lesbian bishop

Lesbian Bishop Asserts Support of “People in the pews”

on October 1, 2019

Contested United Methodist Church (UMC) Bishop Karen Oliveto recently spoke on transformational leadership at Yale Divinity School. The primary thrust of this talk was the need for a community focus in the UMC. She also took questions about the current state of the denomination.

Oliveto, who’s married to another woman, was elected bishop in 2016 by the church’s radical Western Jurisdiction in defiance of United Methodism’s prohibition on same sex marriage.

Oliveto attempted to avoid controversy in her Yale comments, though her personal views were visible. When asked about the decline of the UMC in recent years, she obliquely blamed, “All the infighting we’ve been doing” as well as, “an erosion of the grace that’s foundational to who we are.” This idea of an “erosion” of what Methodism originally stood for as a theological movement begun within historic Anglicanism was a recurring theme in Oliveto’s remarks.

In response to a question regarding the internal workings of the UMC in this tumultuous time, Oliveto told the story of her call to the position of bishop and her initial misgivings about letting her name be submitted for consideration. However, when talking about the reaction to her elevation to bishop, Oliveto was hopeful for the future of the church.

“I have received thousands of letters and cards and emails and testimonies from people saying, ‘Thank you…’ and I’ve received very little actual hate mail directly to me. So this says to me that the people in the pews are in a different place than our polity,” Oliveto asserted.

When asked what she thought the UMC would look like in 20 years, Oliveto was cautiously hopeful. She was particularly enthusiastic about new and younger leadership within the church.

“I am so excited about the new leadership that’s coming up in the church… I think church is going to look new. I think that people are really hungry for community. In the way that we’ve grown community can get pretty stale,” Oliveto shared.

Oliveto also lamented how “institutional” UMC polity has become.

“I think John Wesley would be very concerned right now at his movement. It has become too much of an institution. And it has forgotten again that deep personal piety and social holiness. I think he would also be concerned about how we are lessening our understanding of the role of experience in faith,” the Mountain Sky bishop claimed. “We look at Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason, and now people are saying that experience doesn’t mean that much.”

Oliveto did not directly address a schism in the UMC. She skirted around serious divisions in the church by obliquely referring to them as “the infighting we’ve been doing.” This seemingly conciliatory attitude was also expressed in a recent Twitter post she made, writing, “I’ve never called for a split. But it appears that we are headed that way and best be prepared. I grieve that we can’t find a way to live together with our differences.”

This conciliatory attitude juxtaposes oddly with the actions of the Mountain Sky Annual Conference that Oliveto leads. The Mountain Sky Conference has passed aggressively pro-schism resolutions, even proposals to depart the UMC alone if necessary. In combination, this means that Oliveto is either not in step with her Annual Conference or is much more supportive of a split than she will publicly admit.

  1. Comment by Eternity Matters on October 1, 2019 at 5:06 pm

    ““I think John Wesley would be very concerned right now at his movement. It has become too much of an institution. And it has forgotten again that deep personal piety and social holiness. I think he would also be concerned about how we are lessening our understanding of the role of experience in faith,” the Mountain Sky bishop claimed. “We look at Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason, and now people are saying that experience doesn’t mean that much.””

    If Wesley were alive he’d never stop throwing up over how the wolves have taken over the UMC. For the “Christian” Left, “experience” trumps scripture. That’s ridiculous.

  2. Comment by Dolores on October 4, 2019 at 7:17 pm

    Why is this woman still considered a Methodist? Also, I thought she was stripped of the Bishop title! Completely against the
    Discipline! Shame!

  3. Comment by Paul Rairden on October 5, 2019 at 5:25 pm

    If it is not in scripture it should not be in the Church.
    Adultery is number seven in the Bible. Either we are being changed to god’s Image or we are changing God to our image.

  4. Comment by Mike on October 1, 2019 at 5:10 pm

    “Bishop” Oliveto is willing to take a large salary from a church whose discipline and covenant she is breaking, and all the while she brings more division and loss of confidence (and worship attendance, finances and membership) in the Annual Conference where she is appointed.

