New hearing ordered for lesbian minister

A church committee will reconvene to decide whether the Rev. Irene “Beth” Stroud should stand trial.

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

The case of the Rev. Irene “Beth” Stroud, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG), took a turn last week when a church official voided a special investigating committee’s indictment of the openly lesbian minister and ordered a new hearing.

Retired Bishop Joseph H. Yeakel, who is overseeing the case for the United Methodist Church’s Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, said legal and procedural errors on the part of the denomination’s Committee on Investigation, which voted last July to send Stroud’s case to church trial, prompted his decision.

At issue is whether gay and lesbian Methodists can be ordained and serve in the church. Stroud came out to her congregation as a lesbian pastor in a “covenant relationship” with another woman during an April 2003 sermon. Though church law precludes “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as clergy in the United Methodist Church, Stroud belongs to FUMCOG, a Reconciling Congregation that supports full inclusion of gays and lesbians in both ordination and ministry.

“I never expected it to be easy or simple when I came out,” Stroud said in an interview last Friday. “I couldn’t know how it was going to turn out.”

As reported last month in the Local, a church investigating committee met in closed session last July to consider evidence in the case and voted 5-3 to send it to church trial. In a review of the ruling, Bishop Yeakel found the committee erred on two counts.

Laypeople cast two of the deciding votes, a violation of church policy. Citing a church court ruling, Yeakel said laypeople “do not have the voting rights and parity with clergy members.” The committee acted without an official quorum of seven members, he said.

Also, Yeakel said the committee was “not properly constituted” because the three clergy members who voted against Stroud’s prosecution did so in violation of another court ruling requiring members to “step aside” when an issue conflicts with their consciences. In a statement at the time of the vote, the clergy members said, “We do not believe that a self-avowed, practicing homosexual clergyperson in a monogamous, committed relationship engages in practices incompatible with Christian teachings.”

Yeakel has asked the committee’s chairman to poll the group’s members on their willingness to vote according to church law, not personal beliefs. With a “properly constituted” committee, Yeakel authorized the chairman to begin work on Stroud’s new hearing, the date of which has not been set.

While a lesbian pastor in Washington state was acquitted earlier this year of the same charge facing Stroud, namely engaging in “practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings,” the ruling did little to change denomination-wide policy, instead spurring church officials to clarify their position on homosexuality as a “chargeable offense.” It remains unclear if the decision could complicate Stroud’s legal defense.

Suzy Keenan, director of communications for the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, said the makeup of the investigating committee had not yet been settled, but that its members would uphold the laws in the denomination's Book of Discipline.

When asked about the relationship between Reconciling Congregations and the larger church, Keenan referred to the "unity resolution" adopted by the General Conference last May when the issue of splitting the church surfaced. "As United Methodists we remain in covenant with one another, even in the midst of disagreement, and affirm our commitment to work together for our common mission of making disciples throughout the world," the resolution reads.

In a statement to the FUMCOG congregation last week, the Rev. Fred Day, the church’s senior pastor, said, “[Stroud] exhibits all the gifts and graces of a person called to ordained ministry. She continues to have our full support.”