UMC acts like it doesn't want to die.

Interesting. After years of going down the slippery slope toward driving off all but the narrowest sliver of its membership, the UMC has voted to stand the line against going the route of the Episcopal Church:

The trend in mainline Protestantism is clear: denominations become more liberal over time, especially on sexual ethics and social issues.Churches gradually become more accepting of sex outside of marriage, homosexual clergy, and a definition of marriage that includes same-sex relationships. Traditionalists resist but their numbers gradually decrease until they have eroded into minority status. Many of them end up joining other churches or forming their own.

At their just-concluded General Conference in Tampa, the United Methodist Church bucked the trend. By a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent, the quadrennial legislative body of the nation's largest mainline Protestant denomination rejected a proposal to change its position on homosexuality. The measure would have deleted the Book of Discipline's contention that homosexual practice is "incompatible with Christian teaching," replacing it with a call to "refrain from judgment regarding homosexual persons and practices until the Spirit leads us to new insight."

The motion to change United Methodist teachings on homosexual behavior was defeated by a bigger margin than a similar proposal at the 2008 General Conference. This year 54 percent of delegates also rejected a compromise that would have expressed Methodist disagreement on issues pertaining to homosexuality. "I see no reason why we should state (in the Book of Discipline) that we disagree," the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, former president of Asbury Theological Seminary was quoted as saying by Religion News Service. "We disagree on almost every issue we consider."

Liberal Methodists believed the compromise would reflect the fact that church members have real disagreements on the subject. Conservatives countered that it would water down biblical standards and legitimize teachings contrary to Scripture.

Gay rights activists then took to the convention floor singing "What Does the Lord Require of You?" When the chairman of the morning session warned them they were hurting their cause by disrupting the General Conference, the gay rights demonstrators kept singing. An early lunch was called and there were threats to bar protestors from the proceedings.

What happened next was remarkable: proposals to ordain gay clergy and bless same-sex unions were effectively tabled. They were first pushed to the back of the agenda and then not voted on at all. "Leaders of the demonstration were told that the legislation was postponed to avoid more harm to LGBT people and their supporters," the Love Your Neighbor Coalition said in a statement.

Avoiding further hurt feelings and unnecessary conflict was likely part of the equation. But the proposals weren't voted on for another reason: they had no chance of passing. It now remains United Methodist policy that marriage is the union of one man and one woman; clergy cannot solemnize same-sex unions; and ordained ministers must be celibate outside of a marriage between a man and a woman or monogamous within marriage. Avowed, practicing gay clergy is prohibited.

Tabling sexually charged issues spared Methodist liberals another defeat that would have actually changed the status quo -- there was no vote on the denomination's participation in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. There had been a committee vote to defund the pro-choice group. The 2008 General Conference came within 32 votes of pulling the United Methodist Church out of the coalition and one could read worried tweets that the church's coalition membership was hanging by a thread.

United Methodists have charted a different course than other mainline Protestants for a reason: while their church is losing members in the United States like the others, it is growing in Africa. Overwhelmingly orthodox Africans and American evangelicals are increasingly making up a working majority at General Conference. On many issues, the overseas delegates -- now approaching 40 percent of the total -- are more outspoken than their U.S. evangelical counterparts.

A Poke in the Eye for the Episcopal Church.

The Fifth District Court of Appeals of the State of California has held that the First Amendment's rule that courts not get involved in adjudicating religious issues means that courts not get involved in adjudicating religious issues.  It has decided that a trial court erred in accepting the Episcopal Church's version of events as involving such an involvement, and has overturned the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Episcopal Church.

Here is the decision. [PDF Warning.]

The author of the decision was the author of the late, lamented St. Luke's v. United Methodist Church.

According to the Anglican Curmudgeon, whose alter ego, "A.S. Haley," argued the case:

The ground upon which the reversal is ordered is that the case as presented by the plaintiffs Lamb and ECUSA in their first cause of action is not properly decidable by the secular courts without their becoming too entangled in First Amendment issues, such as who is the proper Bishop of San Joaquin. It holds that ECUSA's recognition of Bishop Lamb is conclusive as to his position as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, and to the continuity of that entity "for ecclesiastical purposes", but it goes on to hold that the validity of the transfers of title to diocesan property by Bishop Schofield while he was still the Episcopal Bishop will have to be decided upon neutral principles of state corporate law, and also any relevant governing documents of the Diocese and the national Church.


This decision therefore will require ECUSA to prove through its documents that there is a trust in its favor on all diocesan church property for it to succeed in its claims to diocesan assets. And since the Dennis Canon expressly applies only to parish property, and not to any property of a diocese, the element of proof required in the national governing instruments is lacking. (The word "hierarchical" does not appear in the Court's opinion.)

New Lutheran body to form after gay pastor vote.

The Lutherans follow the example set by the Episcopalians.

More Business Heading Our Way

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has tossed in with the Episcopal Church and will now permit homosexuals living in a "committed relationship" to serve in leadership positions.

No word as yet on whether the ELCA will allow polygamists living in a "committed relationship," or heterosexuals living in a "committed relationship," to serve as pastors.