    She, of course, will not take responsibility for any of this, projecting it onto those hard-hearted church members (and clergy) who actually take their vows and covenant seriously. So where is the problem in the UMC?

  5. Comment by Bonnie Wheeler on October 4, 2019 at 4:39 pm

    22While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” 23The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. 24Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.”

  6. Comment by Pudentiana on October 1, 2019 at 6:15 pm

    She has broken her vows like all other queer clergy. She seems to take that lightly, with proclamations for holiness. What is holiness to these people?

  7. Comment by Bob on October 2, 2019 at 9:39 am

    She is a poster child for UM dysfunction and sexuality is NOT the main issue. She was elected as the best qualified clergy in the Western Jurisdiction. Her 8 years at Glide saw an attendance drop of 47-77%, no mention of Jesus on their website, no communion or Christian baptism, no functioning staff parish or finance or trustees or admin council or charge conference, claiming more constituent members than 40 US annual conferences claimed for their entire conference, and standing by while the assets of the church were transferred to a secular entity without knowledge of the bishop. Any organization that selects someone with that track record is beyond busted…no matter who she sleeps with.

  8. Comment by THe Rev. R. David Reynolds on October 2, 2019 at 11:43 am

    I am in TOTAL AGREEMENT with the four, above responses. There is nothing holy or righteous about Karen Oliveto at all. She represents what is ABSOLUTELY WRONG in the United Methodist denomination. It is time for us who are biblical, orthodox, holiness, evangelical, conservative Christians to EXIT the United Methodist denomination. I’ve been fighting for Scriptural Holiness on these issues since the Atlanta General Conference in 1972 at the end of my middler year at Asbury Theological Seminary. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!! The Holy Spirit will truly bless a amicable separation and the formation of a new Wesleyan denomination that is TRUE to God’s Holy Word which Karen Oliveto certainly is not. My prayer is that the Wesleyan Covenant Association will lead us into that new denomination in 2020. I retired from active ministry in the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference in June of 2012.–David Reynolds, “Pastor Dave,” Charge Conference Membership in Marion (Il.) Aldersgate United Methodist Church

  9. Comment by JR on October 2, 2019 at 3:34 pm

    Who is going to pay your pension when you leave the UMC? I’m honestly curious about your views on this.

  10. Comment by Rev. Vivian C. Hiestand on October 3, 2019 at 11:31 am

    On behalf of Rev. Reynolds and other ministers who served faithfully for many years, I think it is likely that Wespath is managing pension funds as honestly and fairly as possible. It appears to me that most delegates to GC2020 will strive to assure pension fidelity regardless of denominational structure. I trust, JR, that your comment was not intended to be a veiled threat; that meaning would not be in keeping with your general tone in commenting. However, such brevity on that subject might be received that way.

  11. Comment by Pat on October 9, 2019 at 3:31 pm

    You are right!

  12. Comment by Palamas on October 2, 2019 at 11:57 am

    I’m always amused when people like Oliveto talk about the “erosion” of Methodism’s foundational beliefs. Her understanding of Methodism’s founding beliefs and ethos is minimal by design, focused on a couple of catch phrases without substantial meaning that can then have whatever content she desires poured into them. She’s a disgrace to everything John Wesley stood for.

  13. Comment by Judy on October 2, 2019 at 12:49 pm

    After having been baptized 59 years ago and attending a few years prior to that I couldn’t take anymore. I spoke up in my church and tried my best in standing up against this evil. Oliveto spoke at “The Hearts on Fire Convocation” at Lake Junaluska and has blasphemed our Lord but no one has held her accountable. Weak leadership in Bishops, broken vows both to God and the Church on their part is what has gotten the UMC where it is today. Failure to preach the Holy Word of God…all of it and not just selected parts as not to step on anyone’s toes. Good question above by Pudentiana, “What is holiness to these people?” This is certainly a sad day in the UMC but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ending in ordained minister’s betrayal and denial of evil…the day will come when every knee will bow but He will not know all…for it will be too late.

