Religion

National | Religion | Edward E. Plowman

None of our business

There's turmoil in the United Methodist Church. Disregarding church law, a clergy jury in the UMC's Pacific Northwest regional unit voted to retain the ministerial credentials of Karen Dammann, a self-avowed lesbian who recently "married" her partner ("Northwest ordinance," April 3).

Church members looking to their bishops for a decisive response in defense of church discipline didn't get one. In a wobbly statement, the 15-member executive committee of the UMC Council of Bishops in effect said that the bishops are committed to upholding the church's laws but what regional conferences do is their own business. The bishops also called for more dialogue—even though the homosexuality issue has been debated for years, and two-thirds of delegates to the last two quadrennial general conferences have voted to preserve the ban on ministerial credentials for practicing homosexuals.

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