Methodists

The church announced its intention to disaffiliate from the wider United Methodist Church after its pastor was removed as pastor and suggested it was because of the church’s “conservative” stances.

The “welcoming, all-inclusive congregation” in Georgia is the first in the country to break away due to the Methodists’ anti-LGBTQ stances.

“We want to surround that message of hate with a message of love, and that’s what we’ve received since.”

Cuba’s proposed new constitution defines marriage as “the consensual union of two people, regardless of gender.”

This clergy member feels a calling to be a “visibly trans person” ordained by a church that still officially bans LGB clergy.

The presumptive Republican nominee preached to the choir and won a standing ovation from hundreds of conservative Christians.

The Governor sits a few pews away from the lesbian couple who sued to overturn the state’s ban on adoption by same-sex parents.

A Michigan pastor has been sleeping outside in a tent for weeks to protest his denomination’s stance on LGBT people.

Gay clergy and same-sex marriage may soon be allowed at United Methodist Churches under a proposal drafted by the Connectional Table, a respected international body of clergy members and lay people in the church.

A church statement says the case against retired Bishop Melvin G. Talbert is ending with a settlement that the denomination calls a “just resolution.”

The church made national headlines in January when as much as eighty percent of the congregants left after a popular gay choir director was forced to resign.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Methodist pastor who was disciplined after he officiated at the wedding of his gay son will be allowed to remain an ordained minister. The Judicial Council of the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination ruled Monday that a Pennsylvania church jury was wrong to defrock Frank Schaefer last year after he would not…

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Methodist pastor who became a gay rights activist after he was disciplined for officiating at his son’s wedding to another man will soon find out whether he can remain an ordained minister in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination. The Rev. Frank Schaefer was suspended and then defrocked last year following …

Dozens of United Methodist ministers who blessed a same-sex wedding in Philadelphia will face no discipline for breaking church law, but acknowledge they could be punished if they do it again, according to a settlement announced by the denomination. A total of 36 Methodist clergy blessed the Nov. 9 ceremony at …

PHILADELPHIA — The Methodist church’s highest court will decide later this month whether a minister who officiated his gay son’s wedding can keep his pastoral credentials. The Rev. Frank Schaefer was defrocked following a church trial in southeastern Pennsylvania last year, then re-instated by an appeals panel in June. That decision was appealed …

PHILADELPHIA — A Methodist minister ousted and then reinstated after performing his son’s gay marriage said Friday that a church official is appealing his refrocking. The Rev. Frank Schaefer said he is disappointed to learn of the appeal, but not surprised. Schaefer is moving to a California diocese this week after his decision to officiate at his son’s 2007 …

A retired United Methodist pastor who spent much of his life fighting against racial injustice, homophobia and the death penalty, has committed suicide in what was intended as a final protest and an act to inspire change. Rev. Charles Moore, 79, doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in the parking lot of a strip mall in his hometown of Grand Saline, Texas…

PHILADELPHIA — A complaint has been filed against 36 United Methodist ministers who blessed a same-sex wedding in Philadelphia in defiance of church law. The pastors blessed the Nov. 9 ceremony at Philadelphia’s Arch Street United Methodist Church to show support for a colleague who faced church discipline for presiding over his gay son’s wedding…

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania pastor who broke church law by presiding over his son’s same-sex wedding ceremony and then became an outspoken activist for gay rights can return to the pulpit after a United Methodist Church appeals panel on Tuesday overturned a decision to defrock him. The nine-person panel ordered the church to restore…

LINTHICUM, Md. — A United Methodist pastor on Friday asked a church appeals panel to overturn a decision to defrock him for refusing to promise to uphold the church’s law, which bans ministers from performing same-sex marriages. Frank Schaefer of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, had his ministerial credentials stripped last year after a trial jury found …