  14. Comment by Pastor Steve Smith on October 4, 2019 at 5:03 pm

    Amen and Amrn!!

  15. Comment by Rev. Dr. Lee D Cary (ret.) on October 2, 2019 at 5:15 pm

    “Oliveto is either not in step with her Annual Conference or is much more supportive of a split than she will publicly admit.”

    Mr. Saine, you, sir, went straight to the core with that observation. Well done, and thank you.

    The “split” is a fait accompli. It happened at the 2019 General Conference. The wake began after that February event, and it will continue until the 2020 General Conference, where the will is to be opened, and the assets of the inheritance divided among the disputing heirs..

    The LGBTQAI+ movement will celebrate a glorious and righteous victory over what it considers closed-minded bigotry, with pomp and circumstance. And the UMC will officially join the other “Seven Sisters” of liberal Protestantism that have faded into obscurity.

    If fairly written, ecclesiastical history will record that the UMC fell victim to the persistent activism of a minority faction of the ordained clergy who were supported, in their resistance to UM polity over four-plus decades, by an arrogant episcopacy who felt entitled to disregarded the Book of Discipline – because, of course, they knew better – supported by an independent, institutional hierarchy of General Church bureaucrats, accountable to no one.

    I was in a meeting once as a Director of a Conference Council on Ministries when an un-ordained bureaucrat said: “The local church exists to support the General Church.” This was nearly 30 years ago. I realized, at that moment, that the UMC had hit the iceberg.

  16. Comment by Loren J Golden on October 3, 2019 at 12:07 am

    “The ‘split’ is a fait accompli.  It happened at the 2019 General Conference.  The wake began after that February event, and it will continue until the 2020 General Conference, where the will is to be opened, and the assets of the inheritance divided among the disputing heirs.”
     
    Don’t put any wagers on next year’s GC sanctioning a split in the UMC.  The Progressive bishops in the US are heavily invested in positions of power in the denomination, and they will fight tooth and nail to prevent the loss of ANY material assets from their oversight, and as they abundantly demonstrated in the Special GC earlier this year, they are not above resorting to underhanded schemes in an effort to maintain control over that which they think is rightfully theirs.

  17. Comment by Lee D. Cary on October 4, 2019 at 5:42 pm

    Excellent points, Loren. The bishops’ positions are very sacred to many of them, and of principle importance in this ordeal.

    But while they have control over all the clergy, except the most successful of the mega-church preachers (e.g., Adam Hamilton) who, in salary and stature, fully eclipse a “bishop” in the UMC, they have little control over the people in the pews watching this slow-motion train wreck with growing distain and impatience for the process.

    The laity will ultimately vote, first with their pocketbooks and then with their feet. It’s happening even now.

  18. Comment by CBByrd on October 4, 2019 at 8:56 pm

    Indeed.

  19. Comment by Stan Jefferson on October 4, 2019 at 4:45 pm

    “The LGBTQAI+ movement will celebrate a glorious and righteous victory over what it considers closed-minded bigotry, with pomp and circumstance. And the UMC will officially join the other “Seven Sisters” of liberal Protestantism that have faded into obscurity.”

    Well said, sir.

  20. Comment by Virginia on October 2, 2019 at 9:52 pm

    “I’ve received very little actual hate mail directly to me. So this says to me that the people in the pews are in a different place than our polity,”

    What this says to me is that, in spite of liberals vilifying traditionalists as unloving, those of us who believe and respect the Word of God don’t hate you. We understand that all of us are sinners in need of Grace. But we are grieved that you continue to be a tool of Satan and that you lack integrity. That doesn’t mean we support your position.

  21. Comment by David Trawick on October 3, 2019 at 10:05 am

    Perhaps a more accurate and truthful headline would be: “Support of LIBERAL People in the pews” or “support of biblically illiterate people in the pews” or even “support of “nonChristian people in the pews” (the last one by virtue of her tenure as senior pastor of Glide Memorial UMC, where they’ve deleted most specifically Christian references and practices so as to “not offend” the nonChristians!).

