Church ponders sexuality

[kweerwolf]

The United Methodist Church’s top court will revisit a case involving church membership for a sexually active gay man as it meets this week in Overland Park.

The nine-member Judicial Council begins its three-day meeting today at the Embassy Suites in Overland Park. Although deliberations are closed to the public, advocates for greater acceptance of gays and lesbians are expected to urge the council to reverse a prior ruling. The group is composed of theology students, ministers, church leaders and laity from across the country.

In October, the council sided with a Virginia pastor who had denied immediate church membership to a sexually active gay man. The pastor’s bishop punished him when the pastor refused to accept the man into membership. At the same meeting, the council defrocked Beth Stroud, an openly lesbian minister.

The rulings brought further division in the 11-million-member denomination over homosexuality, an issue that other churches also are wrestling with.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/living/religion/14428026.htm

[ulysses]

1. hope they can see their way

through this.