August 16, 2015
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Todd Fetters leading the National Conference business session on July 16, 2015.
Steve Dennie, Communications Director
The 2015 US National Conference considered two proposals regarding same-sex marriage and homosexuality. They were sibling proposals submitted by Jeff Reser (right), pastor of East Washington UB church in Ashley, Mich.
The proposals were presented on May 18 at a United Brethren regional meeting in Sunfield, Mich., attended by pastors and laypersons primarily from Michigan churches. The next day, the proposals were presented at a regional meeting in Willshire, Ohio, and later at a meeting in Lancaster, Ohio. So they predate the June 26 Supreme Court ruling which recognized same-sex marriage nationwide. Much of the motivation, as expressed at Sunfield, was to shield ministers and churches from potential lawsuits should they refuse to solemnize or host same-sex weddings. Both proposals contained language from a legal organization called Alliance Defending Freedom.
Proposal 10. Proposal 10, “Same-Sex Marriage,” would add a paragraph to our existing statement in the Discipline on “Marriage.” It passed with a couple amendments as given below. The paragraph in bold is the new paragraph which was part of the original proposal. The words in bold italics were added by amendment from the floor.
¶122 Marriage
Marriage was instituted by God and is regulated by him. For this reason, the Church must resist all attempts to alter marriage from what the Bible has revealed about it. The purpose of marriage is companionship between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:18) in a permanent relationship which can end only when one of the partners dies.
A Christian should marry only another Christian (1 Corinthians 7:39, 2 Corinthians 6:14). Their relationship is to express God’s original intention for marriage: the wife’s role alongside her husband as an equal.
Because God ordained marriage and defined it as the covenant relationship between a man, a woman, and himself, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ USA will only recognize marriages between a genetic, biological man and a genetic, biological woman. Further, the ministers classified with the authority to conduct weddings shall only participate in weddings and solemnize marriages between one genetic, biological man and one genetic, biological woman. Finally, the facilities and property of churches in covenant with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ USA shall only host weddings between one genetic, biological man and one genetic, biological woman.
Proposal 11. Proposal 11, “Illicit Sexual Relations,” sought to expand the current statement on “Illicit Sexual Relations” and to add four more paragraphs. After much discussion, it was tabled in favor of a study committee. The text of Proposal 11 will be included later in this article.
That’s the end result. Now let’s eavesdrop on the business session to see how we got there.
A Testimony from Canada
Todd Fetters, director of National Ministries, chaired the proceedings. Early on, he invited to the platform Brian Magnus (right), bishop of the United Brethren Church in Canada. Magnus told about the situation in Canada regarding gender issues, giving a peak at what the future may hold for the United States. Here is what he said (with some editing).
“We want to welcome you to the post-Christian world. It’s not a great place to be, but it’s where we are.
“One of the first stages in the grief process is denial, and that’s kind of where we were ten years ago. Our Parliament had just passed a resolution affirming the traditional view of marriage—one man and one woman—overwhelmingly, including all parties. And just a couple years later, our supreme court declared it all unconstitutional. There was shock and denial at first, of course. This can’t happen. It can’t happen to our country. This isn’t right. It can’t last. We need to work harder to reverse it and get it changed back.
“Well, gay marriage has now been the law for ten years, so we haven’t been able to reverse it in Canada. I’m guessing you won’t be able to reverse it here in the States, either. Yes, Christians should have the right to speak in the marketplace, and try to influence and vote to affect society. But that’s not our primary call or commission from the Lord.
“So we’re ten years in, and no pastor has been forced to perform a gay wedding. No church has been forced after ten years to host a gay wedding. Now, we were told initially that it would be helpful if there were denominational proclamations on this that would form some protections, so we have those and have had them for ten years in pretty much all of the evangelical denominations in Canada.
“We anticipate that there will be lawsuits, of course, because there are activists, liberals, around. They are long past gay marriage–that’s just old hat, way behind. I think you’ll find it’s long behind, too. Gender identity, that’s the next one, and you’re talking about some of those things as well.
“First, we had to learn what LGBT meant, and then they added Q. Now it’s LGBTTTQQIAA [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transexual, Two-spirited, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Ally.] At present in Canada, in most government institutions, if you present yourself as male today, they have to treat you as male. Come back tomorrow and present yourself as female, they have to treat you as that. They will soon be removing gender from driver’s licenses and passports, because it’s no longer relevant, because people can claim to be whatever they want to be on any given day. That’s the direction we’re going. Polygamy, of course, is coming.
“So here’s the deal. I think we need to engage our culture and be salt and light, amen? But Christianity is essentially counter-cultural, and the majority of our energy, finances, and efforts should go to support the true Great Commission. If we can indeed be loving to our neighbors and friends regardless of who they are for the Lord, that’s great….
“We do need some protections. We were told that having clear statements for all our churches and pastors has been helpful. One more thing I should say. We have both civil marriages, which are the legal marriages, and we have religious ceremonies in our churches. In Canada, you must be registered with the government to do marriage. And once the day happens where we are forced to do them [same-sex weddings], then I believe we will simply all turn in our marriage registration numbers—all evangelical leaders in Canada. So en masse, tens of thousands of pastors will turn in their legal registration numbers and say, ‘We will only do religious ceremonies in our churches for our people.’ So that’s where we are, and where you may be in ten years.”
(more…)
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