  22. Comment by Lee D. Cary on October 4, 2019 at 6:00 pm

    The most memorable loser in the internal battle for the soul of the Presbyterian Church in the first few decades of the 20th Century was J. Gresham Machen. His led the opposition against the Modernists, of which today’s LGBTQAI+ movement is a derivative. Does what he wrote in 1923 ring true here, and now?

    “Modern liberalism in the Church, whatever judgment may be passed upon it, is at any rate no longer merely an academic matter. It is no longer a matter merely of theological seminaries or universities. On the contrary its attack upon the fundamentals of the Christian faith is being carried on vigorously by Sunday-School “lesson-helps,” by the pulpit, and by the religious press. If such an attack be unjustified, the remedy is not to be found, as some devout persons have suggested, in the abolition of theological seminaries, or the abandonment of scientific theology, but rather in a more earnest search after truth and more loyal devotion to it when once it is found.” (Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter II, Doctrine)

  23. Comment by td on October 3, 2019 at 12:12 pm

    It is telling that her view of traditional believers is that they would send her hate mail. So, her logic is that since she doesn’t receive much hate mail then there must not be very many traditional believers.

    Perhaps she should entertain the idea that there are many traditional believers, perhaps a majority of the umc laity, who don’t send her hate mail because it’s hateful.

  24. Comment by Stephen Card on October 3, 2019 at 8:33 pm

    “I took a survey of all the mail I received and because it is a scientifically accurate sample, I can posit that the people in the pews are different (more progressive) than GC delegates.” Just shaking my head at the absurdity of making such a statement. But it goes to what many of know – our College of Bishops is a self-perpetuating echo chamber. And of course this was proven by their shock that the OCP didn’t see the light of day at GC2019.

  25. Comment by Skipper on October 3, 2019 at 9:43 pm

    The longer we have to wait for her removal, the more sexually confused people will think sexual perversion is acceptable to God. We can’t rely on them to read the Bible. Another sad part of this is that she knows sexual perversion is evil and has chosen to do it anyway.

    Paul tells us the Christ came to set us free from the power of sin. “So let His Spirit direct your lives and you will not satisfy the evil desire of human nature. What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself as immoral, filthy, and indecent actions.” Paul warned that those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God.

  26. Comment by Stan Jefferson on October 4, 2019 at 4:41 pm

    Olivetti says, “I’ve never called for a split. But it appears that we are headed that way and best be prepared. I grieve that we can’t find a way to live together with our differences.” The truth is, Ms. Olivetti, you are the reason for the split, along with all those who defy scripture. Teachings from the inspired word of God are unequivocal regarding homosexuality. YOU, as a practicing homosexual, do not belong in church leadership. It’s as simple as that. Not saying that homosexuals are not welcome in church. But making wrong right and then advocating for it is just-plain-wrong.

  27. Comment by Hartford on October 4, 2019 at 5:00 pm

    as a Yale Divinity School grad, an evangelical, 40+ years a UCC and Disciples pastor, now retired and worshipping at a UMC congregation, I’m feeling somewhat nauseous about this. I know that is incredibly politically incorrect…but it is the fact. So sad. The good news? Christ will prevail…thanks be to God!

  28. Comment by Darren Wertz on October 4, 2019 at 5:29 pm

    1 John 2-4
    Whoever says “I know him” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.

    The lady is a liar and thinks we are nuts.

  29. Comment by Donald on October 4, 2019 at 5:50 pm

    I suspect “Mz?” Oliveto stopped over at “Bus Boys and Poets” on her way back from Yale to the whatever DeeCee airport she was flying out of to chat up “Rev” Wallis and Presiding Bishop Curry. Three peas in the pod of heresy.

  30. Comment by George on October 4, 2019 at 6:11 pm

    I heard her speak at a very liberal Methodist Church in Dallas 2 years ago where she referred to Hagar as Abraham’s “Sex Slave “ ….shameful .

  31. Comment by Charles on October 4, 2019 at 6:11 pm

    ““I have received thousands of letters and cards and emails and testimonies from people saying, ‘Thank you…’ and I’ve received very little actual hate mail directly to me. So this says to me that the people in the pews are in a different place than our polity,” Oliveto asserted.”

