Human sexuality amendments fail

by Laura Allen May 3, 2012

During morning plenary, delegates voted down two amendments to the ~~Social Principles~~ that sought to acknowledge members of the United Methodist Church disagree on homosexuality. Tita Parham and Kathy Gilbert are covering this story for UMNS; I’ll talk with them on tonight’s GC2012 Radio podcast.

I went out to the hall during the break and caught a couple of reactions from delegates.

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Church History

The Methodist Church’s 1956 General Conference meets from April 25 to May 7 in the municipal auditorium in Minneapolis. On May 4, the first Friday of the legislative assembly, the delegates voted to make women eligible for full clergy rights. “Now it is up to us to prove in clear and deep witness to the whole church our consecration and our loyal devotion to the work of the Kingdom of God,” said Margaret Henrichsen, a General Conference visitor, after the vote. In 1967, she became the first U.S. woman appointed district superintendent. Photo courtesy of Archives and History.

Why the 1956 women-clergy vote matters

Seventy years ago, the Methodist Church supported full conference membership for women clergy — a decision that would have a resounding impact when The United Methodist Church formed in 1968 and even today.

General Conference

Emily Allen, a veteran lay delegate from the California-Nevada Conference, delivers a report during the 2024 United Methodist General Conference in Charlotte, N.C. on May 3, 2024. Allen has been elected to serve as the interim General Conference secretary beginning July 1. She will lead the planning of The United Methodist Church’s international legislative assembly, scheduled May 8-16, 2028, in Minneapolis. Photo by Larry McCormack, UM News.

Bishops elect interim General Conference head

Emily Allen will lead the planning of The United Methodist Church’s international legislative assembly, next scheduled in 2028.

Ecumenism

Retired professor Jin Kwan Kwon (left) and Vanderbilt University professor Joerg Rieger discuss Minjung theology — a liberation theology that emerged in the 1970s in South Korea — during a lecture March 31 at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn. The event was hosted by Vanderbilt’s Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice, which was founded by Rieger. Photo by the Rev. Thomas E. Kim, UM News.

Minjung theology offers lessons for today

Though this form of liberation theology emerged over 50 years ago in South Korea, its emphasis on the struggles of the oppressed and marginalized resonates across national boundaries today.

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