Church panel overturns defrocking

A Methodist appeals court restored the credentials of Beth Stroud, a lesbian minister from Germantown.

Beth Stroud and her co-counsel Alan Symonette face reporters at last week’s appeal hearing in Baltimore. (Photo by Erik Alsgaard, United Methodist News Service)

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

For the congregation of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG), Sunday was an opportunity to celebrate a different kind of good news.

Beth Stroud, the lesbian pastor who had been defrocked by a church trial court last December for violating her denomination's ban on gay clergy, was again an ordained minister.

After a Wednesday night worship service and a Thursday morning vigil, the congregation found its prayers answered last Friday morning when a United Methodist appeals committee announced its 8-1 decision to restore Stroud's ministerial credentials, overturning the defrocking on procedural grounds.

(Decision - PDF format; Dissent, web page).

The ruling resulted from the church's legal errors, namely its use of key language that has never been adequately defined, which ultimately denied Stroud her due-process rights. In its decision, the appeals panel contended that the church could not apply the law that precludes "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" from being ordained without first defining the terms "practicing homosexual" and "status."

Also, the panel found that the General Conference, the denomination's principal legislative body, had sought to define the Christian position on the practice of homosexuality without following the proper protocol to declare the law doctrine.

The decision sends both issues back to the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and the General Conference for clarifications in what some consider a landmark case for the United Methodist Church.

On Sunday, the FUMCOG congregation welcomed Stroud with a hearty foot-stomping standing ovation at her first service since the appeal.

"I keep telling you that prayer makes a difference," said Stroud, beaming from the pulpit. Because the ruling was set aside on grounds of due process, Stroud told the congregation she now views her case with "cautious expectation as we wait to see what the next steps will be."

Dressed in a plain brown suit and scarf, Stroud told her congregation she would not robe or celebrate the sacraments until "the entire process is concluded."

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference has 30 days to file an appeal of the committee's decision with the Judicial Council, the church's highest court.

On Monday, the denomination's Council of Bishops issued a statement, contending that the Stroud decision "does not in any way reverse the standards in our Book of Discipline."

Last week, Bishop Marcus Matthews, who presides over the regional conference, said in a statement that the church body was considering its options.

Explaining her decision not to vest or perform clergy functions, Stroud told the Local: "It's mostly out of a sense of the sacredness of ordination. It's not the kind of authority that I can pick up and put down again."

Stroud said last week's ruling lifted her last burden. "I did breathe a sigh of relief that the next step is not in my hands."

On Sunday, FUMCOG members expressed cautious optimism.

"It's a blessing, at least for now," said Celeste Zappala. "It's a tragedy the church would deny this gift of God from her denomination."

Sue Rardin hopes the church will let the ruling stand without a challenge. "The more I think about it the more I hope this will be something that doesn't need to be pursued," she said. "It could give the whole church more time to see each other from both sides fairly and openly so that we could reach across the difference without losing any more good ministers or keeping others from being ordained."

"This is not over," said Robert Longenecker, a FUMCOG member and retired Methodist pastor. Conservative church groups like Good News, which calls itself a "renewal ministry," that enjoy popular support among United Methodists will lobby for a review of the decision, he said.

"[The Judicial Council] is a tough outfit to deal with," Longenecker said of the church's highest court. "It's heavily conservative."

Alan Symonette, Stroud's co-counsel, told a small group of FUMCOG members after the service that the case could be a landmark for the United Methodist Church.

"When this started it was about the Beth we know," Symonette said. "Now, this is beyond Beth. This case has focused the debate on what the church means."

The United Methodist constitution calls all Methodists "to be inclusive of all people regardless of race, gender and status." According to the Rev. Fred Day, FUMCOG senior pastor, the church has treated homosexuality as if it were a status; a term that Symonette said means "a state of being."

The language, Symonette said, ties the hands of the Judicial Council, which has previously said defining the terms is outside its jurisdiction. The issue, he said, would most likely be sent back to the General Conference, which is not set to convene until 2008.

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, the other church body charged by the appeals panel to clarify the issue, is scheduled to meet in June.