    The absence of hate mail might not be an affirmation of her descent into a sinful lifestyle as much as the reluctance of Christians in the pews to join her by hating her?

  32. Comment by Tracy on October 4, 2019 at 9:25 pm

    More proof that the UMC cannot continue in this manner. Be it 10 years and/or 10 million we MUST separate before more spiritual harm is done. It is clear and has been for a long while, even though some are too influenced by money to follow God’s call.

  33. Comment by Cara Taylor on October 4, 2019 at 9:25 pm

    The problem is that Oliveto is disobedient to The Book Of Discipline and scripture and she is forcing herself onto a denomination that is faithful to both. She could go to another denomination but she won’t. She enjoys causing division.

  34. Comment by John Smith on October 8, 2019 at 6:36 am

    That she was elected Bishop with no attempt to hide what she is or believes shows she is not forcing herself so much as revealing a large portion of the UMC. She is attempting to convert the UMC to the way of thinking she and her supporters hold. I have no doubt she receives the letters and notes she speaks of. Most people, right or left, live in a self supporting bubble.

    My thought is that if the UMC had fought as strongly for the sanctity of marriage so many decades ago (easy divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, etc being so easily accepted/no bar to church anything) as they bitterly fight against LBGTQ+ would it have come to this point?

    How much weight is the argument “Jesus said marriage is between one man and one woman!” when that didn’t seem to be a concern when it was one man or one woman and a series of spouses? “The bible forbids adultery!” but Pastor Smith is such a gifted leader ….

    You didn’t defend marriage or the BOD then, (when you might want/need to take advantage) why would the LGBTQ+ community expect you to suddenly care about marriage?

  35. Comment by Bobby on October 8, 2019 at 4:09 pm

    Thank you for bringing Jesus into the conversation..had to read alot to see His name..

  36. Comment by Mrs. Cam Carlson on October 5, 2019 at 2:38 am

    It’s waaaay past “Push Back Time” on the lgbtqa-xyz movement! It is time to call this problem out for what it actually is. These unfortunate folks have a very serious mental health condition. This is a personal problem that should be dealt with personally and not in the public arena by turning the world upside down. The afflicted individuals need to face up to their PERSONAL problem and not inflict society with it. Are you aware that they are now trying to indoctrinate children in nursery school and in the public schools beginning as early as kindergarten with gender education? Have you heard that there are public libraries that have drag queens come in to read to very young children during story time? As Christians we need to be attending school board and city/town/ county/borough meetings and object to these things. We need to protect our nation’s children!

    But, more to the point. What has the lgbtqa-xyz movement done to the protestant denominations? It appears to have been very successful in making most denominations to lose sight of the directions God would have us move. How easily we were distracted! Having served at many positions and levels in a UMC church over the past 40 years, it was pretty easy to see this coming. As a Sunday School teacher, I stopped using the UMC Sunday School materials about 40 years ago. As the lay delegate to our Annual Conference, I spoke up against what was obviously creeping into the UMC. In fact our whole church spoke out against these things. This was done in a very polite and respectful manner through numerous petitions to Annual Conference.

    What did that get our little country church? It got us thrown out of the UMC! The UMC called it “discontinuing” us as a UMC. They took us to court and “legally” stole our church building and everything in it, the church’s parsonage and a bank account! How nice of these good Christian folks.

    What had we done? To this day we have received NO reason or explanation. Bishop Paup said, “What I’m saying is there is nothing in the Discipline that speaks to this particular reason for discontinuance.” He never told us what “this particular reason” was. And our Superintendent Lieder Simeon said, “There was (sic) no specific charges being ma (sic) – levied against any member of the leadership.” She also never gave us any explanation for our “discontinuance.”

    I tell you this just as a caution to beware if there is a split in the UMC. The UMC leadership is NOT to be trusted. If you and your church have not fallen in line with the lgbta-xyz agenda, you too may be treated hatefully and viciously.

