Local leaders discuss Methodists’ changes to LGBTQ+ stance

This is the first of a two-day look at liberalizing changes to United Methodist Church (UMC) policy and positions surrounding human sexuality and LGBTQ+ issues that were approved at the church’s just-concluded General Conference. It features analysis and opinion from two Northeast Tennessee delegates and longtime UMC leaders — one theologically conservative and one theologically liberal, but both intent on remaining committed to the denomination. It begins with a look at the issues that led up to the General Conference, what happened there, and how the leaders view it — and will conclude tomorrow with a nuts and bolts look at how the changes could impact local churches in the months and years ahead.

KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) — Longtime United Methodist Church (UMC) leaders Lauri Jo Cranford and Randy Frye both knew changes liberalizing UMC policy and language surrounding LGBTQ issues were likely after the departure of hundreds of more conservative churches last year.

But neither Cranford, who welcomed the changes, nor Frye, who had his reservations, expected them to come as swiftly, decisively and peaceably as they did at the UMC General Conference which concluded May 3 in Charlotte, N.C. Both were delegates at the denomination’s first global gathering since a contentious 2019 conference in St. Louis that saw human sexuality issues take center stage.

Long-simmering divisions that spilled over in 2019 led to the “disaffiliation” process that saw more than 7,500 conservative UMC churches leave the denomination, most of them in 2023 — including 264 of the Holston Conference’s 842 churches that voted to leave last April.

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Charlotte was different, Cranford and Frye told News Channel 11 Wednesday.

“Even when people were standing up and disagreeing with each other at the microphones, it was very respectful, and it … felt like there was a greater willingness to agree to disagree,” Cranford said.

In that environment, delegates passed three historic changes.

• The church’s “Book of Discipline” no longer prohibits same-sex weddings from being performed in UMC churches, with UMC clergy presiding.

• The Book of Discipline now allows the ordination of openly LGBTQ clergy.

• The church dropped the general stance in the Book of Discipline’s “Social Principles” section that while LGBTQ persons are “of sacred worth,” the UMC “does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with church teaching.”

The changes, which passed overwhelmingly, were not even debated on the full floor. They were approved as part of a “consent agenda,” along with a slate of other items.

Frye, a 43-year UMC pastor and “traditional guy” who’s led First Broad Street UMC in Kingsport for six years, said he initially bristled at the lack of a floor debate. The move had occurred on a Sunday, making it difficult procedurally to pull the item off the consent calendar.

“I told my wife, ‘I have mixed feelings about this,'” Frye said. “When it happened, I was shocked and angry” about the lack of a full floor debate among the 700-plus voting delegates.

He gave it more thought and ultimately voted in favor, partly because the overall consent calendar included important items he supported and partly because — like so many of his fellow Methodists on both sides of the LGBTQ issue — he’d had enough of painful debate.

“If it had been on the floor for debate, we would have had the same kind of exchanges that we’ve had every general conference I’ve attended,” Frye said of the discussions around human sexuality issues that go all the way back to the 1972 general conference. “It gets very emotional. People on both sides say very hurtful things.”

Five years earlier, a “traditional plan” had passed the conference narrowly, 438-384, affirming bans on ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy and hosting same-sex weddings while increasing penalties for violating those bans. The UMC news service reported some supporters erupting in song and some on the losing side of the vote “chanting in protest of the vote.”

Frye was there. He said the gathering’s divisiveness convinced him something would give in the denomination.

“I’ll tell you the moment I knew, ‘It’s over,'” Frye said. “The morning we voted the traditional plan — and I’m a traditional guy — we came back from lunch, and there were about 50 people at the microphone … including some bishops, who said ‘We stand here and declare that we will not abide by this traditional plan.'”

“The discipline is what binds us together as a denomination,” he said, referring to the church’s “Book of Discipline,” which covers hundreds of issues, many of them much less contentious. “At that moment, I knew it was over, and it was just a matter of what the process would be.”

‘Maybe this was God’s doing’

The 2024 conference — minus about a quarter of the most conservative churches still in the fold in 2019 — didn’t feature that kind of rancor. Cranford, who served 18 years as a UMC minister and eight years as district superintendent of the Johnson City district before moving into full-time counseling a year ago, thinks people may have just been done “battling.”

