Ex-pastor wins appeal of her defrocking
BALTIMORE – A United Methodist appeals panel this morning overturned
the defrocking of Beth Stroud, the Germantown minister disciplined in
a December church trial because she is a “self-avowed, practicing
lesbian.”
“The verdict and the penalty are reversed and set aside,” said the
Rev. William Campbell, who headed the panel of four Methodist clergy
and five lay leaders. By an 8-1 vote, Campbell said, the panel ruled
that several key terms under which she was charged had not been
adequately defined.
Stroud immediately praised the decision, issued at the airport hotel
where her appeals hearing was held yesterday.
“This is just one step,” she told reporters. “But it gives me hope
that the United Methodist Church does have within it the resources to
do justice.”
Lawyers for the church said they would confer with the Eastern
Pennsylvania bishop, Marcus Matthews, about appealing the reversal to
the denomination’s highest court, the Judicial Council.
With conflicts over gay rights roiling in the 8.5 million-member
denomination, and much of American religion, the Stroud case has been
closely watched around the country. Her open challenge to the
Methodist ban on ordaining or appointing non-celibate homosexuals has
made her a cause celebre among gay-rights activists.
An estimated two-thirds of Methodists support the ban - which is based
on Scripture and church tradition - despite repeated efforts by a
dissident camp to repeal it.
In her December trial, a jury of 13 ministers stripped Stroud of her
ordination for “engaging in practices declared by the United Methodist
Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings.” The trial came
after she announced in a 2003 sermon at First United Methodist Church
of Germantown that she was living in a “covenant relationship” with
another woman.
The Germantown congregation, a haven of liberal sentiment, has
strongly supported Stroud and kept her on the staff, though as a lay
minister. Stroud said she would not resume her clergy functions until
all appeals are completed.
Ray | 30-Apr-05 at 7:36 am | Permalink
Every organized religion creates Heresy’s in time. The Reformed Methodists will no doubt be a bastion of gay and lesbian worship of God as they see it. Who knows, maybe they will become the larger church in time.
I for one never understood why someone who actively practices an anti christian lifestyle or agenda would want to be part of a church. Start your own church and make your own rules.
You do not become Catholic to then make the Catholic church conform to your faith. You conform to their doctrine if you wish to join them.
It seems to me that these people only wish to join these churches to tear them down from the inside with their political moves and lawsuits. Apparently, they learned something from marx.