That private interpretation is an amazing thing.

Cal Supreme Court Modifies Episcopal Decision

The Anglican Curmudgeon has been following this case.

The Death of Mainstream Protestantism

The California Supreme Court has essentially - as acknowledged in Justice Kennard's concurrence - returned to hierarchical principles for the determination of church property disputes. This means that California provides a major piece of persuasive authority for those declining Protestant denominations that have "departed from doctrine" and which are consequently seeing membership depart them.

In reaching its decision, the Court returned to the law of California that existed in the Nineteenth Century, but without the "departure from doctrine" provision that kept denominations honest to their founding principles.

This is now the second recent decision that incorporates a result oriented outcome in favor of the gay agenda to radically reshape the law.

The Episcopal Church Cases

Go here for the briefing.

Go here to watch the oral arguments.

Keep in mind that this is a church where Bishop Spong - who doesn't believe in the Resurrection - remains a bishop in good standing.

The Episcopalian Church violates its canon law to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh for being too orthodox.

Case Note

I was going to file this one under "if only unpaid Pentacostal pastors could get married", but there are some interesting evidentiary issues in People v. Mario Antonio Bautista.

Bautista was an unpaid Pentecostal pastor and leader of an independent Pentecostal church in San Jose. He was convicted of, inter alia, sexual penetration of a person unconscious of the nature of the act. (In a nutshell, Bautista claimed that he was "checking the virginity" of minor females as part a "professional purpose" designed to disguise the true nature of his actions.(Life is weirder than fiction.).)

The evidentiary issue is that the trial court allowed the prosecution to inquire into defendant's and defendant's churches religious beliefs insofar as those beliefs explained the defendant's conduct and the victim's delayed reporting of the crime. "The constitution does not erect a per sea barrier to the admission of evidence concerning one's beliefs and associations...simply because those beliefs and assocations are protected by the First Amendment."

Another weird note: Bautista was an immigration attorney and was disbarred following his conviction.

Breaking News

Episcopal Denomination sues Diocese of San Joaquin.

Complaint here.

Church Property Blog

The Anglican Curmudgeon.

Aren't all Anglicans pretty much curmudgeons these days?

Just joking.....

Church and State

In 1984, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a church's "absolute privilege" to discipline members ended when that member left the church.

Here is an interesting passage:

¶16 While the Court in Watson unequivocally banned judicial scrutiny of purely ecclesiastical decisions,20 it has since discussed the possibility of "marginal civil court review" of these disputes. In Gonzalez v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila21 the Court stated:

"In the absence of fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness, the decisions of the proper church tribunals on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive, because the parties in interest made them so by contract or otherwise. Under like circumstances, effect is given in the courts to the determinations of the judicatory bodies established by clubs and civil associations."

In a later case, Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese, Etc. v. Milivojevich,22 the Court announced that its Gonzalez "fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness" exception was dictum only, concluding that:

"whether or not there is room for `marginal civil court review' under the narrow rubrics of `fraud' or `collusion' when church tribunals act in bad faith for secular purposes, no `arbitrariness' exception - in the sense of an inquiry whether the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal of a hierarchical church complied with church laws and regulations - is consistent with the constitutional mandate that civil courts are bound to accept the decisions of the highest judicatories of a religious organization of a hierarchical polity on matters of discipline, faith, internal organization, or ecclesiastical [775 P.2d 773] rule, custom, or law."23

In Serbian the Court held that:

"the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters. When this choice is exercised and ecclesiastical tribunals are created to decide disputes over the government and direction of subordinate bodies, the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them."24

Although the Court has explicitly eliminated an "arbitrariness" exception to the rule that civil courts are prohibited from adjudicating religious disputes, whether these tribunals are still constitutionally permitted to review final ecclesiastical decisions for "fraud" or "collusion" has not recently been revisited.

And:

31 By voluntarily uniting with the church, she impliedly consented to submitting to its form of religious government, but did not thereby consent to relinquishing a right which the civil law guarantees her as its constitutionally protected value. The intentional and voluntary relinquishment of a known right required for a finding of an effective waiver was never established. On the record before us Parishioner - a sui juris person - removed herself from the Church of Christ congregation rolls the moment she communicated to the Elders that she was withdrawing from membership.43

Also see the Church Discipline blog.

Fracture.

Episcopalians comment on the Petaluma case.

And this is on the San Joaquin diocese.

The inclusivist program of the Episcopalian Church scores another victory.

Another Episcopalian bishop leaves Canterbury for Rome.

Seems to be an epidemic, but you have to wonder why these bishops didn't do something to preserve their tradition.

[Via Mark Shea.]

"Top officials of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have come to the conclusion that they cannot continue "doing church" the way they have been."

"It is as if a tsunami of change has hit us," said Joan Gray, moderator of the General Assembly during a Sept. 17-21 GAC (General Assembly Council) meeting in Louisville, Ky., according to the Presbyterian News Service. "I recently spent time in the Midwest, and these areas are drying up. The people are not there any more. In Detroit, 3,000 people a day are leaving to emigrate elsewhere. That is just the tip of the iceberg.”