    Where can the cause of such denominational behavior be placed? Well, who is in “charge”? Whose job is it to enforce the Discipline? If you guessed, “The Bishops!”, you are right!
    There appears to be NO leadership in the Council of Bishops
    for enforcing the Discipline or to help the UMC denomination or its churches from losing their way. Do they still read their Bibles? Do they still believe it to be God’s word? How sad that the UMC has reached the state it is now in! And praise the Lord for the Africans!!! They are trying their darnedest to get us back to God’s way.

    The best thing that could happen with the UMC would be to get rid of the Bishop/Superintendent structure. For too many of these folks, their position goes to their heads and they soon become impressed with their supposed power over those in “lesser” positions.

    Following the 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh, I witnessed this. While sitting in the airport awaiting my flight home, there were two female bishops sitting across from me.
    They were deep in conversation about the Conference and how the lgbt-xyz folks had not accomplished their purpose. At one point one of the Bishops said to the other, “It’s the small churches that are the problem and we’ve got to get rid of them!!!” I was shocked! Here were two UMC Bishops plotting the demise of small UMC churches. The conversation implied that these small churches were harder to “control”, as they seemed to be independent thinkers. Indeed, if you would check across the country, many small churches have indeed been done away with. I have met people in Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio whose small churches have been discontinued from the UMC. They received the same shameless treatment that our church received.

    So, what to do? Be faithful to our Lord and heed and obey His word. Also, be alert to what is going on in the UMC and the actions of Bishops and Superintendents. Pray for the way forward.

    Our church has written a book about our experience with the UMC and all the hateful things they did to us. If you would like a copy of this book, so you can be prepared for the treatment that your church could get, just call me and I will send you a copy.

    Remember, no matter what we humans do, and what ever transpires, God is there and in charge!

  37. Comment by Joan Sibbald on October 5, 2019 at 10:10 am

    “From the beginning God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they will become one. What God has joined together let no man separate.” Jesus Christ

    “Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved.” Paul

    Anyone, be it Karen Oliveto or a Divinity School who embraces the LGBTQ agenda mocks God.
    Any questions, call Him. He’s in the Book!

    PS: To see where these embracers of perversions are taking America, Google: Union Theological Seminary teaches their students to confess their sins to potted plants and see the picture of teachers and students in “prayer.”

  38. Comment by William on October 5, 2019 at 10:34 pm

    Joan,
    These people are asking (demanding) those of us who believe these Scriptures to renounce them and join forces with them in order to demonstrate our love of them. Never mind that the end result of that would be the both of us ending up in hell.

  39. Comment by Pat on October 9, 2019 at 3:38 pm

    Thank you Joan! You are right! The traditional Methodists need to stand as they have what God and Jesus said about marriage! The progressives never talk about those scriptures! Let them rant, rave, etc. Stand strong in 2020 and a let them go. Keep their property, be strong in what you have in place. Time to stand strong in God’s righteousness!

  40. Comment by Michael Vannoy on October 5, 2019 at 10:29 am

    Sorry but if Ms Oliveto is like other LGBTQ folks I have been around, if you give them an inch they take a mile. She stated we should be able to live in peace but failed to mention the structure of the peace would be hers to decide. If we do not agree to her terms there will be a split.

  41. Comment by C.A. Buster on October 7, 2019 at 3:11 pm

    It’s hard to respond to Bishop Karen Oliveto’s comments when (what pronoun do I use?) says “deep personal piety and social holiness”. My lexicon of ‘personal piety’ and ‘social holiness’ convicts her very actions as a Bishop who is married to the same sex.

  42. Comment by William on October 7, 2019 at 3:18 pm

    TO WHICH METHODIST CHURCH DO YOU WANT TO BELONG?
    PLEASE CHECK ✔️ ONE.

    _______ Progressive-Centrist Methodist Church

    (A) Traditional-orthodox Biblical authority, interpretation, and theology revised by a contemporary, liberal, new revelation, contextual understanding especially with relation to human sexuality and marriage.

    (B) Christ’s love in his death, resurrection, and repentance preached for the forgiveness of sins in his name revised to include a new revelation love understanding of unrepentant full-inclusiveness of consensual and committed LGBT+ sexual practices.

