Korean Methodist Suspension

Korean Methodist Suspension Prompts Vice Confusion

Jeffrey Walton on October 25, 2022

Online publication Vice has coverage this morning of the Korean Methodist Church’s decision to uphold suspension of a pastor for violating his ordination vows and blessing a crowd at an LGBTQ festival. The report on Lee Dong-hwan can serve as a cautionary tale to religion reporters on the problem of confusing different Methodist groups.

From here:

Methodist pastor Lee Dong-hwan angered his church in 2019 when he got atop a podium during the Incheon Queer Culture Festival in Seoul to offer a prayer for the attendees. He donned a white robe and rainbow stole as he threw flower petals onto the crowd, whom he described as his friends just as “Jesus was friends with people who were abandoned by society.”

The Vice author reports that the church handed Lee the two-year suspension in early October and on Thursday upheld the move after Lee appealed the ruling. The Korean Methodist Church defines clergy advocacy of homosexuality as a chargeable offense.

“Through the process of this trial, the Methodist Church has proven exactly how much of a discriminative and outdated group it is,” Lee said of the judgment.

Possibly, Lee would better conduct his ministry within a different church that he has more esteem for. Readers of this blog can only wish that American bishops would similarly uphold church rules.

That being said, the article’s author quickly makes a detour to a completely different denomination:

“With nearly 13 million members around the world, the Methodist Church is notorious for its stance against the LGBTQ community.” Vice then links to a page on LGBTQ issues in the United Methodist Church (UMC) hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, a U.S.-based LGBTQ advocacy group.

Caution, religion reporters: not all churches in the Methodist/Wesleyan tradition are within the same denomination. The 1.5 million member Korean Methodist Church is not part of the United Methodist Church. The Korean Methodist Church became independent from one of the UMC predecessor bodies earlier in the 20th Century and the two churches have separate governance.

Vice notes that the UMC Book of Discipline describes homosexuality as “incompatible with Christian teaching” and that the church officially bans clergy from presiding at same-sex marriage ceremonies. The online news outlet incorrectly states that the church bans LGBTQ people from ordination or appointment to serve the church. The discipline prohibits only same-sex behaviors by clergy who make vows at ordination to uphold that discipline. But, again, the author is talking about a completely different denomination, the UMC, not the Korean Methodist Church.

This recalled an Anglican story several years ago when a reporter contacted me about the Scottish Episcopal Church greenlighting same-sex marriage. The U.S.-based reporter was researching a piece on Episcopalians and I had to clarify that while the Scottish Episcopal Church is connected to the U.S.-based Episcopal Church through the worldwide Anglican Communion, they are separate churches. Similarly, both the Korean Methodist Church and the United Methodist Church share fellowship through the World Methodist Council but are functionally independent from one another.

Vice probably doesn’t have a full-time reporter on the religion beat, but when connecting an international story to U.S. readers, it’s wise to clarify if the governance of the overseas denomination is different from the U.S.-based church, even if they share in the same historic tradition.

  1. Comment by David S. on October 25, 2022 at 2:31 pm

    I don’t think these publications really care about such technicalities. This is the world. The world is going to smear the church no matter what, and if they get a fact technically wrong, so what.

  2. Comment by Tom on October 25, 2022 at 5:39 pm

    I have long since despaired of any fix for the terminal ignorance of the media, especially with regard to religion.

  3. Comment by John Smith on November 2, 2022 at 6:52 pm

    I long ago gave up on journalist understanding their subject and editors seem to rarely be connected to stories anymore. But its the fault of ________ that people no longer pay attention to the media.

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