent. That does not include at least $80 million in additional spending proposed in the resolutions, or nearly $40 million to continue the church’s “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” advertising campaign.

A separate proposal would merge the church’s finance and ministries agencies in an attempt to streamline organization. Critics say the plan would give too much influence to small regional conferences and underrepresent large conferences.

_ Bishops: One proposal would trim the number of church bishops by at least five, partly as a cost-saving measure. That would mean some local church conferences would merge. A related resolution would rescind the church’s mandatory retirement age of 70 for pastors.

_ Racism: In 2000, the church apologized to African-Americans who left the church because of institutional racism. Now, black Methodists who stayed will be honored in a “service of appreciation” on April 30. “If we are going to get our house in order, then we ought to start in the house,” said the Rev. Renita Thomas of the church’s North Georgia Annual Conference.

_ Communion: A paper on the nature and understanding of Holy Communion will encourage churches to celebrate the sacrament more often. The document also addresses who is eligible to participate: “Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another, is worthy through Christ to partake of Holy Communion.”

DEA/JL END ECKSTROM