    (C). Acceptance of a new understanding of marriage to include same-sex marriage equally with the traditional Biblical understanding of marriage.

    (D) The Book of Discipline on marriage changed from a man and a woman to two people for inclusiveness of same-sex marriage, and changed to liberalize sexual ethics approving the practice of homosexuality and other LGBT+ sexual practices.

    (E) Candidates for licensing, commissioning, and ordination into ministry who practice sexual relations outside that of a man and woman in marriage accepted.

    (F) The mission of the Progressive-Centrist Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world including it’s understanding of a new grace that strongly advocates social justice to include the full inclusion of LGBT+ sexual ethics and lifestyles.

    _______ Traditional – Historic Wesleyan Methodist Church

    (A) Obedience to traditional-orthodox Biblical authority, interpretation, and theology especially with relation to human sexuality.

    (B) Full inclusiveness and diversity for sharing Christ’s love — his death, resurrection, and preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins in his name. — the Good News.

    (C) Obedience to Biblically defined sexual ethics prohibiting practices of sexual relations, including homosexuality and other LGBT+ sexual practices, outside that of a man and a woman in marriage.

    (D) Obedience to Biblical marriage of one man and one woman as defined by Jesus, and obedience to and the uniform enforcement of the Book of Discipline on Biblical marriage and sexual ethics

    (E) Acceptance of candidates for licensing, commissioning, and ordination into ministry who are obedient to fidelity in Christian marriage and celibacy in singleness.

    (F) The mission of the Traditional – Historic Wesleyan Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by welcoming all, healing the broken, saving the sinner, and living together united into holiness and service

  43. Comment by Rev. Dave Bean on October 7, 2019 at 5:54 pm

    Bishop Oliveto is a light in the darkness for many, is an inspired and inspiring leader, and reflects the image and the grace of God far more compassionately and authentically than ird or other right-wingers such as Good (bad) News.

  44. Comment by William on October 8, 2019 at 4:04 pm

    2 Timothy 4:3-4 New International Version (NIV)

    3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

  45. Comment by Carl Fuglein on October 8, 2019 at 2:39 am

    To the Bishop –

    I don’t send hate mail, because as a Methodist, I was taught by Jesus to love, and by the UMC to follow scripture, affirm tradition, check my experience, and be reasonable. By all accounts, you’re just wrong, and you’ve violated your vows.

  46. Comment by The Rev Rob Bagwell on October 8, 2019 at 9:09 pm

    While I do not particularly “like” the tone of some of the responses and while the LGBTQ community is not a bother to me, I will say this: I’m proud of you folks for not sending hate mail and I stand by Christian Orthodoxy because the denial of the authority of Scripture is to deny ourselves. However I support ministry to the LGBTQ community and want to bring them to Christ and let Holy Spirit change any lifestyles and I do not believe Holy Spirit changes orientations. Those who profess Jesus as Lord are my brothers and sisters scripturally. The Episcopal Church drove me out, not because of my views on these things but on my politics which are decidedly conservative and libertarian. That of course is not what they said, but for the faithful Methodists, let your fidelity be to Jesus and if you must separate, I understand. Behave as Jesus, suspend your hateful responses, they are not helpful. We can believe they are wrong about many things but we must do what Jesus would do, or none of our offenses are doing the work of Christ Jesus.

  47. Comment by William on October 13, 2019 at 2:13 pm

    And, let Jesus speak those harsh words for us since we are not worthy to do so ourselves:

    Matthew 10:34-37 New International Version (NIV)

    34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

    “‘a man against his father,
    a daughter against her mother,
    a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
    36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’[a]
    37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

  48. Comment by Randy on October 23, 2019 at 1:42 pm

    Yes… whatever your belief and sexual orientations…. divide into little groups and have your churches. The end result is getting on with having your relationship with God… with who you are as He made you … living with people around you. God loves you no matter what… it’s unconditional. Maybe God should read the scriptures and have a debate with you.

The work of IRD is made possible by your generous contributions.

Receive expert analysis in your inbox.