“I think part of it was a weariness after all that we’ve been through,” she said. “Part of it was, I think a lot of the people in the room understand the value of diversity within the church and want different voices in the church.”

PREVIOUS: Leaders say Methodist split creates uncertain future

Cranford said she’s always valued that because “if somebody interprets something differently or has a different viewpoint, I learn something about Scripture, I learn something about them, and I think I’m better for it.

“I think there was much more that feel in the room than the ‘I’m right, you’re wrong, I have to prove that,’ or ‘I have to have my way.’ I think there’s just so much hurt that had already occurred that there was a willingness to see ‘how can we do this together.'”

Frye said after his initial heartburn about the human sexuality items going on the consent agenda, he’s come to a much different conclusion.

“Maybe this was God’s doing,” he added. “Because it was the first day, just imagine how different the tone of the general conference would have been if it had been debated on the floor and voted upon on the floor.”

While Charlotte’s after-effects will be significant, Frye said he’s glad for the changes even though he maintains a more traditional theological view about homosexuality. He said the 1972 general conference’s decision to explicitly include language deeming homosexual practice incompatible with church teaching might have been a mistake.

“I have paid very close attention over the years to those who talked about the harmful language in our discipline, and I have often wondered why, in 1972, if you believe that homosexuality is a sin, then why was there only one sin listed that we believe is incompatible with Christian teaching?” Frye said.

Removing the language from the Book of Discipline, he said, doesn’t force any Methodist to change their interpretation of the Bible.

“We did what I’ve wondered for years why we haven’t done,” he said. “If we believe that it’s a sin and it needs to be in our discipline, well, why not every other?”

Cranford said the delegates took their work very seriously, recognizing the gravity of a moment that would leave some people “really heartbroken” while others “realize that the relationship that they have is validated by their church, that their ordination from the church is validated, that their personhood is validated by their church.”

“Some of the bigger votes that we knew would have ripple effects, we would stop and say ‘this is a historical moment. Let’s stop and have a moment of prayer because we know that people are going to have mixed feelings and mixed reactions — let’s pray for all of that…’ It was such a hopeful, encouraging way of doing things.”

‘We’re going to spend our time and energy on the mission’

Frye admits that over the past several years, he has “tried to discern, do I stay, do I leave” as the denomination has appeared headed toward a formal liberalization of human sexuality, and he’s come to a conclusion.

“My calling is to be a United Methodist pastor and I want to be able to influence and have an impact upon this congregation,” he said.

“I have been in ministry now for 43 years; I have been a conservative pastor in a liberal mainline denomination, and yet that has not in any way been negative … I may not agree with everyone, but what I try to focus on is not where we’re different, but what do we hold in common?”

The answer, he said, is the UMC mission “to make disciples, grow disciples, equip disciples, send disciples.”

At First Broad Street, where Frye said the 750-member congregation’s theologies and politics run the gamut from liberal to conservative, including focusing on local ministries to Kingsport’s poor and unhoused residents.

“I’ve encouraged my staff and our leadership; we’re going to spend our time and energy on the mission.”

Cranford has a different theological perspective than Frye. She says it began forming when a close friend from the campus ministry she attended came out to her when they were juniors.

“He knew the minute he told his family that he would be rejected, and it did happen, which was heartbreaking to me,” she said. “So that was my first experience of the kind of pain that he went through and what some others were dealing with.”

At the conference, though, she recognized that her colleagues who are still active in ministry would have members who were excited and others who were upset and face the question: “How do I hold us together? How do I love and nurture people no matter where they are? And how do we move forward?”

Cranford said she’s hopeful an outlook like Frye’s will permeate the denomination and that what she said has become a “line in the sand” for many will begin to blur — as it seemed to at the conference.

“That helped me feel hopeful, talking about revitalizing and getting back to Scripture and getting back to our foundation of missions and reaching out and refocusing on the needs around us,” she said of the undercurrent at Charlotte.

“Because it doesn’t matter where our churches are, there are needs around us everywhere, whether it be physical or spiritual or emotional. There’s psychological needs everywhere. And talking about different areas that we really need to focus on was all very hopeful.”

Tomorrow: What happens next at the church level? Will my church have to host gay weddings? Is it too late for an entire church to disaffiliate?

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